Today, learn when the Penguin first became more of a behind-the-scenes style mob boss than an active Batman supervillain.
In “When We First Met”, we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, “Avengers Assemble!” or the first appearance of Batman’s giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man’s face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
The new film, The Batman, marks the first live action film to depict the Penguin in the way that he has mostly come to be depicted over the last few decades, which is as a sort of behind-the-scenes operator who has his legitimate operation, The Iceberg Lounge, allowing him to have a foot in pretty much both sides of the world of Gotham City, the legitimate and the criminal and can therefore interact with Batman on more levels than he used to be able to. However, when did this approach first show up in the comics? My buddy Tom A. wanted to know and so here we go…
THE PENGUIN’S EARLY APPEARANCES WEREN’T TOO FAR OFF FROM THIS APPROACH
The Penguin made his debut in 1941’s Detective Comics #58 (by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos), where the character was initially just marked by his visual resemblance to a Penguin. Like, that flat out was the initial hook for the character – “Look at this guy, he waddles like a penguin! And his suit makes him look a penguin in THAT way, too!” He waddles in and covertly steals a bunch of expensive artwork (that they think to check his umbrella but not inside the umbrella is beyond me)…
He uses that prominent heist to strike up an arrangement with a gang where he will help plan heists for them using his uncanny knowledge for being able to do really elaborate and clever (well, clever for 1941 readers, at least) heists…
When the head of the gang tries to negotiate a better deal for the gang, Penguin murders him and takes over the leadership of the gang…
So even in his first appearance, the Penguin had a lot of the makings of a more traditional mob boss character. However, it is fair to say that he was still doing active crimes himself, and that’s how he gets caught later in the issue. His next few appearances lean more into him doing active crimes and using his trick umbrellas to do so.
Interestingly enough, though, very early in the Penguin’s career, in Batman #11 (by Finger, Kane, Robinson and Roussos), the Penguin meets up with some other criminals whose names are also based on birds (Joe Crow, Lovely Canary and Buzzard Benny) and he comes up with a plan for the birds to “migrate” to Florida for a new scheme…
Why is Joe Crow green? I have no idea. Anyone?
Batman finds out about the move and decides to go to Florida himself, where he saves Canary’s life early on and we then see the scheme. Penguin will run an ostensibly honest casino, but he will make sure that certain people will win big…
Then an apparently third person thief, plainly unconnected to the casino (but obviously working directly for the Penguin), will rob the winners of their winnings. They’ll report it to the casino, Penguin will call the cops on the “thief” and then, as a token of generosity, give the winners a nice chunk of money to keep them happy…
It’s pretty darn similar to the Penguin’s current setup, right? In any event, when Penguin learns Batman and Robin are in town, they capture Robin and plan to use him to lure Batman to his death, but Canary warns Batman and so Batman is able to save Robin, but he was shot in doing so and so hilariously, it turns out that the singer, Canary, was previously a doctor’s assistant and she PERFORMS SURGERY ON BATMAN!
She then reforms, of course…
In case you’re, like, “Didn’t they do a VERY similar story with card-themed characters and the Joker?” They did, although that lady (Queenie) died in the story.
In Batman #36 (by Finger, Kane, Robinson and Roussos), the Penguin outrights opens up a legitimate cafe…
But the weird hook here is that he is intentionally TRYING to draw attention so that he WILL be arrested…
He wants to get into prison to cut a deal with a talented forger who happened to have been transferred to that prison recently. So that legitimate turn didn’t really count, the same with Penguin’s various other returns from prison when he seemingly turns over a new leaf but it is part of a scam each time. That Florida casino deal, though, is VERY close to the Iceberg Lounge.
THE PENGUIN FINALLY SETTLES ON THE MOB BOSS SET UP
Okay, during the “Knightquest” storyline, in Showcase ’94 #7 (by Peter David, P. Craig Russell and Michael Gilbert), the Penguin kidnaps Commissioner Gordon’s wife and puts her into a death trap. He tells Gordon it goes off at midnight and he just waits with Gordon until then. Gordon realizes that the new Batman (Jean-Paul Valley) scares the Penguin and he is afraid that he (the Penguin) is now passé in this new era of Batman and that’s why he is desperately trying to get attention with this crime…
In the end, Az-Bats saves the day and Gordon mocks Penguin, noting that this proves he IS passé and Penguin agrees…
So soon after (Bruce Wayne has since returned as Batman, though), in Detective Comics #683 (by Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan and Scott Hanna), we meet the Iceberg Lounge for the first time…
And we see that the Penguin is running it, deciding to revamp his approach now that he had grown passé
And that’s been how he’s been depicted pretty much ever since.
Thanks to Tom for the suggestion! If anyone else wants to know about an interesting comic book first, just drop me a line at [email protected]!
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