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The Batman (2022): Gotham City Criminals
(aka: Gotham City Criminals)

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Independent Criminals

    Edward Nashton / The Riddler 

    Selina Kyle 

Selina Kyle / Catwoman

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"I can take care of myself."

Portrayed by: Zoë Kravitz

Dubbed by: Lutèce Ragueneau (European French), Fairouz Ai (Japanese), Veronica Sarkisova (Russian)

Appears In: The Batman (2022) | The Batman: Part II

"I have a thing about strays."
A cat burglar moonlighting as a cocktail waitress with a deeply personal connection to Gotham's criminal underworld. Selina ends up unwittingly crossing paths with the Batman on his mission to untangle the Riddler's conspiracy. From there, Selina becomes Batman's reluctant ally in his crusade while pursuing her own ends as the two grow ever closer to each other, despite their opposing ideologies.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: This version of Selina is presented in a pretty heroic light, with her motives stemming from wanting to help the downtrodden, more akin to the Year One version of the character.
  • Affectionate Nickname:
    • Selina uses Penguin's mocking nickname "Vengeance" for Batman, albeit with a good deal more fondness.
    • She refers to both Annika and Batman as "baby".
    • Inverted when she calls someone "honey", which means she's apathetic towards them or doesn't like them.
  • Ambiguously Bi: She is very affectionate and tender with both Annika and Batman and calls them both "baby" (notably, she calls no one else in the film this), but she only kisses Batman.
  • Animal-Themed Fighting Style: Selina's fighting style is based on a cat, fitting her Animal Motif. Zoe Kravitz even watched footage of cats and lions fighting, and integrated their movements into her character's fight scenes.
  • Anti-Hero: In a different way than Batman is an Anti-Hero. Bruce is a brutal crimefighter who nurtures a terrifying reputation, but he wants to help Gotham City. Selina, on the other hand, is mainly interested in helping a friend, while being fine with stealing from Gotham's rich and having little faith in the city itself. She's also willing, at least at first, to kill, while Batman isn't; she tries to kill both Kenzie and Falcone for being responsible for Annika's death (among other, more personal crimes in Falcone's case), though Batman manages to save Kenzie and talk Selina out of murdering Falcone.
  • Beta Outfit: Selina Kyle's not-yet-Catwoman burglar outfit has some slight folds at the top of her ski mask that resemble cat ears.
  • Big Damn Kiss: She gives Batman two in the film. The first time is when the two of them work together, and the second time, though a lighter kiss, is during the climax after Selina saves him.
  • Boyish Short Hair: Her hair is cut very short, though she wears a variety of wigs when out and about.
  • Civvie Spandex: Selina is wearing a makeshift Catwoman costume made up of a ski mask and black jumpsuit.
  • Clark Kenting: A lot of her disguises involves wearing various wigs and dresses, but her face remains the same. She gets away with it due to the fact she's a nobody to the mob.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: A variation — she's never called "Catwoman" in The Batman, but she is called "The Cat" a few times, which is the name she initially went by in her earliest appearances in the comics.
  • The Cynic: Selina lacks Batman's faith that Gotham can be changed for the better. Her goals throughout the film are centered around helping a specific person, rather than Gotham as a whole. The movie ends with Selina abandoning Gotham in favor of Bludhaven, rather than helping Batman redeem the city.
  • Deuteragonist: She's effectively the supporting lead of The Batman.
  • Dramatic Irony: Lists Bruce Wayne as one of the "privileged, white assholes" keeping Gotham a hellhole... right in front of Batman.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • Selina might be a thief and a drug dealer, but she's disgusted by the corrupt infrastructure in Gotham, and favors stealing from the rich and decadent as karmic payback.
    • The beating Batman dishes out to the Riddler follower who nearly killed her horrifies Selina; she joins Gordon in calming Batman down before he can kill the man.
  • Femme Fatalons: She has long, sharp nails which she uses to scratch her opponents in the face.
  • Feet-First Introduction: As Selina Kyle in the Iceberg Lounge. She walks in interrupting Batman and Penguin's meeting with the camera panning upwards from her notable knee-high boots. The exact boots which her and Batman readily recognize in one of Mayor Mitchell's incriminating photos laid out before them on the table.
  • Fragile Speedster: She's a competent fighter and uses her agility to good effect against regular goons, but can't hurt the armored Batman very much, and goes down hard after Falcone lands a good hit by surprise.
  • Hates Rich People: She is not too fond of the wealthy either, having worked in a nightclub where she witnessed them abuse their wealth and power for whatever they wanted. She even says she's not fond of Bruce Wayne... in front of Batman!
    • Interestingly, she also has correctly pegged Batman as someone born rich, and even uses that against him in an argument, but still falls for him and admires him in spite of it.
  • Hates Their Parent: Being Falcone's secret bastard has brought Selina nothing but misery, which inspires her plan to kill him and make off with his valuables. He had murdered her mother too, giving her even more reason to hate him.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: When she glams herself up, Selina draws the eye of several patrons of the Iceberg Lounge.
  • Heroic Bastard: Anti-Heroic, but she's far more noble than her father, Carmine Falcone.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Selina's cat burglar attire is a form-fitting, black leather, motorcycle suit with leather gloves with torn fingertips for her claw-like nails to poke through. She later dons a patent leather corset and pants later in the film, during her attempt to assassinate Falcone for the murder of Annika and for abandoning Selina during her childhood.
  • Hypocrite: When infiltrating the mob club for Batman, she sneers disdainfully at a group of drug users getting high in the corner. Batman immediately retorts that for all her distaste, she's quite willing to profit from selling the drug to them and thus help to fuel the addiction she's so disgusted by. Selina hastily changes the subject.
  • Irony: Selina mentions how she blames "corrupt white privileged" people for the horrible state of Gotham, naming Bruce Wayne as part of the problem. She falls in love with Batman because he appears to be doing something for the underprivileged. Unbeknownst to her, Bruce Wayne is Batman.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's a cynical thief and drug dealer who's unafraid of getting her hands dirty, but she's ultimately a noble person with a strong sense of justice who sticks her neck out to help a friend. Her feelings toward Batman appear to be genuine, as she initiates both kisses they share.
  • Karmic Thief: She only steals from the rich and the corrupt, specifically from Falcone since him being her biological father means that he owes a lot of money to her. When she leaves for Bludhaven, she mentions she intends to rob rich people there to give them a sense of poetic justice.
  • Kick Chick: Her fighting style mostly uses kicks similar to those from Taekwondo and Capoeira.
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: In true Catwoman fashion, she's adopted several stray cats, showcasing her compassion for those in need.
  • Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: She's never met Bruce Wayne, but her comments make it clear she doesn't think much of him. However, she's obviously into Batman, finding him to be a kindred spirit who looks out for the downtrodden when the rich elite don't.
  • Lovable Rogue: As with most depictions of Catwoman, though a bit less high-class; she's a thief and a drug dealer, but it's clear she only does so to eat, and the reason she is even in Batman's orbit is due to their shared interest in saving Gotham from powerful crime lords.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Slightly more explicit than previous live-action takes. Apart from her catsuit that fits her figure, Selina is seen wearing different types of clothes that show off a bit more skin than usual. At one point, Batman watches Selina getting dressed.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: She uses the exact term in a conversation with Batman, bonding over their shared desire for vengeance and helping those in need.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: She never steals from the poor, only from the rich, and especially the corrupt, since they have plenty of money to spare and are jackasses who deserve to be robbed. When she learns that Falcone murdered her mother, she decides to kill him head on rather than simply stealing his money.
  • Pet the Dog: Despite wanting nothing to do with her father and his legacy in the aftermath of The Batman, Selina seemingly sympathizes with Sofia Falcone's plight, and sends her a letter while she's in Arkham revealing that they're half-sisters. Sofia is visibly touched by the notion.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Kravitz is 5'2" and by far the shortest and most petite actress to ever have played the character in live-action. She is still an Action Girl.
  • Race Lift: Zoë Kravitz, who's half-black and half-Ashkenazi Jewish, plays Selina, who's usually Raven Hair, Ivory Skin-white in the comics. However, the character has been portrayed as black in a handful of adaptations, as far back as Eartha Kitt in 1967, and has sometimes been depicted as not simply Anglo-American white (as in the Golden and Silver Ages) but as Italian-American or even part-Cuban, so sometimes she's drawn to be Ambiguously Brown. The casting process for this film was also open ethnicity, and several white actresses got as far as the screen test.
  • Related Differently in the Adaptation: If Selina's suspicion in Catwoman: When in Rome is correct, she's the second daughter of Carmine and Louisa Falcone, placed in adoption, with her striking resemblance to Louisa being the strongest evidence. This Selina is the product of Carmine cheating with a waitress and thus the half-, rather than full-sister of Sofia and Alberto.
  • Related in the Adaptation: While she's been hinted in comics to be Carmine Falcone's daughter, she was later established to be Rex Calabrese's daughter instead. In this continuity, she's Falcone's daughter.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: She decides to bail on Gotham after the city is flooded and martial law is enacted, figuring she can go upstate to Blüdhaven and do her Pay Evil unto Evil thing there.
  • Shadow Archetype: She reflects an cynical Batman, one that is poor and living under the threat of eviction or senseless death. When she tells her backstory to Batman, it's very similar to how Bruce lost his parents: her mother was senselessly murdered by an unknown thug when she was a seven-year-old child (a year younger than Bruce when he lost his parents). Her desire to avenge her mother by killing Falcone, the man responsible for her death (and allegedly for the Waynes' death), shows a possible dark outcome for Bruce had he figured out who his parents' murderer was.
  • Shut Up, Kirk!: She calls out Batman for his judgmental attitude towards poor people who get involved in dirty business just out of necessity to survive, pointing out that he was most likely born rich and has no understanding of what most people in Gotham really have to go through, despite whatever tragedy he may have suffered. A humbled Batman sincerely apologizes for how he acted.
  • Spanner in the Works: In a manner of speaking. Batman and Gordon's search for the 'Rat with Wings' hits a dead end after they discover their most obvious suspect, Cobb, had nothing to do with the drug bust, and Riddler's final letter addressed to Batman contains no riddles, only a message saying 'see you in hell'. However, Selina's investigation into Annika's murder ends up finding a recording of her strangulation at Falcone's hands, with the tape revealing that he's the Rat they're looking for, allowing both men to arrest him. However, this plays right into Riddler's plans, bringing the reclusive Falcone outside his heavily-defended Iceberg Lounge where he has a clear bead on him from his sniper's nest, so Selina's interference actually pushed the Riddler's plan back on track when neither Batman or Gordon were able to deduce the Rat's identity.
  • Supermodel Strut: Noticeable with the tight red dress she wears as a waitress; she likely puts on the trope so men will be Distracted by the Sexy and not think about what else she's up to.
  • Two First Names: "Kyle" is more common as a given name.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend:
    • Although they're not officially an item, she grows protective of Batman, beating the shit out of a Riddler follower who tries to kill him.
    • To Annika, maybe. She goes on the warpath to protect her, and nearly kills the men who are responsible for her death.
  • You Killed My Mother: She seeks to steal Carmine Falcone's money because she believes that he had one of his goons kill her mother and leave her an orphan despite being his biological daughter. Then she indirectly discovers that Falcone personally killed her mother after hearing how Annika died. She vows to kill him for what he's done in spite of Batman's protests.

Organized Crime: The Italian Mafia

The dominant criminal body within Gotham, headed by two notorious crime families: the Maronis and the Falcones.

The Falcone Crime Syndicate

    In General 

Falcone Crime Syndicate

One of the two dominant crime families in Gotham, founded by Carmine Falcone.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The upper echelon of the organization are, in fact, a literal family, being comprised largely of Falcones and close relatives, but they prove to be lacking in any genuine familial values. The patriarch, Carmine, murdered his own wife and saw to it that every other member save for Alberto and a few others be complicit in framing Sofia and having her sent to Arkham simply for speaking to a reporter about the crime. After Sofia is released, she ultimately kills all of them for Revenge and to carve out her own empire.
  • Everyone Is Related: Every high-ranking member of the organization is related by blood or marriage.
  • The Mafia: A more conventional example than Salvatore's mob, being a purely Italian-based crime family.

    Carmine Falcone (UNMARKED SPOILERS) 

Carmine Falcone

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"Whatever I know, whatever I've done, it's all goin' with me. To my grave."
Click here to see his younger self

Portrayed by: John Turturro (2022), Mark Strong (2024)

Appears In: The Batman (2022) | The Penguinnote 

Dubbed by: Vincent Violette (European French, The Batman), Éric Herson-Macarel (European French, The Penguin), Shigeru Chiba (Japanese), Leonid Belozorovich (Russian)

"You think you're gonna scare me with that mask and that cape?"

The patriarch and boss of the Falcone Crime Syndicate. Carmine has reigned for twenty years as Gotham's most prominent — yet reclusive — mob boss. However, as the scope of his influence becomes increasingly apparent, so do the less than respected means by which he ascended to his current position.


