Warning: Contains Mentions of Childhood Abuse and Suicide
HBO’s The Penguin is bringing a brand new addition to the world of Matt Reeves’s The Batman, and is already a hit with old and new fans of the titular character. While the TV show is taking some original departures, its star is one of Batman’s oldest villains and, after over eighty years of comics, he’s helped to tell dozens of stories. Some of which have clearly informed this new direction with Colin Farrell in the leading role.
In HBO’s The Penguin, the gangster has found an opportunity to seize control over the Falcone crime syndicate in the wake of The Batman, beginning a tale derawing on the comics’ darkest and most depraved inspirations (while still honoring the campy tone the character is synonymous with). With a whole new audience poised to meet The Penguin, we've curated the perfect list of comics to read to prepare for the spectacle that The Penguin has already proven to be.
10 Penguin: Pain and Prejudice
By Gregg Hurwitz and Szymon Kudranski
Before Oswald Cobblepot was a cutthroat, immoral villain, hellbent on seizing political power, he was a sensitive boy and a beloved son. Growing up, Oswald was unyieldingly physically and emotionally abused for how he looked. His peers, his siblings, and his father alike saw Oz as little more than an insect that stained their lives more than it had brought them any meaning.
This limited series follows the Penguin as he attempts to explore a new love and lay his mother to rest all whilst reflecting on the moments of his life that had led him to his current position. While the series does establish new elements of sympathy with the character, it better succeeds at revealing the intimate relationship behind Cobblepot’s love for his mother. Already promised to play a pivotal role in the new HBO original series, Oz’s mother has been and will always be his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
9 Batman: The Long Halloween
By Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
One of the most beloved and recommended Batman series of all time, Batman: The Long Halloween is the direct tonal inspiration behind Matt Reeves’s The Batman and, so far, serves as a similar blueprint for the pre-established tone of The Penguin. Set sometime during the first few years of Bruce Wayne’s crusade as the Dark Knight, the series follows Batman as he investigates a methodical new serial killer while Harvey Dent slowly transforms into the monstrous Two-Face. While the mysterious “Holiday Killer” is the primary “villain” of the series, the corruptive presence of the Falcone and Maroni crime families are the series' true antagonists.
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While they may not be as flashy as Batman’s rogues’ gallery, the Gotham crime syndicates are Batman’s true greatest enemies and a critically important presence in both The Batman and The Penguin. Just as old as the Wayne family, the Falcones and Maronis have played a hand in running Gotham since the city’s founding years. Understanding Gotham’s criminal politics is paramount to understanding the deeper conflict in Matt Reeves’s stories, and there is no better series to understand that conflict than The Long Halloween.
8 Penguin Triumphant
By John Ostrander, Joe Staton, & Bob Smith
While the Penguin is modernly associated with high-brow white-collar crime and gruesome mafia practices, his original characterizations were far goofier and more lighthearted. Cementing the transition between his Golden Age comical persona into his Modern Age mobster persona, Penguin Triumphant details the methodical nature that Cobblepot took to reinvent his criminal exploits. After teaming up with an old childhood rival, Cobblepot began a new life as a “legitimate” stock market investor, embracing an array of legal loopholes to get away with his crimes.
While Oswald inevitably grew bored of the straight-man act, he continues to hide the brunt of his criminal enterprise behind a series of legal technicalities, blackmail, and generous bribes.HBO’s version of the Penguin follows a similar lead. Oz Cobb is a ruthless and tenacious killer, but an educated one who wishes to uphold a facade of class and intrigue.
7 Batman: No Man's Land
By Bob Gale and Alex Maleev
At the finale of The Batman, the Riddler flooded Gotham, leaving parts of the city ruined and in disarray. Similarly, in Batman: No Man’s LandGotham is a crumbling lawless land, devastated by a powerful earthquake. Seizing the opportunity to inflict their terror on a grand scale, some of Batman’s rogue’s gallery claimed portions of Gotham for their own.
When Batman returned to the city, he first encountered the Penguin, relaxing in the Iceberg Lounge and surrounded by wealth. Cobblepot explains that he had no reason to leave the chaos and that, in fact, he enjoyed the opportunity to exploit Gotham of its resources. Oswald’s loyalties are to himself and his obsession with wealth is only because it makes him feel powerful. Even if there are only scraps of Gotham left, as long as there is someone to feel more powerful than, then the Penguin will remain content.
6 Batman: Dark Victory
By Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
Standing in opposition to Collin Farrell’s Penguin, Sofia Falcone is the show’s primary antagonist and the natural heir to the power of the Falcone Family. Following The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory sees Batman investigate a new serial killer while Two-Face and Sofia Falcone engage in a territory war over Gotham’s underground. Still a relatively new character at the time, Sofia established herself as manipulative and strategic as her father but twisted with an unbridled rage and violently aggressive nature.
