The Penguin #1

This is The Penguin being tricky because everyone was trying not to be shot by the umbrella. Then bang! Ha ha! Real gun!

With Batman gone, The Penguin should be running most of Gotham within the week. Especially since The Court of Owls are all running down into the sewers to set free The First Talon. I don't know why so many of them panicked! The Court of Owls are supposed to be masters of sitting on their nests and biding their time. While they're waiting things out and trying not to get noticed, The Penguin is probably on the phone making dozens of business calls. I hope this issue is just twenty pages of him calling up rivals and offering to protect them from the chaos for a piece of their business. Then when Batman is back, The Penguin will own more real estate than Bruce Wayne.

The issue begins with The Penguin watching the monitors at his casino and thinking about various people that have walked away with some of his money. Big money. But now he's watching three punks running a black jack table for a mere 35 thousand and he's a bit peeved.

DC should open an Iceberg Casino in Las Vegas. That can't fucking seem to do a decent movie without Batman in it. So how about a casino?!

This is a good looking penguin right here. I like seeing him a bit bedraggled. I like when he's drawn with his age showing. And he looks realistically fat here instead of comically fat. He's a man that enjoys the money he has while also being weighed down by the stress of running a criminal organization in Gotham. And the way he's not just worrying about 35 thousand dollars here. He's actively losing his temper over whatever shenanigans he's sensing at the Blackjack table. I have a feeling some punks are about to get the shit kicked out of them. Or worse yet, hauled into a back room in the casino, never to be heard from again.

The Penguin tries to get them to just hand over their winnings and vacate the casino forever. But one of these scam artists is just too smart for his own good. And, according to Emperor Blackgate, that's a bad attribute in Gotham City!

It's seems insulting a man that just got fucked over pretty hard might be a stupid thing to do.

The Penguin escorts these three gentlemen out of his casino and then kills them himself on the back steps of the Casino. He tells Lark (who has probably moved up as his right hand thug since Ogilvy betrayed him) that he hasn't killed anybody in three years. I suppose there hasn't really been any need. He's as big as they come in the criminal underworld in Gotham which means never having to lift a finger. But after Ogilvy's recent takeover, Oswald is in the mood to get a little blood on his hands. And, according to Lark's reaction, he was never going to let these guys leave alive anyway.

I like seeing The Penguin cold blooded and ruthless.

This opening scene was really well done and I hope the rest of the comic lives up to it. The Penguin is pissed and he needs to get the rumors that he's weak under control. The only problem is that I'm too impressed by this opening character sketch to say anything funny about it. And I don't think I've particularly liked anything Frank Tieri has done so far in The New 52. But then again, I think he's only worked on books with Liefeld or taken over after Liefeld clogged the toilets, flooded the bathroom, and ran out on the titles he was writing. So most of what I've read by Frank Tieri has been him sopping up fecal overflow with as many towels as he could find.

The Penguin has the dead guys dumped in front of Gotham Police Headquarters which makes Governor Carter Winston upset. Who fucking cares? You're the Governor whatever state Gotham is located in! Why don't you just go back to ignoring it like you've always done? All of a sudden you care about "your Gotham"? About returning the city to the Gotham in which you grew up? Why don't you leave it up to Mayor Hady? Oh, that's right. Mayor Hady is a gigantic corrupt asshole. So maybe you should start cleaning up Gotham by kicking out the Mayor not by shutting down the Iceberg Casino?

The Penguin isn't worried about the Governor though because the Governor is an old family friend. He apparently protected Oswald when Oswald was being bullied. But now that Oswald is the bully, Carter Winston has had a change of heart. The casino has to go.

I wonder, will The Penguin kill the Governor? Oh I hope so! I hate pretentious politicians that believe they know what everybody else needs! I bet he has a heroin habit that he's not advertising.

But I guess Oswald doesn't have time to figure out if Carter has a heroin habit or something nearly as bad that a self-righteous politician would hate to have exposed to the public. So he creates his own scandal for Carter.

Whoops!

The Penguin drugged Carter with Venom and Carter went on a rampage and killed his assistant. There's also evidence that he was having an affair with her. So it looks like the Iceberg Casino will be staying open! And the Governor can disappear back to whatever city is the capital of whatever state Gotham City is in!

Or, um, maybe not.

I guess you can't argue with those last words! Because, you know, you can't argue with a dead man. But if he wasn't dead, I'd tell him to think up something else to say before he shoots himself. Because the bullies never get it "right." There's nothing to get "right." Are you trying to say that some people will eventually turn really bad so they should be killed by bullies in their youth before they've had a chance to show themselves as good or bad people? I don't know, that's what it seems like you're saying. The bullies didn't "get it right" because you know exactly why they were picking on Oswald: because he was fat and had a freakish nose and waddled and carried an umbrella everywhere. Were those the "right" reasons to bully him? Of course not! And perhaps Oswald became bitter and angry and vile because he was picked on, not just buy bullies, but by society. In every way, he was probably reminded constantly that he wasn't attractive. He was probably passed up for jobs to be filled by better looking people. He probably heard people whispering, laughing, pointing. Every. Fucking. Day. Because bullies aren't just a couple of thick-headed assholes that roam schoolyards looking for the weak and powerless to pick on. Bullies are everywhere. Bullies are just people who don't respect the individuality of another person, writing them off for superficial and shallow reasons. Bullies are people who write shitty comic books and ruin great characters like Superman and the Teen Titans. Unless I got that last one backwards and bullies are people who constantly berate people who write those comic books?

Umm, never mind about that bully stuff. The governor was right! Sometimes bullies get it right! Scott Lobdell sucks!

Penguin #1 Rating: This issue was okay. I liked the opening scene about forty times more than the rest of the book. But it's nice to see Oswald Cobblepot being badass and taking charge of his life and his city. I think my favorite part of this issue was the way the Penguin looked in many of the panels. It's nice to see an older character that doesn't look perfect in tights gracing the pages of a comic book, even if he is a despicable murderer. The way he looked weathered and tired just nailed it for me.