  • Abusive Parents: Despite being The Patriarch, there is almost nothing fatherly about the man.
    • He cruelly attempts to strangle his illegitimate daughter Selina Kyle to death mere moments after learning their relation, and boasts about having done the same to her mother. It's also strongly implied that he would have been a terrible father regardless if he found out earlier, given that Maria hid Selina whenever she greeted him.
    • It turns out that he's even worse than previously thought to his legitimate daughter. It is revealed in The Penguin that while he initially favored his daughter Sofia over Alberto and considered making her the head of the family despite being a woman, after he learned that a reporter approached Sofia about a series of murders of women, including her mother, Carmine heartlessly framed her for all the murders and the murder of the reporter, giving her the undeserved reputation as the serial killer The Hangman. What makes this worse is that despite her suspicions, Sofia really did love him and earnestly hoped Carmine didn't murder her mother, only for him to coldly turn on her on the assumption that she might betray him.
    • Furthermore, his initial Parental Favoritism for Sofia naturally came with dismissing his son, Alberto, as a foolish disappointment due to his hedonism and alcoholism.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: In the comics, Falcone had something resembling a code of honor despite being a ruthless gangster. Most notably, he displayed genuine gratitude toward Thomas Wayne for saving his life and even attended his funeral. By contrast, this version of the character is an unashamed rat who rose to being Gotham's crime kingpin by snitching on his biggest rival (an unforgivable betrayal by mob standards), stole funds from a public outreach program to boot, and is possibly responsible for murdering Thomas and Martha Wayne after trying to blackmail Thomas with a reporter's death.
  • Adaptational Name Change: Carmine's last name is typically pronounced "Fal-CO-knee" in most media. Here, it's pronounced "Fal-cone".
  • Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Carmine was a ruthless gangster responsible for much of Gotham's corruption, but he was also a genuine family man who frowned on needless violence and insisted on professionalism. This is very much in contrast to Reeves's Falcone, who is both a serial killer and a domestic abuser who uses family values as a cloak.
  • Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Carmine was an Expy of Vito Corleone who loved his children and looked down on the "freaks" taking over Gotham. This incarnation, in addition to his usual crimes as a mob boss, has a long history of strangling women (including the two mothers of his children) to death, tried to do the same to one daughter, and framed the other for his crimes before having her committed.
  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In The Long Halloween, it's never made clear if Selina Kyle is his daughter. Later comics have established mob boss Rex Calabrese as Selina's biological father. It's revealed in no uncertain terms that Falcone is her father here, which he eventually finds out about
  • Ambiguous Situation: It's heavily implied that Falcone was involved with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, but the exact circumstances remain unknown. Falcone taunts Batman that whatever dirty secrets he may have, it's all going with him to his grave—indeed, the Riddler killing Falcone ensures Batman will never find out the truth behind his parents' deaths.
  • Animal Motif: Aside from the more obvious "falcon" allegory — Carmine, like a raptor, is at the very top and looking out over his city with hungry eyes — John Turturro described Falcone as a subterranean predator in an interview. Specifically, a rat; Falcone's empire was built on secretly striking a deal with the corrupt GCPD against Maroni, and he knows that if the underworld ever found out he's allied with the cops, he's going down. Riddler's clues reference both ("rat with wings", or, as Batman and Gordon initially interpret it, a stool pigeon) to emphasize how duplicitous and false Carmine's image as an untouchable, self-made Don really is.
  • Arc Villain: Outing Falcone as the rat who snitched on Maroni comprises the film's second act. He's revealed to have had dealings with Bruce's father, is the biological father of Selina Kyle, and the investigation to unravel him is arguably its own plot within the Riddler's machinations.
  • Archnemesis Dad:
    • He's the father of Selina Kyle and is responsible for the deaths of her mother and friend, Annika. Selina's entire reason for working at the club is to be compensated for the pain he's caused her by robbing him, and later killing him. Batman stops her just in time.
    • His legitimate daughter, Sofia, is no exception, as Carmine remorselessly had her framed and committed to the horrific Arkham State Hospital to save his own skin. Despite Carmine being dead by the time she gets out, much of Sofia's arc in The Penguin revolves around her enacting Revenge against the rest of the Falcone Crime Family for being complicit in Carmine's betrayal, whilst building up her own legacy that seeks to completely displace any remnant of her father's.
  • Asshole Victim: An abysmal human being gunned down by the Riddler after his arrest. The fact that he's just been exposed as a rat ensures not even his fellow gangsters will miss him.
  • Badass on Paper: Carmine Falcone holds a reputation of being one of the most powerful and dangerous criminals in Gotham, who no one dares to cross lest they suffer a gruesome fate at his hands. In truth though, Falcone only got to where he was because of his backstabbing and many connections, and he spends much of his time hiding in a back corner of the Iceberg Lounge because it's the only place he feels safe from his many enemies. And once his snitch-related crimes are revealed to the public, Falcone is killed in less than an hour.
  • Bait the Dog:
    • He shows some protectiveness towards Selina, but is revealed to have slaughtered her mother and Annika, the two people closest to her, and then tries to kill her after she very understandably wants to kill him in retaliation.
    • He seems genuinely grateful that Thomas Wayne saved his life once and is very polite to Bruce because of this. Then it turns out Falcone had tried to blackmail Thomas and may have even had a hand in his death.
    • He initially held his daughter Sofia in a high regard, enough to go against the established traditions of the crime family to make her his successor… until he had her committed to Arkham for ten hellish years after she was approached by a reporter about his role in the deaths of several women, including his wife.
  • Being Evil Sucks: He runs Gotham through bribery, but by the time of the movie, he's made so many enemies that he's been forced to imprison himself inside a cordoned-off section of the Iceberg Lounge to stay protected and even that doesn't save him.
  • Berserk Button: Being interrupted. When one of Falcone's bodyguards tries to inform him about his crimes being publicly broadcast on the news, Falcone gets uncharacteristically enraged, since he asked his minion specifically not to barge in on him while talking to Selina. That said, his anger melts pretty quickly once he finds out what's going on.
  • Better to Kill Than Frighten: When Bruce Wayne begins to investigate as to what role the Riddler accuses him of having in Gotham City's rampant corruption, he discovers that his father, Thomas Wayne, had covered up the history of mental illness that ran in the Arkham family, which included Bruce's mother Martha. When a reporter uncovers it, he threatened to expose the coverup, and in a moment of desperation to protect his wife and his son, Thomas turned to the Falcone crime family, in the hopes of scaring the reporter into silence. To Thomas' horror, Falcone instead had the reporter murdered, and when Bruce questions Falcone about it, Falcone simply asserts (and tries to assure Bruce) that the reporter was a lowlife that deserved it anyway.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: With the Riddler in The Batman. Riddler's terroristic campaign is certainly dangerous, but Carmine is largely responsible for the poor conditions plaguing Gotham and that caused the radicalization of Edward Nashton in the first place.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Falcone has been the key cause of Gotham's problems in the years since the Wayne murders, and a good chunk of the film is spent uncovering his role as the rat who set up Sal Maroni. That being said, despite his position as Gotham's crime kingpin, he's not nearly as in control as it first appears. He has to hide in 44 Below because of the constant threat of assassination and his control of the city is mostly just leverage over Gotham's elite and the GCPD. The Riddler ultimately eclipses him on every conceivable front, unraveling his conspiracy with little difficulty before enacting an infinitely more heinous act of terrorism that leaves the city in ruins.
  • Blaming the Victim:
    • While strangling Selina, he remarks that she made him resort to killing her and states the same for her late mother, Maria, and even goes as far as to claim it "hurts" him having to do so.
      Carmine: You don't think this hurts me? My own… flesh and blood, huh?! You made me do this… just like your mother.
    • In a more subtle way, Carmine's explanation to Sofia that her mother's "suicide" stemmed from her "refusing his help" has strong hints of this trope as well. And given that he also murdered several other women outside of Isabella and Maria, it's highly likely blaming them is a consistent pattern of his.
  • Blackmail Backfire: While his deal with the cops and city government means that those at the top can never act against him for fear of being exposed themselves, Carmine is far from untouchable, and is just in a state of detente with the current administration; he still has to hide in 44 Below to avoid the threat of assassination, and he keeps the fact of selling out Maroni a secret from his own mob, who would feel betrayed if they knew their boss snitched to the police. Sure enough, once Commissioner Savage has died and Falcone has been exposed, Gordon quickly pulls together a unit of trustworthy officers to arrest him, and Cobb is already threatening Carmine as he's being hauled off, saying they'll kill him in prison.
  • Broken Pedestal: He becomes this to the rest of the criminal underworld, especially to Oz. Throughout the film, Falcone is viewed as the top dog of the underworld and is treated with respect. Once it's revealed Falcone is "the rat" who sold out Maroni to further his goals, all that respect vanishes. Cobb is especially appalled and disgusted at this revelation, to the point he threatens to send word to Blackgate Prison.
  • Casting Gag:
    • John Turturro also played Sam Giancana in the HBO TV film Sugartime. While both characters were high-level gangsters who favored dark glasses, their characters are very different in terms of public image: Giancana, true to life, is flashier and delights in his untouchability, whereas Falcone is far more low-key and avoids the limelight. Both characters also broker deals with corrupt law enforcement over drug smuggling, though Giancana went to jail for refusing to testify and was most likely killed on suspicion that he'd later talk, whereas Carmine's last hours before his assassination are spent in complete disgrace after being revealed as the rat he is.
    • Additionally, Turturro played a pimp in Miami Vice that had a sex worker killed to avoid her becoming a possible witness against him, just like Falcone kills Annika — and possibly, for the same reason, Selina's mother.
  • Composite Character: With Lew Moxton, taking his possible role in the murder of the Waynes.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: His status as "The Roman", and by extension his crime family's nickname of "The Roman Empire", never come up in the first film or television series.
  • Dark Secret:
    • He's taken the renewal fund for himself and set up Maroni for the cops in order to gain control of the city government. The revelation of this to the public is what leads to his quick downfall.
    • In The Penguin it is revealed he not only murdered his wife Isabella, strangling her and then faking her suicide, but he also murdered a number of women that worked at 44 Below in the same manner.
  • Death by Disfigurement: Selina scratches his cheek during their struggle. Shortly after, he's shot dead by the Riddler.
  • Death by Secret Identity: Downplayed, as he's already dying, but it's maybe implied that Falcone realizes that Batman is Bruce Wayne in his final moments, bleeding out on the floor and looking up at Bruce, just like he recalled doing when his father gave him emergency surgery in their family home.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the classical portrayal of The Don. Rather than fulfilling the traditional archetype of a respectable criminal patriarch who, despite his illicit profession, has a code of honor and genuinely values his family, Carmine is instead a smug, cowardly sociopath who only maintained his position as top dog by being an underhanded, ruthless double-crosser. He is certainly capable of presenting himself as a Noble Demon and family man, but when his power is threatened, he will remorselessly trick, screw-over, and blackmail others at the drop of a hat, be it a long-time mafia rival, a seemingly trusted associate, a lover, or even his own daughter, all in the name of remaining the apex predator of organized crime.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: In The Long Halloween, Falcone is gunned down in his office by a vengeful Two-Face. In this continuity, he's sniped by the Riddler as he's being arrested.
  • Dirty Coward: For all his posturing and ruthlessness, Carmine is nothing but a slimy coward who only maintains his empire through intimidation of those he has power over. He got to his current position by ratting Salvatore Maroni out to the cops, exploits the dirt he has on everyone under his payroll to avoid being exposed, coldly screws over and kills anyone who stumbles across his secrets, and for most of the film secludes himself in a hidden corner of the Iceberg Lounge so he isn't assassinated. He's even willing to frame his own daughter for murders that he committed just to save his own ass.
  • Dirty Old Man: He's up there in the years during the events of the first film and regularly visits the 44 Below. He takes a particular interest in Selina, who is decades younger than him, though to his slight credit he isn't aware that she's his illegitimate daughter. The Penguin also reveals a lot of his victims were young women that worked at the Iceberg Lounge, implicitly ones he had relationships with.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Falcone is a major antagonist for most of the first film as "the rat" who holds power over Gotham's ruling body, but he is exposed and killed before the climax, leaving Riddler as the sole villain.
  • Domestic Abuse: According to Viti, Isabella hated living with Carmine to the point that she planned to leave him and take Alberto and Sofia with her, strongly implying he didn't treat her the best in their relationship, and they would eventually have an argument that culminated in Carmine strangling her to death.
  • The Don: He's the patriarch of an expansive crime family and the undisputed top dog of Gotham City's underworld, at least until the costumed criminals and "freaks" begin to take over.
  • The Dragon: Subverted. Gordon assumes that Falcone is subservient to all of the corrupt leaders in Gotham, but it turns out that they are the ones who work for him.
  • The Dreaded: He isn't just a crime boss, he practically has Gotham in the palm of his hands, and everyone is afraid to cross him. When the Riddler threatens D.A. Gil Colson to reveal Falcone as the rat who brought down Maroni, the district attorney refuses because he's afraid that Falcone will have his family killed in addition to himself, and thus would rather die with his bomb collar going off.
  • Excellent Judge of Character: Alberto and Sofia both indicate that Carmine knew exactly the type of dirty opportunist Oz was, and deliberately stroked his ever-hungry ego by giving him respect and a valuable position within the organization (distributing Drops and acting as the proprietor of the Iceberg Lounge, in contrast to the lowly driver he was before) to keep him in line.
    Alberto: Dad said you were a good soldier… but he also knew you were a dirty soldier who skimmed money off the top.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • To Bruce Wayne/Batman. Both are well-known but reclusive figures who influenced Gotham in their own ways and played a significant role in the emergence of The Riddler. However, while Carmine is a straightforward crime boss who is the root cause of the city's corruption, directly creating the horrific conditions that galvanized Nashton into taking matters into his own hands and not giving a damn outside of how it benefitted him, Bruce in both personas inadvertently influenced Nashton through his status as an orphan and vigilantism, is absolutely horrified to discover that he accidentally inspired the crazed Serial Killer, and for all his flaws is ultimately trying to improve conditions in Gotham.
    • Also to Thomas Wayne. Both are powerful figures in Gotham who intended to use the Renewal project to influence the city. However, while Thomas was a genuinely good and well-intentioned man who created the project as an effort to improve Gotham's horrid conditions, Carmine merely exploited the funds to gain near-absolute power via complete authority over the city's elite and police department, thus perpetuating and exacerbating the corruption, abuse, and systemic issues that make it such a cesspool. This is even highlighted with how they dealt with Edward Elliot, a reporter who had sensitive personal information on Martha Wayne—where Thomas simply wanted the man scared into silence to protect his wife, Carmine killed Elliot so he could milk the situation for his own benefit.
  • Evil Old Folks: He's in his later years, is played by sixty-five year old John Turturro and is a despicable individual.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: His death eventually leads to a power struggle between The Penguin, the remnants of his crime family, and the Maronis, following Oz's sudden murder of Alberto Falcone, his intended successor.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: As portrayed by Mark Strong during flashbacks in The Penguin, Carmine's voice is fairly deep and gravelly.
  • Exact Words: While coaxing Annika to fess up what Mitchell told her, Falcone assuredly tells her "We'll get you out of [Gotham]"; he didn't specify whether she'd be dead or alive...
  • Faux Affably Evil: He always acts calm and polite toward those he interacts with, but is at heart a ruthless murderer who doesn't care about anyone in the slightest.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A cruel, immoral crime boss who's always wearing darkened glasses, even indoors and at night. John Turturro has remarked that they act as Carmine's "mask" in the same vein as Batman and Riddler—emphasizing his detached nature underneath the guise of being a respectable mobster.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: When Carmine tries to choke Selina to death, she scratches him in defense, leaving scars on his face. This is reminiscent of Falcone's scars in the comics. These scars are also in contrast to the scars on Bruce's back.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: For The Penguin, which is kicked off by the power vacuum left behind by his death. He was also the one responsible for framing Sofia as the Hangman and sending her to Arkham, resulting in her unhinged personality in the present day.
  • Hate Sink: Carmine is a truly contemptible human being. He's a cowardly backstabber who attained power by betraying his rival to the police while relishing in keeping everyone quiet about it by making them fear him, a remorseless murderer responsible for strangling several innocent women to death, up to and including a past lover and his wife, and to boot a horrifically abusive father who had his legitimate daughter framed for his crimes and sent to Arkham where she was tortured for a decade and attempts to murder his illegitimate daughter seconds after learning they are related, both to save his own ass. Needless to say, no one feels bad for him when he's gunned down by The Riddler.
  • The Heavy: While The Riddler is the Big Bad of the first film due to his murder spree and eventual flooding of Gotham shaping the movie's overarching conflict, the conspiracy the Serial Killer gradually unravels facilitates Falcone being outed as the rat who snitched on Maroni and the root cause of Gotham's corruption for twenty years, making him Batman's biggest priority for much of the second act.
  • I Own This Town: Thanks to his role in the Maroni drug bust, Falcone has dirt on the mayor, the D.A., and the police commissioner, giving him near-absolute power in Gotham. Kenzie explicitly describes the conspiracy as answering to Falcone, not the other way around. As Bruce and Jim prove, however, Falcone's position isn't invulnerable.
    Kenzie: You think this goddamn election matters? Falcone's the mayor. He's been the mayor for the past 20 years.
  • Irony: Carmine's fears that his daughter Sofia could permanently damage the Falcone family and his legacy result in him manipulating the legal system to have Sofia transferred to Arkham indefinitely, where she can't do any more harm to the Falcone family. Except all this does is galvanize Sofia into genuinely hating her father and everyone affiliated with him, resulting in her killing every single remaining Falcone after getting out of Arkham.
  • It's All About Me: In the end, all that matters to Carmine Falcone is Carmine Falcone. He will manipulate, exploit, and back-stab just about anyone if it means he can save his own ass and maintain his stranglehold over Gotham.
  • Karmic Death: The Riddler sets up his death by manipulating Batman and Gordon into exposing Falcone as the mastermind behind the drug busting conspiracy to the news media, then assassinating him when he's being hauled out of the Iceberg Lounge and right into the public light where everyone, including the disgusted criminal underworld, could see him as the "rat" he is.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • It wasn't enough for Carmine to simply use manipulation or blackmail on Sofia to keep her quiet about her mother's death, or even just kill Summer Gleeson for looking into it — instead, he framed his daughter for his crimes and saw to it that everyone in the family be complicit by sending in evidence of her "insanity", ensuring she would remain in the hellish Arkham Asylum for years.
    • When attempting to choke Selina to death, he coldly states that she "made" him resort to such an extreme and also casually boasts about having done the same to her mother.
    • It's ultimately left ambiguous on whether or not he had him killed, but his clear attempt to blackmail Thomas Wayne by murdering a reporter Thomas simply asked him to intimidate comes off as especially petty and cruel.
  • Lack of Empathy: A total scumbag with not a drop of concern for the well-being of anyone but himself.
    • For one, he's an unashamed serial strangler responsible for remorselessly murdering several women, including his wife, had his own daughter Sofia framed and committed to Arkham State Hospital for these acts (with the implication that he fully expected her to die there) on a suspicion that she might betray him, and attempts to choke his illegitimate daughter Selina to death as well when the latter confronts him about murdering her mother and Annika.
    • He's also completely lacking in the honor present even among Gotham's other criminals. He ratted out Salvatore Maroni to seize control of the city's criminal underworld, stole from a public charity fund, and attempted to blackmail Thomas Wayne with the death of a reporter who had sensitive information on his wife, despite Thomas previously saving his life.
  • Love Is a Weakness: According to Sofia, he was a firm believer of this, thinking that Salvatore Maroni's love for his family was his greatest weakness.
  • Mole in Charge: He's the "Rat" in the Riddler's riddles, having tipped off the GCPD and the mayor about Sal Maroni's drug operation so they can bust it, which allowed him to seize absolute control over Gotham completely.
  • Mutually Assured Destruction: What his leverage over Gotham's elite amounts to. Exposing Falcone as the rat would greatly damage his standing in the criminal underworld, but by doing so, it would reveal the massive corruption within the city's government, and Falcone would more then likely murder you and your loved ones before he went down.
  • Never My Fault: While strangling Selina, he takes no responsibility for the suffering he's caused her, insisting that she and her mother are at fault for "forcing" him to kill them both.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Falcone with his dark glasses is reminiscent of Carmine De Sapio, the last boss of Tammany Hall. Both wore dark glasses and wielded tremendous power in the city where they resided. Gotham is based on New York.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: He's the first film's secondary antagonist, but as a largely mundane mob boss his threat is entirely the product of the influence and leverage he holds over Gotham's elite. While he does nearly kill Selina by getting the drop on her and choking her, Batman is able to take him down in a single punch.
  • Offing the Offspring:
    • He attempts to choke his illegitimate daughter Selina to death after the latter confronts him for the deaths of her mother and Annika.
    • It's strongly implied that Carmine fully expected Sofia to die during her time in Arkham, if the unshackled prisoner that attacked her is any indication.
  • Oh, Crap!: Twice. First, when he learns that his identity as the rat has been leaked to the news, then again implied when a very large number of police officers come to arrest him, showing that his grip on the city and its officers is not as ironclad as he thought.
  • Offstage Villainy: Has been carrying out a series of sadistic murders of women working in his club.
  • Orcus on His Throne: He almost always keeps himself holed up in the Shoreline Lofts surrounded by tons of guards to avoid being assassinated, to the point that Bruce Wayne is considered the only person in Gotham more reclusive than him. Even Riddler, with his penchant for killing his targets by getting the drop on them, acknowledges he has little way of getting to Falcone without having to deal with his many enforcers — with his one opportunity during the Mayor's funeral already being dedicated to Gil Colson's death — necessitating that his conspiracy be exposed and that Batman bring him into public eye to be sniped.
  • Parental Favoritism: He practiced this with Sofia and Alberto, preferring the former as his possible successor due to Alberto's hedonism and drug addiction. This didn't stop him, however, from framing Sofia as The Hangman when she began suspecting his role in the death of her mother and several other innocent women.
  • The Patriarch: He's the head of the Falcone Crime Syndicate, and demanded absolute respect from his subordinates and family members.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • He treats Bruce with a degree of genuine respect and seems to sincerely like him and acts in a paternal manner around him, given that his father Thomas performed a life-saving surgery on him when he was younger, despite Bruce's clear contempt for him.
    • He actually calls Oswald by his preferred nickname "Oz" rather than the derogatory "Penguin" that everyone else uses. Though he isn't above calling him a "gimp in an empty suit" when Oz threatens him.
    • While heavily undercut by him ultimately framing her and having her sent to Arkham, his Parental Favoritism of Sofia was mostly genuine, and he was willing to go against the patriarchic values of the crime family if it meant ensuring she'd be his successor.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: When Oz calls him out on being a rat, Falcone spitefully calls him a "gimp." He's also textually a misogynist, as he treats women as expendable sex objects, and is established through Maria, Annika, Selina, and many others offscreen to specifically favor strangulation as a method for killing female victims.
  • Properly Paranoid: Falcone rarely leaves the safety of 44 Below, a basement section of the Iceberg Lounge he controls, for fear of what his many enemies would do to him. Sure enough, when he leaves the club for his arrest, he's sniped on its doorstep by the Riddler before even an hour.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Did he really have Thomas and Martha Wayne killed to cover his ass? Was he telling the truth about Sal Maroni? Or was it really just a random mugger, and the Waynes were in the wrong place at the wrong time? We may never know.
  • The Rival: To opposing mob boss Salvatore Maroni. He wins their conflict by working with Gotham's political leaders to seemingly bust Maroni's drug operations. In fact, Falcone and the Gotham leaders take over Maroni's operation for themselves. The leaders get the public credit for the "bust" and a cut of the drug profits, while Falcone becomes Gotham's top dog and has dirt on his co-conspirators to keep them from betraying him.
  • Sadist: While not explicit, his disturbing penchant for strangling women — an incredibly slow, physically overwhelming, and painful method of killing — whenever he deems them necessary to get rid of certainly has elements of this.
  • Secret Secret-Keeper: As he's looking up toward Batman after being shot, it's implied that he figures out that the man behind the mask is the son of the man who performed a life-saving surgery on him years ago, who saw the surgery play out from the balcony above — and then taking that secret to the grave, as he mentioned moments earlier.
  • Serial Killer: Apart from the murders he's committed and ordered as a crime lord, he's also a misogynistic serial strangler. Over a period of several years he'd murdered at least 10 women by strangling them to death, staging most of their deaths as suicides by hanging. His victims include his own wife Isabella, Selina's mother Maria, six other women employed at the 44 Below, and reporter Summer Gleeson. He foisted the blame for the majority of these murders onto his daughter, Sofia.
  • Signature Move: Every kill we hear of or see him make is by strangling. The Penguin further confirms this by revealing that he murdered his own wife this way and then staged her death as a suicide. He would later go on to throttle several other women before framing his daughter for their murders.
  • Sinister Shades: He always wears a pair of vintage sunglasses.
  • Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Though not nonexistent, Carmine was not present throughout most of the first film's advertising despite being a major character.
  • Slimeball: He's a contemptible, smug coward of a mob boss completely lacking in honor or respect who snitched on his biggest rival to further his own agenda. He tends to act rather lecherous toward the women who work for him while being fully willing to strangle them whenever he feels they slighted him or have the potential to threaten his position. He puts on an act of charisma and affability but is an utter sociopath who gleefully exploits the dirt he has on everyone else to remain in power. Alfred even characterizes him as a manipulator who will use anything he can to gain leverage over the people around him, including Thomas Wayne — the man who saved his life.
  • Smug Snake: Even when he's being dragged off, exposed to all the world as a murderer and a mole, Falcone brags that he'll be out of prison in no time despite his most powerful pawns being dead (and in Mitchell's case, soon to be replaced with someone deeply opposed to everything Falcone represents) and Penguin being out for his blood. Even if Riddler hadn't killed him, Falcone's odds of getting off and staying alive were slim.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: He rarely ever raises his voice above a casual, personable tone.
  • The Sociopath: Displays all the textbook qualities. He presents himself as a charismatic, gentlemanly Noble Demon, but is at heart a remorseless murderer solely out to maintain himself as the top dog of Gotham. He has an extreme Lack of Empathy for his victims, regards everyone around him as tools at best and obstacles to be discarded or killed at worst, has at least once manipulated an associate of his for his own benefit as shown with how he killed a reporter to have dirt on Thomas Wayne, and holds no genuine affection for anyone, including his illegitimate and legitimate daughters, wife, and the many, many girlfriends at the Iceberg Lounge he's strangled to death in the past.
  • Sunglasses at Night: He's always seen wearing his signature red-tinted glasses, even in the 44 below, and in his own home. According to Word of God, this is his version of the masks that Batman and the Riddler wear. The only times we see his eyes are when a young Sofia tries to take them off in a flashback, and right before he's shot, when his true nature has been unmasked.
  • Time-Shifted Actor: In Episode 4 of The Penguin, Carmine is played by Mark Strong rather than John Turturro. While this was done due to Turturro being unable to reprise the role thanks to scheduling conflicts, it also counts as this trope given that said flashback takes place ten years prior to The Batman.
  • Truer to the Text: In previous live-action incarnations of the character, Falcone was treated as little more than the mundane mob boss he is, typically lacking the connection to the Waynes that he was given in The Long Halloween, his status as the Roman, or his iconic cat-scratch scar that's been a prominent feature of his comics portrayals. The 2022 incarnation of Falcone marks the first time several of these traits are restored, in particular his scar and history with Thomas Wayne having saved his life.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Might have ordered the killing of Thomas Wayne, even after Wayne saved his life. Even if he didn't, he helped loot the Waynes' Renewal fund to turn it into dirty money.
  • Unreliable Expositor:
    • His account of the Waynes' death implies that Sal Maroni had them killed, since the journalist who threatened to expose Martha Wayne's history of psychiatric institutionalization was in his pocket. Alfred, however, reveals that Thomas was going to go to the police over Falcone killing the journalist, giving Falcone more than enough reason to kill Thomas himself.
    • The journalist himself is another case. We only have Falcone's word that Edward Elliot was working for Salvatore Maroni. Was Elliot really on Maroni's payroll, or was he just a crusading journalist?
  • Villainous Legacy: The Penguin sees Oz and various other mobsters scramble to fill in the vacuum he left behind. His legacy is eventually undone by both Oz and his own daughter, Sofia; the latter murders most of the Falcone family, abandons his family name, forbids his legacy from being remembered, and burns down his stately mansion in the Gotham suburbs, while the former murders his son and dismantles what is left of his empire.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Perhaps not directly, but he has no problems with stealing money from an orphanage. Gil Colson's panic and preference for facing the Riddler's wrath is borne from believing that his family would be dead if he said anything which, based on everything seen of Carmine in the film (and in The Penguin), is entirely justified.

