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* LargeHam: Arnold Schwarzenegger is clearly having an absolute blast playing a cackling supervillain.
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* LargeHam: Arnold Schwarzenegger is clearly having an absolute blast playing a cackling supervillain. complete with his signature, over the top cheesy puns.
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Two-Face survived
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* AssholeVictim: After everything he did throughout the film (threatening a circus, gunning down the Graysons, endangering an innocent bank guard, etc.), regardless of whether or not one approves of Batman causing his DisneyVillainDeath [[{{Hypocrite}} despite telling Dick that killing is wrong throughout the film]], it's hard to argue that Two-Face didn't completely deserve his fate.
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* AssholeVictim: After everything he did throughout the film (threatening a circus, gunning down the Graysons, endangering an innocent bank guard, etc.), regardless of whether or not one approves of Batman causing his DisneyVillainDeath [[{{Hypocrite}} despite telling Dick that killing is wrong throughout the film]], it's hard to argue that Two-Face didn't completely deserve his fate. Subverted however, [[WordOfGod since it's revealed in director's comentarry of B&R]] that he survived, with his and Riddler's costume being shown in Police custody.
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* DeathByAdaptation: In the comics he's never bit the bullet. Not the case here.
* DeathBySecretIdentity: Dies after finding out Bruce Wayne is Batman.
* DeathBySecretIdentity: Dies after finding out Bruce Wayne is Batman.
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* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:After saving Robin and Chase from falling to their deaths, Batman is then confronted by Two-Face. Batman then tricks him to fall down instead with a fistful of coins that he throws in the air when Harvey makes another of his signature coin tosses]].
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* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:After After saving Robin and Chase from falling to their deaths, Batman is then confronted by Two-Face. Batman then tricks him to fall down instead with a fistful of coins that he throws in the air when Harvey makes another of his signature coin tosses]].tosses.
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* [[OneLastSmoke]]: One Last ''Drink.'' Grissom pointedly slurps down his glass of scotch upon being confronted by Joker. Although, it was really so he could turn around and, under the pretense of pouring a second glass, grab a gun hidden under his desk. Joker doesn't fall for it, though.
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* [[OneLastSmoke]]: OneLastSmoke: One Last ''Drink.'' Grissom pointedly slurps down his glass of scotch upon being confronted by Joker. Although, it was really so he could turn around and, under the pretense of pouring a second glass, grab a gun hidden under his desk. Joker doesn't fall for it, though.
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* [[OneLastSmoke]]: One Last ''Drink.'' Grissom pointedly slurps down his glass of scotch upon being confronted by Joker. Although, it was really so he could turn around and, under the pretense of pouring a second glass, grab a gun hidden under his desk. Joker doesn't fall for it, though.
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* [[OneLastSmoke]]: OneLastSmoke: One Last ''Drink.'' Grissom pointedly slurps down his glass of scotch upon being confronted by Joker. Although, it was really so he could turn around and, under the pretense of pouring a second glass, grab a gun hidden under his desk. Joker doesn't fall for it, though.
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* [[OneLastSmoke]]: One Last ''Drink.'' Grissom pointedly slurps down his glass of scotch upon being confronted by Joker. Although, it was really so he could turn around and, under the pretense of pouring a second glass, grab a gun hidden under his desk. Joker doesn't fall for it, though.
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* AlternateSelf: Catwoman has one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]], [[Series/BirdsOfPrey2002 Earth-203]], and [[TheDarkKnightRises Earth-686]].
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* AlternateSelf: Catwoman has one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]], [[Series/BirdsOfPrey2002 Earth-203]], and [[TheDarkKnightRises [[Film/TheDarkKnightRises Earth-686]].
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Not a GSV due to being directly involved with and responsible for the plot
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* GreaterScopeVillain: Not only is he directly responsible for Selina becoming Catwoman, but he's also allied with the Penguin and the two help advance each other's plans -- and Max's power plant scheme was what kicked off the entire plot of the film in the first place.
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-->'''Selina Kyle:''' I heard on TV that Catwoman's thought to weigh 140 pounds. ''[scoffs]'' I dunno how these hacks ''sleep'' at night.\\
* CatsHaveNineLives: She seems to genuinely believe that she has this, and actively counts off the number of potentially fatal things she survives. (Dropped/pushed from a great height by Shreck, Batman, and Penguin; shot four times by Shreck; then decides to save one life "for next Christmas" before electrocuting Shreck and herself with a kiss.)
* CatsHaveNineLives: She seems to genuinely believe that she has this, and actively counts off the number of potentially fatal things she survives. (Dropped/pushed from a great height by Shreck, Batman, and Penguin; shot four times by Shreck; then decides to save one life "for next Christmas" before electrocuting Shreck and herself with a kiss.)
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-->'''Selina Kyle:''' I heard on TV that Catwoman's thought to weigh 140 pounds. ''[scoffs]'' I dunno how these hacks ''sleep'' at night.\\
night.
* CatsHaveNineLives: She seems to genuinely believe that she has this, and actively counts off the number of potentially fatal things shesurvives. (Dropped/pushed survives: dropped/pushed from a great height by Shreck, Batman, and Penguin; shot four times by Shreck; then decides to save one life "for next Christmas" before electrocuting Shreck and herself with a kiss.)
* CatsHaveNineLives: She seems to genuinely believe that she has this, and actively counts off the number of potentially fatal things she
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'''[[center: [- [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatFamily Bat-Family]] | Villains ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]]) | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesSupportingCharacters Supporting Characters]] -]]]'''
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'''[[center: [- [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatFamily Bat-Family]] | Villains ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]]) | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesSupportingCharacters Supporting Characters]] -]]]'''
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->[[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesThePenguin See his page for more information]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catwoman]]
!![[Characters/{{CatwomanSelinaKyle}} Selina Kyle/Catwoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_00003_copie_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I am Catwoman. Hear me roar!"'']]
!!! '''Played by''': Creator/MichellePfeiffer
!!! '''Voiced by''': Reiko Tajima (Japanese), Emmanuelle Bondeville (European French), Creator/EliseBertrand (Canadian French), Mônica Rossi (Brazilian Portuguese)
!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Film/BatmanReturns'' | ''Film/Catwoman2004'' (photograph only) | ''Comicbook/Batman89''
->''"I don't know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier."''
Max Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle finds out her boss' plans to take energy from Gotham citizens and is pushed out a window in an attempt to kill her. She survives, but suffers a psychotic breakdown that results in her becoming Catwoman.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catwoman]]
!![[Characters/{{CatwomanSelinaKyle}} Selina Kyle/Catwoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_00003_copie_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I am Catwoman. Hear me roar!"'']]
!!! '''Played by''': Creator/MichellePfeiffer
!!! '''Voiced by''': Reiko Tajima (Japanese), Emmanuelle Bondeville (European French), Creator/EliseBertrand (Canadian French), Mônica Rossi (Brazilian Portuguese)
!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Film/BatmanReturns'' | ''Film/Catwoman2004'' (photograph only) | ''Comicbook/Batman89''
->''"I don't know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier."''
Max Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle finds out her boss' plans to take energy from Gotham citizens and is pushed out a window in an attempt to kill her. She survives, but suffers a psychotic breakdown that results in her becoming Catwoman.
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[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catwoman]]
!![[Characters/{{CatwomanSelinaKyle}} Selina Kyle/Catwoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.
!!! '''Played by''':
!!! '''Voiced by''':
!!! '''Appearances:'''
->''"I don't know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier."''
Max Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle finds out her boss' plans
->''"You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak and you have to
The son of wealthy Gotham citizens
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* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Subverted. The Penguin seems to share a laugh with a campaign worker who jokes about his less-than-stellar looks, but it's really a ploy to get him to lower his guard so he can take revenge.
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: In the comics, the Penguin is often portrayed as being well-spoken, with gentleman-like manners. This version of the Penguin on the other hand is crude, thuggish, lecherous, unfriendly and lacking any manners.
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange: In the comics, Penguin has always lived a privileged life-style ever since he was born. Here, however, he has been forced to live in poverty down in the sewers after being abandoned by his parents.
* AdaptationalBadass: In the comics, Penguin has often been portrayed as something of a joke villain, usually being a caricature of upper-class, privileged men in tuxedos, and never posing much of a threat towards Batman. In ''Batman Returns'' however, The Penguin is downright menacing compared to his comic book counterpart and a lot easier to take seriously.
** He got ahold of blueprints to the Batmobile and hijacked control of it, very nearly putting Batman in a scenario where he would have killed an innocent old woman.
** After Batman foils his plan to murder Gotham's first-born sons, Penguin arms his birds with rockets and has them march on Gotham, planning a full-scale genocide.
* AdaptationalSympathy: The Penguin gets this treatment by having been made a TragicVillain. Unlike the "Gentleman of Crime" from the 60s TV series, this Penguin is callously abandoned by his parents for being a deformed freak and raised by circus freaks living in the sewer. It's this that leads him to resurface years later and pull a VillainWithGoodPublicity stunt to become mayor and enact his master plan.
* AdaptationalUgliness: You'd better believe it. Despite Cobblepot's pudgy body, short stature and beak-like nose in the comics, he's still relatively normal-looking. This version of Penguin is a pale, hunched, disfigured mutant with stringy hair and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His monstrous appearance is a vital part of his character and the film as a whole.
* AdaptationalVillainy: While the comics Penguin was a crime boss, he was also an AffablyEvil WickedCultured gentleman of crime and was genuinely deemed sane. Here, he's a deformed, psychotic, AxCrazy, sadistic, sexually-repressed child killer and would-be mass murderer, setting the stage for many future interpretations of the character to follow, including ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', and ''Series/{{Gotham}}'' (and sometimes they go even further, as the ''Gotham'' Penguin once [[ImAHumanitarian ate his own stepsiblings]] and [[FamilialCannibalismSurprise fed them to his stepmother]] after they killed his father[[note]]by accident, since they were trying to poison Oswald[[/note]]).
* AlasPoorVillain: After being knocked through a skylight window and nearly drowning, then weakly emerging from the Arctic World pool burned, bleeding and vomiting up toxic waste, he dies completely unrepentant, still raving about how he intends to take Batman to Hell with him. But through it all, we can't ever forget that this is someone who was forced to grow up in a cold and lonely sewer ever since he was a baby, and for whom Bruce Wayne (who, as Batman, is largely responsible for his death) once expressed sympathy as a fellow orphan. The moving "funeral" that a group of emperor penguins hold for the villain helps to soften the blow, too.
* AlternateSelf: Has one on [[Series/Batwoman2019 Earth-Prime]], [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]], and [[Film/TheBatman2022 an as-yet-undesignated Earth]].
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Penguin was suspected of being this by a few particularly touchy Jewish groups, owing to his short stature, hooked nose, [[MosesInTheBulrushes Moses-like upbringing]] and fondness for fish. And according to her tombstone, his mother's name was "Esther" (an exiled Hebrew queen from the [[Literature/BookOfEsther Old Testament]]). Paradoxically, however, the tombstone was also topped by a huge Christian cross which gets a long, lingering closeup as part of the movie's rather unsettling biblical imagery. Though they could be messianic Jews.
