The Penguin takes place in a deeply strange moment in DC history

2024 has been a strange year for comic book adaptations. While many still claim an ever-widening bout of superhero fatigue, Deadpool & Wolverine brought the MCU back to Comic-Con and is currently the highest-grossing movie of the year with more than $1.3 billion in the bank so far. That massive number used to be the norm but is now an outlier as comic book films have gone from certified box-office fodder to struggling to make back their immense budgets in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year of superhero flops in 2023, and the Hot Labor Summer of 2023. All of that combined means 2024 has been decidedly slow in terms of big comic book releases, with the only other superhero releases so far being the surreal meme-ification of box-office bomb Madame Web, the would-be franchise-starting flop of the impressively strange The Crow, and the currently without a U.S. release date, low-budget — likely straight-to-VOD — Hellboy reboot The Crooked Man. The lethargic slate represents and reflects an apathy from the moviegoing audience as well as the complex issues the box office is facing in the wake of streaming and the strikes. And in the midst of all of that comes The Penguin, HBO’s prestige TV series set in the world of Matt Reeves’ The Batman.

That fantastically gothic take on Bruce Wayne’s nighttime crime-fighting escapades made nearly $800 million and was widely well received. But with never-ending content wars, churning streamers, constant discourse, a box office in recovery, and nonstop unprecedented events, to many The Batman already seems like it was released in a different time despite coming out in 2022. The last DC movie was 2023’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, James Wan’s Technicolor fantasy that raked in $434 million globally. It was the last gasp of the previous DC film continuity that began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013, wrapping up a contentious run of bombastic superhero films that featured Ben Affleck as a middle-aged veteran Batman grappling with the rise of Metahumans around the world. But that wasn’t all — The Flash added two more Bruce Waynes to the mix last year when Michael Keaton and George Clooney both returned to the role in a multiversal tale that could be most charitably referred to as jam-packed and more accurately described as utter chaos. More than one of those Batmans were rumored to appear in the last splash that was the Aquaman sequel, but ultimately they were all cut in the sea of changes that flooded in during James Gunn’s arrival as the leader of DC’s upcoming cinematic relaunch, beginning next summer with the Guardians of the Galaxy director’s Superman.

Deadpool & Wolverine played into the lure of the signature Marvel cameo, with all of the Easter eggs and references you expect — a tried-and-true technique for Marvel but one that hasn’t ever had the same impact at DC. Warner Bros’ attempts to craft a shared live-action movie universe for its pantheon of godlike heroes has failed time and time again, with the distinguished competition always at its best when it allowed creators to do something unique and original, and not overly concerned with connections. Whether Gunn’s uber-poltical The Suicide Squad, Cathy Yan’s gorgeous girl-gang flick Birds of Prey, or the charming family action of Ángel Manuel Soto’s Blue Beetle, that variety is what has kept DC interesting during the multiversal movie wars.

The Penguin is another shining example of just how well that freedom from both executive edict and a desperate need for constant reminders of a shared universe can work for DC, even if the show’s timing could make it feel like an afterthought. But it could also end up being its superpower, especially as eclectic reviewers from across the TV spectrum have given The Penguin rave reviews, putting it at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s an even higher score than The Batman, proving that a spinoff series like this can transcend its origins, even without the direct connections or winking Easter eggs.

Reeves’ take on the Caped Crusader crept into theaters free of the primary DC cinematic continuity of the time, allowed to exist in its own isolated universe where there are no overt superpowers and no connections to a wider world of superheroes. The Penguin carries the torch that was lit with The Batman, unconcerned with how Superman or Wonder Woman will feel about the events of its story. In fact, in an unusual move — one that signifies just how much Reeves understands the modern wants of a superhero audience — the creator of The Batman and The Penguin has already told fans that Robert Pattinson won’t appear in the series. Rather than stringing them along with tease-filled interviews, he nipped that theory right in the bud, setting viewers up to enjoy what’s actually in the show rather than what it could be.

While The Batman was relatively grounded, The Penguin takes that to the next level. Devoid of Bruce Wayne’s fortune, there are no Gothic churches or out-of-this-world gadgets, or even nefarious online serial killers. Instead, The Penguin is very much a world we can recognize: Mobsters live in McMansions, mothers live in small suburban duplexes, and Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) drives his Volvo as much as he drives his signature purple Maserati.

Another interesting wrinkle is the fact that The Batman Part II doesn’t come out for another two years, despite the fact it’ll be set just a week after The Penguin ends. It’s far from ideal brand synergy when it comes to a slick ongoing story, but it gives the series space to breathe and exist outside the expectations of the larger franchise. Executive boards and shareholders may see this as a missed opportunity, but for audiences, this is their gain: delivering quality stories that have the autonomy to live in their own stylistic and narrative pockets, unburdened by enforced post-credits scenes to set up the next five films. Battinson doesn’t need to be spread so thin that his presence is required to make The Penguin feel like it “matters.” Batman’s specter is enough to fuel the tension in Gotham, a pervasive awareness that he’s out there like some kind of invisible Bat-Signal hanging over the events of the series. Somehow it adds something meaningful to the universe to know that even the terrible crimes we see in Oz’s world aren’t on Batman’s radar, so things in Gotham must be really bad.

It’s not strange for WBTV to make great comic book shows. For years the company had a monopoly over the format thanks to the wildly popular and long-running Arrowverse that played a massive part in familiarizing your average TV viewer with the nuts and bolts of superhero storytelling. Even outside of that, it has had critical hits with Doom Patrol and even some of its less-beloved series, like another DC Universe original, Titans, which found immense streaming success once it was added to Max.

What sets The Penguin apart is that it’s the first series set entirely in the world of one of WB’s big-screen films and comes with a budget and quality of production that previous DC TV could only dream of, immediately positioning it as a potential prestige TV success rather than a broadcast comfort watch or fan-fave cult hit. Under the David Zaslav era of Warner Bros., pretty much all the superhero TV that DC has long been known for is over, thanks to a string of budget cuts — with only the Harley Quinn animated series, its spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, and now The Penguin still ongoing. (It’s prudent here to mention that yes, Prime Video’s recent hit Caped Crusader was a DC show, but it was one that Zaslav sold off as part of his cuts in 2022.) Those cuts and the ever-shifting corporate shenanigans make The Penguin and its quality feel even more unexpected.

Following in the footsteps of one of HBO’s most famous series, The Sopranos, The Penguin is an emotionally driven drama wrapped in the trappings of a mob story. We’re following Oz as he tries to clamber to the top of the power vacuum left behind in the events of The Batman, including the death of mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). It’s a slippery ladder covered in the blood of his peers, leading to Oz faltering and flailing in a way we rarely see with comic book villainy; this is not the polished Penguin that could potentially take down the Batman. Instead this is the tale of a power-hungry small-time player who’ll hustle and lie and kill to get what he wants.

It’s an underdog story that makes us root for truly awful people — a powerful hook that can easily draw in both comic book lovers and those who have never even picked up a single issue and don’t bother to catch superhero movies in the theater. This is a grimy world that feels as lived-in as any crime show, but with that humanistic flair that Reeves brings to all of his projects, building out Oz and Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) in ways that ultimately feel haunting and bleak, but still very clearly human rather than superhuman.

Will its success lead to more spinoffs in the “Batman Epic Crime Universe”? Or will the Gunn-iverse end up consuming the so-called Elseworld properties? We’ll have to wait until 2025 to find out, but for now I’m just grateful that we got this deeply weird, brilliantly violent, and uniquely Reeves series about an underseen and underserved villain and his new origins.

Episode 1 of The Penguin premieres on HBO and Max on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.