The Penguinis proving to be one of the best comic book series of the past few years, but it isn’t all that connected to the comics themselves. It’s an interstitial piece betweenThe Batmanand its upcoming sequel, which also feels distinctly original. Colin Farrell’s Oz was a great aspect ofThe Batman, but he was never the focus. Choosing to tell the story of the first film’s red herring is a bold follow-up to a stellar film. However, the connection between the two works is less tight than some might have expected.
Most superhero media fans are used to the works of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which feverishly strings every person, place, and thing together into a complete mess. Fans tune in to Marvel shows to see which movie characters will wander into the frame with a resulting applause break. Anyone who has seenMatt Reeves’The Batmancan probably tell that it will handle the shared universe gimmick very differently. It’s a breath of fresh air that connects the stories without feeling too heavy on cameos.
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The Penguinshowrunner Lauren LeFranc andThe Batmandirector Matt Reeves spoke toSFX Magazinea few weeks before the first episode of the show premiered. In the interview, they dispelled rumors that Robert Pattinson would appear as Batman in the series. Outlets reported a ton of conjecture suggesting that Batman would make a cameo appearance in a single episode. In the interview with SFX, LeFranc and Reeves explicitly stated thatBatman will not pop upin the new show. He told the outlet:
You’re going down a different alley. So the spectre of Batman is there. The spectre of the Riddler is there. The spectre of everything that happens in the last movie is there. It informs it. And it’s exactly where we begin.
Only two episodes have hit HBO at this time, but there’s been no sign that Batman will appear. It’s safe to assume that this isn’t a misleading tease or an outright act of deception. The Batman’s absence may rub some fans the wrong way. A show about a Batman villain feels incompletewithout the Caped Crusader, but there’s a perfectly understandable reason why he wouldn’t appear in the tale of Oz Cobb.
The Batman is still new inThe Penguin
There are two reasonable answers to the question of Batman’s absence. The obvious one is the Doylist answer, which is that the show about the Penguin has enough going on to ignore the character who already got his own movie.The Watsonian answer, however, is that the well-established gangsters and criminals have no real reason to worry about the Batman. The 2022 film borrowed heavily fromBatman: Year One, establishing Bruce Wayne as a relative newcomer to the crime fighting game. Robert Pattinson’s Batman is in the first year of his career. He’s not a central piece of Gotham’s criminal operations. No one feels the need to talk about him because he’s barely a factor in the business they do. Even afterOz’s harrowing car chasewith him, the Penguin has other things to worry about.
It’s a compelling idea in its own right. This means that long-established criminal empires like the Falcone crime family wouldn’t have much to worry about from a guy who occasionally beats up street thugs. He isn’t much of a threat to the empire at this stage in his career. The film sawCarmine Falcone die at the handsof a different guy in a mask, but Batman was barely a contributing factor. As a result, there’s no reason for anyone to bring up the Bat. There are simply bigger things to worry about. The Gotham City ofThe Penguinis reeling from the massive flood and sudden deaths of several key figures. The biggest concerns on the minds of most underworld figures have nothing to do with Batman. In due time, Batman could build himself into a more notable figure.
Remember the second scene inThe Dark Knight?After the Joker pulls offthe perfect robbery, the camera follows various criminal activities across Gotham. There’s a single, beautifully efficient moment in which one unnamed thug ditches another for fear of running into a Caped Crusader. The irritated would-be felon utters the immortal line, “You got more chance of winning the Powerball than running into him.” Thatcame afterBatman Begins. The purpose of that scene was to depict the developing culture of fear among Gotham’s criminal element. Robert Pattinson’s Batman is still between the era ofBatman BeginsandThe Dark Knight.The Penguinis about characters that don’t really worry about being punched by a guy in a costume right now. Give them another movie or two, and they won’t be able to stop talking about the Bat.
