How can anyone enjoy Pingu as a Villain...

I hate this version of Penguin.

Penguin works better as someone who doesn't care if people laugh at him/mock him, because he's an expert at using the mockery to get everyone to feel sorry for him and give him exactly what he wants.

OG Penguin would have used the laughing from the chef to basically get his date to feel sorry for him and get her to do thing that she would never normally do in bed with another man. And he'd make her feel all empowered while she did it.

Scarecrow is a one hit wonder

Penguin is incredibly insecure, its the entire reason he plays up the old money socialite thing. However I do like the version who treats his associates very generously, and is canonically good in bed

Pretty sure OG penguin would just make a bird pun and then fire a boxing glove from his umbrella while robbing the zoo, but okay.

Oswald is /ourguy/ in a sense that people whom he despises he usually despises for the same reasons he hates himself for deep down.

Nah, the whole "faked class" thing has been part of his character for decades, even going back to the goofier versions of the character.

The fact that it comes from insecurity came later, but it was the cornerstone of his portrayal in both the Tim Burton movie and the DCAU. It's been a central part of the character for a good 25 years now.

are people still complaining about kung fu penguin ("fat tub of lard can physically do batman's martial arts? BS!") now that batman of china exists?

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That was always dumb. Oswald is all about cunning and trickery. He's a highly intelligent mob boss, not a kung fu bird man

Gotham Pingu was only fun when he was a /r9k/ retard that wobbled around back in S1

the most pretty mobish thing he did in the show was organize a supervillain team but that was it.

isn't his limp permanent now?

He is a midget with the self-confidences of a pessimist and the tantrum of a toddler.

Jeez what an edgelord.

has anyone written a really good Pinguin story? like ''Killing Joke for Joker'' or ''Long Halloween for two face'' good?

Penguin: Pain and Prejudice

big problem with modernizing classic villains to be more vicious (up to the times).

they get more brutal but the heroes still have to be the same (makes them look like chumps)

personally I'd do something completely different with him.

I'm always reminded of an episode of TAS where he manages to steal an advanced military attack chopper and runs amok with it.

Personally, THAT should be his thing. What is a penguin? a Bird that cannot fly. But he's erudite, smart and clever. Just make him like an evil fat Howard Hughes, and whatever he can't figure out, he steals. He even has a company and everything to finance his shit, hell he could have designed the Batwing. His umbrellas are already batman-tier gadgets...where'd he get them?
You can keep even the whole "mob boss" thing, but he's more like a yakuza crime lord in charge of an entire legitimate business.

As dumb as that shit was, you know you laughed the first time you saw Penguin go all Bruce Lee on the Bats.

>The fact that it comes from insecurity came later, but it was the cornerstone of his portrayal in both the Tim Burton movie and the DCAU.
Nope, even in the Golden Age Penguin was sensitive about his appearance.

From Batman #38, "Penguin on Parole"

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That shit was doubly retarded cuz they gave him the Kabuki Twins explicitly to do the hand-to-hand combat shit, so what the fuck was even the point of having him do stupid prequel Yoda flips and shit?

I kind of miss the Kabuki Twins, wish they were added to Penguin's gang in main canon. They just needed more of a bird motif

Every villain in The Batman had to fight, it seemed.

At least Clock King's excuse for it was interesting. Being terrible but just rewinding time to redo and counter every move Batman made.

>or ''Long Halloween for two face'' good?
You mean Eye of the Beholder ?

>Riddler has his smarts
Penguin is far more intelligent than The Riddler

Is it really a sensitivity issue when literally everyone in Gotham is mocking you for looking like a cartoon character?

I mean, that'd annoy the fuck out of me too.

Penguin Triumphant

I liked Penguin's character from what I've seen in Gotham - is it enough to get into the series because I could see myself watching it fpr him

And it's because he's a petty, aggressive, intelligent prick with great understanding of business. Just like Bruce/Batman. He's the polar opposite in most ways.

Bruce is a kind, honesty, generous and a playboy.
Penguin is a grubby ugly fuck who would stab you for breathing too loud.
Bane is Batman's opposite. Penguin is Bruce's opposite.

Also Penguin is hilariously fucking petty and I love the character for it.
I mean look at pic related, for crying out loud. The poor guy probably was innocent but Penguin is still a petty cunt about it and I love him for it.

That's pretty much what he was doing in the Bronze Age with storylines like The Penguin Affair and Snow & Ice, up until Chuck Dixon introduced The Iceberg Lounge and future writers decided to make Penguin more like The Kingpin

I fucking hate that this moment is apparently what defines the modern version of The Penguin and that every thread about the character this gets posted.
Joker's Asylum was trash and the character deserves better than that awfulness.

The penguin is an insecure petty revenge seeking businessman with the temper of a child.
That's the entire character from when he first started. He just wanted to be loved.