    Sofia Falcone / The Hangman 

Sofia "The Hangman" Falcone-Gigante

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sofia_falcone.png
"I refuse to let these old fuckin' men push me aside again like I'm nothing, so I'm gonna take from them now."

Portrayed by: Cristin Milioti

Appears In: The Penguin

"I guess this game was made for men like you. Like my father. Same winners, same losers. That's why everyone expected me to die in Arkham. No one even considered that I might learn something there. How to play new games."

The daughter of Carmine Falcone and former Arkham Asylum inmate. Dubbed "The Hangman" by the Gotham City press for the number of murders she was accused of having committed.


  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Sofia Falcone goes from her rough and masculine-looking appearance in the comics to to being far more classically beautiful and feminine, being played here by the very pretty Cristin Milioti.
  • Adaptational Context Change:
    • In the comics, she committed a series of murders against policemen, earning her the Hangman moniker, after the death of her father. In the show, she supposedly committed seven murders ten years before.
    • In the comics she is a Gigante through her marriage to Rocco Gigante. In the show, Rocco has been Adapted Out and Gigante is the surname of Sofia's mother's family.
  • Adaptational Nice Girl: We know nothing of her past in the comics, including why she was institutionalized, and is shown to be a hardened criminal throughout her appearances. On the show, we see her in the past being involved in charity and amiable to Oz, and is close to her brother. She's also innocent of the crimes that got her locked up.
    • Amazingly, she's also one of a handful of characters in the show who's capable of genuine empathy for other people, even her enemies. She felt bad for Oz when she believed his mother died, spares her cousin Gia, admired Eve's loyalty to her girls, forged a genuine friendship with Sal, and tried to calm down Francis when she's having an episode. It's clear that she's a product of her crime family and her time in Arkham rather than an inherently evil person.
  • Adaptational Slimness: She is petite, as opposed to her powerful figure in the comics.
  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
    • Perhaps because of Carmine's Adaptational Villainy. In the comics, Sofia was very much a Daddy's Girl and was completely devoted to her father. Here, she's much closer to her brother and doesn't seem particularly upset by Carmine's death with it later being revealed she outright hates him for framing her for the Hangman murders and getting her locked up in Arkham for a decade, eventually full-on disowning him and his legacy completely.
    • In the comics, Sofia absolutely abhorred her brother Alberto, to the point of even killing the man herself after feeling that he had disgraced her family's name. In this show, Sofia genuinely loves Alberto because he was the only member of her family to visit her in Arkham Asylum and fight for her release, and her reaction to discovering his corpse in the trunk of the car Vic crashed is to shriek in horror and despair.
  • Affably Evil: As long as you don't get in her way or harm the people she loves, she's generally pretty friendly, and while she can be very casual about violence, she generally has a comprehensible reason for what she does. Most notable when she shows up at Eve Karlo's apartment with obvious lethal intent, yet the two of them have a fairly honest conversation, with Sofia deciding to spare Eve out of respect for the mutual trust her and her girls have for each other.
  • Ax-Crazy: Downplayed and subverted. It turns out she's not a serial killer and was framed by her father, who actually committed the murders. Because of this and spending a decade in Arkham she is very unbalanced and struggles with mental scars.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In a sense. While Oz has her recommitted to Arkham, preventing her from escaping the city, and completely tears down the criminal empire she's built, Sofia does ultimately succeed in completely destroying her father's legacy as Revenge for the Falcones framing her—she's slaughtered most of the family, burnt down Carmine's mansion to add more salt to the wound, and even took up her mother's maiden name, Gigante, over continuing to call herself a Falcone, fully ensuring that he has nothing left behind.
  • Berserk Button: Being called or thought of as crazy really sets her off, which makes sense since it turns out she didn't kill the women she was accused of killing as The Hangman, her father did and framed her for said murders. Also being underestimated because she's a woman pisses her off.
  • Big Bad: She is the primary antagonist of The Penguin, serving as Oz’s fiercest and most persistent threat. Not that he’s any better.
  • Broken Bird: It turns out she's this, yet another victim of Gotham's corruption like Bruce, Edward, and her half-sister Selina are. She was framed by her own father for murders he committed, sent to Arkham where she gained a lot of mental scars from the stuff that happened to her while she was there, and then was treated like a pariah by the rest of her family, though they were complicit in her being framed. She finally snaps when she learns Oz indeed killed her brother, and kills the rest of her family (save Gia, whom she knows is innocent, and Johnny Viti, whom she still needs) and embraces the fact that she's the villain of this story. Prior to being in Arkham she wasn't aggressive or violent, with the traumatizing experience making her this way.
  • Broken Pedestal: She feels this way about her dad, as well as the rest of her family in general. She loved them once upon a time and merely wanted their approval, and she's rewarded by being framed by her own father for murders he committed, and her family not only turned their backs on her, they were complicit in sending her to Arkham! She tells them before she kills them all that she did love them. She decides to take over her criminal family after growing disillusioned with her family, who are a bunch of power-hungry snakes who'll happily screw anyone over for their own gain. She even goes as far as to renounce her father's name, taking her mother's maiden name Gigante for her organization.
  • Composite Character: She inherits Holiday's role as the murderer of Carla and Johnny, and the Red Hood's role as Luca Falcone's killer.
  • Consummate Liar: Sofia lies just as well as Oz does, spinning a story about the night she killed her family that's very convincing, even if the new Chief of Police doesn't fully buy it.
  • Convicted by Public Opinion: The ten years she spent in Arkham as well as the press coverage against her has convinced the public she's guilty of the Hangman murders.
  • Cutting the Knot: By episode 7 she recognizes the constant back and forth between her and Oz makes her no better than him or her father. So instead of trying to make a deal or ambush Oz to take his operation for herself in exchange for his mother, she instead opts to send a massive car bomb to destroy his whole hideout.
  • Daddy's Little Villain: Sofia proves herself equally if not more ruthless than her father Carmine, aiming to take over their crime family after he and her brother Alberto have been murdered. Flashbacks reveal that Carmine in fact had planned for her to succeed him as head of the family upon his death prior to finding out that she'd spoken to a reporter investigating a number of murders he'd committed, prompting him to instead have Sofia framed for said murders and committed to Arkham. By the time she's released, whatever love she had for her father is gone and replaced with nothing but hatred, even going as far as to renounce his name and take on her mother's maiden name.
  • The Dreaded: It's subtle, but everyone is clearly afraid of Sofia and don't want to set her off and put themselves into her crosshairs. Even Oz has a muted Oh, Crap! look on his face when he sees her. Given that most of the Falcones were complicit in Carmine having her framed, and that she blames Oz for snitching, it's understandable that they are uneasy in her presence.
  • Didn't Think This Through: A tragic example. Despite her utter hatred for the rest of the Falcone family, Sofia makes sure to go out of her way to spare her little cousin Gia from her murderous wrath because of her innocence. She failed to consider that killing Gia's mother and father would not only be severely traumatizing, but also force her to be institutionalized because there's literally nobody else available to take care of her.
  • Entertainingly Wrong: She almost gets it right what happened to her brother, pinning Oz to the murder and having some proof that he had something to do with it. Oz just barely manages to convince her otherwise, and eventually he convinces her to join him. Though this ends when she realizes he really did kill her brother.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • Sofia is a ruthless murderer who wants to be the boss of the Falcone syndicate. However, she loved her brother Alberto, whose visits to her in Arkham while no one else came were a lifesaver for her, and Sofia vows revenge on Oz, his murderer.
    • She also seemed to have a genuinely friendly relationship with Oz before she was sent to Arkham, and he genuinely had nothing to do with her being framed by her father. Sadly, this has evaporated by the time The Penguin starts, she blames him for 'ratting her out' even though he didn't (mostly). They could have rekindled their friendship, had Oz not murdered her brother.
    • Sofia genuinely loves her cousin Gia. She is notably the only family member other than Johnny that Sofia spares when she gasses everyone in the house, as she's a child who was innocent of the family's crimes against her. Unfortunately, her actions result in Gia becoming institutionalized and traumatized to the point of cutting herself, which causes Sofia to break down in tears when she realizes what she's doing.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: While initially she kidnaps Francis with the intent of torturing her to torment Oz, she stops the torture session midway through when it becomes apparent that Oz would rather cling to his delusions even if it means letting his mother come to harm, even asking in stunned disbelief how Oz could be so callous.
  • Evil Costume Switch: She initially wears rather plain conservative clothing and keeps her hair in normal styles. After Cent'Anni, when she decides to fully embrace her psychosis and become a ruthless crime boss in her own right, she starts wearing her hair in wild, choppy styles and wears extravagant fur coats and dresses. She physically and emotionally stops hiding her scars and damage.
  • Excellent Judge of Character: She is one of the few characters who doesn't underestimate Oz's intelligence or the threat he can be. She also cottons on to him having something to do with Alberto's disappearance pretty quickly. He dissuades her for a while, but she ends up learning anyway.
  • A Fate Worse Than Death: As punishment for permanently damaging his relationship with his mother, Oz decides to let Sofia go back to Arkham instead of killing her, which for her is a fate worse than death ever could be.
  • Foil: In terms of bird motifs, a Falcon alongside a Penguin.
    • Both of them are marginalized by the Falcones. Oz because he's not Italian and his leg. And Sofia because she's a woman, and allegedly a serial murderer. In reality, it's because they framed her for the murder. Turns out Oz is actually as murderous as Sofia had a rep for. He kills someone he cared about by choking, and he makes Sofia a scapegoat. Plus the scars on his face. Just like Carmine Falcone.
    • Toward the latter half of the series, both try to appeal to the marginalized people in certain organizations. Oz tries to form a sort of "crime co-op" with the Falcone's competition, while Sofia kills all the "officers" of the Falcones, and renames them the Gigante family (her mother's name), forms an alliance with Sal Maroni, and promotes the Falcone lieutenants. Except Oz has the other gangs' lieutenants do the ol' Klingon Promotion, while Sofia eventually just says whoever kills Oz can have the whole shebang, and tries to walk away.
  • The Gadfly: She has a habit of doing things, such as eating messily and making faces, just to screw around with her family, who she's grown to despise because they helped frame her and then have the audacity to treat her like she's the Black Sheep of the family.
  • Go Among Mad People: She was involved in her family's criminal activity, but completely sane when her father framed her for his murders and sent her to Arkham. The staff was on his payroll and tried their best to break her. While the 10 years of abuse she suffered definitely hurt her mental health, it wasn't until the combination of Alberto's murder, the rest of her family trying to get rid of her, and finding out Oz, the only person she was starting to trust, killed her brother that she truly breaks. She kills her entire family barring Gia, who is a child and had nothing to do with her institutionalization, and Johnny Viti, who she needs alive for practical reasons.
  • Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Sofia went to Arkham for crimes she did not commit. Needless to say, her stay in Arkham made her the person she is now.
  • Hates Their Parent: Sofia despises her father Carmine in the present because he'd framed her for the murders of women he committed (including his own wife, her mother), which caused her to get locked up in Arkham State Hospital for a decade and tarred wrongly as "The Hangman" Serial Killer.
  • Irony:
    • Though she makes no secret of how much she despises the rest of the Falcones for what they did to her, Sofia ensures that Gia doesn't become a victim in her crusade against them, because she sees her as an innocent child. As it turns out, being made the Sole Survivor of a family slaughtering only serves to make Gia's life almost as bad as Sofia's was, something she's painfully aware of when she visits her in "Top Hat".
    • Her reputation as The Hangman was based on a lie, it was her father who actually committed the murders, but when she pisses off Oz by not only torturing his mom, but permanently damaging their relationship by having Francis admit she always knew that Oz left his brothers to die gets her sent off to Arkham again, except this time it was for something she did.
  • He Knows Too Much: Carmine had her framed and committed to Arkham when he realized she was on the verge of finding out he killed her mother and several other women who worked at 44 Below.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: She eventually realizes, to her horror, that her actions in taking revenge on her family are a twisted reflection of her father's. While Sofia does spare Gia from her gassing of the Falcone estate, the fact remains that she murdered Gia's mother (and father), which consequently leads to Gia being institutionalized (at least before she gets adopted), similar to how Sofia herself was after Carmine killed her mother. Seeing Gia's self-inflicted injuries finally drives home the tragic irony of the situation.
  • Jabba Table Manners: Sofia does this quite a bit, dismaying her moneyed family. Given the revelation that she actually is not insane but was framed by her own family, this now appears to be a case of Bad "Bad Acting" - sarcastically acting crazy to freak people out. Moreover, all the times she's been seen doing this are in the presence of Falcone crime family members, all of whom know damn well she isn't insane, but filed fake police reports claiming she had a history of mental illness. Thus she's not just obfuscating with her untrue reputation as "the Hangman", but actively trolling the people who framed her as an insane serial killer.
    • She eats her salad with her bare hands at a fancy lunch with Oz. Justified because she's enjoying a fine meal after her time in Arkham.
    • She later stuffs a load of pasta into her mouth at her brother's wake in order to freak out a bunch of people who were staring at her.
    • After gatecrashing her family's dinner and loading up a plate, she eats a meatball with her hands.
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: Played With. While Sofia is clearly an unhinged and damaged person, she is depicted with a measure of sympathy and it's shown that she has sympathetic qualities like her love for Alberto and her tragic past. She's certainly morally better then her horrible father, and Oz, given he murdered his brothers and Vic for his own benefit, and then refused to own up to the former to save his mother from torture. However while she's a more sympathetic party, who wants to do better, and doesn't have such personally disgusting crimes, whether she's truly "better" is up for debate given that she nukes Crown Point in an act of destruction higher in scale than anything Oz did and Carmine only indirectly tops, out of personal vengeance after realizing she can't change things for the better.
  • Mask of Sanity: She keeps up the facade of being a generally well adjusted person, despite her past, but it's made clear pretty quickly she's unhinged and is barely keeping the mask on. While she isn't a Serial Killer, her experiences in Arkham have still made her quite vengeful and ruthless, and understandably so.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: She was dubbed "The Hangman" for murdering seven women via strangulation — something which indicates who is truly responsible for the Hangman's murders.
  • New Era Speech: Delivers one to her assembled mooks, denouncing her father's legacy and declaring herself a Gigante after her mother, as well as promising the men a better life. She caps this off by dispatching the old underboss, Johnny Viti, and distributing Carmine's money.
  • Nom de Mom: Sofia takes her mother's last name Gigante, ditching Falcone to shed her father's legacy as she loathes him now when seizing control of the family syndicate, renaming it to this too.
  • Obliviously Evil: Played With as she clearly knows that being a crime boss is morally wrong, but she doesn't seem to acknowledge that, while she may not be as bad as the rest of her family, she's still a criminal ruining lives. Francis even points out to her that she can't change the game and mocks her for thinking she's any different than any of the other gangsters in Gotham.
  • Pet the Dog: She's genuinely kind to her cousin Gia and makes sure she's spared from her purge of the Falcone family.
    • She also spares Eve when she sees how Oz has also treated her as a pawn. It helped that Eve shows genuine love and loyalty to her girls, something Sofia even tells her she wishes she'd had.
  • Psychopathic Womanchild: Downplayed. Sofia is intelligent, but badly unbalanced, with many of her mannerisms having a childlike air. During their lunch, Oz is able to momentarily disarm her despite her clear suspicions of him by suggesting she can put her elbows on the table now, behavior her father discouraged. She's also incredibly mentally damaged and ruthless as a result of her time in Arkham.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: She spares Johnny Viti when she murders the rest of her family, because she still needs him, both as Fall Guy for the murders and to reveal to her where Carmine's secret cash reserves are. Johnny seemingly convinces her that he can be The Dragon to her like he was for her father; but even that doesn't last long, as she kills him after he gets her Carmine's stashed money and the rest of the underlings together.
  • The Queenpin: Sofia aims to be the boss of the Falcone syndicate after both her father and her brother are murdered, though her uncle Luca wants her out of the way. It's revealed her father was going to make her his heir, against tradition, as she was much more competent than her brother, before her suspicions about her mother and other women's deaths got him to put her in Arkham. She ultimately gets her wish after killing her family and Johnny Viti serves his purpose, becoming the new kingpin (er well queenpin) of her father's organization.
  • Red Baron: The press gave her the nickname "The Hangman" for her framed murders. Obviously, she's not very thrilled about it.
  • Serial Killer: Subverted. She was known as 'The Hangman' and allegedly murdered seven women before the events of the series, causing her release from Arkham to be met with controversy and scorn. However, the truth is that her father is the actual killer and had Sofia framed and committed to Arkham after she was approached by reporter Summer Gleeson about the nature of the deaths.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Sofia has severe PTSD as a result of her time in Arkham Asylum (unsurprisingly), and is seeing a psychiatrist after being released, with her suffering from traumatic flashbacks/hallucinations.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Sofia was definitively killed in Batman: Dark Victory, but ultimately survives the events of The Penguin, with Oz giving her Cruel Mercy instead of killing her.
  • Then Let Me Be Evil: Somewhat downplayed, as she was already on course to being a career gangster to begin with in her father's Criminal Syndicate, but she still counts. She gets betrayed, sent to Arkham where she's tortured and left a traumatized shell of her former self. When she's released, she's dismayed to see her family having the audacity to treat her like the black sheep of the family, considering they knew she was innocent and they remained complicit anyway. Then she gets manipulated by Oz, and when she realizes he has betrayed her she snaps, killing the rest of her family (save Gia and Johnny Viti) and accepts that if they see her as a villain, then she might as well be one.
  • Too Clever by Half: She's genuinely quite intelligent, and has the chops to be a good boss. Unfortunately, she put her faith into the wrong people, such as her father and later Oz, and she gets screwed over because of it.
  • Tragic Villain: Turns out she's not the Hangman, and that she spent ten years in Arkham Asylum for crimes she didn't commit because her father used her as a patsy, and almost the entire family minus her brother sided with him.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: Has the most varied and diverse wardrobe (and hair) of any of the main cast, and uses it to express her mental state at any given time. She eventually starts wearing the large coats her comic counterpart is known for.
  • Villainous BSoD: Once Oz tricks her into being put into Arkham again, she basically shuts down completely. Though a letter from her half-sister Selina seems to give her some of her spark back.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Sofia has several opportunities to kill Oz, but decides against it because she wants to make Oz suffer instead of outright killing him. Sure, she does manage to permanently damage his relationship with his mom, but an enraged Oz ultimately gets the better of her and sends her back to Arkham in revenge.
  • Would Hurt a Child: It's implied even children aren't immune to her wrath, based on her conduct with Gia, the daughter of Sofia's cousin, Carla Viti. But it's just as possible she was just intimidating Carla. It later turns out that she really was just messing with Carla as revenge for her participation in her incarceration in Arkham and then having the nerve to act like Sofia's potentially dangerous to Gia; little Gia ends up being one of only two members of her family that she spares when gassing the rest to death.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Takes the time to lure her young cousin Gia away from the house where she plans to murder most of her family, since she's just a kid and innocent of her mother's crimes against her. She does kill her parents, but is disturbed to find out that Gia has been cutting herself as a result.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: She executes Johnny Viti once he serves his purpose of getting her Carmine's stashed money and the underlings together for a meeting, then puts a bullet in his head without a second thought. Though she may have kept him around had he not mouthed off.