* AndYourLittleDogToo: After Shreck publicly washes his hands of the Penguin, the latter declares that he'll murder Chip Shreck, even though Chip had done nothing wrong by the Penguin.
* AnimalMotifs: He's short and stout - no doubt from trying to adapt to cold weather while living in a sewer - and he loves fish.
* AntiVillain: A major type II ([[TragicVillain Woobie Variant]]). Penguin is far from a good person, however; at the end of it all, he is a very broken, damaged individual who wants vengeance against society for rejecting him and being abandoned in the sewers by his parents, which is ultimately what made him into who he is today.
* AxCrazy: Big Time... He'll murder people for even remotely disagreeing with him (the fat clown learnt that the hard way), bit a consultant over an ill-advised jab about his appearance and is vengeful and vindictive to the point of wanting to murder babies. When that fails, he opts to blow up all of Gotham City.
* BadassBookworm: In spite of his upbringing, Penguin shows himself to be quite educated. He keeps track of election dates, holds onto junk that could be used for blackmail and is studious enough to keep a record of all the firstborn sons of Gotham.
* BadBlackBarf: The Penguin discharges greenish-black gooey bile from his mouth after he gets attacked by bats and falls in the sewer water. Although he spits up bile throughout the movie considering his health problems and his growing up in a sewer full of radioactive chemical waste, it's more prominent here.
* BadBoss: He's not above executing his subordinates if they question him. Little wonder that they all abandoned him once they realized Batman had pinpointed their hideout.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Zigzagged. On one hand, he killed the family cat [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior when he was just a baby]]; which is likely what might have been part of what convinced his parents to abandon him. On the other hand, however, he is very kind towards Penguins and other types of birds, since the former adopted him.
* BallroomBlitz: "You didn't invite me, so I [[LiteralMinded crashed!]]"
* BatScare:
** During Batman's attempted rescue of the Ice Princess, The Penguin releases a swarm of bats from his umbrella at her, causing her to fall off a building and to her death; after her body slams on the button, the Christmas tree lights up and unleashes a bigger bat swarm on the Gotham City citizens.
-->''Rats with wings, do your thing!''
** Batman later uses the same trick against The Penguin in their final fight at Arctic World; The Penguin eventually falls into the toxic pool.
* BecomingTheMask: The Penguin realizes that Shreck is trying to exploit him to get a Mayor who will approve Shreck's new power plant. However, the Penguin quickly warms to the idea on his own and decides that he ''likes'' the idea of becoming Mayor because, despite Max's obvious personal reasons, he does bring a lot of valid points that interest Oswald, particularly "unlimited poontang." Considering he's a guy who's spent his life isolated, Penguin is quite the repressed pervert.
* BerserkButton: Like any megalomaniac criminal mastermind, he doesn't respond well when his plans go awry. But what ''really'' seems to set Penguin off is rejection, because of his background. He tries to kill Catwoman when she rebuffs his advances, he opens fire on a crowd of Gothamites when they turn on him after his EngineeredPublicConfession, he tries to murder Max Shreck for ditching him after the mayoral bid failed, and it's implied (at least in the novel) that he [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]] for originally abandoning him.
* BetterToKillThanFrighten: The Penguin kidnaps the Ice Princess with the help of Catwoman and holds her hostage at the top of a high-rise building, with the intention of framing Batman for the crime to cause him to lose public support. When Batman comes to rescue the Princess, Penguin uses bats to force the Princess over the edge of the building, framing Batman for murder as well as kidnapping. Catwoman is quietly [[EveryoneHasStandards horrified]], saying she thought they were just going to scare the Princess, to which Penguin remarks "She looked pretty scared to me!"
* BigBad: While he faces competition with Selina and Shreck, the Penguin is undeniably the greatest threat in ''Returns'' through his final attempt to blow up the city. Selina is an AntiVillain in comparison to the two of them while Shreck is completely at the Penguin's mercy when their alliance falls apart.
* BigBadEnsemble: With Catwoman and Shreck in ''Returns''. While Shreck was able to manipulate the Penguin for the first half, Penguin managed to turn the tables on him and become the major threat in the final act. As the Penguin was trying to maintain a benevolent image during his run as mayor, Catwoman assists him in sowing chaos in Batman's life from the shadows.
* {{Blackmail}}: Penguin convinces Max to help him with his plans by threatening to reveal that his company produces toxic waste, that he owns half the hazardous buildings in Gotham, and that he had his old business partner murdered ("Remember me? I'm Fred's hand!").
-->'''Penguin''': Remember Max, ''you'' flush it, ''I'' flaunt it!
* BloodySmile: Penguin flashes a bloody smile at a female assistant he finds attractive right after nearly biting off the nose of her boss.
* BreakThemByTalking: Downplayed. During their first meeting, he taunts Batman by suggesting that his habit of wearing a mask is a sign of his cowardice. Later on, however, he comes to believe that [[PretenderDiss Batman wears a mask in order to cope with the fact that he is jealous of Penguin because "I'm a genuine freak!"]] Grudgingly, Batman admits that his nemesis may have a point.
* BurialAtSea: [[spoiler: After dying, his penguin flock guide his body into the sewer's waters.]]
* ChildHater: The Penguin plans to murder all of the first-born children of the rich people of Gotham to avenge his ParentalAbandonment. Like with many people who would harm children, he's got zero qualms about killing and maiming anyone or anything else.
* CloudCuckoolander: Especially when running for Mayor. When asked for a platform, he proposes fighting global warming by introducing "global cooling" to "make the world a giant icebox."
* CompositeCharacter:
** Penguin controls a well-armed gang from the shadows and has sharpened teeth for attacking people when he doesn't have a weapon handy, similar to the Mutant Leader from ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns''.
** His backstory is the same as that of Killer Croc: a sewer-dwelling outcast and ex circus freak born with mutant qualities resembling a particular species of animal.
** Penguin also has clowns and other circus freaks as his henchmen, something that is usually associated with The Joker.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The Joker was a mass murderer who started out as a hitman, who had personal ties to Batman due to having killed his parents. While mass murder is still an element to Penguin's character, he's more of a [[EvilCounterpart dark analogue]] to Batman, and whose plan ends up hinging on becoming [[VillainWithGoodPublicity well-liked by the public]]. The Joker proudly started out as Gotham's top criminal before successfully reworking his image by bribing Gothamites, while the Penguin started out as sympathetic before switching to criminal mastermind.
* CorruptedCharacterCopy: Of Film/EdwardScissorhands, a character from another film by Tim Burton. Both are pale outcasts with abnormal hands who become local celebrities until a mistake gets them run out of town. However, Edward was a genuinely good, if socially challenged, person whose ostracization is caused by a misunderstanding. Penguin, on the other hand, is a corrupt lech who uses his lonely upbringing to fish for sympathy, and his ostracization was caused by his own misdeeds.
** And also of Joseph "The Elephant Man" Merrick. Like Merrick, Oswald is severely deformed and was abandoned to a circus freak-show by his parents, as well as being named after an animal due to his resemblance to said animal. But unlike Joseph, Penguin is completely malicious and vindictive. He even makes a speech that serves as a complete antithesis to Joseph's famous "I am not an animal" quote.
-->'''Penguin:''' My name is not Oswald, it's Penguin! I am not a human being! I am an animal! Cold Blooded!
* CreepyChild: Back in his circus days as "The Aquatic Bird Boy", he was suspected of kids going missing in the circus fairground, and disappeared before he could be questioned.
* CreepyShadowedUndereyes: Undoubtedly the most-unsettling thing about his appearance. Though it's unknown whether he was born with them, or just developed them from years of living underground.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Subverted. He passes himself off as this, but if anything, he's actually several magnitudes ''more'' monstrous than he looks.
* DeadpanSnarker: He definitely has some snarks over the course of the movie, with this line being the best example:
-->''"Right now, my troops are fanning out across town, for your children! Yes, for your first-born sons! The ones you left helpless, at home, so you could dress up like jerks, get juiced, and dance... '''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking badly]]'''"''.
* DepravedDwarf: He's very short - either it's part of his birth defect or his growth was stunted from his unhealthy upbringing - and is one of the slimiest villains Batman has had to deal with.
* DiesWideOpen: The Penguin is shown with his eyes open while sinking down the sewer in a cloud of his own blood.
* DirtyOldMan: Well, [[YoungerThanTheyLook he's only 33 years old but looks middle-aged at the youngest]], but either way he's quite lecherous. At one point, he leers at a female image consultant and utters "I'd like to fill her void" and then mimics a woman telling him "I need you, Oswald," and later puts an election pin on a young woman's jacket to secretly fondle her breast. He's completely against running for mayor, feeling it would distract him from his own plans until Shreck uses two little words: "unlimited poontang." His alliance with Catwoman is also loaded with sexual frustration.
* DisabledInTheAdaptation: While it became DependingOnTheArtist after ''Returns'', before it, the Penguin in the comics and other media was never shown to have syndactyly (fused fingers).
* DisproportionateRetribution: He's prone to lashing out at anyone who so much as mildly slights him with over-the-top and brutal punishment. Examples of this include biting off his particularly annoying aide's nose for passive aggressively mocking him and shooting the Fat Clown for questioning his plan to kill all the first-born children of Gotham.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Done deliberately when the Penguin overrides the Batmobile's control system so he can make Batman look unhinged.
->''"Maybe this is a bad time to mention this, but my license has expired!"''
* EnfanteTerrible: Even at a very young age, he was violent and cruel. It was a big factor in his parents trying to kill him.
* EngineeredPublicConfession: "You gotta admit, I played this stinking city like a harp from Hell!"
* EnemyMine: Penguin teams up with Shreck and later Catwoman in ''Returns''. Neither one is charmed by him and set the Penguin adrift as soon they no longer need him.
* EtTuBrute: By the third act, the Penguin has lost all of his allies, save for his namesake. Shreck dumps him the moment his mayoral campaign goes to pot, his circus troupe hightail it out of the sewers when Batman tracks them down and he drives away Catwoman by trying to kill her.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: As monstrous as he is, Penguin genuinely cares for his penguins. In the end, it's shown the feeling is mutual when they give him a BurialAtSea.
* EvilCounterpart: To Bruce/Batman. He's the evil "orphaned freak" to Bruce's righteous "orphaned freak". They even have similar arsenals, creepy lairs, and a bizarre multi-purpose car or boat!
* EvilIsHammy: Creator/DannyDeVito is clearly having a ball playing the iconic villain. Even when the Penguin's putting on a good guy facade he tends to milk it.
* EvilWearsBlack: The Penguin dresses in a black, grey and white tuxedo. Additionally, he's got CreepyShadowedUndereyes and BadBlackBarf.
* EvilerThanThou: To Max Shreck. Shreck may have killed people himself and plans to rob Gotham of its energy, but it's unlikely he would have stooped to murdering children or blowing the city to kingdom come.
