Penguin, on the surface, may seem the least fascinating of specimens in the Caped Crusader's galore of the psychologically unstable; a typical mob boss, only meaner and physically distorted. Here, while Oswald Cobblepot tends to the goings-on of his illicit dominion, we also see how the man had come to be the Penguin. What would anyone expect, really, from the continuous tormenting commonly subjected to one since childhood for looking so different? The only human Oswald seemed to care for would be his mother as seen in this issue, while everyone else in the family had died away, and we all know where this is going.
As if the first few pages doesn't demonstrate how far the Penguin's power extends, we see him later attending to a man who'd bumped into him earlier, who'd also failed to sufficiently retract an insult towards the main antagonist. All that hate bottled up inside him and mounted on a few words, and the Penguin's guest was reduced to a curled heap, juxtaposing the man's otherwise diminutive constitution and the physical trauma he'd endured over the years against the Penguin's capacity for mental agonizing.
Young Oswald saw himself in others, the not so physically deficient, the way a duck would in a swan, while conceiving that they saw themselves in him, their final destination as time took their toll on them, contrary to popular perception that people simply relished the taunting as they regarded themselves as superior over the occasional circus freak, and young Oswald wasn't popular, so to speak.
As if the first few pages doesn't demonstrate how far the Penguin's power extends, we see him later attending to a man who'd bumped into him earlier, who'd also failed to sufficiently retract an insult towards the main antagonist. All that hate bottled up inside him and mounted on a few words, and the Penguin's guest was reduced to a curled heap, juxtaposing the man's otherwise diminutive constitution and the physical trauma he'd endured over the years against the Penguin's capacity for mental agonizing.
Young Oswald saw himself in others, the not so physically deficient, the way a duck would in a swan, while conceiving that they saw themselves in him, their final destination as time took their toll on them, contrary to popular perception that people simply relished the taunting as they regarded themselves as superior over the occasional circus freak, and young Oswald wasn't popular, so to speak.