    Alberto Falcone 

Alberto Falcone

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alberto_falcone.png
"You want me to be like some small-time asshole?"

Portrayed by: Michael Zegen

Appears In: The Penguin

"Whatever you're thinking, don't. Whatever Pop does at work, he does at work. I mean... We got a good life, right?"
Carmine Falcone's son and Sofia's brother.
  • Abled in the Adaptation: He doesn't need to wear glasses like in the comics.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Alberto is supposed to take over the Falcone crime syndicate, but unlike his comic book counterpart, he was never a serial killer and was the only member of the family not to betray Sofia.
  • Adaptational Personality Change: Goes from a quiet and unassuming Oxford graduate uninvolved in the family business to a drug-addicted party animal mafia prince.
  • Affectionate Nickname: His sister Sofia called him Berto with affection.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: He's characterized as a Jerkass and an unlikable Spoiled Brat right up until his death. However, after his death, it's revealed he was the only support Sofia had among her family and that he resented Oz because Alberto believed he helped frame her as the Hangman. It makes it much sadder in hindsight.
  • Asshole Victim: While he's never been seen doing anything as cruel as most of the Falcones, it's a little hard to feel sorry for him when Oz shoots him dead.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Mocking Oz when he is alone at the Iceberg Lounge without his bodyguards turns out to be a poor decision for his health. It's given further context with the fact that Oz confessing to Falcone that Sofia talked to a reporter privately (to warn her off of investigating the Falcones) was ultimately the reason the paranoid crime boss framed his daughter as a Serial Killer and got her committed to Arkham under false claims, with only Alberto supportive of his sister throughout her entire incarceration. Understandably, he'd have further reasons than most to be contemptible of "the penguin" for seemingly screwing his family over to better his own standing within the mob.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Batman: Dark Victory, Sofia is the one who kills him. In The Penguin, it's Oz who does the job.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: He had no issues or compunctions about letting his sister Sofia run the family with him, even though the Mafia is, ahm, male dominated.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He might be a swarmy prick, but he sincerely loved his sister Sofia. She shares to Oz how Alberto would visit her when she was in Arkham and gave her hope when she was at her lowest.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Though he's mostly focused on his own pleasures for the most part, Alberto was genuinely horrified at Sofia being sent to Arkham thanks to their father's machinations, and visits her as often as he could to provide moral support to her.
  • Felon's Failson: The series opens with Alberto Falcone taking over his father Carmine's crime syndicate following the latter's death. Alberto is an arrogant Spoiled Brat and Smug Snake who mocks his subordinate Oz to his face about his ambitions. He is more perceptive than he seems, but he doesn't get to make use of it. His verbal abuse enrages Oz so much that he impulsively shoots Alberto dead.
  • The Hedonist: Alberto is mostly focused on partying, doing drugs and drinking absurd amounts of alcohol in all his screentime.
  • Hidden Depths: He proves that he's not a complete Spoiled Brat, moronic disappointment and he is smart enough to read people such as Oz and knows to be wary around him. He just made the mistake of underestimating Oz and mocks him to his face. This ends about as well as you'd expect.
  • Inadequate Inheritor: Carmine sees him as such, finding his hedonistic behavior to be deplorable and makes him undeserving of taking over the Falcone empire. Alberto himself doesn't seem to give a shit about this though, being perfectly happy with letting his father run the Family when he was alive, and actually confides to Oz that he might not have the stones to succeed him after he's killed by the Riddler.
  • Plot-Triggering Death: His death at Oz's hands is what kickstarts the plot of The Penguin.
  • Sketchy Successor: He succeeds his father Carmine as head of the Falcone mob family, but is burdened by addiction and an ego. His tenure is cut short by the Penguin as a consequence.
  • Smug Snake: Alberto has ambitious plans and he demonstrates a decent amount of insight into what makes Cobb tick in their conversation, but he both overestimates his own ability and underestimates the dangers Oz can pose.
  • Spoiled Brat: Downplayed, as while he is an entitled party boy and struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, he is smarter than he first appears. He just underestimated Oz like everyone else. He pays for it with his life.
  • Token Good Teammate: Well...he's still an unrepentant criminal, but he genuinely loved Sofia and didn't betray her. He worked hard to get her out of Arkham, and believing she was innocent.
  • Too Dumb to Live: He decides to antagonize, and then laugh at a guy who clearly has a Hair-Trigger Temper and does not like to be laughed at. Oz murders him on the spot.
  • The Un-Favorite: During flashback scenes in The Penguin, it's clear that Carmine looks down on Alberto for not taking his position within the family seriously, hence why he was initially planning to make Sofia his successor.
  • Visionary Villain: He plans to not only corner the drug trade in Gotham, but "revolutionize the game" with a new narcotic to outdo Drops, not knowing yet what it's going to be but having his lab workers experiment to find out. His outsized ambitions are a big reason why he sees Oz's advice (and desire) to be a Neighborhood Friendly Gangster as pathetic.

    Luca Falcone 

Luca Falcone

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luca_falcone.png
"I'll deal with the family business."

Portrayed by: Scott Cohen

Appears In: The Penguin

"You've always had a nose for bullshit, Sofia. Your father knew that too. But if there's a rat, we'll find him. But the when and the how, that...that ain't up to you."

Carmine's younger brother, and uncle to Sofia and Alberto.


  • Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel sorry for him when Sofia gasses him and the rest of her family to death, considering he was a ruthless gangster in his own right and was complicit in helping Carmine frame Sofia for his murders.
  • Bad Boss: Shows no care for his men, and ruthlessly kills any of them if they betray them.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seems like a nice enough guy for a gangster, and seems to be looking out for Sofia. But it becomes clear very quickly that Luca is trying to keep Sofia out of the family business and doesn't take her seriously.
  • The Don: Becomes the new boss of the Falcone family after the deaths of his brother and nephew.
  • Evil Uncle: He's very dismissive of his niece Sofia and helped his brother frame and wrongly incarcerate her.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Luca is polite, respectful and unobtrusive. When Johnny insults Sofia as being irrelevant, Luca angrily demands he show contrition. However, Luca and Johnny are actually of the same opinion about Sofia, with Luca just working in a more underhanded way to push her out.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Luca seems a lot more placid and polite than Carmine ever was, and Oz dismisses him outright as a "pussy", but he does show himself to be capably ruthless and willing to engage in violence with his own hands.
  • Related Differently in the Adaptation: He’s Carmine Falcone’s cousin in the comics, while the show changes him to Carmine’s younger brother, justifying his ascension to the Don position through his closer familial link with Carmine.
  • Serial Spouse: Ten years before the series, Carla and Sofia snark about him being on his third wife. It doesn't look like it is his current one, either.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: His overall attitude to Sofia, whom he wants to pack off out of sight and out of mind.

    Johnny Viti 

Johnny Viti

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/johnny_viti.png
"Now Milos asked you here as a courtesy, because he's a courteous guy. I am not. You will do as you're told."

Portrayed by: Michael Kelly

"You wanna be a boss, you wanna win this war? The money's not enough. You need respect. You need soldiers who wanna fight for you. You go it alone out there, you're not gonna last a day. I can get you that respect."
The underboss of the Falcone Crime Syndicate.
  • Age Lift: Is a younger man of similar age to Sofia in The Long Halloween.
  • Asshole Victim: Nobody seems concerned when Sofia shoots him in the head during her first meeting as boss, considering what a loathsome snake he is, it's unlikely anyone's gonna miss him.
  • Bad Boss: Viti has a habit of verbally abusing his subordinates and is pretty quick to shout them down for disagreeing with him.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Sofia suddenly shoots him in the head during her first meeting as boss once he serves his purpose.
  • Brutal Honesty: In contrast to the rest of the syndicate's upper management, Johnny doesn't really bother to put on the act of caring about his underlings. He's completely honest that he's an asshole and makes his opinions very (and rudely) clear.
  • Bullying a Dragon: He likes to walk on a razor's edge, openly bullying Oz (a man who pulled a gun on Carmine Falcone in broad daylight) and smugly threatening Sofia (a notorious alleged Serial Killer and niece of his boss). They team up and successfully cow him into submission.
  • Butt-Monkey: Nothing goes right for him and is frequently abused by Oz and Sofia. Given how much of an asshole he is, it's very much deserved.
  • Brutal Honesty: Viti really doesn't have much patience for mincing words, as the quote above showcases.
  • Co-Dragons: Alongside Milos, he was Carmine's right hand man.
  • Dies Differently in the Adaptation: He's killed by the Holiday killer at the start of the Long Halloween in the comics, but shot by Sofia for mouthing off here.
  • Dirty Coward: He served under Carmine for years after he killed his cousin Isabella, who he genuinely cared for out of fear. Then he shamelessly attempts to barter with Sofia for his life after she murders her whole family by gassing them to death. She seemingly agrees, only to kill him anyway when he gets her Carmine's stashed money and the underlings under her father together, because she has no more use for him.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When he tries to convince Sofia to let him live and be The Dragon to her like he was for her father, he reveals that he did have a genuine care for his cousin Isabella, expressing some remorse that he was the one who introduced her to Carmine. Sofia thinks he's lying, but his emotion implies it could be for real.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He's horrified at Sofia murdering her entire extended family and admits privately that he was always sickened by Carmine murdering her mother (who was also his cousin), even if he couldn't bring himself to stop working for him.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Viti is capable of maintaining a thin air of politeness, but it doesn't take much for him to reveal the truly nasty bastard underneath.
  • Fall Guy: One of the reasons Sofia spares him when she kills the entire family is so that she can pin the massacre on him, by lying to the police that Johnny argued with Luca over Johnny's affair with Luca's wife.
  • Jerkass: He's just a smug, unpleasant bastard who likes to rub in his authority, especially to Oz.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: He makes it very clear he doesn't trust Oz at all, and Viti even says to his face that he knows it's in Oz's nature to be a treacherous opportunist. For as much of an ass as he is, he's still right on the money. He just isn't smart enough to realize playing to Oz's ego is the best way to keep him in line.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: Sofia puts a bullet in the back of his head after he starts undermining her authority.
  • Number Two: As underboss of the Falcone Crime Syndicate he is the official second in command of the organization.
  • Pointy-Haired Boss: He decides to scale back the syndicate's drug production after Carmine's death out of fear of law enforcement. Oz points out that law enforcement will be disorganized in the wake of such a disaster and that he's going to sacrifice territory and business opportunities to their rivals out of overcautiousness, but Viti shouts him down.
  • Related Differently in the Adaptation: He's Carmine's nephew in the comics, and thus Sofia's paternal first cousin. In the show, he's Sofia's mother's first cousin (i.e. a maternal first cousin once removed to Sofia) instead.
  • The Rival: Viti's this to Oz, as the two can't stand each other and are competing for more power.
  • Sleeping with the Boss's Wife: He's been conducting an affair with the wife of his boss, Luca Falcone, for years. To his credit, Luca has only been his boss for a little under a week.
  • Smug Snake: He struts about and thinks he's untouchable, lording his authority over Oz and later Sofia. They prove him wrong, very wrong.
  • Sole Survivor: He's the only (adult) person Sofia spares of her purge of her family solely out of pragmatism. It doesn't last.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Between sleeping with his boss' wife, taunting Oz and Sofia while they have him in a compromising position, and trying to undermine Sofia when she establishes herself as a new mob boss, it's no surprise he doesn't make it to the end of the series.
  • Underestimating Badassery: He has a bad habit of underestimating people who he views as beneath him, such as Oz and Sofia. He pays for this dearly when not only Oz and Sofia blackmail him into being an asset for them, then becomes the pawn of Sofia when she murders the rest of her family, and after that, she executes him, wanting to run the family on her own.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Sofia executes him after getting him to gather the rest of the family's soldiers together for a meeting. Interrupting her probably didn't help his case.