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: Rare non-comedic example. [[spoiler: The Penguin emerges from icy, polluted water. Dramatic music begins to play. He staggers slowly towards Batman, who is preoccupied trying to find Selina in the burning wreckage. The music builds. He reaches for one of his lethal umbrellas. Batman turns around. The music swells...and it's just a trick umbrella. Too exhausted to try for another, Penguin tough-talks Batman before succumbing to his injuries and ingested pollutants.]]
* FalseReassurance: The Penguin does this when he uses a swarm of bats to force the Ice Princess off the edge of a building, resulting in her death:
-->'''Catwoman''': [[EvenEvilHasStandards You said you were just going to scare the Ice Princess]].
-->'''The Penguin''': She looked pretty scared to me!
* TheFarmerAndTheViper: The people of Gotham showing him genuine kindness and even trying to elect him mayor does nothing to make him lose even a modicum of his misanthropy and cruelty; instead, he just gets distracted from his original plan and starts engaging in more strategic criminal activities, before reverting back to his original plan after being exposed.
* FatBastard: As usual with most incarnations of the character, he is overweight and a ruthless sociopath.
* FauxAffablyEvil: When he successfully wins the town's sympathy vote (and starts to win their ''actual'' votes) and presents himself as a miserable victim of fate's hand, who nonetheless is willing to forgive the parents who abandoned him and expresses despair and outrage at the devastation caused by the Red Triangle Gang. [[BlatantLies It's complete bunk]] and in private, he is every bit the petty, vindictive, murderous, depraved, psychotic, misanthropic, and hideous monster he looks like. He only put his EvilPlan to murder all the first-born children of Gotham on ice because Shreck offered him the chance to be a VillainWithGoodPublicity, and when both those schemes are foiled by Batman, he goes so berserk that he tries to destroy the city just to avenge his own crappy life.
* FreudianExcuse: While the Penguin always had a vicious streak - even as a baby - being left to die in the sewers and subsequently growing up in a sideshow is what ultimately resulted in him becoming an unhinged, vengeful monster.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Penguin went from being a rich couple's abandoned baby to a sideshow freak to a gang leader to a local celebrity and mayoral candidate to an out-and-out ''terrorist''.
* FurAndLoathing: The Penguin wears a bulky fur coat. Since his EstablishingCharacterMoment showed him killing a cat, [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals the connections are obvious]].
* {{Gonk}}: He isn't particularly attractive, though he'd tell you otherwise. [[SinisterSchnoz That nose]] in particular doesn't look like anything you'd see in real life.
* TheGrotesque: His plan for revenge on Gotham involves appearing to be merely this.
** Alfred even specifically refers to him as a "ghastly grotesque" at one point.
* HairTriggerTemper: It takes next to no prompting to suffer some violent retribution from the Penguin. Crowning moments include biting a consultant's nose for mocking his appearance, trying to kill Catwoman for rejecting his advances and shooting a clown just for speaking out of line.
* HandshakeOfDoom: The Penguin is able to convince Max Schreck to help "reintroduce" him to the people of Gotham by blackmailing the unscrupulous businessman with evidence of his many, many crimes...including the severed hand of his former partner, Fred Atkins. Shaken, Schreck agrees to his terms, whereupon the Penguin gives him a handshake to seal the deal...with Fred's hand. [[spoiler: Their deal ends with the Penguin setting out to kill all the firstborn children of Gotham, with Schreck being condemned to be executed alongside them.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Penguin appears to have the Mayoral race in the bag until Bruce & Alfred broadcast his previous hateful rants over the loudspeakers. Later, [[spoiler:after his plot to kill all the first-born sons of Gotham is foiled, Penguin straps rockets to his hundreds of penguins in order to destroy the city. Alfred is able to jam the signal used to control them, sending them off to follow a new beacon. When Batman arrives at his underground lair, Penguin wields a sword-umbrella, only for Batman to simply pull out a small remote control with a blinking red button. His eyes shift from the control, to something on the opposite side of the screen. Penguin does likewise, and sees his penguin army. He snaps -- even further than he already had -- and is able to take the controller and press the button. The rockets launch, destroying what remains of the park, but also releasing a swarm of bats from the [[CoolBoat Batskiboat]], which immediately descends upon Penguin. He stumbles backward, through the ceiling glass, and into the icy, polluted water.]]
* HumiliationConga: The final act of the movie basically has one thing after another going wrong for the Penguin. After he failed to kill Batman by sabotaging the Batmobile, the Dark Knight uses an EngineeredPublicConfession to reveal his true face to Gotham, ruining his chances to become mayor and obliterating the VillainWithGoodPublicity image he had worked the entire movie to build. He then tries to take revenge by kidnapping and killing all the children of Gotham's elite, only for Batman to stop his gang, save the children before he can even get his hands on them, and taunt him with a letter just to rub salt on the wound. Infuriated, the Penguin attempts to destroy Gotham using his pet penguins as a personal army equipped with rockets, but Batman is able to steal control of the army from him and use them to destroy most of his hideout. His gang [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandons him]], and his final fight ends up completely one-sided, with Batman throwing him in the chemical wastes of his lair using [[{{Irony}} the very same trick he used to kill the Ice Princess]]. Exhausted, he makes one final attempt to kill his opponent from behind, only to accidentally pick the ''one'' umbrella in his collection that was harmless, before dying from his wounds.
* IncomingHam: '''"YOU DIDN'T INVITE ME, [[{{Pun}} SO I CRASHED]]! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"'''
* InNameOnly: The only things this version of the Penguin shares with his comics counterpart are his attire, physical appearance (excluding the deformities), umbrella weaponry and love for birds. Other than that, he may as well be a completely different character.
* {{Irony}}: Penguins are known for being cute and sociable creatures. Oswald is hideous and will attack friend and foe alike at the drop of a hat.
* JabbaTableManners: Clearly displays these while gobbling down a raw fish.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:The Penguin kills the Ice Princess by terrorizing her with a swarm of bats, causing her to lose her balance. Batman later unleashes a swarm of bats on the Penguin that chase him through a skylight window. The injuries sustained by the fall later prove fatal.]]
* KickTheDog:
** When the Fat Clown objects to his plan to kill Gotham's firstborn children (which is vile as hell in itself), Penguin just takes out a revolver and shoots him.
--->'''Fat Clown:''' Killing sleeping children? Isn't that a little... err...?
--->'''Penguin:''' ''(BANG!)'' No, it's a lot!
** The Penguin also tries to run down a little old lady while going on a rampage with the remotely-hijacked Batmobile. Batman takes back control just in time to keep her from being splatted.
* LackOfEmpathy: Best shown when Max persuades Penguin to take him instead of his son, Chip.
-->'''Max Shreck:''' If you have an iota of human feeling left, take me instead.
-->'''Penguin:''' I don't, so no.
* LargeHam: Bombastic doesn't even begin to describe him. You can tell Creator/DannyDevito did not pull ANY punches.
* LastBreathBullet: Subverted. With Batman distracted with the [[spoiler:death of Max Shreck and the disappearance of Catwoman]], the [[spoiler:mortally-wounded]] Penguin rises from the sewer water and [[spoiler:tries to shoot Batman with one of his umbrellas.]] Fortunately, he "picked the cute one," [[spoiler:and dies.]]
--> '''Penguin:''' The heat's getting to me... I'll murder you momentarily. But first, I need a cool drink... of ice... water...
* LaughablyEvil: His disgusting behavior, dirty comments towards all the women he sees and crazy personality can be pretty amusing to watch. Moreso if you're accustomed to seeing Danny Devito as [[Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia Frank Reynolds]].
* LooksLikeOrlok: Moreso than he does a penguin, anyway; he's got the ashen pallor, sunken eyes, SinisterSchnoz, bald head, and all-black ensemble down pat, though he's considerably shorter and fatter than the trope namer.
* LoopholeAbuse: When Catwoman agrees to help the Penguin frame Batman by kidnapping the Ice Princess, she takes at face value his promise that he is going to scare the girl. Little does she suspect that he intends to scare her ''to death!''
* MadmanInTheAttic: His earliest life while his parents were still attempting to raise him; they kept him locked up in a cage hidden away from the public.
* MindControlDevice: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Penguin's spiral-patterned umbrella:
-->'''Maximillian 'Max' Shreck:''' What is that, supposed to hypnotize me?\\
'''The Penguin:''' No, just give you a splitting headache.
* MisanthropeSupreme: It's made more than obvious that Penguin has a severe hatred for all of humankind, going as far as to kill his own henchmen whenever they annoy him or defy him in the slightest, and attempting to murder every newborn in Gotham.
* MisplacedRetribution: His idea of getting back at his parents for abandoning them is by murdering all of Gotham's children, despite the fact they had nothing to do with what happened to him. (see Vengeance Feels Empty)
* MosesArchetype: A villainous example of the trope; his parents [[MosesInTheBulrushes abandoned him in the sewers when he was just a baby]], and he was soon adopted by a traveling circus and put to work in their freak show. He soon returns home and is able to gain a following that puts him on even footing with a politcal leader. Then he attempts to unleash several atrocities on the city, with the most prominent one being killing the first-born sons.
* MosesInTheBulrushes: Oswald Cobblepot's parents, horrified by his appearance and cruelty, [[ParentalAbandonment put him into a basket and drop him into a creek]]. He is then carried away by murky waters into the sewers and adopted by...penguins.
* MurderByRemoteControlVehicle: The Penguin installs a remote control device in the Batmobile and uses it to try and kill Batman and some Gothamites while Batman is driving.
* NasalTrauma: The Penguin inflicts this on a member of his campaign staff, taking a massive bite out of his nose and sending blood gushing all over the place.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: This iteration of Penguin has some similarities with real-life American freak show performer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_Stiles Grady Stiles]]. Not just only was this version of the Penguin once involved as circus sideshow performer, they also even had the same condition of Ectrodactyly and also had short tempers of which lead both of these figures to murder. In a strange coincidence, Stiles was killed the same year as Batman Returns' release.
* NotGoodWithRejection: He does not take rejection well, as Catwoman and the citizens of Gotham learn. No doubt influenced from being abandoned by his parents as a baby.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: To Batman.
-->''"You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak, and you have to wear a mask!"''
* OffingTheAnnoyance: He shoots a clown for questioning his plan for revenge.
* ObviouslyEvil: He's very sinister looking, like all the other Batman villains. The general public are convinced otherwise, as he manufactures a heroic first impression while playing up his vulnerable side.
* PapaWolf: The Penguin goes ballistic after Batman has Alfred jam the frequency over which he is sending neurological commands to his pet penguins. ("MY BABIIIIES!")
* ParasolOfPain: He wouldn't be the Penguin without them. He has umbrellas that double as a machine gun, sword, flamethrower, helicopter, a cute one to lure children, and one with a black and white spiral that he starts spinning at Shreck [[EvilIsPetty to give him a splitting headache]].
* ParentalAbandonment: His parents dumped him in a sewer because he was deformed and violent.
