I've been thinking about this since I've been watching Gotham, although, I think I started thinking about this reading the novelisation of Batman: No Man's Land and then one or two of the graphic novels of No Man's Land, probably besides these sources the two greatest pictures of Penguin I had were the Pop! TV show, which was ludicrous and made all the villains ludicrous, or Tim Burton's version in the second of his Batman films.
Neither of those really got the character right I thought, for one Penguin never liked being called Penguin, so he wouldnt necessarily have had an army of Penguins or so closely identified with the animal (certainly wouldnt have walked around the place going qwack, qwack, qwack).
I really think they nailed it with the idea that he's a traditional gangster type, a sort of lex luthor big business criminal but without any political ambition or technical wizardry, in No Mans Land I think he winds up owning much of Gotham and I think Batman negotiates with him to bring the exclusion zone to an end and reintegrate Gotham into the US and world.
Though Riddler is another example (but clearly much more crazy and often portrayed in a fair light as a vulnerable sort with criminal propensity) but Penguin was able to avoid the depredations of the more criminally insane types, often persuade them to work for him or at least not against him, including Two Face (who is often portrayed as a big guy who is physically intimidating and dominating of all the others, including The Joker, though perhaps not Killer Kroc, or other possibly peter natural baddies like Killer Klay, Solomon Grundy or such).
The portrayal of him in Gotham is second to none, I think the show is strongest actually when it is clearest at being a GCPD adaptation rather than an actual Batman iteration.
Neither of those really got the character right I thought, for one Penguin never liked being called Penguin, so he wouldnt necessarily have had an army of Penguins or so closely identified with the animal (certainly wouldnt have walked around the place going qwack, qwack, qwack).
I really think they nailed it with the idea that he's a traditional gangster type, a sort of lex luthor big business criminal but without any political ambition or technical wizardry, in No Mans Land I think he winds up owning much of Gotham and I think Batman negotiates with him to bring the exclusion zone to an end and reintegrate Gotham into the US and world.
Though Riddler is another example (but clearly much more crazy and often portrayed in a fair light as a vulnerable sort with criminal propensity) but Penguin was able to avoid the depredations of the more criminally insane types, often persuade them to work for him or at least not against him, including Two Face (who is often portrayed as a big guy who is physically intimidating and dominating of all the others, including The Joker, though perhaps not Killer Kroc, or other possibly peter natural baddies like Killer Klay, Solomon Grundy or such).
The portrayal of him in Gotham is second to none, I think the show is strongest actually when it is clearest at being a GCPD adaptation rather than an actual Batman iteration.