    Milos Grapa 

Milos Grapa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/milos_grapa.png
"Oz, we're consolidating."

Portrayed by: James Madio

Appears In: The Penguin
"Look, Sofia, we all cared for Alberto—"
The consigliere of the Falcone Crime Family.
  • Co-Dragons: Alongside Johnny Viti, he was Carmine's right hand man, starting as his bodyguard before becoming the family consigliere.
  • The Consigliere: He serves in this role to the Falcones.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Milos is visibly horrified at seeing Alberto's corpse in the trunk of a car, and glances with concern at Sophia and her anguish at seeing her brother presented as a Dead Guy on Display.
  • Faux Affably Evil: He's a fairly polite and respectful for a mobster, especially next to Johnny Viti, but he's just as much of a dirty rat as the rest of the Falcones. He was complicit in keeping Sofia locked up for her father's crimes.
  • The Napoleon: According to Oz, he wore lifts in his shoes.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Sofia mentions that Milos has a higher body count than her. Whilst she says it in a mocking way, it shows that even the Affably Evil Milos is a ruthless killer.

    The Twins 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_twins_batman.png
Portrayed by: Charlie and Max Carver
Appears In: The Batman (2022)
"Get outta here, freak. You hear me? Or your little suit's gonna get all full of blood."
Twin mob enforcers working for Oz Cobb at the Iceberg Lounge.
  • Bouncer: Their job at the Iceberg Lounge. They're not too good at the "keeping Batman/Bruce Wayne out" part of the job, though.
  • Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Downplayed. Though these guys might be a little scary if you're an average nightclub patron, and will readily resort to both force and firearms, they're still by no means as intimidating as Falcone or even Penguin, especially in the Batman's eyes. When Batman visits the Iceberg the first time, he quickly and efficiently breaks their noses as they move to attack him, and later fires his grapnel into one's leg to pull them both down. He doesn't even bother fighting them the second time; he simply knocks on the door and slips in while one of them looks around in confusion, then locks the guy out.
  • Butt-Monkey: Nearly every time they're on screen, shortly afterwards they get their asses kicked by someone.
  • Canon Foreigner: Created specifically for the movie, though they're similar to the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee, henchmen of the villain The Mad Hatter, though these two seem to be brothers rather than cousins.
  • Good Hair, Evil Hair: Both have the typical Brogan thug beard.
  • Those Two Guys: Batman and Bruce Wayne interact with these two bouncers at the Iceberg Lounge.

    Vinnie 

Vinnie

Portrayed by: Mark Killeen
Appears In: The Batman (2022)
One of Falcone's bodyguards at the Iceberg Lounge.
  • Bearer of Bad News: He alerts Falcone that Falcone's murder of Annika and role in the Maroni drug bust are being revealed on the news.
  • Spear Carrier: He shows up to have a couple lines of dialogue and interfere with Selina's attempt to kill Falcone, but isn't a very developed character.
  • Undying Loyalty: He continues to assist and protect Falcone even after learning that his boss is a police informant.

    Castillo 

Castillo

Portrayed by: Berto Colon
Appears In: The Penguin

Sofia Falcone's bodyguard and henchman.


  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Not as cowardly as most examples though, because he's pleading innocence on an action he really didn't commit, and is almost as concerned that Sofia know he'd never betray her as he is for his own life.
  • Anti-Villain: He's not a good guy, working for the Falcones; but he's straightforward and only carries out the brutal acts he's told to do; and is one of the only people to actually respect and protect Sofia.
  • The Big Guy: Fitting for the bodyguard of the Boss's petite and (seemingly) physically weaker daughter; he's the tallest and most muscular of the Falcone men and the one who can be relied on to rough somebody up.
  • Fall Guy: Oz plants a murder weapon on him, causing the Falcones to identify him as the Maroni rat. Luca immediately executes him for it while he's pleading his innocence.
  • Nothing Personal: He beats the shit out of Oz, then an episode later works with him on a heist and even praises him for saving his ass.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: He doesn't have the sadistic, petty nastiness of the other Falcone men or the same desire to move up the ranks as Oz or Sofia. He just shows up and does what he's told; whether that means protecting the boss's daughter, beating the shit out of somebody or teaming up with them for a heist. Though he seems to have genuine protective affection for Sofia, most of it is just part of the gig.
  • Torture Technician: He's the one who physically tortures Oz on Sofia's orders.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Sofia Falcone. He obeys her orders even when he's aware the other members of the syndicate may dislike it.

The Penguin's Crew

    Oswald "Oz" Cobb / The Penguin 

Oswald "Oz" Cobb / The Penguin

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_254_5.png
"Boy, you're everything they say, ain't ya? I guess we both are."

Portrayed by: Colin Farrell, Ryder Allen (young)

Appears In: The Batman | The Penguin | The Batman: Part II

Dubbed by: Boris Rehlinger (European French), Akio Kaneda (Japanese), Stanislav Strelkov (Russian)

"The world ain't built for guys like us. That's why we gotta take whatever we decide is ours."

A major figure in the criminal underworld, initially serving as Carmine Falcone's unofficial right-hand man. Penguin owns and operates the nightclub known as the Iceberg Lounge as well as the mob hangout located deeper inside, the 44 Below, and is responsible for the production and distribution of Drops. While he initially seems to be nothing more than a loyal goon, Oz is at heart an ambitious man who seeks to rise to far greater heights.


