User blog:DragonDude83/PE Proposal: Penguin (Arkhamverse)

This is a proposal that has long been overdue. TV Tropes finds the Penguin (Arkhamverse)Penguin from the Batman: Arkham franchise that horrible. Let’s see how awful this adaptation of the Penguin really is.

Who is He, and What Has He Done?
Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, is a Cockney-accented crime Lord defined by his short, fat stature, and his love for umbrellas that double as guns or swords.

A wealthy child picked on by others for his appearance, Cobblepot began running with gangs, building up a reputation for ruthlessness at the same time that his parents squandered much of their wealth on trying to dismantle Gotham City's greatest family, the Waynes.

With his parents dying soon after, Cobblepot assumed the estate of his family and instantly began blaming Bruce Wayne for ruining the Cobblepot name, developing a seething hatred for him as Cobblepot built himself up in the criminal empire.

In Arkham Origins, he ran a good chunk of Gotham’s criminal underworld, smuggling and selling dangerous and highly illegal guns to street gangs and thugs, kick-starting many bloody massacres and crime waves in the city, not caring how many lives were lost because of his weapons, as long as he makes a profit.

Cobblepot also ran illegal gambling rings, with the intent to bankrupt and ruin the lives of anyone who plays against him through cheating. It’s telling that one of said rings led to Victor Zsasz’s descent into becoming the depraved serial killer we all know. When Cobblepot catches anyone cheating against him, he has them tortured and killed, and then he often puts their bodies on display in his prize vessel, the Final Offer.

He has put together illegal fight clubs, and uses them to find possible recruits to his gang. Prospects had to fight to the death with the last man standing being recruited.

Desiring to get rid of the Falcone crime family and leave himself more turf, Cobblepot kidnaps the boss's son Alberto, beating and preparing to torture him with a cattle prod to convince his father to pull out of the crime business.

Later Cobblepot allies with Mr. Freeze, planning a raid on Wayne Manor during a charity gala to kidnap Freeze's enemy Ferris Boyle. As Freeze and Penguin's goons kill many of the guests, Cobblepot orders his men to find and murder Bruce Wayne and set Wayne Manor aflame with all the guests inside to sate his hatred for the Wayne family.

Cobblepot eventually betrays and tries to murder Freeze to keep his technology for himself before being frozen alive then captured and sent to Blackgate prison.

In Arkham Origins: Blackgate he, Joker, and Black Mask orchestrate a takeover of the Blackgate prison. Penguin immediately captures a third of their guards, and forces them to fight each other to the death or fight Bronze Tiger, a prisoner he forces to help him after Tiger tried to save a guard from death by hanging at Cobblepot's hands. He’s also used the guards as human shields to ensure easy capture.

On one of the endings of the game, it was revealed that Cobblepot had Catwoman plant bombs all over Blackgate, and even though Batman saved the hostages and the prison, Cobblepot bribed a guard into freeing him, then murders him just for being "mildly rude."

In Arkham City and the tie-in comic, Arkham Unhinged, Penguin murders several police officers who try to capture him and put him into the prison Arkham City, then proceeds to set up shop in Arkham City anyway out of pride. He continues his crimes there, torturing and murdering rival gang members and his own men for minor failures, and displays their bodies as part of his collection in his homebase of the Cyrus Linkley Museum. Many bodies of his victims were shown decaying all over the building. In a regular basis, Cobblepot murders his men either by having them fed to his shark, Tiny, or by having them torn apart by Solomon Grundy, his zombie monster.

He murdered his own chef by serving him a dish that reminded him of Joker. He continues running illegal fight clubs, and injects his men with TITAN to turn them into mutilated monsters. He has his men killed by fighting his TITAN monsters just to slow them down, keeps Mr. Freeze trapped in a room with tortuous heat just to add to his collection, and accepts Hugo Strange’s lobotomized patients to use as target practice, all while waging gang wars in Arkham City, because he turned down partnerships from Two-Face and Joker, even when truces are offered to stop the violence.

During a raid on Joker's territory, only accessible with bridges, Cobblepot bombs said bridges even while his men are on it and still in Joker's turf, killing many of them and leaving the rest stranded in Joker's territory. When his men point this out and scream that they'll die, Penguin simply laughs and says "try taking out as many as you can before you die, son."

When confronted by Batman, Cobblepot reveals that he’s captured ten police officers, and guns one down in front of him. He uses Mr. Freeze’s freeze gun on three officers and leaves them to die or be eaten by Tiny, freezes one officer’s hand and smashes it with a hammer, and attempts to kill two more with Freeze’s gun.

After fighting and defeating Solomon Grundy, Batman defeats Cobblepot and recaptures him

In Arkham Knight and its tie-in comic, Cobblepot is back on the streets, continuing to murder and torture his way up as a crime lord. Notably, he blows up an entire building full of his men in an attempt to kill Batman, recreated a Suicide Squad to murder Bruce Wayne, only to feed them to Killer Croc when they fail him, and continues being an awful boss. One example is breaking a henchman’s arm while the other one was broken just because of a poor choice of words.

He fully endorsed Scarecrow’s plan to flood Gotham City with his fear toxin so he can smuggle in weapons and munitions to be used in taking over Gotham.

When Batman and Nightwing begin destroying his weapon caches, Cobblepot captures and beats Nightwing, planning to torture him to death after luring in and killing Batman. This plan fails, and though attempting to stage another breakout, Cobblepot is eventually beaten and locked away for good.

Mitigating Factors
None to be seen. While he is outraged at the Wayne family "dismantling his family," this is seen more as a blow to his pride and not out of genuine love for his family.

When Cobblepot is shown to be angry after hearing that an employee got hurt (beaten up by Batman, murdered by Joker, etc.), again it’s seen as a pride thing, with Cobblepot often saying it's a "humiliation" when something of "his" is damaged by anyone other than himself.

Heinousness
Sure, in this universe, Joker, Scarecrow, and even Calendar Man have higher body counts and are psychopaths. Firefly can also be proposed in a later date, but like I’ve mentioned in the Hammerhead (Marvel's Spider-Man) page, this is a kind of Pure Evil that is not about how high the bodycount is, but is all about controlling the city as the top kingpin. Two-Face and Black Mask function the same way Cobblepot does; being crime bosses wanting money and power, but they don’t match up to the bodycount, sadism, or destruction as the Penguin.

Cobblepot is a vile customer either way, with countless amounts of torture and murder on his hands, and being the most explicitly terrible boss in the entire game series. We see dozens of tortured, dead bodies throughout the games and comics, and he has many, many more that aren't seen. He tries to burn down Wayne Manor and its dozens of occupants, bombs countless of his own men and leaves them to die in enemy territory, tortures and kills police officers over speakers while making Batman listen, ruins the lives of others in gambling and then kills them if they try to back out, cheat, or prove he himself has been cheating, and his hand in the Blackgate incident is another big mark on his heinousness.

Final Verdict
I think he’s a keeper.