Dapper, sophisticated and ruthless, Oswald Cobblepot get a Four Horsemen treatment that leaves the rather icky Danny DeVito take squarely in the rearview.
Every good hero deserves an accomplished villain to match wits against, and since the Classic Detective Batman was the anchor of the first series of DC Universe Classics, it was only fair that he got one of his most famous and enduring rogues to balance out his heroic nature. Let’s face it, you cannot even have a “Batman Classics” line without including The Penguin, so getting him out there in the inaugural wave of DCUC was a no-brainer.
Vital Statistics
Figure: Penguin
Company: Mattel
Design: Four Horsemen Studios
Order: DC Universe Classics Series 1, Figure 3
Release: 2007 (December)
Collect & Connect Piece: HEAD & TORSO of Rex Mason (Metamorpho)
Accessories: Umbrella Gun; Mecha Penguin (never released)
Scale: 1:12
MSRP: $9.99
Variant: N/A
Articulation
- Ball-Joint Head
- Neck Peg
- Ball-Joint Shoulder (x2)
- Biceps Swivel (x2)
- Elbow Hinge (x2)
- Wrist Twist (x2)
- Waist Twist
- Hip Cut (x2)
- Knee Hinge (x2)
- Ankle Hinge (x2)
TOTAL: 17 Points of Articulation
Background Information
Prior to the start of DCUC, Mattel spent their time with the rights to the Superman and Batman families making 1:12 figures of the stars and their extensive rogues galleries. So, before the rest of the DC Universe even got started, we already had the likes of Two Face, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Clayface and The Joker on our shelves. So, the Penguin was really the most high-profile Batman villain to not yet have the Horsemen treatment, but I suspect that he was ready to go for the DC Superheroes line if the full license was somehow not granted to Mattel. Thus, from a design and aesthetics point of view, he keeps the more modern (yet still iconic) look of his pals that came before and while that makes sense on the surface, it made for a Batman Rogues Gallery that broke from the “Super Powers” influence for quite a bit of time.
Keeping with that, and based on the fact that the Penguin is a portly gangster and not physical threat to Batman, he has less articulation than the rest of the figures in the first series. The DCSH line did not really have a standardized articulation scheme, but even though that began with DCUC right from the get-go, the Penguin was going to have to be unique in a lot of ways anyhow. While I would have liked to have gotten the hip hinge articulation with the figure just to have it, the lack of that movement does not detract from the figure.
Finally, it is interesting to note that a prototype for a “mecha penguin” accessory was shown, but was never released. I imagine that it was, again, prepared for the DC Superheroes release, but the concept of the Collect & Connect figure bumped it because, along with Metamorpho’s head and torso, that makes for a lot of tooling and plastic.
After Words
Over the lifetime of DCUC and DCSH, the Batman Rogues Gallery had a great opportunity to flourish. As mentioned before, the more modern take on a lot of the characters broke with the Super Powers influence for a lot of the rest of the line, but many characters, including the Penguin would get another crack with those looks later on down the line. I have always thought of this figure as the suave and sophisticated version of Oswald (if you are not up on the comic, think Batman: The Animated Series), while the Super Powers influence threw it back to the Burgess Meredith characterization.
Being a Batman fan was also a double-edged sword at this point because, while more of the DC Universe would be open to us for figures, the Bat Family would not get quite as much frequency in terms of representation by the fourth wave or so of the line.
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