  • Adaptational Attractiveness: He's still not much to look at, but his signature pointy, elongated nose is more subtle here, simply being realistically angular and hook-shaped rather than absurdly beak-like and he overall looks more like a heavyset, balding, but otherwise average middle-aged man than the borderline deformed appearance he's had in the comics and Danny DeVito's portrayal. He's also much taller than both the comics and most previous versions, standing a little above average at 5'10" note  in contrast to previous versions which were between 4'10 and 5'6.
  • Adaptational Nationality: Most adaptations of the Penguin usually depict him as originally coming from England, with an accent to match. Here, Cobb comes from a rougher background in Gotham, emphasized by a less-refined New York accent.
  • Adaptational Sympathy: Inverted. Most versions of Penguin have a more severe disability or come from a family of Impoverished Patrician to justify their constant craving for power. This version, while still having been born with a club foot, lacks either and instead just desires power for the sake of having always wanted to be on top.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Penguin is usually depicted as one of the more likely of the major Batman rogues to have some kind of standards, or at least more focused on profiting for himself over cruelty to others for the most part. His backstory also tends to be quite tragic, stemming from him being severely bullied for his appearance throughout his childhood, including by his own brothers. Here, while he isn't a complete maniac, a lot of his actions make him far more irredeemable, notably leaving Jack and Benny to die for no good reason other than sheer jealousy over their mother's attention, lying to Francis and disrespecting her wishes after she falls into a coma, and strangling his Morality Pet Victor to death to avoid showing vulnerability.
  • Adaptational Wealth: In the comics and most adaptations, Oswald was born into wealth and only didn't fit in with the rest of the elite due to his physical deformities. Here, he is more of a mundane mobster who comes from humble beginnings.
  • Adaptation Name Change: The Penguin reveals that his last name has been shortened from "Cobblepot" to "Cobb".
  • Adaptation Personality Change: Typically, Oswald for all his ruthlessness and physical deformities at least presents himself as refined and well-mannered. Here, he's more of a thuggish, loudmouthed Slimeball who generally only acts professional to gain people's trust.
  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comics, the Penguin tends to be familiar with Bruce Wayne since childhood, due to their families having had a history of screwing each other over, making them bitter business rivals in the present day. Here, Oz doesn't seem familiar with Bruce or the Wayne family in the slightest, with Carmine Falcone even having to explain who he is and what his father Thomas did to save his life when they first meet
  • Almighty Janitor: Despite being described as Falcone's right hand man, running the Iceberg Lounge, and being in charge of the Drops racket, Oz is effectively this within the Falcone family. As a non-Italian, Oz isn't a made man and can only rise so far within The Mafia. This is what motivates him to cut the Falcones down to size, so he can rise up in his own right.
  • Ambition Is Evil: Oz is clearly enjoying his power and wants to become the new kingpin of Gotham. This leads him to commit many crimes, including murder and betrayal, in his rise to the top.
  • Ambiguous Situation: He's indirectly responsible for the deaths of his brothers Jack and Benny, whom he locked in a sewer that slowly flooded during a storm, drowning them both. While it's subtly implied that he was jealous of the attention his brothers were receiving from their mother, it isn't made clear if he actually intended for them to die or if he was simply just trying to scare them as payback for taking advantage of his disability during a game of hide and seek. According to the behind-the-scenes info on episode seven, it’s revealed that he does love his brothers, but he loves his mother more and that he acted on impulse. Still, he had every opportunity to go back and let them out, but didn't.
  • Animal Motif: Heavily downplayed compared to the comics, but Oz wasn't given the derogatory nickname of "Penguin" for nothing, given his aquiline nose that evokes a beak and permanent waddle as a result of an unspecified leg deformity.
  • Anti-Villain: Subverted. The Penguin initially makes it look like Oz will be one of these as a more sympathetic villain compared to the hardcore psychopaths he's up against, as is so often the case in crime dramas. By the end of the show, however, this gets flipped on its head: Sofia especially becomes far more sympathetic, while Oz proves to be far more vile than any other member of Gotham's underground. The show seems to go out of its way to make the viewer realize, "Wait a second, I was rooting for the wrong bad guy."
  • Apologetic Attacker: To Vic as he strangles him.
  • Badass Driver: Manages to outrun the Batmobile for a good length of time, and nearly manages to kill Batman by causing devastating car crashes. The Penguin reveals he started out as a driver, including for Sofia Falcone.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: While he's the show's Villain Protagonist in an Evil Versus Evil scenario against Sofia Falcone, he still is a lot more underhanded, cruel, and sociopathic than she is. In any case, he ends up being the one to come out the victor in their feud, having her sent back to Arkham while killing off and manipulating most of her lieutenants and associates, allowing him to reign over the criminal underworld unopposed by the end of the series as he's always wanted.
  • Bait the Dog: Both the original film and his spin-off series present Oz as a more sympathetic figure than the other criminals in Gotham. While ruthless, he also comes from poverty and an abusive childhood, he has a painful disability, has Morality Pets in Vic and his mother Francis, and shows more scruples than his rivals. As the series goes on, it becomes clear Oz is just a selfish monster who ruins everyone and everything he touches ever since he was a kid. His scruples and loved ones are ultimately unimportant compared to his own ambitions and unfettered selfishness.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: In the finale of The Penguin, Oz refuses to own up to any of his actions regarding his role in Benny and Jack's deaths, even as his mothers finger is at risk of being cut off. While one could argue it's part of his Dirty Coward Never My Fault nature, the way he begs and pleads with both Sofia and Francis indicates that he's deluded himself into believing that he genuinely had nothing to do with their deaths, despite everyone in the room knowing it's not true.
  • Beauty Inversion: Many fans were legitimately shocked at how the make-up makes the very handsome Colin Farrell look like the overweight, balding Penguin.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Calling him a "gimp" is a huge one as he nearly kills Carmine Falcone on the spot for it. He also doesn't like traitors, vowing in the same conversation to have Carmine killed upon finding out he's a rat.
    • Also don't make fun of him or laugh at him. As Alberto learns, you'll pay a hefty price if you're foolish or arrogant enough to poke fun at him.
  • Breakout Villain: His role wasn't exactly small in The Batman, but Oz nonetheless wasn't a big player in the grand scheme of the film. He ended up becoming popular enough to get his own spinoff series on HBO, showing him rise to further prominence shortly after the events of the film.
  • Breaking the Bonds: In the finale confrontation between Oz and his mother, Francis, orchestrated by Sofia. After Francis's verbal assault on him from her suppression causes her to hallucinate and faint, Oz summons the strength to break free of his chair restraints and rescue her before escaping.
  • Broken Pedestal: Falcone serves as this to Oz. Throughout the film, Oz appears extremely friendly and loyal to Falcone to the point of never even thinking of betraying his boss, even to Batman and Gordon. Once it's revealed Falcone is indeed the rat, Oz very appalled and disgusted at Falcone, insinuating that Falcone won't last one night in Blackgate after his treachery is revealed, and even attempts to shoot him with an Uzi in front of Batman and dozens of non-corrupt GCPD officers when Falcone insults him in response. Unfortunately for Falcone, the Riddler beats Oz to it by a matter of seconds. It's implied that his grab for power in The Penguin is as much motivated by his disgust and disillusionment with the Falcones running things because Carmine was a rat as much as it is by a general lust for power.
  • Brooklyn Rage: This version of the Penguin speaks in a strong New York accent and has quite the Hair-Trigger Temper.
  • Butt-Monkey: He gets the short end of the stick quite a bit throughout the first film, from being manhandled by Batman during an interrogation, to having his car flipped over during a chase, to comically being left in handcuffs by Gordon and Batman.
  • Character Development: It's frankly negative development, but The Penguin chronicles Oz's rise from a lowly, disrespected associate of the Falcone Crime Family to the next kingpin of Gotham City who has fully embraced his darker traits for the sake of gaining control over the city.
  • The Chessmaster: In the first episode of his series, he reveals himself to be shockingly adept at turning circumstances to his favor, so that by the end of the episode he has managed to convince Sofia (for now) that Maroni is behind her brother's death, not only getting himself out of immediate trouble, but likely sparking a gang war that he will be able to use to further his own ambitions.
  • Characterization Marches On: In The Batman, Oz was established as having somewhat of a sense of honor in spite of his gross and sleazy personality, with one of the high points of his character being to express disgust at Carmine Falcone once it's revealed he ratted out the Maronis to the police. In his titular series though, Oz is shown to be just as much of an opportunistic backstabber as Falcone and the rest of the Gotham underground, which he uses to try to become the ultimate crime lord of Gotham City.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: At least after his experience with Carmine Falcone. He'll work with anyone, treat them like friends, act like they're all in it together until the bitter end, and then sell them out or kill them without a backward glance. He ultimately develops a reputation for it, but is still Affably Evil enough that he's able to convince people to side with him.
  • Color-Coded Characters: Has an affinity for the color purple, one of his signature colors from the comics. He usually wears purple suits and drives a plum Maserati Quattroporte/Rolls-Royce Cullinan.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Inverted. He's only ever referred to as Penguin or "Oz", while his real name, Oswald Cobb, is never mentioned in the film. That said, he does mention that he despises the name "Penguin", and prefers to be called Oz instead.
  • Compulsive Liar: Oz lies as easily as he breathes, being caught by surprise multiple times and managing to immediately create a plausible explanation without any change in his tone or demeanor. This is taken to a disturbingly logical conclusion when it comes to his brother's deaths, which he was responsible for—despite his mother being threatened with having her finger painfully chopped off if he doesn't just admit the truth to her, as a form of emotional torture by Sofia Falcone, Oz continues to claim he had nothing to do with it even after Francis reveals she already knows, to such an extent that he seems to be buying into his own bullshit.
  • Cool Car: A plum colored Maserati Quattroporte. He's good enough with it that he's briefly able to outpace the Batmobile. He later acquires a plum colored Rolls-Royce Cullinan by the final episode.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype:
    • Of the Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters and Noble Demon archetype. In the original movie, despite being a remorseless gangster, he ultimately decides to help the heroes fight the bigger threats like Carmine Falcone and The Riddler; he shows standards like being disgusted when he learned that Falcone was a rat who built his empire by snitching on other gangsters, and that The Riddler had planned on flooding Gotham and was horrified by the lost of life. Furthermore, in his spinoff series, it's revealed that he was inspired by a gangster who everyone in his neighborhood loved and who treated them with kindness, and he also has a deep love for his mother, who he wants to care for, and takes in a street kid named Victor whom he treats like a prodigy and son. However, as the series progresses, it's been shown that his redeeming qualities are twisted with selfishness and cruelty. He has no loyalty to anyone and is willing to betray his men and partners to save his own life. He killed his two brothers by locking them in the sewers when he was a younger child because he believed they were making fun of his foot disability and wanted an excuse to have his mother's attention monopolized. Even his love for his mother doesn't allow her to be spared his selfishness, with him being unable to admit his fratricide even to spare her from torture, and leaving her a vegetable in her own body after she suffers a stroke despite her wishes of dying gracefully. As an added twist of the knife, he sends Sofia back to Arkham, despite previously expressing disgust and horror at Carmine subjecting her to that fate, and kills Victor because he viewed his love for him as a weakness. This shows that for all his nobility and care for his loved ones; he's ultimately a selfish and heartless gangster at the core, who uses his loved ones as an excuse to get power and is willing to betray and hurt them when it's convenient for him — and tragically, it's only that very fact that allows him to claw his way to the top.
    • He's also one of the traditional Penguin himself. In most continuities, the Penguin is usually A Lighter Shade of Black compared to the other more vile criminals in Gotham like Joker and Riddler, being a criminal underboss who prides himself on sophistication and dignity stemming from a tragic background— still a greedy man out for himself, but not nearly as dangerous enough when placed against actual psychopaths, so Batman is usually willing to leave him alone since his criminal connections tend to make him a valuable source of information (unless Penguin oversteps his boundaries). This Penguin is far from the case, as he's still a greedy, immoral monster, but that's precisely why he's just as dangerous, if not more so, than Joker and Riddler, since he's willing to go to any lengths to get what he wants by lying, scheming, and murdering his loved ones without a care of who he screws over in the process — and he doesn't have madness as an excuse like Joker.
  • Dirty Coward: Oh where to begin.
    • Instead of admitting that he is the one who killed his brothers, he insists that it was the city that killed them.
    • When faced with his mother either losing a finger or telling the truth about the death of his brothers, he just keeps denying it.
    • He promised that if his mother would end up too far gone that he would euthanize her. Instead he keeps forcing her to live in a vegetative state, against all her wishes. He is willing to kill almost everyone he comes across, mind you.
  • Dirty Old Man: Whilst his exact age is unknown, in the script, he's trying to touch Selina's dress and generally acts very perverted towards his attractive waitresses and female guests. One of his first acts in the Penguin miniseries is to pocket illicit pictures of someone having an affair, all the while muttering "beautiful" to himself. Additionally, prostitutes on the street are shown to be familiar with him on a personal basis.
  • Disabled in the Adaptation: His right foot is malformed as a result of either a poorly healed injury or a birth defect, forcing him to wear a metal brace around his foot and leaving him with a permanent waddling stride. This is a new addition to the Penguin's physique as the comic book version's waddle is usually the result of him being very short and fat (in fact, the traditional malformed features of the Penguin, if he has any, would be having flippers for hands).
  • The Don: By the end of The Penguin, Oz has successfully bested most of his competition, gained political connections, and earned the loyalty of several other criminal figures, making him Gotham's new crime kingpin.
  • Double Agent: Oz is with the Falcones starting out, but he starts working with their rivals Maronis after murdering Alberto Falcone while he plays them both against each other to benefit himself.
  • Dragon Ascendant: The Penguin is all about him rising through the ranks of Gotham's criminal underworld to become its next new kingpin.
  • The Driver: In addition to owning the Iceberg Lounge and overseeing the distribution of Drops, prior to her arrest Oz also acted as Sofia Falcone's personal chauffeur.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Oz has a major chip on his shoulder over the fact that despite his hard work and accomplishments for the Falcones, other than Carmine, nobody in the organization seems to really respect him.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: He actually hates the nickname "The Penguin" and didn't choose it. He wants his nickname to be "Oz", which Falcone respects.
  • Enemy Mine: Sort of. After Batman and Gordon kidnap him for an interrogation, he provides valuable insight into the method to solve the Spanish-themed second riddle, albeit delivered in a mocking manner because they don't know basic Spanish and went through all that trouble to kidnap him on a wrongful assumption. While antagonistic to both, he stands aside and lets them take Falcone into custody at the end out of disgust at the reveal that Falcone informed on the police to get Sal Maroni locked up, telling Falcone that he's made sure that the inmates inside the prisons will know what he did, and they love snitches. He does shortly try to shoot him afterwards once Falcone pushes his buttons too much, but that's incidental.
  • Enfant Terrible: He murdered his two brothers when he was still just a child after locking them in the sewers during a game of hide and seek out of frustration for being unable to follow them due to his own deformities, and out of jealousy for having to share their mother's love and attention.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Deconstructed over the course of his miniseries. Oz takes care of his ailing mother, making sure she takes her pills every day, and his first instinct after learning that Sofia Falcone has come back in the picture (and suspects him of her brother's murder) is to try and get her out of the city for her own safety, but as the show goes on it becomes clear he craves her attention and validation more than he loves her. Particularly in the final episode, where he would rather let her finger get cut off than confess the truth about killing his brothers, keeps her alive in a vegetative state contrary to her wishes, and hires Eve to dress like her and praise him.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: A few but unlike most examples it's not a redeeming quality as most of them are subverted or come in a twisted and very selfish form.
    • In a deleted scene, he tries to warn Selina off working in 44 Below, out of what seems to be genuine concern that she could get harassed or assaulted by the patrons. He even offers her money out of his own pocket, saying that he would do anything for her and appearing hurt for what he perceives as her rejecting him.
    • He genuinely loves his mother, and looks after her even though she is steadily declining and isn't always nice to him. He stubbornly refuses to send her to a nursing home. He even tells Sofia that she's dead so she won't be in Sofia's crosshairs if she figures out Oz did kill Alberto.
    • He takes a sincere liking to Vic, seeing that the kid has potential and probably sees a kindred spirit in him, since he has a disability much like Oz does. He's sincerely hurt when Vic says he was hesitant to leave because he was afraid of him, and Oz tells him to make a decision on if to go with his ex-girlfriend or stay with him. He chooses to stay. Oz is genuinely saddened when he kills Vic, but he sees that he can't have any potential weaknesses.
    • He genuinely cares about his lover Eve, and lets her in on a few of his schemes.
    • Possibly subverted with his two brothers. While it initially seems that their deaths deeply haunt him, "Top Hat" reveals he left them abandoned in a sewer tunnel as a child, causing them to drown. While it's left unclear if he intended for them to die, with his child actor stating that he was mostly acting on impulse, he nevertheless made no attempts to let them out, evidently enjoyed being able to have their mother's full attention in the aftermath, and avoids discussing his role in the subject in the present day, to the point that he's possibly convinced himself that it was in no way his fault as well.
    • He had a genuine friendship with Sofia before she was sent to Arkham, though it evaporated because Sofia thinks he helped in the frame up by her father and Oz killed her brother Alberto in a fit of rage.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • He's visibly and verbally disgusted by the pictures of Pete Savage's corpse.
    • Despite his sleaziness as a criminal, he is no snitch, and he is very disgusted at Falcone being one, even being ready to shoot him over it. That said, his solo series shows he is willing to rat out his rivals to other mobsters or even politicians for his own benefit if push comes to shove, implying this may just be posturing to keep up a respectable image, if not him just being an outright Hypocrite.
    • His disgust at being accused of murdering Annika suggests that he is repulsed by the idea of killing a defenseless woman. This, combined with the aforementioned deleted scene, shows that he may legitimately care about the girls under his employ (as long as they're not a liability).
    • At the very end of the film, Oz is nothing but horrified at the aftermath of Gotham being flooded by the Riddler, and can only gaze down on the city with an uncertain and melancholic look on his face as he ponders what to do. In The Penguin, he continues to express disgust at Riddler's actions, calling him a madman.
    • Though his club foot would technically qualify him to take the handicapped seat on the subway, Oz chooses to remain standing, which is implied to earn him Vic's respect.
    • He seemed to be genuinely shocked that Carmine would have his own daughter Sofia arrested and thrown into Arkham for simply meeting with a reporter about his crimes
  • Evil Feels Good: He loves the criminal lifestyle and all the immoral things he has to do because of it. While attaining power is a large part of it, Oz's love of being able to kill, injure, and intimidate with impunity is just as much his motivation.
  • Evil Cripple: Oz is a ruthless mobster, with his distinctive waddling gait being due to having a deformed foot which causes him pain.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Oz spends a good chunk of his screen-time bellowing lines at the top of his lungs in a thick Brooklyn accent, particularly during his car chase with Batman.
  • Fat Bastard: He's a heavyset man, in keeping with the character's traditional depiction.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Played with. Oz can be genuinely friendly to people, but he can just as easily switch to utterly ruthless and kill you without batting an eye.
  • Foil: The Penguin's story in the show has him taking on a number of similarities to several classic elements of Batman:
    • His driver/right hand man, Victor Aguilar, is reflection of Robin, particularly the second Robin, Jason Todd. Both are poor street kids, introduced stealing the tires off of Batman's/the Penguin's car.
    • Once he's forced into hiding after Sofia and Sal Maroni both squarely place him in their sights, Oz selects an abandoned underground streetcar station as the base of operations for his nascent criminal organization, directly mirroring The Batman's depiction of the Batcave as an abandoned subway station beneath Wayne Tower.
    • Bruce Wayne's backstory is marked by personal tragedy, the murder of his parents. Similarly, in Oz's childhood his two brothers drowned in an abandoned storm drain, devastating his mother. The difference being, of course, that Oz himself locked them in there.
  • Freudian Excuse: Colin Farrell describes Penguin as someone who uses violence and street smarts to overcompensate for his deformities. His series expands upon this, showing how Oz grew up in a crime-ridden neighborhood and was often ostracized for his disability. His idolization of Rex Calabrese also caused him to believe crime was the only true way for him to climb out of poverty. However...
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: His series reveals Oz was always immoral ever since he was a child, having killed his brothers by locking them in a storm drain. While Word of God indicates it was an Accidental Murder he regrets even if he won't take responsibility for it, and his upbringing did cause him to see turning to crime as the best way to climb out of poverty, Sofia comments that while Oz had a tough upbringing, none of those things are guaranteed to make someone a monster. Oz is what he is because he wants to be.
    Sofia: I never gave much thought to Oz's childhood. I know the, uh, highlights, of course. I know he loves making a meal out of those... But those things don't make you a monster, do they?
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: As revealed in The Penguin, Oz initially started out as merely a driver for the Falcone mob before eventually making his way up the ranks to become a valued associate. The present-day events of the series, following the flooding of Gotham and Carmine's death, see Oz gradually ascend from even that position by manipulating and killing off much of his competition, culminating in him successfully becoming the new, unopposed kingpin of Gotham by the finale.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: A faded but deep one that slants down across his right cheek and under his nose.
  • The Grotesque: Averted. Oswald is by no means a looker, but here he is portrayed as much more plain looking than the ugly-bordering-on-bizarre appearance he's usually given in the comics (save for his pointy nose).
  • Hair-Trigger Temper:
    • Given he's a psychotic gangster, he's prone to lashing out and hurting people when he's angry. A good example of this is how he murders Alberto Falcone simply for laughing at him.
    • In a flashback to Oz's childhood, he leaves his brothers to drown in a locked storm drain in a fit of rage over them hiding somewhere his club foot won't allow him to follow during a game of tag.
  • Hate Sink: Any redeeming qualities he had are gone by the end of his show. Like his gang, the audience was fooled into thinking he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and this is completely subverted in the last two episodes when he is revealed to have killed his brothers as a child and shows absolutely no remorse for it, gets Sofia thrown back into the same prison that tortured her for a decade, kills Vic for no reason other than he feels too close to him, and keeps his mother in a vegatative state despite her telling him she didn't want to live like that. After all of that (and then some, with all of his other heinous acts throughout the show), you can't help but be rooting for the Dark Knight to bring him down.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • He has a solid knowledge of the Spanish language, which ends up helping Batman solve one of the Riddler's puzzles.
    • Furthermore, he clearly has an aversion to overthinking things, as once he "helps" Gordon and Batman solve the "el rata alada" riddle, he proceeds to chastise the two that their first assumption was that a "rat with wings" was a penguin, and not a bat.
    • He might look gross and sleazy, but it's pretty clear that Oz understands and values loyalty and honor (as much as a criminal figure can, anyway). Tellingly, he's highly offended at the assumption that he's the "rat" that sold out Salvatore Maroni, and is furious that his trusted friend Carmine Falcone, the one mob boss that treated him with respect, is actually said rat.
    • He's also an excellent driver, pushing Batman to the limits of what the Batmobile can do just to keep pace with him in their car chase.
    • His personal common car he uses to discreetly visit his mother has a Dolly Parton CD loaded in it.
    • He has an apparent love of classic films, showing Victor Gilda as he ponders how to deal with Sofia's clear suspicion of him.
  • Honor Among Thieves: Even though he almost certainly benefited from it personally, he is outraged when he learns that Carmine Falcone, his boss, got Maroni's business by ratting him out to the authorities.
  • Hypocrite:
    • He becomes violently angry upon finding out that Carmine Falcone got to the top of the criminal underworld by being a rat that provided information to law enforcement on his competition and profited from their downfall... despite the fact that Oz spends the entirety of his eponymous show informing on the various criminal organizations to their rivals in order to profit from it, and ultimately wins the feud against Sofia by ratting on her again to a city councilman. Furthermore, he is genuinely remorseful that Carmine would do something as horrible as framing her and having her committed to Arkham, but Oz ends up doing the same thing to her in the finale.
    • Despite getting angry at a waiter for cutting off Vic during his stuttering, Penguin isn't shy about doing so himself whenever he gets annoyed at Vic taking too long to finish a sentence.
    • At the end of his series, Oz kills Victor because he feels himself getting too close to him, and doesn't want any family-like connections to threaten his position as his top dog of Gotham's criminal empire. Despite this, he refuses to do the same with his own mother, despite her being near-comatose and practically a dead woman anyway, all because he selfishly refuses to let her go.
  • Incest Subtext: With his mother. He killed his brothers to have her to himself, promises to give her everything in the world, and ignores her wishes for euthanasia after she falls into a vegetative state. Once he eliminates his rivals in the criminal underworld, he even has Eve Karlo (his girlfriend) dress as a younger version of his mother and asks Eve to give him words of encouragement as they dance.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex:
    • He is very insecure about himself, judging by his burst of anger when Falcone insults him and immediately thinking that Selina doesn't see him as 'good enough for her' when she refuses a bribe during a deleted scene. In both cases, he becomes a lot more sinister, making a death threat to Selina and trying to shoot Falcone in front of dozens of cops.
    • This trait comes to the forefront during the events of his eponymous series, where the surest way to send Oz into a murderous rage is to belittle him, his accomplishments, or his ambitions. Alberto, Sofia, and Vitti all use it to attack him; and it is what gets Alberto killed.
  • It's All About Me: Despite the fact that he can genuinely care for people, Oz cares first and foremost about himself. It doesn't matter if he cares about you or if you've served him loyally, as Vic finds out, if he'll have to sacrifice you, he will.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Oz puts on a show of being a Neighborhood-Friendly Gangster, and his relationships with Vic and Francis demonstrate that he does have the capacity to care about other people. However, he's ultimately immoral to the core, and he's so afraid of being vulnerable he'll turn on anyone — even killing the ever-loyal Vic just to make sure he can't be leveraged again.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • He attempts to murder Selina in a shooting and causes multiple car crashes on the road that would have at least killed one person. Regardless, the police doesn't even bother arresting him. Admittedly, it really isn't until Gordon manages to rally up enough non-corrupt cops to arrest Falcone that the GCPD even does its job, and though they briefly restrain him thinking that he shot Falcone, the sudden realization that the Riddler is within reach causes the police to focus on the bigger fish.
    • The Penguin has this taken to another level, as despite the revealing a much crueler and more sociopathic side to himself and suffering quite a bit throughout course of the series at the hands of Sofia, he still manages to come out mostly unscathed and the sole top dog of the criminal underworld to boot with a penthouse, a clean record as far as the public and city's law enforcement are concerned, and political connections to boot. Oh, also he's keeping his mother in a vegetable and killed his closest friend and driver Victor. With that being said...
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: The final shot of his series shows the Bat-Signal lit up in the sky, showing that despite his new position as the kingpin of Gotham, not even this scumbag is safe from Batman's wrath.
  • Kavorka Man: He's a scarred, heavyset middle-aged gangster with a Sinister Schnoz and sleazy personality, but generally seems to be well-liked by the ladies at the Iceberg Lounge, has a relationship with the beautiful Eve Karlo, and is familiar on a personal basis with two prostitutes on the streets who visibly ogle him (and Victor).
  • Kick the Morality Pet: While Oz mostly tries to treat Vic with respect, there are moments where he loses his temper with him. The finale takes this to its horrifying conclusion when Oz decides to murder him because he fears his genuine affection for the young man is a weakness that could be taken advantage of.
  • Large Ham: Colin Farrell is clearly having a blast in his role as an obese mob boss. Nowhere is this more apparent than during the chase scene, when he (seemingly) gets the Batmobile into a crash and channels his inner Robert De Niro.
    Oz: AHHH HA HAH! I GOT YOU! I! GOT! YOU! TAKE THAT, YA FRICKIN' PSYCHO!
  • Laughably Evil: His hammy personality and snarky remarks provide much of the comic relief in the film.
  • Love Is a Weakness: Disposes of Vic in the series finale because he had grown to care about him and he wants to rid himself of that kind of weakness.
  • Loving a Shadow: The finale makes it clear that Oz is only concerned with the idea of his mother as someone who can feed him constant affection and validation, rather than who she actually is. After she suffers a stroke and is left a vegetable, he ignores her earlier wish to kill her if necessary in favor of keeping her lifeless body in his penthouse overlooking the city so he can claim that he's given her everything she ever wanted, and even has Eve dress up as a younger version of Francis to dance with and gain motherly approval from.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Despite his exterior and the fact that a lot of people are fully aware of how much of a sleazy bastard he is, Oz proves to be quite gifted at playing people and getting them to do what he wants, even when it's clear they don't trust him at all.
  • Middle-Management Mook: Despite being responsible for distributing Drops, The Penguin makes it clear Oz is merely a close associate of the Falcones and nothing more who doesn't actually hold a legitimate rank within the organization and isn't even respected by most of its members beyond his usefulness to the drug trade. He's not exactly content with this, and manipulates the consequences of Carmine and Alberto's deaths so he can become a more respected criminal figure.
  • Momma's Boy: A deeply unhealthy example. He deeply loves his mother, Francis, and she, in turn, gives him words of encouragement and wisdom… words that motivate his ruthless and underhanded nature as he works to make a name for himself in the criminal underworld. "Top Hat" would reveal a much darker element to this in that, as a child, he was so fixated on getting her affection that he became actively jealous of his brothers whenever Francis showed them any love, and made no effort to search for them after abandoning them in a sewer tunnel in a fit of rage during a game of hide and seek since it meant Francis would be able spend time with just him. It later turns out that Francis eventually found out and has hated Oz for it ever since, simply encouraging his criminal behavior per Rex Calabrese's advice, but when the time comes where she's forced to confront him about it, he continues to lie through his teeth about getting them killed so that he doesn't lose her love, utterly refusing to acknowledge that he already has. In the end, after she falls into a vegetative state, he keeps her body within his penthouse overlooking the city as he "promised" her years ago and has Eve even dress up a younger version of Francis, all to create the illusion for himself that he has made his mother proud.
  • Moral Myopia: Borderline any morals or standards Penguin shows are, in the long run, very shortsighted and self-centered. Disgusted that Falcone was the one who ratted out the rest of the mob? Perfectly fine if he’s the one doing the backstabbing. Horrified that Falcone would lock up Sofia, his own daughter, in Arkham Asylum for his convenience? Does the same to her by the end of his series for similar reasons and, similar to his old boss's preferred m.o. for murdering women, strangles Vic to death just because he was becoming attached to the kid and saw it as weakness.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • This version of Penguin appears to take traits from the Gotham incarnation of the character, mainly with possessing a physical disfigurement that causes people to call him the Penguin as well as viewing this nickname as an Embarrassing Nickname.
    • Right before the car chase begins, he is briefly seen holding his signature umbrella to weather out the rain, though it doesn't contain a hidden gun inside.
    • His attempt to follow Gordon and Batman after being interrogated is heavily impeded by the restraints around his wrists and ankles— the resulting hobbled gait bears a strong resemblance to Burgess Meredith's original "waddle".
    • His final scene in The Penguin has him wearing a top hat and tails, with a yellow waistcoat — a near-perfect recreation of his comic counterpart's first appearance outfit.
  • Narcissist: What he reveals himself to be over the course of his show. While Oz's characterisation starts off as that of an aspiring "man of the people" who started as a poor kid, who lost both of his brothers, and is looking to make his mother proud of him, the reality is grimier and more complex with Oz being gradually uncovered as an ultimately selfish figure who cares more about the love and respect he gets from the people he supposedly loves than he does the actual people. While he can love others in his own way this is secondary to his ambitions and he will self-deludes himself into believing everything he does is justified while upholding the belief that he is a person who looks out for others and especially the little man.
    • He kills Alberto despite having every reason not to simply because the man mocked his dream, putting his livelihood and plans in danger for being belittled.
    • When Maroni suddenly dies of a heart attack during their fight in Episode 7, Oz rather than be happy about this turn of event, is actually frustrated and even angry, grabbing a dying Sal to insist that he is the one to beat him (i.e: not his illness).
    • He actually killed both of his brothers by locking them in a sewer for taking a route during one of their games that he couldn't because of his handicap with the implication that he also did it so he wouldn't have to share his mother's affection with them. It's also shown that he is more concerned with earning her esteem than actual love a he repeteadly asks her if she is proud once he has won and she is in a vegetative state. He even has Eve dress up as his mom and asks her to give him praise while keeping his mom alive against her wishes, still believing that she is proud of him despite the fact that she told him that she resented him for killing her other sons.
    • In the finale despite admitting he considers Victor family, he chokes him to death so his "love" for him wouldn't hold him back now that he's on top.
  • Noble Demon: Subverted. Penguin seemingly has a sense of honor and loyalty, being offended when Batman and Gordon think that he's the rat, and angrily railing at Falcone when he's exposed as the rat, but his spin-off series proceeds to demonstrate how these aforementioned noble traits belie a much more deluded and monstrous criminal. Even his apparent disgust at working with the law is revealed to be little more than posturing when he uses his influence with Councilman Hady to get Sofia sent back to Arkham.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: With his receding hairline, Brooklyn accent, and facial scars, Penguin bears more than a passing resemblance to Al Capone.
  • Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Oz makes countless insightful points about classism, the exploitation of the working class, and the difficulty of climbing out of poverty, which wins Vic and numerous others to his side because he promises a better future, backed up by him actually improving a few things. However, at the end of the day, while Oz believes in what he's saying, what he ultimately wants is a better future for himself. He's perfectly fine perpetuating the system as long as he's on top, and only fixes things with ulterior motives. Most obvious in that he repeatedly shows he doesn't value the lives of the people he's supposedly elevating, as he runs from Sofia's bomb without making the slightest attempt to warn his crew, instinctively prioritizing his own well being, and later kills Victor for wholly self serving reasons.
  • Not Me This Time:
    • Because Penguin is a big player in the Gotham mob scene, Gordon and Batman surmise that he's the "rat" that the Riddler is referring to. But once they interrogate Penguin, he swears he has no clue what they're talking about and asserts that he's no snitch. He's telling the truth.
    • When Falcone is shot, he immediately asserts that, despite holding a gun, he didn't pull the trigger. He's telling the truth.
  • Oblivious to His Own Description: He calls Batman a "psycho" while taunting his rear-view mirror, while looking back at the flaming wreckage of a massive car accident he caused while trying to escape him.
  • Oh, Crap!: His reaction when he sees the Batmobile emerging unscathed from an explosion is quite a sight.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: In The Batman he is only called "the Penguin" or his preferred nickname "Oz". The Penguin gives his real name as Oswald Cobb.
  • Passed-Over Promotion: Despite being trusted to run what was essentially Carmine Falcone's base of operations, as well as his most profitable drug production and distribution network, Oz was never made a capo in the organization, much less a made man. It can be presumed this is due to him not being of Italian heritage, as is often the case with real life mafia families.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: When Batman is slugging his way through the mooks at the Iceberg, Oz suddenly appears and puts an end to the fight, choosing to talk things through with the masked vigilante instead.
  • Playing Both Sides: Throughout The Penguin, Oz goes back and forth between the Falcones and the Maronis, playing the two mob families against one-another with deals, frame-ups and leaked agendas to facilitate his own rise to power. Eventually the Maronis catch on and expose Oz's deceit to Sofia Falcone, leading to Sofia and Sal Maroni (the last remaining members of their respective families by that point) pooling their resources to hunt down Oz for all the harm he's done to them.
  • Politically Correct Villain: Oz may be a dirty criminal, but he is fairly tolerant and patient when it comes to Victor's stutter, albeit largely because he sees him as kindred spirit due to having a disability of his own, though in another scene he leaves a handicap spot vacant even though, because of his deformed foot, he's technically allowed to use it. He's also legitimately disgusted when Batman and Jim Gordon accuse him of killing Annika and, in his own sleazy way of course, attempts to prevent Selina from going to the 44 Below because it's full of creeps. Not to mention his comedic but genuine outrage at The Riddler's seemingly botched Spanish. Furthermore, his personal crew is a hodge-podge of criminals from various backgrounds and ethnicities, contrasting the higher-ups of the Falcone Crime Family who are restrictive toward those who aren't blood-related or Italian. This is somewhat deconstructed, however, since he's willing to abandon them all with little issue when shit hits the fan.
  • Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Though Oz is a nasty and deeply corrupt piece of work who is responsible for a lot of bad things in Gotham, he has absolutely nothing to do with the Riddler's actions and schemes. He also didn't rat out the Maronis to the police, and is utterly flabbergasted and disgusted when he finds out who the rat really is.
  • Professional Butt-Kisser: Oz makes sure to refer to everyone as "Boss", to make them feel safe. Salvatore mentions how he did this to both him and Falcone at the same time.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: His odd charm, concern for the people he cares about, and occasional moral code mask it somewhat, but his quick swerves into violent anger make it clear Oz hasn't matured much from the boy who responded to his brothers hiding in a storm drain where his club foot prevented him from following by impulsively locking them inside and leaving during a storm just so he could have Francis to himself.
  • Red Herring: At first, Batman and James Gordon believe that Oswald is the "Rat" in Riddler's second riddle, reasoning that the "el rata alada" (the winged rat) could also refer to a penguin (which also has wings) and that Penguin has enough underworld connections to both sell out to the GCPD and intimidate them into secrecy. But when they actually interrogate Oswald, he reveals that he has nothing to do with the drug bust and points out that "el rata alada" is an incorrect form of Spanish (it's supposed to be la rata alada), forcing Batman to reexamine the riddle.
  • Revisiting the Roots: This version of the Penguin returns to his earlier roots as a gangster with a middle-class background. In his original appearance in the golden age, the Penguin was just a gangster with no connection to the upper class of Gotham, who was looking for power and respect. In the Silver Age, his background was revealed as coming from a humble middle-class neighborhood where he was raised by a single mother who was overprotective of him and turned to crime after her passing because he had bills to pay. In the modern era, the Penguin's background is that he comes from an upper-class, wealthy family in Gotham, and his family was acquainted with the Wayne family and was abused as a child by his father and brothers because of his appearance. Also, the fact that he’s physically different has been fraternized in later versions to bring up that the Penguin is a physical outcast. This version of the Penguin only has a clubfoot, no connection to the upper class of Gotham, is looking for respect, and is taking care of his sick mother. He justifies his crimes with his need to care for her like earlier versions of his character.
  • Sad Clown: Even Vitti admits that Oz is the life of the party, but no-one trusts him and Vic realises that his boss is lonely which is why he's acting as Vic's mentor.
  • Self-Made Man: Deconstructed. Oz rose from poverty to become a low-ranking but still financially comfortable gangster through his own hard work, and later ascends to the kingpin of Gotham's criminal underworld. However, he has to do a lot of underhanded things to get there. And as he points out, for as bad as he is, the system is legally rigged against the working class, so it's impossible to rise in Gotham's class structure without being underhanded.
  • Sinister Schnoz: He has a beak-like nose, which is likely part of the reason why he has his Embarrassing Nickname.
  • Sinister Switchblade: In The Penguin, Oz is shown to have a penchant for switchblades.
  • Slimeball:
    • He plays up his Snake Oil Salesman persona when talking to Batman and later acts as an overly protective bodyguard to Falcone.
    • He's incredibly slimy when talking to his colleagues and bosses, whom he always calls "Boss" to appease to them.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Although he's a high-ranking mobster in Carmine Falcone's ring, Oswald Cobb ultimately spends much of The Batman being his lackey, not really being the respected figure that he thinks he is. After Falcone's death, however, he begins to exploit the power vacuum caused by that and the city flooding to try to claw his way up to the top of the city’s criminal world.
  • Smarter Than You Look: He's a slimy, loudmouthed small-time gangster who gives off the impression of a stooge for more important people to push around. Oz is actually much smarter than people give him credit for. Not only is he much more knowledgeable and insightful than he lets on, but he's a master manipulator able to play people like strings even if they know what kind of man he is.
  • The Social Expert: A master at telling people the exact right thing to get them to do what he needs them to do, while looking past their (quite justified) mistrust of him.
  • The Sociopath: Played With. He's exceptionally manipulative, lies as easily as he breathes to the point of refusing to admit his role in the deaths of his brothers despite his mother's safety being at stake, is terrifyingly quick to violence when provoked, and ultimately cares about himself and his own ambitions above all else. And while Oz does sincerely care for Victor and Francis, he's still incredibly selfish and possessive towards them and also has an extreme fear of appearing vulnerable. By the end of the series, he refuses to admit to his crimes even to save Francis's life, ignores her wishes to be euthanized after she is left vegetative, and goes as far as to kill Vic to avoid showing "weakness" ever again.
  • The Starscream: Come the events of The Penguin, he becomes this to the Falcone crime family. After he murders Alberto, his new boss, he plans to find and claim the drug shipment that Alberto was aiming to collect and set the Falcone and Maroni crime families against each other so that he can claim the spot of being the new top crime lord in Gotham.
  • The Svengali: To Victor Aguilar. He decides to take the young carjacker under his wing and acts as his mentor, but mainly exploits him in his plot to take over organized crime in Gotham. This culminates in him murdering Victor in the finale of "The Penguin."
  • Tempting Fate: He cheers at having taken out Batman during a car chase. Cue the Batmobile immediately ramming into and knocking his car over.
  • The Unfettered: Ultimately, OZ is revealed to be a completely shameless scumbag who will do anything to achieve his ambitions, everything comes secondary to his goal of ruling Gotham, even the people he loves.
  • Villainous Friendship: He's implied to have one with Carmine Falcone, seeing as they're often shown together. Falcone in turn shows respect to him, referring to him by his preferred nickname, "Oz." Once it's revealed Falcone is the rat, though, any and all respect that Cobb once had for him is gone.
  • Villain Has a Point:
    • The reason Oz is able to rouse up so much support from Vic and so many people like him is because he makes very accurate assessments of the classism and exploitation of the working class rampant in Gotham.
    • He's also correct when he points out that the criminals on top in Gotham's underworld have grown complacent. The Falcones and Maronis are so caught up in their feud over who is the dominant crime family that they fail to see Oz for the threat he is until it is too late. Thus, he is able to unite the smaller gangs under himself when Sofia decides she can kill their guys with impunity to send a message because none of them are strong enough individually to challenge her.
  • Villain Protagonist: Of his self-titled spin-off show, which details his rise through the ranks of Gotham's criminal underworld in the aftermath of Carmine Falcone's death.
  • Villain Respect: He consistently holds Batman in high regard, unless he's seriously being threatened by him, at which point he gets nervous and defensive.
    The Penguin: This guy's crazy!
  • Villainous Gold Tooth: He has three.
  • Villainous Valor: While he can be intimidated into fleeing the Batmobile, Oz is otherwise a pretty ballsy criminal that reacts much more bravely to Batman than most of his compatriots, even though he's a portly middle-aged man with a limp. His first scene shows him explicitly counting money from drug sales right in front of Batman, and his response when Batman threatens to hurt him to make him talk is to get defensive.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy:
    • Oz adores his mother and wants nothing more then to hear her say she's proud of him. This is later deconstructed as we are shown that not only does he crave her approval so much that he killed his brothers so he could be the sole object of her affections, but that he'll even override her wishes and delude himself into thinking it's what she wanted.
    • It's implied that Rex Calabrese and Carmine Falcone exploited this in their relationships, both older men who the fatherless Oz latched onto as leaders. Both knew that the best way to keep Oz in line was to stroke his ego just enough to keep him content and happy, while still remaining subservient to them.
  • What You Are in the Dark:
    • It is revealed in "Top Hat" that a young Oz locked both of his brothers in the sewer because he believed the two of them were making fun of his foot disability, resulting in them drowning to death. While the behind-the-scenes segment of the episode indicates he wasn't intentionally trying to enact Sibling Murder and it was purely on impulse, the fact that he spent the rest of the night watching a movie with his mother and lied to her face about their whereabouts while at it, ultimately shows where his priorities lie when it comes to gaining Francis' affection.
    • This comes to a head in the finale. Even after his mother reveals that she always knew the truth that he killed his brothers and always hated him for it, and ultimately falls into a stroke, Oz refuses to accept that reality in favor of continuing to lie to her face about what happened — to the point of claiming she's being delusional because of her deteriorating condition — and eventually keeping her comatose body in his penthouse so he can claim that he has given her everything she wanted.
  • Working-Class Hero: Subverted. Oz is proud of his working-class roots, and he espouses class solidarity and reform to gain support. But while he is genuinely proud of his roots, Oz doesn't actually care about reforming the system and just wants to be on the other end. He's just cynically exploiting this image and using platitudes to get what he wants.
  • Worthy Opponent: He shows some excitement over the lengths Batman will go to to take him out during their car chase, laughing about how nuts his opponent is in his insane determination to catch him.

