Penguin: Pride and Prejudice

Writer: Gregg Hurwitz
Artist: Szymon Kudranski

In this five book series we get our first glimpse of The Penguin in the new DC reboot. This is an important moment for DC, but it's even more important for the fans. Writing superhero books must be a stressful business. Give the fans the same Penguin from the past and they will complain, but change him or distort his essence in any large way and they will still complain. Superhero fans are some of the pickiest and most critical group of consumers that have ever existed since the creation of the free market. Not even New York sports fans can touch the fickle nature of the average Fanboy. Keeping the "big mo" going on the reboot has to be top priority at this point, and there is no way that DC is going to get it done without the Batman constituency on board.

This release was also a critical moment in another way for the Batman universe, with the focus being placed on new villains, Penguin: Pride and Prejudice is the first series introducing his gallery of rogues from the past. As far as superhero books are concerned, no one has better bad guys. Even a Batman hater could list at least four in a game of Scattegories. That is one of the main reasons why Batman books continue to be so engaging, and the Penguin is one of the heaviest hitters of them all. Getting this one right was important on many levels, and as a lifelong fan of the Bat, no one was more excited than myself to read a five book series starring one of Batman's consummate villains.

Disability in the world of comics is portrayed in one of two ways. Heroes like Daredevil, The Thing, and The Hulk manage to become superheroes because of their disabilities. To me, villains like The Penguin are portrayed in a much more realistic way. The Penguin is physically deformed, weak; an object of ridicule and hatred. I like that this was the focus of Penguin: Pain and Prejudice. In the nature vs. nurture argument, I think that you have to go with nurture most of the time. But that's just like, my opinion, man. The Penguin is the quintessential example of this in comics. From the earliest age, the only side of the world that he was able to see was one of immense cruelty. After exposure to so much negativity, how does anyone expect The Penguin to use his superior intellect for good in the end? Genetics have a lot to do with the way we view the world. Beautiful people are treated better. I don't think anyone is disputing that fact. Do Hugh Hefner's young, blond girlfriends possess any sort of discernible talents besides being young and blond? Nope. At the opposite end of this argument are the Eleanor Rigbys, the obese, the deformed; the hopelessly average to below average.

The man has to find ways to survive despite the fact that his physical appearance resembles a bird more than a human to most. He has to navigate a path through the world even though his father and brothers hate him along with everyone else that he meets as a child. It was no surprise to me that he killed almost all of them except for his mother who was his only human connection. The world manages to turn Oswald Cobblepot into quite the sociopath. Even after the death of his entire family, and multiple, brutal massacres, the reader still has some sympathy for The Penguin. Gregg Hurwitz draws a nice parallel here through the brutality on one hand, and the loyalty and kindness he can also show on the other. Oswald turns out to be quite the "momma's boy". And there are a few extremely touching scenes that manage to show his softer, more human side.

His biggest weakness after weighing both sides seems to be his inability to take even the most minor criticism. But this made for a very entertaining read. The Penguin is the Kaiser Soze of Gotham. He kills their family members, their family's friends, their girlfriends, etc. (We've all heard that Kevin Spacey speech hundreds of timesby now, no need to elaborate further), all over minor insults. Issues one and two are both top shelf all the way. The wheels tend to come off the wagon a little towards the end, and the last book is definitely rushed. I had to stare at some of the major panels for literally minutes in order to decipher what was happening with the plot. This was a problem with pacing in the art, but in the end all of the mysteries were solved. Mainstream comics should not be a brainteaser, and this one had more than it's fair share of "riddle me this" moments. Despite all of the problems with the last couple books I have a pretty positive opinion of Penguin: Pride and Prejudice. All of the back story and psychological analysis was spot on. The plot and the action sequences suffered in the end, but the most interesting parts of the character shined through due to some great writing. Fanboys are going to be pissed about this book because of where it fails and the price point. This is regrettable because there was so much to love about the series. Fifteen dollars and five books later Penguin: Pain and Prejudice concludes as ultimately flawed, but it is still an extremely entertaining and engaging origin tale of one of the great Batman villains.

By: William R. Davis Jr.