While they carry themselves differently, Sofia and Oswald firmly share those two qualities. Individually, they are living natural disasters, but when opposed to each other, they are more of an apocalypse. As is to be expected from their relationship in the show, within The Penguin’s debut episode the competing criminals spare no time launching a crusade of fury-induced cruel violence toward each other and their loved ones. To best prepare to watch the show, viewers should take a chance to look further into the monster that is Sofia Falcone.
5 Joker's Asylum: The Penguin
By Jason Aaron and Jason Pearson
Joker’s Asylum: The Penguin is a standalone issue in an anthological series where the Joker shares with the reader stories about some of Batman’s classic villains. His tale of the Penguin reveals how utterly depraved and vindictive Cobblepot really is and how transactional he approaches relationships with others. Unlike a character like the Joker who enacts violence simply for the thrill of it, the Penguin often believes his sadistic cruelty is a tool to bring justice against those who have wronged him.
Underneath the fine clothes and expensive cigars, Oswald Cobblepot is an unhinged psychopath. He sees others as little more than objects to be used or discarded as easily as he spends cash simply to flaunt his wealth. The Penguin is far more than a simple mafioso stereotype, he is a genuine monster.
4 Batman #23.3: The Penguin
By Frank Tieri and Christian Duce
The Penguin hates nothing more than those he considers to be bullies. Oswald was horrifically bullied and abused as a child, mocked for his unique features and interest in birds. Eventually, the young Oz’s mind snapped, unable to handle the constant ridicule, leading to mysteriously rig the deaths of his brothers and father, his most vocal abusers.
As an adult, the Penguin’s mind latches onto those feelings of being bullied and underestimated, often used to justify his tormented brand of torture against his enemies. In this issue of Batman (2011), the Penguin fully revels in the depths to which he is willing to go to methodically destroy his enemies’ families before driving them to suicide. Like this twisted presentation of Oswald Cobblepot, HBO’s The Penguin nearly immediately establishes that Oz Cobb leans into that sneering, manipulative puppeteering that the comic version has become known for.
3 Arkham Manor: Endgame
By Frank Tieri, Felix Ruiz, Roberto Viacava, & Christian Duce
A surprisingly deep pull from DC’s collection of comics, HBO’s The Penguin has picked Mickey “Mike” Stone, a reformed criminal and guard at Arkham Asylum, to be a central character in the show’s plot. Mike Stone has only ever appeared in Arkham Manor: Endgame, serving as the story’s narrator, detailing the chaos Arkham had been thrown into after the Joker’s latest attempt at escape. Similar to Cobblepot, Stone’s loyalties lie wherever he feels like will best profit his life.
While he may not have much history in the comics, Mike still could play a significant role in the feud between the Penguin and Sofia Falcone. As an ex-criminal and current Arkham guard, Mike will certainly have come across Sofia during her imprisonment, an asset the Penguin will prefer to have in his arsenal. Unfortunately for Mike, neither Oz nor Sofia are known to play nice and are both vindictive enough to ruin the lives of their tools simply because the tool lost its purpose.
2 The Penguin (2023)
By Tom King and Rafael de Latorre
Oswald Cobblepot’s most recent solo series, The Penguin shows the titular mafioso navigate through his “retirement” from crime and the fallout of his decades-long control over Gotham’s underground while reflecting on his early days within the Falcone syndicate. As expected, the series highlights the transactional nature of his relationships with others and the complicated machinations his use of those relationships plays into. Oswald hates the Falcones, he hates his children, and he hates Batman, yet he allies himself with all of them until they’ve proven themselves no longer useful to his cause.
Cobblepot lives his life under an elaborate weave of lies and deceit. Everyone knows he can’t be trusted, but they are still drawn to his sneering charm and his useful manipulations. Even Batman, both in this series and in Matt Reeves’s cinematic universe, turns to the Penguin to gather intel where the detective could not.
1 Batman: One Bad Day - Penguin
By Marie Javins and Giuseppe Camuncoli
Armed with nothing but a gun and a single bullet, the Penguin has lost his empire, his reputation, and most importantly, his umbrella.Batman: One Bad Day - Penguin sees the Penguin slowly reclaim his lost criminal empire using little more than his wit and persuasive abilities to rebuild a new crew of loyal underlings. Cobblepot proves, not just to Gotham but to Batman personally, that the city is his.
Without the Penguin, the Gotham criminal underground can’t be controlled or contained. Cobblepot makes it clear to Batman that the Dark Knight only maintains a surface-level control over crime in the city, but without the Penguin’s influence and skill Batman couldn’t pretend to be the hero that he thinks he is. Even with nothing to his name, Gotham is Cobblepot’s city; without the Penguin, Gotham falls.
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The Penguin
Created by Lauren LeFranc, The Penguin is a crime-drama spin-off television series of 2022's film The Batman. Set shortly after the events of The Batman, Oz Cobb, A.K.A. the Penguin, begins his rise in the underworld of Gotham City as he contends with the daughter of his late boss, Carmine Falcone, for control of the crime family's empire.
