The Penguin Returns

A few weeks ago, we took a look at the first appearance of the Penguin. That issue ended with the villain's "fowl scheme" (get it?) foiled, but with the Penguin himself getting away.

That was in Detective Comics #58. The 59th issue (January 1942)  picked up right where that story left off, with the Penguin jumping a train out of Gotham.

The credited writer for the first story was Bill Finger. This second part is credited to Joe Greene, though this new story flows smoothly out of its predecessor, so the change in writers caused no storytelling bumps in the road. The art is still credited to Bob Kane.

The Penguin encounters a bunch of hoboes on the train, all of whom are wanted in various cities and have a tendency to brag about the size of the rewards being offered for their capture. This gives Penguin an idea. Why not travel from city to city, turning each of them in for the reward, then busting them out of prison before moving on to the next city? The reward money is then split between them.

It's a pretty good plan and fits the M.O. of the clever and well-spoken arch-villain.

But after they pull it off the first time, Batman and Robin are on their trail. They track Penguin and the hoboes to a "jungle" near the railroad tracks. A jungle, by the way, is a clearing near the railroad in which hobos congregate. Thus the story's title: "King of the Jungle."

The ensuing fight goes well for the Dynamic Duo at first, but Penguin's gas-emitting umbrella puts them down. Penguin leaves them tied up and hanging upside-down to "die painfully--a lingering death!" Penguin is not a cute or friendly bird.

Batman manages to wriggle free. Penguin, in the meantime, keeps pulling off his plan, turning in his fellow crooks for reward money and then busting them out in a variety of clever ways.

Eventually, though, Batman is able to see a pattern and predict the next city the Penguin will visit. This leads to a chase in which Penguin and his gang are forced to hijack a riverboat in their attempt to get away.

Batman and Robin board the boat and are promptly thrown overboard. (Golden Age Batman does not seem to have the same level of martial skills as his later counterparts did.) But they use the paddlewheel to sneak back aboard and, despite the fact that a sword vs. broomstick fight does not go well for the Dark Knight, have soon captured the gang.

The Penguin jumps overboard and seems to have drowned. But even this early in superhero literature, most readers had probably learned that if there's no body, then the villain is almost certainly not dead.

Taken together, the two issues that introduce us to the Penguin are strong ones. The stories successfully portray him as intelligent and innovative. His unexpected agility makes him trickier to catch than one might think, but is not used to present him as an expert fighter in the long term ("I can't match your fisticuffs" he tells Batman at one point). He's a mastermind who depends on trick umbrellas and improvision to get himself out of physical scraps when necessary. It's not surprising that he would go on to become a major part of Batman's Rogue's Gallery.

Next week, the first of a two-part look at a couple of Marvel Team-Up stories.