I like that comic because it shows a much, much more darker version of the Penguin that makes complete sense. Penguin finally finds a woman that actually does love him and what happens? He thinks, he's not even sure, but he thinks someone is mocking him. And he has his life fucking destroyed over it.

Think about that for a second. Penguin got one thing he always wanted - to be accepted and loved and he still can't let go of his insecurities.

Better question, OP.

Does he just look like a penguin? Or is he an actual penguin?

He's always been insecure

Yes.

>it shows a much, much more darker version of the Penguin that makes complete sense
We've had a lot of "dark" reimaginings of Penguin made by insecure writers trying to make the character appeal to fans without actually bothering to understand why he was appealing in the first place.
There are a lot of great Penguin stories that go over his insecurities. There is a right way and a wrong way to make Penguin appear threatening.
Joker's Asylum is not one of them. It's desperately trying to overcompensate for the character's goofy appearence with WOOW LOOK AT HOW EVIL HE IS HIS EYES ARE RED CAUSE HE'S THINKING ABOUT MURDER.

And it's not even that page that is the problem. It's the fact the story goes out of its way to retcon The Killing Peck in having young Oswald kill all his birds (which is as OOC as it gets for Penguin), for no reason seemingly other than to show how angry and crazy he's always been.
At least Pain and Prejudice, for as flawed and overrated as it is, tempered things out a little.
Joker's Asylum is a dump on the character's name and yet it gets posted all the time because memeing panels into popularity is the closest you can get Cred Forums to read anything.

It's sickening.

You seem to know your stuff, user. Recommend me some good Penguin stories.

Here's a list of good and relatively recent Penguin stories.
I'll be also adding some Golden Age Penguin recommendations, like "White Feather for Batman", "The Penguin Goes a Hunting" and "The Temporary Murders"

I've been thinking of storytiming some of these.
I'll probably storytime Penguin Triumphant tomorrow since it's pretty hard to find and I only recently found scans for it.

Since when has Jughead lived in Gotham city?

Except for the Ventriloquist, thankfully.

Just because something is trash doesn't mean it can't portray a character well.

The live action Street Fighter movie was hot garbage but it gave us the best M. Bison we've ever had.

Thank you. Something people miss is that the Penguin already has everything. He's filthy rich and able to live openly and freely in Gotham. He never has to work a day in his life. He has what every other Batman villain wants.

The only reason he does crime at all is because of his intense hatred and jealousy of other people. He needs everyone to know and acknowledge that he is the best.

And fuck it. While I'm here I'm going to storytime "White Feather for Batman" to illustrate part of what's so great about Penguin

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same reason why rick flagg has katana?

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That was actually a thing in the 1930s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughead_Jones#Jughead's_hat

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And there you have it.
The whole time, all of Penguin's heists were just convenient distractions to hide the fact he was slowly killing Batman the entire time with white feathers laced with bird flu he left on his calling card, and he even staged a public downfall for Batman to appear as a coward.
It's this kind of devilish cleverness that makes Penguin a threat.

>How can anyone enjoy Pingu as a Villain? He's only slightly more effective than the generic mafia boss and lacks any qualities that make villains like Joker, Scarecrow, Two Face and Riddler fun.
you can't be this fucking retarded
What a newfag.

Then Season 3 came and Penguin promptly forgot all his Kung Fu skills.

Even when dying and in a sucky movie, Raul Julia gives it his all.

A world where Cobblepot kills anyone who calls him Penguin, and it's because he actually is a penguin and doesn't want people to know.

This user gets it. Yes Penguin is fucked and yes he's insecure but he's not the Kingpin and he's not a Mark Millar edgelord.

I hate to say it because it's not a comic but Birds of a Feather is still the definitive Oswald story.

I liked it when I was a kid, and I like it now.

>Like Yankee Doodle who stuck a feather in his cap, Batman is just dandy

Batman and Robin are gay, right? I mean you can't say this sort of stuff and not be gay!

I wouldn't go so far as to call it the definitive Oswald story (The Penguin Affair, Penguin Triumphant and The Penguin Returns are better candidates) but it's a damn good one.
It's the only episode of TAS that stars Penguin and is about Penguin.
Paul Williams kills it in the role and it's a shame he's never been brought to do the character again.

>How can anyone enjoy Pingu as a Villain?
NOOT
NOOT
MOTHERFUCKER
youtube.com/watch?v=AC2okqCGMg4

>we never got Paul Williams as the Penguin again
This must be corrected

Am I the only one that prefers Penguin as a master thief that sees crime as an art form and utilizes trick umbrellas and trained birds in his heists over a mobster?

