Penguin (Arkhamverse)

## The Penguin

The Penguin in Batman: Arkham Knight

Batman: Arkham Knight (2016)

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate (2013)

Batman: Arkham VR (2017)

Arms Dealer

Gunrunner

Sickle

Candy

Tracey Buxton

**Penguin**is an antagonist in the Batman Arkham franchise. He is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, first appearing in Detective Comics #58 (December 1941). The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger.

He was a brutal and sadistic crime lord who was seen as a reputable businessman to the people of Gotham City. He began to accumalate his power within Gotham's criminal underworld and started to build up his own forces to carve up a piece of the black market for his own profits and purposes.

## History

### Batman: Arkham Knight

Nine months after the events of *Batman: Arkham Knight,*Penguin, Two-Face, Harley Quinn and all of Batman's other enemies joined together to destroy the Dark Knight while under the command of Scarecrow. He sent Harley to Bludhaven to rescue Poison Ivy, who was wanted by Scarecrow as part of his plans. Penguin remained in radio contact with Harley the entire time and often insulted her or the Joker. Just as the other villains had a specific role to carry out, Penguin's role was specifically to provide weapons and arms to the militia forces and the other villain crews. However, the Arkham Knight had ensured that Penguin and Two Face, having a mutual hostility towards each other, that there would be a truce between them by interrupting a planned double-cross to kill Two-Face's men during an arms deal and leaving only one survivor to tell his boss of the incident.

Penguin was smuggling guns from Gotham City to Bludhaven, the home of Nightwing. Batman tracked Penguin down and interrogated him on the location of Barbara Gordon and the Arkham Knight. Penguin revealed that they were meeting with a businessman, Simon Stagg. Penguin's thugs soon subdued Batman which allowed Penguin to escape. However, that came at the cost of the weapons cache being blown up by the Dark Knight, who had been saved by Nightwing. Penguin later got a call from another of his trucks, told them to lose Batman and threatened to inflict bodily harm if Batman managed to find the cache. He also reminded them when they claimed they couldn't see Batman that didn't mean he couldn't see them. Ultimately, they failed to prevent Batman from detonating the cache at Sionis Industries. Penguin later received a call from his third truck, angrily insulting them after being irritated by the loss of two of his caches, and after sarcastically apologizing, he then proceeded to threaten to castrate them if Batman got the third cache. He then blocked their calls, and was already being too irate with having to learn that Batman was pursuing them.

Penguin soon captured Nightwing who had snuck into his last weapon hideout at the AmerTek Building at Otisburg on Founders' Island alone, and then proceeded to make a video feed to Batman at the Water Filtration Plant revealing that, stated that he decided to "do a little taking of his own" in response to Batman's destruction of his various caches that night with the implied threat that he was going to kill Nightwing as revenge, and also hit Nightwing. Batman soon came to his rescue and the two defeated Penguin's men, only for Penguin to hold Nightwing hostage at gunpoint just after Batman proceeded to rig the final cache to explode. Unfortunately for him, Nightwing escaped his grip and he and Batman subdued Penguin before they blew up his weapon cache in front of him and knocked him out as Penguin angrily threatened to kill him.

Batman then imprisoned Penguin in the GCPD holding cell. If Two-Face was imprisoned beforehand, Penguin said he should have told Scarecrow that it was a bad idea to involve him, only to be vaguely threatened by the latter. Penguin decided to talk business with Deathstroke, who informed him that if he lost a bit of weight, he could be a good combatant. He also made fun of Riddler, Deacon Blackfire and Azrael. He was annoyed by Professor Pyg's lack of concept about personal space, immediately telling him to back off.

Penguin was also alluded in a hallucination of Joker's of the near future where Joker was forgotten, where it was revealed Penguin in one year's time would have usurped Joker's position of being the most well-known archenemy of Batman and even had a museum exhibit that was dedicated to him.

## Personality

Penguin was known for his extravagance and brutality, and his brilliant and unorthodox mind naturally lead him to positions of power and respect. He demanded things done his way and has an intense love for money, as well as only accepting of the best which includes weapons, equipment, assassins and the like. He felt the need to overcompensate for his shortcomings and comical stature through material wealth and violent outbursts. Penguin also takes pride in his aristocratic status and the influence and power on his family name in Gotham, speaking about it as if it were still happening despite the Cobblepots having lost most, if not all, their influence. Though this makes his personality quite sophisticated it does not hide his true nature; a sadist who enjoys the suffering of others. His hedonistic desire for self-pleasure was displayed by how throughout the series he makes sexual advances on female characters.

The only thing Penguin craves above all else was the subjgation of everyone and power over everything, something which he could only achieve through fear and total control as to overcompensate his insecurities regarding his stature. This can be attributed due to his megalomania and Napoleon Complex and, being helpless for most of his life towards his father's abuse has caused his one and only desire to dominate over others, forcing them to be helpless so he can feel powerful. This can cause him to act extremely aggressive, over dominative and ruthless towards everyone which leads him to be flippantly shout at or even kill his own men over betrayal or irritations. He controlled his empire and men with fear, either intimidating them with a false cockney accent or brutal torture. Though he appears menacing and powerful, when faced with a truly powerful opponent, Penguin reveals who he actually is; a grovelling coward. Despite this he is at times been defiant.

Living in a troubled childhood had seemed to have an effect on him. Behind his intimidating demeanor, Penguin is actually terrified of the dark, as apparently he lived inside of a closet. He is also shown to be very coarse, often using various curse words of British origin. He also has shown to be misogynistic and potentially homophobic, as well as overall being very offensive to various groups. Penguin was also demonstrated to possess a somewhat sarcastic demeanor.