* PetTheDog: The only times we see any form of kindness from him is when he's tending to his penguins. Even then he was willing to march them to their deaths.
* {{Phlegmings}}: The Penguin has a perpetual trickle of an oil-like bile running down his chin.
* PracticallyJoker: As part of his CompositeCharacter status, he takes on several traits that come more from the Joker than the Penguin of the comics. His gang has a CircusOfFear and MonsterClown motif. He has physical deformities including pale skin (granted many Bat-rogues are at least partially deformed). He's a LaughablyEvil FauxAffablyEvil AxCrazy LargeHam with a hefty dose of PsychopathicManchild. He concocts a plan, mostly ForTheEvulz, so monstrous that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even some of his henchmen are disturbed by it]]. He has a MysteriousPast where it's unclear what exactly happened between his parents abandoning him and where he is today, with only a few hints given about it. Finally, he sees Batman and himself as two sides of the same coin, both "freaks", with the only difference being that Batman has to wear a mask, while Penguin's freakishness is authentic.
* PreemptiveDeclaration: The Penguin has one where he responds to a crack from one of his image consultants which has everyone laughing (including Penguin, who laughs right along with them).
-->'''Penguin:''' Still, could be worse! My nose could be gushing blood!\\
[''Everyone laughs except Josh, who looks mystified'']\\
'''Josh:''' Your nose could be...what do you mean by that -- !\\
[''The Penguin proceeds to viciously bite Josh's nose and draw blood.'']
* PsychopathicManchild: He spends a good deal of screentime wearing only a onesie-like garment stained with his own spittle and slobber. Furthermore, he rides around in a giant toy rubber-duck vehicle and amuses himself with an umbrella (among his collection of genuinely deadly ones) hung with little plastic animals reminiscent of a mobile found in a baby's crib. ("Shit! Picked the cute one!") Actually, he is more of a Type C, a quite sane and intelligent (though, again, extremely evil) man who simply has not been able to grow up because of his DaddyIssues.
* [[RaisedByWolves Raised By Penguins]]: With a little educational help from a gang of clowns.
* RedRightHand: Both his hands are noticeably deformed, having a thumb and an index finger each, but the remaining three fused together in a manner that resembles the flippers of a penguin.
* ResignedToTheCall: The Penguin isn't very keen on becoming Mayor of Gotham City, and only agrees to it so Shreck will help him with his own goals. It's later subverted when the Penguin decides that he could actually enjoy being Mayor, along with all the trappings that would come with it. As well as reclaiming his birthright his parents have denied him.
* RousingSpeech: To his penguins.
-->''"My dear penguins, we stand on a great threshold. It's okay to be scared, many of you won't be coming back. Thanks to Batman, the time has come to punish all God's children! First, second, third and fourth-born! Why be biased? Male and female! Hell, the sexes are equal with their erogenous zones BLOWN SKY HIGH! FORWARD MARCH! THE LIBERATION OF GOTHAM HAS BEGUN!"''
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Penguin's main motive. He was denied a normal childhood, so he murders other children out of spite. Batman kills his henchmen, so he frames him for killing innocents. The civilians turn on him once it becomes clear he's not so innocent, so the Penguin attempts a killing spree.
* RunningBothSides: The Penguin has his gang (to which he appears to have no connection whatsoever in the public's mind) commit random acts of violence throughout Gotham City in order to make the city's current mayor look weak, while simultaneously running for mayor himself and claiming he's the only one who can restore order (and [[MetaphoricallyTrue technically]], he's telling the truth!). One of his allies even refers to "the Gulf of Tonkin" and "the Reichstag fire", both real-life events that might suggest to naïve viewers that both were [[FalseFlagOperation False Flag Operations]], when in fact they genuinely happened and were only exploited afterward.
* SameCharacterButDifferent: This Penguin does resemble his comics counterpart, dresses in very similar clothes and wields umbrella guns, however this version of the character is different in every other way. For starters, the comics version wasn't deformed or abandoned in the sewers by his parents, and he wasn't as vulgar or psychotic as this version, nor was he willing to murder all the children in Gotham.
* SecretIdentityIdentity: Even after he finds his birth family's grave and publicly declares himself to be Oswald Cobblepot, it's heavily implied to be an act on the Penguin's part to advance his agenda of murdering the firstborns. Once he's outed as a corrupt politician who hates the people of Gotham, Oswald rejects his birth name and completely embraces the name Penguin, a cold-blooded freak and a monster.
* SerialEscalation: Once The Penguin is disgraced from his mayoral bid, he very quickly degenerates in his desire for revenge. Initially, he wants to take out all the first-born sons of Gotham City. When that is thwarted by Batman, he sends an army of penguins with guided missiles to try to kill them all (per RousingSpeech).
* TheSociopath: If the fact that he murders people without the slightest bit of provocation, and plans to murder small children, wasn't clear enough to make him a textbook example of this, he outright says to Max that he does not have single iota of human feeling left in him.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the children's adaptation, "The Penguin's Plot", The Penguin survived the events of the film; the book ends with him being run off the stage by the Gotham citizens after his EngineeredPublicConfession.
* StrawNihilist: Though not outright stated, Penguin doesn't seem to believe that life has any purpose, which he makes very clear by living a whole life of vengeance and misanthropy, hurting and killing literally anyone who crosses him.
* TemptingFate: The Penguin issues a challenge to Batman upon their first face to face meeting, asking if he actually thinks he can win; Batman coolly retorts that ''things change''. Sure enough, Batman is eventually the victor in the struggle between the two for Gotham.
* ThatManIsDead: After he was exposed as a fraud by Batman, The Penguin renounces his birthname and his humanity upon arriving back at the Arcric World, as seen in the above quote.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: The only food he's ever seen eating is raw fish, fitting with him being a self-proclaimed animal.
* TragicVillain: PlayedWith. Being abandoned by his parents and forced to live in the sewers has twisted Penguin psychologically, turning him into the vengeful, bloodthirsty madman he is today. However, in the first act of the movie, we can see Oswald even as a little boy being violent when he killed the family cat for no reason. This is how his parents realized he was already born a monster, not because of his body deformities but because he's evil at heart, which in turn convinces his parents to dispose of him. In the present, he puts on the act that he's an unfortunate guy who just wants a place in the society again after being rejected by his parents because of said body deformities, while trying to hide his own sociopathic and murderous tendencies for which his parents ''really'' rejected him. Penguin's evil is born both from his experiences and just who he is at heart.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: The Cobblepots hardly like having a deformed son in the first place, but it's not until Oswald drags the family cat into his "crib" and implicitly kills it with his bare hands -- ''at the age of somewhere between one and three years old'' -- that they throw him into the river to drown and/or freeze.
* UnholyMatrimony: Zig-zagged. The Penguin tries to make this happen by making more than one advance towards Catwoman, but she has no physical interest in him whatsoever. When she turns down his marriage proposal, he angrily ends the partnership and tries to kill her.
* UninvitedToTheParty: The Penguin crashes the Max-squerade Ball late in the film in spectacular fashion, not having been invited due to being [[EngineeredPublicConfession exposed for the villain that he was]]. He proceeds to try to take Chip Shreck, Max Shreck's son, only for [[TakeMeInstead Max to volunteer in Chip's place]].
* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: In the Craig Shaw Gardner novelization, it's heavily implied that he was the one who put his AbusiveParents in those graves. In which case – it clearly didn't make him feel any better in the long run, given that he's still vengeful enough to be a WouldHurtAChild OmnicidalManiac at the end.
* VillainousBreakdown: The Penguin has a multi-tier one after the fallout of his campaign. First, he renounces his humanity and tries to kill all of Gotham's first-born sons. After Batman sends him a letter letting him know the children have been saved, he freaks out again and decides to nuke Gotham Square with rocket-launching penguins. When Batman and Alfred jam the signal and his goons abandon him, he freaks out ''again'' and goes out to face Batman in the Duckmobile. He then uses the penguins to bomb his ''own'' base in the slim hope he'll [[TakingYouWithMe kill Batman along with himself]].
* VillainTeamUp: With Max Shreck and later Catwoman, both of whom ultimately turn their backs on him through his own hubris.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: During his mayoral bid, although he is soon brought down by an EngineeredPublicConfession.
* WhereDoesHeGetAllThoseWonderfulToys: Y'know, wait, where ''does'' Penguin get the thousand-plus penguin-scale explosive rockets ''and penguin mind control gear'' for his final assault on Gotham, or all the electronics for hijacking the Batmobile, for that matter?
* WhileRomeBurns: As his Red Triangle Gang riots in the streets mere blocks away, Gotham City mayoral candidate Oswald Cobblepot (a.k.a. the Penguin) goes for a stroll in Gotham Plaza. Batman eventually makes his way to the plaza and demands to know what Oswald is up to. "Touring the riot scene. Gravely assessing the devastation," Oswald replies with [[SarcasmMode mock seriousness]].
* WickedPretentious: The Penguin's typical depiction as a WickedCultured ManOfWealthAndTaste was [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] in ''Film/BatmanReturns'', where he's revealed to be the grotesquely deformed member of a wealthy family who dumped him in the river and left him for dead when he was still a baby. Although obviously intelligent and certainly no stranger to fine clothes, this version of the Penguin is quite vulgar, with thuggish manners and distasteful sexual appetites.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Really, you can't blame him for becoming the way he is today. He was disfigured since birth, and his aristocratic parents tried to drown him in the sewers (although to be fair to them, he did kill the family's cat before they tried to drown him). He was then found by a traveling circus and raised in the freak show. While the public views him with sympathy, he has become a warped sociopath, plotting to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge kill all the first-born sons of Gotham City]]. When Batman foils him, he straps rockets to his hundreds (thousands?) of pet penguins, intending to use them in a suicide bombing to kill all of Gotham which, as the only setting we see, is extremely [[OmnicidalManiac Omnicidal]] in context. And yet, you still can't help but [[AlasPoorVillain pity him at his death]].
* WouldHitAGirl: Clocks the Ice Princess with a stolen batarang so hard it draws blood.
** Later tries to murder Catwoman by strangulation/fatal fall after she rejects his advances.
* WouldHurtAChild: Has no problem kidnapping children to further his agenda, and wants to throw the children of Gotham's elite into a "deep dark watery grave." The files that Bruce digs up on imply that he's been a serial child murderer for ''years.''
* YoungerThanTheyLook: If the prologue is to be believed, he is 33 years old.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catwoman]]
!![[Characters/{{CatwomanSelinaKyle}} Selina Kyle/Catwoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_00003_copie_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I am Catwoman. Hear me roar!"'']]
!!! '''Played by''': Creator/MichellePfeiffer
!!! '''Voiced by''': Reiko Tajima (Japanese), Emmanuelle Bondeville (European French), Creator/EliseBertrand (Canadian French), Mônica Rossi (Brazilian Portuguese)
!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Film/BatmanReturns'' | ''Film/Catwoman2004'' (photograph only) | ''Comicbook/Batman89''
->''"I don't know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier."''
