The Penguin vol. 2: All Bad Things

The bird is back, baby!  After being told to retake Gotham’s criminal underworld from his nefarious children, Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. The Penguin, rounded up a crew made up of his stalwart enforcer The Help, a bunch of patriotic-themed low-level superheroes known as the Force of July, the Black Spider as his inside man, and his high-class ex-girlfriend Lisa St. Clair.  They’re all ready to take back the city, but they can’t do it by starting an all-out war because that would bring Batman down on them immediately.  Or can they?  Because in all of his preparations to make Gotham his again, Oswald has finally been able to figure out who the man is under that cowl.

Reading through the conclusion of this latest maxi-series from writer Tom King, I’m surprised at how its aim appears to be broadly similar to (of all things) the recently collected “Kneel Before Zod” miniseries.  This is due to the fact that both titles look to have been commissioned with the aim of getting their title characters back into workable villain roles following recent developments.  What separates the two is that this is much more ambitious in terms of what it’s trying to do with the character.  In addition to the new supporting characters thrown into his orbit in the previous volume, we got an updated origin as well.  This volume also underlines just how clever and ruthless The Penguin can be and why he’s worthy of a getting a maxiseries to show why he’s one of the top-tier Bat-villains.

Whether or not you’ll find all of King’s additions here to your liking is another matter.  I can understand why he’s trying to recast the character as a Whitey Bulger-esque double-agent crimelord, but having Batman work with him takes the hero into a more shades-of-gray characterization than I think is workable in the long-term.  Additionally, while King generally manages his very large cast quite well, there, more than a few slip through the cracks at the end.  When Penguin gave that limo ride to the guy who thought he was going to kill him, I really had to rack my brain to remember who he was.

“All Bad Things” still manages to achieve its intended goal of getting The Penguin back into circulation in his more traditional role as the villain who is a proper part of Gotham’s underworld.  It means that this maxiseries was basically just one long walk back to the status quo, except that it was done with enough skill and ambition to show you how these things should be done.  The stylishly gritty and dark art courtesy of Rafael De La Torre certainly didn’t hurt in that regard.