Since last we checked in with the talented Mr. Cobblepot, DC announced that Tom King’s “Penguin” series will come to an end after 12 issues. This doesn’t exactly come as any surprise. Given that the very first issue teases the end of the narrative, giving the book a “let’s look back and see how we got to this point” structure, the series never had the flavor of an ongoing run. The official announcement of this book coming to us in the form of a 12 issue mini-series does, however, cast the creative team in a bit of a new light.
Look around online: the consensus on Tom King is that the mini-series format is his strong suit as opposed to ongoing titles. I would generally agree. Even though I probably enjoy his main-title Batman run more than most DC readers, and even though I’m generally having a great time with his recent work on Wonder Woman, I can’t argue that these legacy monthlies don’t quite compare with the soaring heights he’s reached on limited series like “Mister Miracle” and “Human Target”. Now that we have confirmation that this “Penguin” will be stacked up against those latter entries, I think it’s time for this reviewer to really get serious and finally take off the Tom King fanboy blinders he may have been wearing up until this point.
The book is just not quite fully working. In this issue, we continue with the structure of shifting POVs every few pages in order to tell an almost-Rashomon-sequence story of how the Penguin reclaimed his criminal empire from his ambitious children. We get the usual King touch of poetic symmetry, with the issue being bookended by Batman noir-ishly offering a lit match for a smoking Cobblepot. We get an excellent sequence of Batman chasing down different arms of the Cobblepot siblings’ criminal enterprise on land, sea, and air. We even get a brutally sociopathic moment of Penguin rather forcefully putting one of his kids in his place. But it’s this constant shifting of the reader’s attention that is rendering the narrative punch of this book a little bit weak. Each individual element is perfectly good, but lacking a greater, overarching POV for the book’s narrative throughline, nothing ever really lands.
This book is decidedly not falling flat on the basis of its artwork, however. Rafael De Latorre is consistently showing up to turn in fantastic work. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that Mr. De Latorre’s work on the scene in which Penguin finally gets to swing his umbrella in anger is some of the most effective bloodshed illustration we’ve gotten from DC all year. It’s killer stuff.
In case I haven’t made myself clear, Tom King has built himself enough good will with yours truly that I’m definitely not going to rule out the possibility that he can stick the landing in June and July and deliver the gripping crime epic we were promised at the outset. We’re still in the moody, brooding, dingy Gotham atmosphere that I feel most at home in as a reader. I’m just beginning to wonder if King knew he only had 12 issues to play around with and, if so, why we spent so much time with the Force of July.
Score: 5.5/10
Recommend if you…
- Love gritty illustrations of brutal beatdowns
- Want to see as many bat-vehicles per issue as possible
- Are already invested in this title
Overall: Now that we’re past the point of being three-quarters done with this title, we can safely say that the majority of Tom King’s “Penguin” consists of issues that, while no means poor, are falling short of the prestige crime drama the readers may have initially imagined.