    Victor Aguilar 

Victor Aguilar

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0987.jpeg
"I got ambition. I can help you!"

Portrayed by: Rhenzy Feliz

Appears In: The Penguin

"The whole world, they treat us like-like we don't matter, like we're fuckin' nothing. Are you just gonna run away now?"

A teenager from Gotham City who becomes Oswald's protégé under some very unusual circumstances.


  • All for Nothing: He remains loyal to Oz throughout the series and plays a crucial role in helping create his city-wide criminal empire…only for Oz to kill him in the finale to prevent himself from having any weaknesses to exploit.
  • Bleed 'Em and Weep: He's eventually forced to kill Squid in order avoid exposing the location of the Oz's Bliss operation. He breaks down later when he tells Oz, who comforts Vic and tells him it gets easier.
  • Car Fu: Upon deciding to stay with Oz instead of leaving town, he returns to find his boss being held at gunpoint by Nadia Maroni. He promptly introduces one of her men to the front of Oz's Maserati before driving off with Oz.
  • Conflicting Loyalty: He has to face a choice between sticking with Oz and take the risky climb to the top of the criminal underworld, or leave town with his girlfriend into an unknown but honest future. Ultimately, he chooses Oz. Which tragically turns out to be the last mistake he ever makes.
  • Corrupted Character Copy: To Jason Todd, the second Robin. Like Todd, Vic is taken under the wing of a dangerous figure while trying to steal the tires of that figure's vehicle.
  • Doomed Hometown: His neighborhood was completely washed away in the flooding caused by the destruction of Gotham's seawall.
  • Face Death with Despair: Begs and pleads with Oz as he's being strangled to death, but to no avail.
  • He Knows Too Much: Oz kills Vic, realizing that he's shown too much of himself to him and he doesn't want to risk anyone sniffing out any potential weaknesses.
  • Meaningful Name: The aguila in his surname is Spanish for "eagle", carrying the bird theme with The Penguin and the Falcone crime family. The avian theme also matches with him being a dark version of Jason Todd, the second Robin.
    • His name being shortened to Vic foreshadows his fate as Oz's final on-screen murder victim.
  • Morality Pet: To Oz, who takes him under his wing and treats him respectfully. Later deconstructed in Episode 8 as Oz kills Victor when he believes that family makes you weak.
  • Number Two: Oz quickly adopts him as his right-hand man in the series premiere.
  • Speech Impediment: He has a rather prominent stutter that tends to get worse when he's nervous. As the series goes on, it gradually begins to improve until he barely suffers from it by Episode 8. It returns when he's choked to death by Oz.