Max Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle finds out her boss' plans to take energy from Gotham citizens and is pushed out a window in an attempt to kill her. She survives, but suffers a psychotic breakdown that results in her becoming Catwoman.
----
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: In the comics, the Penguin is often portrayed as being well-spoken, with gentleman-like manners. This version of the Penguin on the other hand is crude, thuggish, lecherous, unfriendly and lacking any manners.
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange: In the comics, Penguin has always lived a privileged life-style ever since he was born. Here, however, he has been forced to live in poverty down in the sewers after being abandoned by his parents.
* AdaptationalBadass: In the comics, Penguin has often been portrayed as something of a joke villain, usually being a caricature of upper-class, privileged men in tuxedos, and never posing much of a threat towards Batman. In ''Batman Returns'' however, The Penguin is downright menacing compared to his comic book counterpart and a lot easier to take seriously.
** He got ahold of blueprints to the Batmobile and hijacked control of it, very nearly putting Batman in a scenario where he would have killed an innocent old woman.
** After Batman foils his plan to murder Gotham's first-born sons, Penguin arms his birds with rockets and has them march on Gotham, planning a full-scale genocide.
* AdaptationalSympathy: The Penguin gets this treatment by having been made a TragicVillain. Unlike the "Gentleman of Crime" from the 60s TV series, this Penguin is callously abandoned by his parents for being a deformed freak and raised by circus freaks living in the sewer. It's this that leads him to resurface years later and pull a VillainWithGoodPublicity stunt to become mayor and enact his master plan.
* AdaptationalUgliness: You'd better believe it. Despite Cobblepot's pudgy body, short stature and beak-like nose in the comics, he's still relatively normal-looking. This version of Penguin is a pale, hunched, disfigured mutant with stringy hair and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His monstrous appearance is a vital part of his character and the film as a whole.
* AdaptationalVillainy: While the comics Penguin was a crime boss, he was also an AffablyEvil WickedCultured gentleman of crime and was genuinely deemed sane. Here, he's a deformed, psychotic, AxCrazy, sadistic, sexually-repressed child killer and would-be mass murderer, setting the stage for many future interpretations of the character to follow, including ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', and ''Series/{{Gotham}}'' (and sometimes they go even further, as the ''Gotham'' Penguin once [[ImAHumanitarian ate his own stepsiblings]] and [[FamilialCannibalismSurprise fed them to his stepmother]] after they killed his father[[note]]by accident, since they were trying to poison Oswald[[/note]]).
* AlasPoorVillain: After being knocked through a skylight window and nearly drowning, then weakly emerging from the Arctic World pool burned, bleeding and vomiting up toxic waste, he dies completely unrepentant, still raving about how he intends to take Batman to Hell with him. But through it all, we can't ever forget that this is someone who was forced to grow up in a cold and lonely sewer ever since he was a baby, and for whom Bruce Wayne (who, as Batman, is largely responsible for his death) once expressed sympathy as a fellow orphan. The moving "funeral" that a group of emperor penguins hold for the villain helps to soften the blow, too.
* AlternateSelf: Has one on [[Series/Batwoman2019 Earth-Prime]], [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]], and [[Film/TheBatman2022 an as-yet-undesignated Earth]].
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Penguin was suspected of being this by a few particularly touchy Jewish groups, owing to his short stature, hooked nose, [[MosesInTheBulrushes Moses-like upbringing]] and fondness for fish. And according to her tombstone, his mother's name was "Esther" (an exiled Hebrew queen from the [[Literature/BookOfEsther Old Testament]]). Paradoxically, however, the tombstone was also topped by a huge Christian cross which gets a long, lingering closeup as part of the movie's rather unsettling biblical imagery. Though they could be messianic Jews.
* AndYourLittleDogToo: After Shreck publicly washes his hands of the Penguin, the latter declares that he'll murder Chip Shreck, even though Chip had done nothing wrong by the Penguin.
* AnimalMotifs: He's short and stout - no doubt from trying to adapt to cold weather while living in a sewer - and he loves fish.
* AntiVillain: A major type II ([[TragicVillain Woobie Variant]]). Penguin is far from a good person, however; at the end of it all, he is a very broken, damaged individual who wants vengeance against society for rejecting him and being abandoned in the sewers by his parents, which is ultimately what made him into who he is today.
* AxCrazy: Big Time... He'll murder people for even remotely disagreeing with him (the fat clown learnt that the hard way), bit a consultant over an ill-advised jab about his appearance and is vengeful and vindictive to the point of wanting to murder babies. When that fails, he opts to blow up all of Gotham City.
* BadassBookworm: In spite of his upbringing, Penguin shows himself to be quite educated. He keeps track of election dates, holds onto junk that could be used for blackmail and is studious enough to keep a record of all the firstborn sons of Gotham.
* BadBlackBarf: The Penguin discharges greenish-black gooey bile from his mouth after he gets attacked by bats and falls in the sewer water. Although he spits up bile throughout the movie considering his health problems and his growing up in a sewer full of radioactive chemical waste, it's more prominent here.
* BadBoss: He's not above executing his subordinates if they question him. Little wonder that they all abandoned him once they realized Batman had pinpointed their hideout.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Zigzagged. On one hand, he killed the family cat [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior when he was just a baby]]; which is likely what might have been part of what convinced his parents to abandon him. On the other hand, however, he is very kind towards Penguins and other types of birds, since the former adopted him.
* BallroomBlitz: "You didn't invite me, so I [[LiteralMinded crashed!]]"
* BatScare:
** During Batman's attempted rescue of the Ice Princess, The Penguin releases a swarm of bats from his umbrella at her, causing her to fall off a building and to her death; after her body slams on the button, the Christmas tree lights up and unleashes a bigger bat swarm on the Gotham City citizens.
-->''Rats with wings, do your thing!''
** Batman later uses the same trick against The Penguin in their final fight at Arctic World; The Penguin eventually falls into the toxic pool.
* BecomingTheMask: The Penguin realizes that Shreck is trying to exploit him to get a Mayor who will approve Shreck's new power plant. However, the Penguin quickly warms to the idea on his own and decides that he ''likes'' the idea of becoming Mayor because, despite Max's obvious personal reasons, he does bring a lot of valid points that interest Oswald, particularly "unlimited poontang." Considering he's a guy who's spent his life isolated, Penguin is quite the repressed pervert.
* BerserkButton: Like any megalomaniac criminal mastermind, he doesn't respond well when his plans go awry. But what ''really'' seems to set Penguin off is rejection, because of his background. He tries to kill Catwoman when she rebuffs his advances, he opens fire on a crowd of Gothamites when they turn on him after his EngineeredPublicConfession, he tries to murder Max Shreck for ditching him after the mayoral bid failed, and it's implied (at least in the novel) that he [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]] for originally abandoning him.
* BetterToKillThanFrighten: The Penguin kidnaps the Ice Princess with the help of Catwoman and holds her hostage at the top of a high-rise building, with the intention of framing Batman for the crime to cause him to lose public support. When Batman comes to rescue the Princess, Penguin uses bats to force the Princess over the edge of the building, framing Batman for murder as well as kidnapping. Catwoman is quietly [[EveryoneHasStandards horrified]], saying she thought they were just going to scare the Princess, to which Penguin remarks "She looked pretty scared to me!"
* BigBad: While he faces competition with Selina and Shreck, the Penguin is undeniably the greatest threat in ''Returns'' through his final attempt to blow up the city. Selina is an AntiVillain in comparison to the two of them while Shreck is completely at the Penguin's mercy when their alliance falls apart.
* BigBadEnsemble: With Catwoman and Shreck in ''Returns''. While Shreck was able to manipulate the Penguin for the first half, Penguin managed to turn the tables on him and become the major threat in the final act. As the Penguin was trying to maintain a benevolent image during his run as mayor, Catwoman assists him in sowing chaos in Batman's life from the shadows.
* {{Blackmail}}: Penguin convinces Max to help him with his plans by threatening to reveal that his company produces toxic waste, that he owns half the hazardous buildings in Gotham, and that he had his old business partner murdered ("Remember me? I'm Fred's hand!").
-->'''Penguin''': Remember Max, ''you'' flush it, ''I'' flaunt it!
* BloodySmile: Penguin flashes a bloody smile at a female assistant he finds attractive right after nearly biting off the nose of her boss.
* BreakThemByTalking: Downplayed. During their first meeting, he taunts Batman by suggesting that his habit of wearing a mask is a sign of his cowardice. Later on, however, he comes to believe that [[PretenderDiss Batman wears a mask in order to cope with the fact that he is jealous of Penguin because "I'm a genuine freak!"]] Grudgingly, Batman admits that his nemesis may have a point.
* BurialAtSea: [[spoiler: After dying, his penguin flock guide his body into the sewer's waters.]]
* ChildHater: The Penguin plans to murder all of the first-born children of the rich people of Gotham to avenge his ParentalAbandonment. Like with many people who would harm children, he's got zero qualms about killing and maiming anyone or anything else.
* CloudCuckoolander: Especially when running for Mayor. When asked for a platform, he proposes fighting global warming by introducing "global cooling" to "make the world a giant icebox."
* CompositeCharacter:
** Penguin controls a well-armed gang from the shadows and has sharpened teeth for attacking people when he doesn't have a weapon handy, similar to the Mutant Leader from ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns''.
** His backstory is the same as that of Killer Croc: a sewer-dwelling outcast and ex circus freak born with mutant qualities resembling a particular species of animal.
** Penguin also has clowns and other circus freaks as his henchmen, something that is usually associated with The Joker.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The Joker was a mass murderer who started out as a hitman, who had personal ties to Batman due to having killed his parents. While mass murder is still an element to Penguin's character, he's more of a [[EvilCounterpart dark analogue]] to Batman, and whose plan ends up hinging on becoming [[VillainWithGoodPublicity well-liked by the public]]. The Joker proudly started out as Gotham's top criminal before successfully reworking his image by bribing Gothamites, while the Penguin started out as sympathetic before switching to criminal mastermind.
* CorruptedCharacterCopy: Of Film/EdwardScissorhands, a character from another film by Tim Burton. Both are pale outcasts with abnormal hands who become local celebrities until a mistake gets them run out of town. However, Edward was a genuinely good, if socially challenged, person whose ostracization is caused by a misunderstanding. Penguin, on the other hand, is a corrupt lech who uses his lonely upbringing to fish for sympathy, and his ostracization was caused by his own misdeeds.
** And also of Joseph "The Elephant Man" Merrick. Like Merrick, Oswald is severely deformed and was abandoned to a circus freak-show by his parents, as well as being named after an animal due to his resemblance to said animal. But unlike Joseph, Penguin is completely malicious and vindictive. He even makes a speech that serves as a complete antithesis to Joseph's famous "I am not an animal" quote.
-->'''Penguin:''' My name is not Oswald, it's Penguin! I am not a human being! I am an animal! Cold Blooded!
* CreepyChild: Back in his circus days as "The Aquatic Bird Boy", he was suspected of kids going missing in the circus fairground, and disappeared before he could be questioned.
