Penguin #1 (2023) cover a

Tom King's Penguin opens exactly like you'd expect- Batman and Oswald, mortally wounded, waiting for the Batmobile to sink beneath the waves. Flashback to one year earlier.

That's a pretty good intro, right?


King provides the best part of the book. The story seems like it will be another one of his mysteries, following how Oswald went from being The Penguin- crime boss of Gotham, to Oswald-flower shop owner of Gotham, and what comes next when that all goes wrong. King uses characters from the larger DC universe while continuing the story of one of his own detective from Batman Killing Time.


Now I'm giving this a pretty high rating, but that is not because of the art, and it is fully in spite of the coloring. Rafael De LaTorre's art is adequate for conveying what's happening, but not much more than that. But the color-there isn't a colorist on the book, there's a brownist. Flat, unappealing tones that drown every page. This isn't a very critical way to talk about sepiatown USA, but I hated it.

Like most King mysteries, we won't really know if this is all worth it until the end, but his finite stories usually fare pretty well.


Superman fans- there's a giant spoiler on page three. You've been warned.