Gotham already has a ton of mobster characters (Two-Face, Black Mask, Great White Shark etc.) and I feel Penguin had a lot more pizzazz as an eccentric thief that fights with a flamethrower umbrella.

i enjoy the idea of him sitting around a workshop in his spare time, thinking of new and exciting ways of making an umbrella a cunning multi-tool

All I can hear when looking at that images is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Burton added body deformation gimmick but went too far in few places

Nah, Scarecrow got more than a few good stories. His main issue is that he doesn't often suit for the blockbuster action stories of today. He's better when he's strictly a psychological villain, like in No Man's Land when he was slowly making people paranoid and inciting a panicky riot inside the church against other people.

>lacks any qualities that make villains like Joker
That's a good reason as to why he is a good villain.

Alan Grant's Snow and Ice story is pretty good. Penguin fakes his own death, has a funeral and it's all to get him out of jail so he could pull off the crime of the century.

More Batman villains really ought to get iconic sidekicks. Riddler used to have Query and Echo. Why doesn't Harvey have like twin molls who dress up in black and white to represent Harvey's double personality like in Batman Forever?

Thanks for the storytime, man. That was pretty intense actually.

They show up in Lego Batman, at least.

I think it's pretty weird that most of Batman adaptations featuring Penguin choose to highlight the plotlines where he tries to become mayor or frames Batman for a crime, and none of them have ever adapted the one where he actually buys Wayne Manor legally just so he can trash the place and Bruce has to let him do it in order to spy on him.
It just seems like a really fun set-up writers have been sleeping on.

Has The Penguin ever had spiky blonde hair? (like a crested penguin)

You don't mess with this guy
youtu.be/K3zzQ9FIfrM?t=27s

The only version I ever really liked was the Arkham games version.
>Actual backstory with his family having a rivalry with the Wayne family.
>British accent from being sent to England as a child.
>Broken glass bottle crammed in face makes a permanent monocle.
>Pet shark

Sure, he's still more mob boss then fighter, but that's to be expected.

>that fucking walrus
Everytime

Canonically the worst version of Penguin

look interesting

filthy casuals

The Penguin is just being booksmart there, though. Anyone can do that.
Penguin and Riddler can both pull off elaborate crimes, but the Riddler does it while spinning all his riddles and twists around it. They're both smart, but Riddler is much more defined by his wit.

At least with the Joker it made some sense

cause he wasn't technically doing any marital arts rather he was just jumping around like a circus gymnast (which ties in the Clown theme)

Source on that image?

I always thought this story was pretty overrated as well, because essentially, it's quite derivative and just repeats the basic idea from Birds of A Feather. Albeit the last page does have some genuine shock value in the context of the story, I'll give it that.

I liked the Kung Fu for him, but didn't like how he basically never had any good villain plans in the show.

>Ostrander did a penguin comic
HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS SOONER.
I'm reading and buying it for real right now!

>Broken glass bottle crammed in face makes a permanent monocle.

what a piece of shit idea

that design was so fucking stupid

I weren't keen on it either but could you really see Limey Penguin wearing an actual monocle?

Beware the Batman, episode "Animal".

They had a couple other references to him in that show as well.

To me Penguin always seemed like the only Batman villain who could go clean. I liked that aspect about him.

>>Actual backstory with his family having a rivalry with the Wayne family.
I'm pretty sure that shit is just taken from the comics bruh, but even there I'd argue it's not the best of ideas.

It's a natural evolution of two running gags of the Penguin, Bruce Wayne throwing shade at him whenever he tries to join high society, and Penguin is a mama's boy. Classist undertones + deep family ties = he's trying to make the Cobblepot name a big deal again, okay, sure, I can buy that...

But they lean on it a little too much, usually just boiling it down to "Oswald wishes he were more like Bruce Wayne or Batman". And to be honest, I always gag a little when a villain's backstory is retconned to make them directly connected to the hero from the beginning - Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, countless others. It just feels hacky, like it exists to raise the "DID BATMAN CREATE ALL HIS VILLAINS?" quotient and provide a cheap dramatic hook for villainous dialogue with Batman/Bruce, but it's like, Joker used to be special for being kinda Batman's fault. Two-Face used to be even more special cuz of his personal connection to Batman/Bruce. Now every lousy villain either knew Bruce Wayne or at least worked for his company

TL,DR: It makes Gotham City feel too small for such a big city.

He's kinda sympathetic.

If my family crushed some eggs and killed a baby bird that I was nursing back to health I'd flip out too.

>The only Batman villain that goes to a prison instead of Asylum

I really like how he kind of looks like a soviet propaganda caricature

Or considering they made this kind of style when batman comics with penguin were a thing, maybe some influence went from US comics to sovjet illustrations.

Bane?

As promised, I'm storytiming Penguin Triumphant

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In other words, Penguin is dangerous because, different of many Batman villains, he isn't crazy.

>he isn't crazy.
He's is, he's just more autistic than crazy, remember that any quip about him, no matter how petty it is, that threatens his illusion of grandeur can be a death sentence.