* CreepyShadowedUndereyes: Undoubtedly the most-unsettling thing about his appearance. Though it's unknown whether he was born with them, or just developed them from years of living underground.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Subverted. He passes himself off as this, but if anything, he's actually several magnitudes ''more'' monstrous than he looks.
* DeadpanSnarker: He definitely has some snarks over the course of the movie, with this line being the best example:
-->''"Right now, my troops are fanning out across town, for your children! Yes, for your first-born sons! The ones you left helpless, at home, so you could dress up like jerks, get juiced, and dance... '''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking badly]]'''"''.
* DepravedDwarf: He's very short - either it's part of his birth defect or his growth was stunted from his unhealthy upbringing - and is one of the slimiest villains Batman has had to deal with.
* DiesWideOpen: The Penguin is shown with his eyes open while sinking down the sewer in a cloud of his own blood.
* DirtyOldMan: Well, [[YoungerThanTheyLook he's only 33 years old but looks middle-aged at the youngest]], but either way he's quite lecherous. At one point, he leers at a female image consultant and utters "I'd like to fill her void" and then mimics a woman telling him "I need you, Oswald," and later puts an election pin on a young woman's jacket to secretly fondle her breast. He's completely against running for mayor, feeling it would distract him from his own plans until Shreck uses two little words: "unlimited poontang." His alliance with Catwoman is also loaded with sexual frustration.
* DisabledInTheAdaptation: While it became DependingOnTheArtist after ''Returns'', before it, the Penguin in the comics and other media was never shown to have syndactyly (fused fingers).
* DisproportionateRetribution: He's prone to lashing out at anyone who so much as mildly slights him with over-the-top and brutal punishment. Examples of this include biting off his particularly annoying aide's nose for passive aggressively mocking him and shooting the Fat Clown for questioning his plan to kill all the first-born children of Gotham.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Done deliberately when the Penguin overrides the Batmobile's control system so he can make Batman look unhinged.
->''"Maybe this is a bad time to mention this, but my license has expired!"''
* EnfanteTerrible: Even at a very young age, he was violent and cruel. It was a big factor in his parents trying to kill him.
* EngineeredPublicConfession: "You gotta admit, I played this stinking city like a harp from Hell!"
* EnemyMine: Penguin teams up with Shreck and later Catwoman in ''Returns''. Neither one is charmed by him and set the Penguin adrift as soon they no longer need him.
* EtTuBrute: By the third act, the Penguin has lost all of his allies, save for his namesake. Shreck dumps him the moment his mayoral campaign goes to pot, his circus troupe hightail it out of the sewers when Batman tracks them down and he drives away Catwoman by trying to kill her.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: As monstrous as he is, Penguin genuinely cares for his penguins. In the end, it's shown the feeling is mutual when they give him a BurialAtSea.
* EvilCounterpart: To Bruce/Batman. He's the evil "orphaned freak" to Bruce's righteous "orphaned freak". They even have similar arsenals, creepy lairs, and a bizarre multi-purpose car or boat!
* EvilIsHammy: Creator/DannyDeVito is clearly having a ball playing the iconic villain. Even when the Penguin's putting on a good guy facade he tends to milk it.
* EvilWearsBlack: The Penguin dresses in a black, grey and white tuxedo. Additionally, he's got CreepyShadowedUndereyes and BadBlackBarf.
* EvilerThanThou: To Max Shreck. Shreck may have killed people himself and plans to rob Gotham of its energy, but it's unlikely he would have stooped to murdering children or blowing the city to kingdom come.
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: Rare non-comedic example. [[spoiler: The Penguin emerges from icy, polluted water. Dramatic music begins to play. He staggers slowly towards Batman, who is preoccupied trying to find Selina in the burning wreckage. The music builds. He reaches for one of his lethal umbrellas. Batman turns around. The music swells...and it's just a trick umbrella. Too exhausted to try for another, Penguin tough-talks Batman before succumbing to his injuries and ingested pollutants.]]
* FalseReassurance: The Penguin does this when he uses a swarm of bats to force the Ice Princess off the edge of a building, resulting in her death:
-->'''Catwoman''': [[EvenEvilHasStandards You said you were just going to scare the Ice Princess]].
-->'''The Penguin''': She looked pretty scared to me!
* TheFarmerAndTheViper: The people of Gotham showing him genuine kindness and even trying to elect him mayor does nothing to make him lose even a modicum of his misanthropy and cruelty; instead, he just gets distracted from his original plan and starts engaging in more strategic criminal activities, before reverting back to his original plan after being exposed.
* FatBastard: As usual with most incarnations of the character, he is overweight and a ruthless sociopath.
* FauxAffablyEvil: When he successfully wins the town's sympathy vote (and starts to win their ''actual'' votes) and presents himself as a miserable victim of fate's hand, who nonetheless is willing to forgive the parents who abandoned him and expresses despair and outrage at the devastation caused by the Red Triangle Gang. [[BlatantLies It's complete bunk]] and in private, he is every bit the petty, vindictive, murderous, depraved, psychotic, misanthropic, and hideous monster he looks like. He only put his EvilPlan to murder all the first-born children of Gotham on ice because Shreck offered him the chance to be a VillainWithGoodPublicity, and when both those schemes are foiled by Batman, he goes so berserk that he tries to destroy the city just to avenge his own crappy life.
* FreudianExcuse: While the Penguin always had a vicious streak - even as a baby - being left to die in the sewers and subsequently growing up in a sideshow is what ultimately resulted in him becoming an unhinged, vengeful monster.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Penguin went from being a rich couple's abandoned baby to a sideshow freak to a gang leader to a local celebrity and mayoral candidate to an out-and-out ''terrorist''.
* FurAndLoathing: The Penguin wears a bulky fur coat. Since his EstablishingCharacterMoment showed him killing a cat, [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals the connections are obvious]].
* {{Gonk}}: He isn't particularly attractive, though he'd tell you otherwise. [[SinisterSchnoz That nose]] in particular doesn't look like anything you'd see in real life.
* TheGrotesque: His plan for revenge on Gotham involves appearing to be merely this.
** Alfred even specifically refers to him as a "ghastly grotesque" at one point.
* HairTriggerTemper: It takes next to no prompting to suffer some violent retribution from the Penguin. Crowning moments include biting a consultant's nose for mocking his appearance, trying to kill Catwoman for rejecting his advances and shooting a clown just for speaking out of line.
* HandshakeOfDoom: The Penguin is able to convince Max Schreck to help "reintroduce" him to the people of Gotham by blackmailing the unscrupulous businessman with evidence of his many, many crimes...including the severed hand of his former partner, Fred Atkins. Shaken, Schreck agrees to his terms, whereupon the Penguin gives him a handshake to seal the deal...with Fred's hand. [[spoiler: Their deal ends with the Penguin setting out to kill all the firstborn children of Gotham, with Schreck being condemned to be executed alongside them.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Penguin appears to have the Mayoral race in the bag until Bruce & Alfred broadcast his previous hateful rants over the loudspeakers. Later, [[spoiler:after his plot to kill all the first-born sons of Gotham is foiled, Penguin straps rockets to his hundreds of penguins in order to destroy the city. Alfred is able to jam the signal used to control them, sending them off to follow a new beacon. When Batman arrives at his underground lair, Penguin wields a sword-umbrella, only for Batman to simply pull out a small remote control with a blinking red button. His eyes shift from the control, to something on the opposite side of the screen. Penguin does likewise, and sees his penguin army. He snaps -- even further than he already had -- and is able to take the controller and press the button. The rockets launch, destroying what remains of the park, but also releasing a swarm of bats from the [[CoolBoat Batskiboat]], which immediately descends upon Penguin. He stumbles backward, through the ceiling glass, and into the icy, polluted water.]]
* HumiliationConga: The final act of the movie basically has one thing after another going wrong for the Penguin. After he failed to kill Batman by sabotaging the Batmobile, the Dark Knight uses an EngineeredPublicConfession to reveal his true face to Gotham, ruining his chances to become mayor and obliterating the VillainWithGoodPublicity image he had worked the entire movie to build. He then tries to take revenge by kidnapping and killing all the children of Gotham's elite, only for Batman to stop his gang, save the children before he can even get his hands on them, and taunt him with a letter just to rub salt on the wound. Infuriated, the Penguin attempts to destroy Gotham using his pet penguins as a personal army equipped with rockets, but Batman is able to steal control of the army from him and use them to destroy most of his hideout. His gang [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandons him]], and his final fight ends up completely one-sided, with Batman throwing him in the chemical wastes of his lair using [[{{Irony}} the very same trick he used to kill the Ice Princess]]. Exhausted, he makes one final attempt to kill his opponent from behind, only to accidentally pick the ''one'' umbrella in his collection that was harmless, before dying from his wounds.
* IncomingHam: '''"YOU DIDN'T INVITE ME, [[{{Pun}} SO I CRASHED]]! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"'''
* InNameOnly: The only things this version of the Penguin shares with his comics counterpart are his attire, physical appearance (excluding the deformities), umbrella weaponry and love for birds. Other than that, he may as well be a completely different character.
* {{Irony}}: Penguins are known for being cute and sociable creatures. Oswald is hideous and will attack friend and foe alike at the drop of a hat.
* JabbaTableManners: Clearly displays these while gobbling down a raw fish.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:The Penguin kills the Ice Princess by terrorizing her with a swarm of bats, causing her to lose her balance. Batman later unleashes a swarm of bats on the Penguin that chase him through a skylight window. The injuries sustained by the fall later prove fatal.]]
* KickTheDog:
** When the Fat Clown objects to his plan to kill Gotham's firstborn children (which is vile as hell in itself), Penguin just takes out a revolver and shoots him.
--->'''Fat Clown:''' Killing sleeping children? Isn't that a little... err...?
--->'''Penguin:''' ''(BANG!)'' No, it's a lot!
** The Penguin also tries to run down a little old lady while going on a rampage with the remotely-hijacked Batmobile. Batman takes back control just in time to keep her from being splatted.
* LackOfEmpathy: Best shown when Max persuades Penguin to take him instead of his son, Chip.
-->'''Max Shreck:''' If you have an iota of human feeling left, take me instead.
-->'''Penguin:''' I don't, so no.
* LargeHam: Bombastic doesn't even begin to describe him. You can tell Creator/DannyDevito did not pull ANY punches.
* LastBreathBullet: Subverted. With Batman distracted with the [[spoiler:death of Max Shreck and the disappearance of Catwoman]], the [[spoiler:mortally-wounded]] Penguin rises from the sewer water and [[spoiler:tries to shoot Batman with one of his umbrellas.]] Fortunately, he "picked the cute one," [[spoiler:and dies.]]
--> '''Penguin:''' The heat's getting to me... I'll murder you momentarily. But first, I need a cool drink... of ice... water...
* LaughablyEvil: His disgusting behavior, dirty comments towards all the women he sees and crazy personality can be pretty amusing to watch. Moreso if you're accustomed to seeing Danny Devito as [[Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia Frank Reynolds]].
