Warning: SPOILERS for Batman: Caped Crusader are ahead! Use your Amazon Prime Video subscription to stream the series if you haven’t already.
Batman: Caped Crusader is here, and while not a continuation of Batman: The Animated Series like had been speculated years earlier, it does take the noir tone of one of the best animated TV shows of all time and ratchets it up for a more mature audience. But that’s certainly not the only way Caped Crusader stands out from past Batman TV shows. Many members of his rogues gallery have also been altered in some major ways, though still manage to stay true to the spirit of the character. This includes a female variation of The Penguin named Oswalda Cobblepot, voiced by Minnie Driver.
Penguin is the first supervillain that Hamish Linklater’s Bruce Wayne faces off against, and there’s been a lot of chatter surrounding the only gender-swapped character in Batman: Caped Crusader since her existence was revealed shortly before the show dropped on the 2024 TV schedule. Well, I’m here to say that I enjoyed this version of Penguin a lot, chiefly for the following reasons.
She’s Just As Diabolical As Her Male Predecessors
It’s one thing to gender swap Penguin, but then if she’d had a drastically different personality compared to the original Oswald Cobblepot, then the Batman: Caped Crusader writers would have been better off just making her a new character. Fortunately, there was nothing to worry about on that front, because Oswalda is just as diabolical and ruthless as Oswald is usually depicted.
I’ll talk more about a specific example of how this is demonstrated in the next section, but looking at the overall story, this Penguin will do whatever it takes to expand her criminal operations. At the start of “In Treacherous Waters,” she killed a guy just because she suspected he snitched to the police on her, even though she had no hard proof. She didn’t bat an eye at having Rupert Thorne’s properties be destroyed. And, as one would expect from any version of Penguin, she was all to game to attack Batman with a weaponized umbrella. It would have been easy to make this Penguin more sympathetic simply because she’s a woman, but Caped Crusader thankfully didn’t do that.
I Love To Hate How Horrible Of A Mother She Is
In addition to making Penguin a woman, Batman: Caped Crusader gave Oswalda Cobblepot two sons, Aaron and Ronald, both voiced by Paul Scheer. Sadly, these boys grew up without the right kind of maternal figure, because as I can’t state too many times, Oswalda craves power above everything else, even her own flesh and blood. We also shouldn’t expect either of these brothers to take over the Penguin mantle from their mother.
First, Oswalda sends Aaron to a watery grave when she believes he gave Rupert Thorne a heads up that the building he was in was about to be blown up. But as it turns out, it was actually Ronald who’d sold her out, and when he panicked and went to Barbara Gordon and Commissioner Gordon to request protection after Rupert Thorne refused to help him, she went to some pretty great lengths to get rid of him, which I’ll go over later. The point being, this Penguin is a horrible mother, yet I’m glad this aspect was added to the character.
She’s A Wonderful Blend Of Marlene Dietrich And Ma Barker
Unlike Batman: The Animated Series, which played around with a 1940s setting, but was ultimately an anachronistic affair, Batman: Caped Crusader fully leans into the ‘40s vibe. So it’s only fitting that the show’s version of Penguin is taking comes cues from historical figures from around this era: actress Marlene Dietrich and Ma Barker, the mother of several criminals who ran the Barker-Karpis Gang during the 1920s and first half of the 1930s.
Now to be fair, when it comes to Ma Barker, her reputation as the leader of this gang doesn’t appear to be based in historical fact, as there’s no proof she helped her sons plan their criminal activities. Nevertheless, the cultural perception of Barker seems like it was a source of inspiration with Caped Crusader’s Penguin, although at least Barker never had the distinction of killing one of her children. As for Dietrich, that comparison comes straight from Minnie Driver, who pointed out to our own Sarah El-Mahmoud that like the performer would often do in her stage shows, Oswalda wears a men’s suit when she’s singing at the Iceberg Lounge. I have to imagine that wasn’t coincidental.
She Helps Establish The Stakes In This Show Terrifically
After being tipped off about Ronald going to the police, Oswalda breaks out the military-grade, long-range cannon she acquired to blow up Thorne’s buildings. She decides it’s best to take Ronald out of the equation by destroying GCPD headquarters, though fortunately everyone was evacuated in time. Between that and offing Aaron, she did a great job establishing the stakes in Batman: Caped Crusader, namely that people can, and will, die in the show.
With the exception of the tie-in movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman: The Animated Series never really showed people dying onscreen. It was only when the continuation The New Batman Adventures started airing that bodies started to properly be shown, but Caped Crusader has no problems dropping people left and right, though Batman doesn’t break his no-kill rule in Season 1. “In Treacherous Waters” terrifically lays out that while Caped Crusader is by no means solely geared towards adults, it’s definitely not nearly as kid-friendly as BTAS was.
Since Batman: Caped Crusader is returning for Season 2, I hope that when the show isn’t focusing on The Joker murdering people in Gotham City, it carves out some time for The Penguin to return and try to rebuild her criminal empire. Penguin is too important a Batman villain, and Minnie Driver’s performance is too good, for her to only appear in just one episode.