    Eve Karlo 

Eve Karlo

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0988_4.png
"You deserve your shot."

Portrayed by: Carmen Ejogo

Appears in: The Penguin (2024)

"You think I want Sofia Falcone knocking on my door? Women like me, we got enough targets on our backs."

A madam working at the Iceberg Lounge and Oswald's lover.


  • Face Death with Dignity: She knows Sofia and Sal Maroni are going on the warpath for anyone they can use to hurt Oswald, so she decides to invite Sofia up to her apartment and pours herself a drink so she can arrange for her girls to be safe after her death. However, Sofia ultimately decides not to kill her due to recognizing that Oz lied to Eve about the Hangman murders as well.
  • Mama Bear: To her girls, whom she considers family and who are loyal to her in return. She's fully willing to die for them, and the revelation that Oz helped cover up the murders of two of the girls prompts her to betray him.
  • Miss Kitty: She's in charge of a group of sex workers at the Iceberg Lounge.
  • The Mistress: To Oz.
  • Mythology Gag: She's got quite the collection of wigs and outfits, appropriate for someone with the last name Karlo. Her dressing up in a wig and dress to look almost identical to Oz's mother in the finale only further enforces the connection.
  • Replacement Goldfish: In the finale, Oz enlists Eve to dress up like his mother (complete with her old dress and a matching wig) and act as his new "Ma", so that he could still have someone to give him love and gratification while Francis is in a vegetative state after her stroke, rendering her completely incapable of giving Penguin what he wants (which she wouldn't do even if she was lucid, after admitting she knows Oz killed her other sons and hates him for it.

The Maroni Crime Family

    Salvatore Maroni 

Salvatore Maroni

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sal_maroni.jpeg
"What is it you're really after, Oz?"

Portrayed by: Uncredited extra (The Batman), Clancy Brown (The Penguin)

Appears In: The Batman (2022) | The Penguin

"You looked me right in the eye, like a gentleman, and you assured me you wouldn't hurt my family! Guess what? I'm a gentleman too, and I'm gonna give you the exact same deal."

The former criminal kingpin of Gotham and patriarch of the Maroni Crime Family.


  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
    • Usually, Maroni is an underboss to Falcone with eyes on his boss' position, or a rival that can't quite measure up enough for a power struggle. Here, it's suggested that their roles seem to have been reversed until Falcone sold Maroni out to steal his operations.
    • In The Long Halloween, Sal and Sofia Falcone are lovers. Here, after the deaths of his wife and son, Sal allies with Sofia to destroy Oz. Their partnership takes on somewhat of a father-daughter dynamic, appropriate as here he is nearly three decades her senior.
  • Affably Evil: Salvatore might be a ruthless crime boss, but he is generally quite patient and cordial so long as you don't cross him, a genuinely loving husband and father to boot, and is nothing but respectful toward Sofia when they team up to take Oz down.
  • Age Lift: If their respective actors' ages are any indication, Sal appears to be around the same age as Carmine, whereas in the comics, he's quite a bit younger.note 
  • Ambiguous Situation: It's never unambiguously confirmed if it was Salvatore Maroni who had Thomas and Martha Wayne killed or Carmine Falcone. Alfred himself goes as far as to state that, despite searching for the answer, there is truly no way to tell if their deaths were the product of an assassination or if it was simply a random mugger who pulled the trigger too fast.
  • Dented Iron: He takes a shiv to the gut without problem and is utterly relentless trying to take revenge on Oz... but he's ultimately still an old man pushing his body to the limit after years in prison. He dies mid-fight with the Penguin from a heart attack.
  • Dies Differently in the Adaptation: Sal Maroni typically meets his end shortly after disfiguring District Attorney Harvey Dent, usually by Dent himself (now called Two-Face) or the Holiday Killer (who is Alberto Falcone or maybe Glinda Dent). In The Penguin, Maroni ultimately dies from a sudden heart attack when fighting Oz in a brawl, without any indication that he met, let alone disfigured, the person who would become the future Two-Face.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: Sal's wife, Nadia, is Iranian, and so are many of his gang, including at least one capo.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He has a strong relationship with his wife and son and deeply loves them both. He trusts his wife so much that he lets her help him run things with him. He's genuinely heartbroken and enraged by their deaths, swearing revenge on Oz.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He's disgusted by how the Falcones operate, betraying one another at the drop of a hat with only lip service paid to the notion of family bonds.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: As usual, Clancy Brown makes good use of his dark, gravelly baritone to portray Sal Maroni as an intimidating gangster.
  • Foreign Culture Fetish: He has an appreciation for Persian culture as evident in his love for his wife and the dominantly Persian makeup of what is otherwise an Italian mafia. Said appreciation isn't shallow, however, as he is fluent in Farsi, cooks traditional Iranian cuisine that he learned from Nadia, and listens to Iranian music.
  • The Ghost: Despite being mentioned several times in The Batman as part of a major drug bust and being swiftly seen in background news footage of his arrest, he never makes a clear physical appearance in the film. He finally appears in the flesh in the Penguin HBO Max series, portrayed by DC veteran Clancy Brown.
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: While he is still a ruthless crime lord, he is shown to be a saint compared to his rival Carmine Falcone. Unlike Carmine, Sal is shown to deeply love his family. He has a strong and healthy relationship with his wife unlike the miserable marriage that Isabella had with Carmine which ended with Carmine murdering her. Sal also is shown to be somewhat honorable in contrast to the cowardly Falcone who ratted to the police to move up in the criminal underworld. And he’s also shown to be a loving father to his son, unlike Carmine who abused both of his children, including sending his own daughter to Arkham and framing her for his murders.
  • Made of Iron: He takes a shiv to the gut, and still manages to not only kill his assailant but escape prison. That being said, his age does eventually catch-up to him as his fight with Oz results in him succumbing to a heart attack
  • Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Sal continues to run his criminal operation from inside prison without apparent issue; his people openly visit him to discuss their plans — as does Falcone associate Oz Cobb — and the guards show deference to him. He gives orders which are then implemented by his wife.
  • Mirror Character: To Carmine Falcone. They were powerful mob bosses with a deep seated hatred for each other, and are responsible for much of the corruption and criminality Gotham suffers in the present day. The biggest difference between them is that despite his villain status, Maroni genuinely respects and loves his family, and is emotionally devastated when he discovers that Oz burned his son and wife alive after escaping Blackgate, whereas Falcone only shows affection to his family if they prove useful to them, and has no issues with killing them or sending them to Arkham if they even seem like they're going to threaten his status.
  • Noble Demon: He might be a criminal overlord, but he's also a loving family man with a strong sense of loyalty and honor.
  • Outlaw Couple: His wife also serves as his underboss and does much of the work that he can't do from prison.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: His son, Taj, is murdered by Oz.
  • Papa Wolf: He loved his son fiercely, and vows bloody revenge on Oz for Taj's murder.
  • The Patriarch: Of his crime family; while Nadia is a ruthless underboss whose advice he cherishes, Sal is far from a manipulated figurehead and still has absolute control over the organization.
  • Predecessor Villain: He was the former top dog of Gotham's criminal underworld before the events of The Batman (2022), and his arrest was what allowed Falcone to take over the entire city.
  • Revenge: His primary motivation for teaming up with Sofia is to take vengeance against Oz for murdering his family.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: He is an older man, who has just lost his wife and son, who has taken a shiv to the gut and he's running around getting into violent altercations with Penguin's crew. Is it any wonder then that he ends up dying from a heart attack?
  • Villainous Friendship: After teaming up with Sofia, they actually start to bond; he cooks for her, she subtly comforts him over the death of his son, and there's a hint of a father/daughter dynamic.
  • Wicked Cultured: He is a ruthless gangster, but he is also an excellent cook that is fluent in Farsi and appreciates Iranian music and culture.

    Nadia Maroni 

Nadia Maroni

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nadia_maroni.jpeg
"This man is a dog, but a dog can be made submissive."

Portrayed by: Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Penguin)

Appears In: The Penguin

"The second you walked into Blackgate, I knew you were a swindler and a cheat."

Salvatore Maroni's wife and closest confidante.


  • Canon Foreigner: Created for The Penguin. In the comics, the most elaboration Sal Maroni's love life ever got was an affair with Sofia Falcone in The Long Halloween.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Oz burns her and her son alive in his gambit to get rid of the Maronis.
  • The Dragon: She is the lieutenant of her husband Sal, the Maroni family boss.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She has a strong bond with her husband and son, even speaking Farsi with Sal.
  • Excellent Judge of Character: She sees right through Oz's attempts to schmooze her and Sal, and knows that Oz isn't to be trusted. Sadly, this doesn't stop her from being Out-Gambitted by Oz anyway and getting burned alive along with her son.
  • Properly Paranoid: She never trusted Oz to begin with and kept tabs on him. She was right to do so since he was just playing both sides for his own gain.
  • Unholy Matrimony: Nadia is her husband's closest advisor. Her influence can be seen in the mostly Persian makeup of the Maroni organization.

    Taj Maroni 

Taj Maroni

Portrayed by: Aria Shahghasemi (The Penguin)

Appears In: The Penguin

The son of Salvatore and Nadia Maroni.


  • Cruel and Unusual Death: He and his mother are burned alive by Oz in his bid to get rid of the Maronis. Especially horrible since his worst crime in the show is being obnoxious and a bit quick to violence. He doesn't even kill anyone that we see.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Well, evil might be a stretch. But it's clear he has a strong relationship with his parents.
  • Hot-Blooded: He seems much more short-tempered and prone to violence than either of his formidable parents.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Has the bright idea of antagonizing anyone who may be enemies with his family and giving away his location. This unsurprisingly leads Oz right to him. He kidnaps and douses Taj in gasoline, lighting him on fire when he gets to his mother. Oz can't help but lampshade how stupid this is, saying he's 'beggin' to be got.'

Organized Crime: Non-Mafia Gangs

All the other organized crime groups in Gotham that aren't part of the larger and better-established Italian Mafia, like the Falcone and Maroni families, who dominated them for years. They're a diverse sampling of Generic Ethnic Crime Gangs, with varying degrees of sophistication:

  • The Sullivans - The Irish Mob and oldest gang in Gotham.
  • The Massive - Gangbangers / Black mob, known for their particularly bitter rivalry with Odessa.
  • The Odessa Mob - The Mafiya / Ukrainian bratva.
  • The Lo-Boys - Not so much The Cartel as desperate street-level Latino Gangbangers who have to fight everyone to hold onto what little they have. Led by a shotgun-toting woman.
  • The Chinese Triad - local branch of The Triads and the Tongs led by Feng Zhao. While their territory in Gotham was pushed back by the Falcones to only Chinatown itself, they have international ties which could potentially be quite lucrative for new drugs.
  • Oz's Crown Point crew - Formerly a branch of the Falcone family, mostly street-level recruits from within the poorest slum district in Gotham. They're not really an "ethnic" gang but a hodge-podge reflecting the melting pot of Crown Point.

The Triads

    Feng Zhao 

Feng Zhao

Portrayed by: François Chau (The Penguin)

Appears In: The Penguin

The leader of the Triads in Gotham.


    Link Tsai 

Link Tsai

Portrayed by: Robert Lee Leng (The Penguin)

Appears In: The Penguin

A member of the Triads who answers directly to Feng Zhao.


  • Affably Evil: Despite suffering from Oz's duplicity at least once in the past, he's willing to give him a second chance when Oz claims to have a new deal to present him with.
    • When Victor calls out the crime families for being cowards willing to abandon Oz to avoid Sofia's wrath, Link punches him in the stomach. As he does, however, he whispers a warning to Victor not to make a habit of engaging in reckless theatrics like that or he could wind up shot and killed, making it clear that hitting him was his way of deescalating the situation.
    • When Sofia comes to the crime families and suggests that she'll give her empire to the family that is able to bring Oz to her, Link calls her motives into question and immediately informs Vic of what Sofia is planning, staging a coup that allows Oz to come out on top in the situation.
  • The Dragon: To his boss, Feng Zhao.
  • The Starscream: Along with the other Dragons of the various gang leader in Gotham, he opts to remove his boss and side with Oz against Sophia.

Other Criminals

    Rex Calabrese 

Rex Calabrese

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rex_calabrese.jpg
"Mostly, guys that come to me say they're looking to make money. Now that's fine. But greed don't buy loyalty."

Portrayed by: Louis Cancelmi

Appears In: The Penguin (Flashback)

"If Oz is what you say, well... Guys like him? They can serve a purpose. Go on to do big fuckin' things, especially in my line of work. But you gotta know how to control them."

An old-school gangster who lived in Oz's neighborhood during Oz's childhood during The '80s.


  • Ambiguously Evil: It's hard to pin down what type of man he was. Oz describes Rex as a well-regarded, helpful community figure who helped everyone in his neighborhood, but a flashback featuring him shows him roughing up a shopkeeper, and Jack explicitly stating that he is not a good person, implying Oz's recollection of him is rather warped (especially since, given his role in his brother's deaths, he wasn't the most rational child anyway). The finale ultimately leans toward the interpretation of him simply being Affably Evil rather than a full-blown Neighborhood Friendly Gangster, having offered to kill Oz on Francis' behalf for the deaths of Jack and Benny, and even admitting that he invokes a fatherly image to earn the loyalty of younger men.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In the comics he was a major mob boss before being overthrown by Carmine Falcone. Here he runs Crown Point, the poorest neighborhood in Gotham City.
  • Always Someone Better: While Rex used to rule Crown Point, he was still a smaller fish compared to Falcones and Maronis.
  • Decomposite Character: His role as Selina Kyle's father goes to Carmine Falcone in this continuity.
  • The Hero's Idol:
    • A villainous take on this trope, as Oz makes many references to Rex over the course of the show, making it clear that he idolized the man, and Oz bases a lot of his idea of what a respected man should be on Rex, but both were career criminals.
    • Rex himself states to Francis that he invokes this deliberately, recruiting younger men who are lacking in father figures so that they come to view him as one.
  • Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters:
    • In Oz's neighborhood, he helped everyone. He gave rent money when people needed it, or found a doctor if someone had a sick family member. Oz says how Rex would always ask how people were doing, and seemed like he was genuinely concerned when he did.
    • This reputation is muddled by what we see of him in the flashback to Oz's childhood, where he is roughing up a local shopkeeper, and Oz's older brother Jack is clearly afraid of him. Was he such a man of the people, or was this just Oz's looking back on him with rose-tinted glasses?
  • Posthumous Character: He died in Oz's teenage years, but he has some influence on the story in the present. He is heavily implied to have been Oz's biggest inspiration for becoming a mobster.
  • The Svengali: He tells Francis that he recruits his gang from young men who are looking for a father, and advises her to use Oswald in the same way.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: He has no relation to Selina Kyle in this continuity, unlike the comics, where he is her father.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He advises a despondent Francis that she has two options regarding how to deal with Oz after she discovers proof that her disabled son murdered his brothers and is emotionally crushed by the realisation that he did it, knowingly or not, to monopolise her attention only for himself. She can either allow him to help her let go of Oz, or she can utilise that drive and commitment to pleasing her to better her life by convincing Oz to prove himself useful to her and move up the ranks of Gotham's crime families. Initially, Francis was willing to take option 1, but after taking Oz out for a final dance together and him promising to better her life to help her deal with the depression she feels over her sons' deaths, changes her mind and accepts keeping Oz around so long as he keeps his promise to her. This winds up causing a lot of deaths through Oz's manipulations of the Gotham crime families, and leads to him becoming the undisputed kingpin of the underworld in the aftermath, but only after screwing over anybody who gave him even an ounce of goodwill and Francis herself succumbing to her dementia, being left in a vegetative coma. Francis even begged Oz to euthanise her if her condition deteriorated to the point, but the self-same attachment that Rex encouraged her to foster in her son means he ultimately breaks his promise and leaves Francis "alive", but trapped inside her own body.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: As a result of his help and kindness to the community, he was loved by Oz's neighborhood. When he died, they threw a parade in his honor.
  • Would Hurt a Child: While he makes a case for keeping him alive, Rex obliquely offers to "take care" of the 12-year-old Oswald after Francis tells him how Oz was responsible for Jack and Benny's deaths.

    Squid 

Squid

Portrayed by: Jared Abrahamson

Appears In: The Penguin

A Drops dealer from Vic's neighborhood.


  • Asshole Victim: He was an unsympathetic small-time criminal and bully; when Vic shoots him dead, we feel a lot more sorry for Vic for having to pull the trigger than for Squid, who took the bullet.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Even when he's acting friendly, he comes across as aggressive and domineering.
  • Impromptu Tracheotomy: Vic shoots him in the neck when Squid tries threatening him into arranging a meeting with Oz.
  • Mugging the Monster: He tries to get Vic to take him to Oz, but Vic has had some Character Development since their last meeting and has become capable of shooting Squid down.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Even if Vic had led Squid to Oz, it's unlikely it would have ended well for Squid. Ruthless, organized criminals don't really like being strong-armed into meetings, after all.

Alternative Title(s): Gotham City Criminals

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