* LooksLikeOrlok: Moreso than he does a penguin, anyway; he's got the ashen pallor, sunken eyes, SinisterSchnoz, bald head, and all-black ensemble down pat, though he's considerably shorter and fatter than the trope namer.
* LoopholeAbuse: When Catwoman agrees to help the Penguin frame Batman by kidnapping the Ice Princess, she takes at face value his promise that he is going to scare the girl. Little does she suspect that he intends to scare her ''to death!''
* MadmanInTheAttic: His earliest life while his parents were still attempting to raise him; they kept him locked up in a cage hidden away from the public.
* MindControlDevice: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Penguin's spiral-patterned umbrella:
-->'''Maximillian 'Max' Shreck:''' What is that, supposed to hypnotize me?\\
'''The Penguin:''' No, just give you a splitting headache.
* MisanthropeSupreme: It's made more than obvious that Penguin has a severe hatred for all of humankind, going as far as to kill his own henchmen whenever they annoy him or defy him in the slightest, and attempting to murder every newborn in Gotham.
* MisplacedRetribution: His idea of getting back at his parents for abandoning them is by murdering all of Gotham's children, despite the fact they had nothing to do with what happened to him. (see Vengeance Feels Empty)
* MosesArchetype: A villainous example of the trope; his parents [[MosesInTheBulrushes abandoned him in the sewers when he was just a baby]], and he was soon adopted by a traveling circus and put to work in their freak show. He soon returns home and is able to gain a following that puts him on even footing with a politcal leader. Then he attempts to unleash several atrocities on the city, with the most prominent one being killing the first-born sons.
* MosesInTheBulrushes: Oswald Cobblepot's parents, horrified by his appearance and cruelty, [[ParentalAbandonment put him into a basket and drop him into a creek]]. He is then carried away by murky waters into the sewers and adopted by...penguins.
* MurderByRemoteControlVehicle: The Penguin installs a remote control device in the Batmobile and uses it to try and kill Batman and some Gothamites while Batman is driving.
* NasalTrauma: The Penguin inflicts this on a member of his campaign staff, taking a massive bite out of his nose and sending blood gushing all over the place.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: This iteration of Penguin has some similarities with real-life American freak show performer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_Stiles Grady Stiles]]. Not just only was this version of the Penguin once involved as circus sideshow performer, they also even had the same condition of Ectrodactyly and also had short tempers of which lead both of these figures to murder. In a strange coincidence, Stiles was killed the same year as Batman Returns' release.
* NotGoodWithRejection: He does not take rejection well, as Catwoman and the citizens of Gotham learn. No doubt influenced from being abandoned by his parents as a baby.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: To Batman.
-->''"You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak, and you have to wear a mask!"''
* OffingTheAnnoyance: He shoots a clown for questioning his plan for revenge.
* ObviouslyEvil: He's very sinister looking, like all the other Batman villains. The general public are convinced otherwise, as he manufactures a heroic first impression while playing up his vulnerable side.
* PapaWolf: The Penguin goes ballistic after Batman has Alfred jam the frequency over which he is sending neurological commands to his pet penguins. ("MY BABIIIIES!")
* ParasolOfPain: He wouldn't be the Penguin without them. He has umbrellas that double as a machine gun, sword, flamethrower, helicopter, a cute one to lure children, and one with a black and white spiral that he starts spinning at Shreck [[EvilIsPetty to give him a splitting headache]].
* ParentalAbandonment: His parents dumped him in a sewer because he was deformed and violent.
* PetTheDog: The only times we see any form of kindness from him is when he's tending to his penguins. Even then he was willing to march them to their deaths.
* {{Phlegmings}}: The Penguin has a perpetual trickle of an oil-like bile running down his chin.
* PracticallyJoker: As part of his CompositeCharacter status, he takes on several traits that come more from the Joker than the Penguin of the comics. His gang has a CircusOfFear and MonsterClown motif. He has physical deformities including pale skin (granted many Bat-rogues are at least partially deformed). He's a LaughablyEvil FauxAffablyEvil AxCrazy LargeHam with a hefty dose of PsychopathicManchild. He concocts a plan, mostly ForTheEvulz, so monstrous that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even some of his henchmen are disturbed by it]]. He has a MysteriousPast where it's unclear what exactly happened between his parents abandoning him and where he is today, with only a few hints given about it. Finally, he sees Batman and himself as two sides of the same coin, both "freaks", with the only difference being that Batman has to wear a mask, while Penguin's freakishness is authentic.
* PreemptiveDeclaration: The Penguin has one where he responds to a crack from one of his image consultants which has everyone laughing (including Penguin, who laughs right along with them).
-->'''Penguin:''' Still, could be worse! My nose could be gushing blood!\\
[''Everyone laughs except Josh, who looks mystified'']\\
'''Josh:''' Your nose could be...what do you mean by that -- !\\
[''The Penguin proceeds to viciously bite Josh's nose and draw blood.'']
* PsychopathicManchild: He spends a good deal of screentime wearing only a onesie-like garment stained with his own spittle and slobber. Furthermore, he rides around in a giant toy rubber-duck vehicle and amuses himself with an umbrella (among his collection of genuinely deadly ones) hung with little plastic animals reminiscent of a mobile found in a baby's crib. ("Shit! Picked the cute one!") Actually, he is more of a Type C, a quite sane and intelligent (though, again, extremely evil) man who simply has not been able to grow up because of his DaddyIssues.
* [[RaisedByWolves Raised By Penguins]]: With a little educational help from a gang of clowns.
* RedRightHand: Both his hands are noticeably deformed, having a thumb and an index finger each, but the remaining three fused together in a manner that resembles the flippers of a penguin.
* ResignedToTheCall: The Penguin isn't very keen on becoming Mayor of Gotham City, and only agrees to it so Shreck will help him with his own goals. It's later subverted when the Penguin decides that he could actually enjoy being Mayor, along with all the trappings that would come with it. As well as reclaiming his birthright his parents have denied him.
* RousingSpeech: To his penguins.
-->''"My dear penguins, we stand on a great threshold. It's okay to be scared, many of you won't be coming back. Thanks to Batman, the time has come to punish all God's children! First, second, third and fourth-born! Why be biased? Male and female! Hell, the sexes are equal with their erogenous zones BLOWN SKY HIGH! FORWARD MARCH! THE LIBERATION OF GOTHAM HAS BEGUN!"''
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Penguin's main motive. He was denied a normal childhood, so he murders other children out of spite. Batman kills his henchmen, so he frames him for killing innocents. The civilians turn on him once it becomes clear he's not so innocent, so the Penguin attempts a killing spree.
* RunningBothSides: The Penguin has his gang (to which he appears to have no connection whatsoever in the public's mind) commit random acts of violence throughout Gotham City in order to make the city's current mayor look weak, while simultaneously running for mayor himself and claiming he's the only one who can restore order (and [[MetaphoricallyTrue technically]], he's telling the truth!). One of his allies even refers to "the Gulf of Tonkin" and "the Reichstag fire", both real-life events that might suggest to naïve viewers that both were [[FalseFlagOperation False Flag Operations]], when in fact they genuinely happened and were only exploited afterward.
* SameCharacterButDifferent: This Penguin does resemble his comics counterpart, dresses in very similar clothes and wields umbrella guns, however this version of the character is different in every other way. For starters, the comics version wasn't deformed or abandoned in the sewers by his parents, and he wasn't as vulgar or psychotic as this version, nor was he willing to murder all the children in Gotham.
* SecretIdentityIdentity: Even after he finds his birth family's grave and publicly declares himself to be Oswald Cobblepot, it's heavily implied to be an act on the Penguin's part to advance his agenda of murdering the firstborns. Once he's outed as a corrupt politician who hates the people of Gotham, Oswald rejects his birth name and completely embraces the name Penguin, a cold-blooded freak and a monster.
* SerialEscalation: Once The Penguin is disgraced from his mayoral bid, he very quickly degenerates in his desire for revenge. Initially, he wants to take out all the first-born sons of Gotham City. When that is thwarted by Batman, he sends an army of penguins with guided missiles to try to kill them all (per RousingSpeech).
* TheSociopath: If the fact that he murders people without the slightest bit of provocation, and plans to murder small children, wasn't clear enough to make him a textbook example of this, he outright says to Max that he does not have single iota of human feeling left in him.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the children's adaptation, "The Penguin's Plot", The Penguin survived the events of the film; the book ends with him being run off the stage by the Gotham citizens after his EngineeredPublicConfession.
* StrawNihilist: Though not outright stated, Penguin doesn't seem to believe that life has any purpose, which he makes very clear by living a whole life of vengeance and misanthropy, hurting and killing literally anyone who crosses him.
* TemptingFate: The Penguin issues a challenge to Batman upon their first face to face meeting, asking if he actually thinks he can win; Batman coolly retorts that ''things change''. Sure enough, Batman is eventually the victor in the struggle between the two for Gotham.
* ThatManIsDead: After he was exposed as a fraud by Batman, The Penguin renounces his birthname and his humanity upon arriving back at the Arcric World, as seen in the above quote.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: The only food he's ever seen eating is raw fish, fitting with him being a self-proclaimed animal.
* TragicVillain: PlayedWith. Being abandoned by his parents and forced to live in the sewers has twisted Penguin psychologically, turning him into the vengeful, bloodthirsty madman he is today. However, in the first act of the movie, we can see Oswald even as a little boy being violent when he killed the family cat for no reason. This is how his parents realized he was already born a monster, not because of his body deformities but because he's evil at heart, which in turn convinces his parents to dispose of him. In the present, he puts on the act that he's an unfortunate guy who just wants a place in the society again after being rejected by his parents because of said body deformities, while trying to hide his own sociopathic and murderous tendencies for which his parents ''really'' rejected him. Penguin's evil is born both from his experiences and just who he is at heart.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: The Cobblepots hardly like having a deformed son in the first place, but it's not until Oswald drags the family cat into his "crib" and implicitly kills it with his bare hands -- ''at the age of somewhere between one and three years old'' -- that they throw him into the river to drown and/or freeze.
* UnholyMatrimony: Zig-zagged. The Penguin tries to make this happen by making more than one advance towards Catwoman, but she has no physical interest in him whatsoever. When she turns down his marriage proposal, he angrily ends the partnership and tries to kill her.
* UninvitedToTheParty: The Penguin crashes the Max-squerade Ball late in the film in spectacular fashion, not having been invited due to being [[EngineeredPublicConfession exposed for the villain that he was]]. He proceeds to try to take Chip Shreck, Max Shreck's son, only for [[TakeMeInstead Max to volunteer in Chip's place]].
* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: In the Craig Shaw Gardner novelization, it's heavily implied that he was the one who put his AbusiveParents in those graves. In which case – it clearly didn't make him feel any better in the long run, given that he's still vengeful enough to be a WouldHurtAChild OmnicidalManiac at the end.
* VillainousBreakdown: The Penguin has a multi-tier one after the fallout of his campaign. First, he renounces his humanity and tries to kill all of Gotham's first-born sons. After Batman sends him a letter letting him know the children have been saved, he freaks out again and decides to nuke Gotham Square with rocket-launching penguins. When Batman and Alfred jam the signal and his goons abandon him, he freaks out ''again'' and goes out to face Batman in the Duckmobile. He then uses the penguins to bomb his ''own'' base in the slim hope he'll [[TakingYouWithMe kill Batman along with himself]].
* VillainTeamUp: With Max Shreck and later Catwoman, both of whom ultimately turn their backs on him through his own hubris.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: During his mayoral bid, although he is soon brought down by an EngineeredPublicConfession.
* WhereDoesHeGetAllThoseWonderfulToys: Y'know, wait, where ''does'' Penguin get the thousand-plus penguin-scale explosive rockets ''and penguin mind control gear'' for his final assault on Gotham, or all the electronics for hijacking the Batmobile, for that matter?
* WhileRomeBurns: As his Red Triangle Gang riots in the streets mere blocks away, Gotham City mayoral candidate Oswald Cobblepot (a.k.a. the Penguin) goes for a stroll in Gotham Plaza. Batman eventually makes his way to the plaza and demands to know what Oswald is up to. "Touring the riot scene. Gravely assessing the devastation," Oswald replies with [[SarcasmMode mock seriousness]].
* WickedPretentious: The Penguin's typical depiction as a WickedCultured ManOfWealthAndTaste was [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] in ''Film/BatmanReturns'', where he's revealed to be the grotesquely deformed member of a wealthy family who dumped him in the river and left him for dead when he was still a baby. Although obviously intelligent and certainly no stranger to fine clothes, this version of the Penguin is quite vulgar, with thuggish manners and distasteful sexual appetites.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Really, you can't blame him for becoming the way he is today. He was disfigured since birth, and his aristocratic parents tried to drown him in the sewers (although to be fair to them, he did kill the family's cat before they tried to drown him). He was then found by a traveling circus and raised in the freak show. While the public views him with sympathy, he has become a warped sociopath, plotting to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge kill all the first-born sons of Gotham City]]. When Batman foils him, he straps rockets to his hundreds (thousands?) of pet penguins, intending to use them in a suicide bombing to kill all of Gotham which, as the only setting we see, is extremely [[OmnicidalManiac Omnicidal]] in context. And yet, you still can't help but [[AlasPoorVillain pity him at his death]].
* WouldHitAGirl: Clocks the Ice Princess with a stolen batarang so hard it draws blood.
** Later tries to murder Catwoman by strangulation/fatal fall after she rejects his advances.
* WouldHurtAChild: Has no problem kidnapping children to further his agenda, and wants to throw the children of Gotham's elite into a "deep dark watery grave." The files that Bruce digs up on imply that he's been a serial child murderer for ''years.''
* YoungerThanTheyLook: If the prologue is to be believed, he is 33 years old.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catwoman]]
!![[Characters/{{CatwomanSelinaKyle}} Selina Kyle/Catwoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_00003_copie_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I am Catwoman. Hear me roar!"'']]
!!! '''Played by''': Creator/MichellePfeiffer
!!! '''Voiced by''': Reiko Tajima (Japanese), Emmanuelle Bondeville (European French), Creator/EliseBertrand (Canadian French), Mônica Rossi (Brazilian Portuguese)
!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Film/BatmanReturns'' | ''Film/Catwoman2004'' (photograph only) | ''Comicbook/Batman89''
->''"I don't know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier."''
Max Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle finds out her boss' plans to take energy from Gotham citizens and is pushed out a window in an attempt to kill her. She survives, but suffers a psychotic breakdown that results in her becoming Catwoman.
----
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!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'' | ''Film/BatmanForever'' | ''ComicBook/Batman89''
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!!In General
to:
A criminal obsessed with puzzles and wordplay.
!!General
* AdaptationDyeJob: The Riddler is typically a brunette, but in both continuities he's got auburn hair, which the Jim Carrey version dyes red.
* EvilRedhead: In both continuities, Edward's red-haired and a criminal. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy in ''Batman Forever'', he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.
* GreenAndMean: True to the text, the Riddler's signature color is green and he's a mischief-maker.
!!''Film/BatmanForever''
!!General
* AdaptationDyeJob: The Riddler is typically a brunette, but in both continuities he's got auburn hair, which the Jim Carrey version dyes red.
* EvilRedhead: In both continuities, Edward's red-haired and a criminal. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy in ''Batman Forever'', he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.
* GreenAndMean: True to the text, the Riddler's signature color is green and he's a mischief-maker.
!!''Film/BatmanForever''
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* AdaptationDyeJob: The Riddler is typically a brunette, but here he's got auburn hair, which he later dyes bright red.
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* EvilMakesYouUgly: After being short-circuited by his own device, Nygma's bumpy head is swathed in bandages, meaning he won't be imitating Bruce Wayne, CEO again anytime soon.
* EvilRedhead: Edward's red-haired and the BigBad. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy, he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.
* EvilRedhead: Edward's red-haired and the BigBad. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy, he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.
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* EvilMakesYouUgly: After being short-circuited by his own device, Nygma's bumpy now-deformed head is swathed in bandages, meaning he won't be imitating Bruce Wayne, CEO again anytime soon.
* EvilRedhead: Edward's red-haired and the BigBad. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy, he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.soon.
* EvilRedhead: Edward's red-haired and the BigBad. Interestingly, when he turns to villainy, he wears a brown toupee as a civilian (to resemble Bruce Wayne) and dyes his hair an even brighter shade of red as the Riddler.
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!!''Comicbook/Batman89 Echoes''
!!! '''Appearances:''' ''Comicbook/Batman89 Echoes''
An inmate at Arkham Asylum admitted uner the name "Maynard".
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* AffablyEvil: A criminal and a madman, but he seems to get on well with Bruce Wayne when he's going undercover.
* BerserkButton: He seems like a bit of a gadfly at first, but touching his collection of crossword puzzles is a surefire way to get him in a fighting mood.
* TheNapoleon: Maynard's noticably shorter than Bruce Wayne, who is of average height. When someone touches his crossword puzzles, he pounces on the offender and starts pummeling him.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He bears a strong resemblance to Creator/MartinShort.
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* AdaptationalNameChange: In the comics his last name was originally Nigma. This was later [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] in the main comic book storyline to Nashton. In the film he [[InvokedTrope adopted the latter as a new surname himself]], purely for the sake of PunnyName. In ''Batman Forever'' instead, he is called Nygma from the start, even before adopting his villainous persona.
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* AdaptationalNameChange: In the comics his last name was originally Nigma. This was later [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] in the main comic book storyline to Nashton. In the film some versions he [[InvokedTrope adopted the latter Nigma/Nygma as a new surname himself]], purely for the sake of PunnyName. In ''Batman Forever'' instead, Forever'', he is called Nygma from the start, even before adopting his villainous persona.
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* AlternateSelf: Catwoman has one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]] and [[Series/BirdsOfPrey2002 Earth-203]].
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* AlternateSelf: Catwoman has one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]], [[Series/Batman1966 Earth-66]] and Earth-66]], [[Series/BirdsOfPrey2002 Earth-203]].Earth-203]], and [[TheDarkKnightRises Earth-686]].
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* AlternateSelf: He has three, one on [[Series/Batwoman2019 Earth-Prime]], one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]] and another on [[WesternAnimation/BatmanVsTwoFace Earth-66]].
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* AlternateSelf: He has three, four, one on [[Series/Batwoman2019 Earth-Prime]], one on [[Series/Titans2018 Earth-9]] and Earth-9]], another on [[WesternAnimation/BatmanVsTwoFace Earth-66]].Earth-66]], and another on [[Film/TheDarkKnight Earth-686]].
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Added details, but left the main gist of the original troper
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* AdaptationalNameChange: According to the main comic book storyline, Riddler's original name is actually Edward Nashton, not "Nigma". He [[InvokedTrope adopted the latter as a new surname himself]], purely for the sake of PunnyName. In ''Batman Forever'' instead, he is called Nygma from the start, even before adopting his villainous persona.
to:
* AdaptationalNameChange: According to In the comics his last name was originally Nigma. This was later [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] in the main comic book storyline, Riddler's original name is actually Edward Nashton, not "Nigma". He storyline to Nashton. In the film he [[InvokedTrope adopted the latter as a new surname himself]], purely for the sake of PunnyName. In ''Batman Forever'' instead, he is called Nygma from the start, even before adopting his villainous persona.
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** Strangely enough, the Riddler is a unique combination of the hyperactive spandex trickster of UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} and the suave businessman-like personality of UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}. This was partially explained in the novelization by having his mind getting fried from using The Box; he is the trickster when in the Riddler costume and the businessman when acting as the CEO of [=NygmaTech=].
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** Strangely enough, the Riddler is a unique combination of the hyperactive spandex trickster of UsefulNotes/{{the MediaNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} and the suave businessman-like personality of UsefulNotes/{{the MediaNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}. This was partially explained in the novelization by having his mind getting fried from using The Box; he is the trickster when in the Riddler costume and the businessman when acting as the CEO of [=NygmaTech=].
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* AdaptationalNameChange: According to the main comic book storyline, Riddler's original name is actually Edward Nashton, not "Nigma". He [[InvokedTrope adopted the latter as a new surname himself]], purely for the sake of PunnyName. In ''Batman Forever'' instead, he is called Nygma from the start, even before adopting his villainous persona.
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* UngratefulBastard: Bruce was nothing but kind and polite towards Nygma -- despite his unsettling behaviour -- showed genuine interest in his project and was willing to look into it, only to reject it when Eddie [[EntitledBastard openly demanded of him to make decision here and now]]. And yet Nygma reacted as if Wayne single-handedly ruined his entire life out of spite.
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'''[[center: [- [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatFamily Bat-Family]] ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatman Batman]]) | Villains ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]]) | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesSupportingCharacters Supporting Characters]] -]]]'''
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'''[[center: [- [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatFamily Bat-Family]] ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesBatman Batman]]) | Villains ([[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]]) | [[Characters/BatmanFilmSeriesSupportingCharacters Supporting Characters]] -]]]'''
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* ActorAllusion: Creator/ChristopherWalken plays a light-haired CorruptCorporateExecutive named [[Film/AViewToAKill Max]]. His full name is also a reference to Max Shreck, who played Count Orlok in the classic silent movie ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''. (Also, the name Shreck itself is actually [[MeaningfulName the German word for 'fear']].)
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* ActorAllusion: Creator/ChristopherWalken plays a light-haired CorruptCorporateExecutive named [[Film/AViewToAKill Max]]. His full name is also a reference to Max Shreck, who played Count Orlok in the classic silent movie ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''. (Also, the name Shreck itself is actually [[MeaningfulName the German word for 'fear']].)''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''; a film which a gang leader killed by [[Film/KingOfNewYork Frank White]] -- also played by Walken -- was a fan of.
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* CoatCape: Wears his overcoat like this in both scenes he's in
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* CoatCape: Wears his overcoat like this in both scenes he's inin.
