The Batman villain the Penguin first appeared in DC Comics way back in the 1940s, where his real name was revealed to be Oswald Cobblepot. That's been his name for a long time, but in the 2022 movie The Batman, it was changed to "Oswald Cobb." What happened to Cobblepot?
We'll be seeing a lot of Oswald in his new show The Penguin, which premieres this Thursday, September 19 on HBO and Max. Per ComicBookMovie, SFX Magazine asked producer Dylan Clark about the name change. "We had a lot of conversations with DC Comics and with Jim Lee ," he said. "They had thought about changing his name at some point but had never done it. [The Batman director Matt Reeves] asked, 'Can I call our character Oz Cobb?' And Jim said, 'Absolutely!' So we got a blessing from the king himself. That small change of the name allowed us to look at this character in a grounded way."
The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc echoed the note about the new name bringing the character down to earth: "Matt's created new canon in his film, and I'm creating new canon in this show. We have characters you're familiar with but there's a different spin on them," she said. "It felt like in the Gotham City that Matt created in his film, Cobblepott seemed less of a real person in the way that Cobb is a real last name. He's a gangster and it just kind of felt more correct."
Does The Penguin need to change Oswald's name?
First of all, I want to clarify that the Penguin's name in the new series is not simply "Oz Cobb." Some characters call him Oz, but it's short for Oswald; even his mother calls him "Oswald" in the trailer above. So his full name is Oswald Cobb, not Oz Cobb.
As for whether his last name should have been changed, it's true that the name "Cobblepot" is a little over-the-top. But then again, Batman is a comic book series about a guy who runs around in a bat costume fighting crime, so the franchise will never get away completely from its pulpy roots. But of all the superheroes out there, Batman seems to be the most amenable to interpretations where he's grounded in realism. That's essentially what the Christopher Nolan films did. Matt Reeves followed suit in The Batman. I was lucky enough to get to see screeners of The Penguin ahead of time and it does indeed feel like a realistic, grounded story...for a superhero spinoff TV show, anyway; there are still some crazy moments. I personally think they could have kept "Cobblepot" and gotten away with it, but shortening it to "Cobb" also works. I didn't mind at all.
DC Comics has a history of this kind of thing. For most of his existence, the Riddler's name was Edward Nigma or Edward Nygma, aka E. Nigma. Like an enigma? Because he loves riddles? You get it. That's a little hokey, so in the 2010s DC Comics changed his name to Edward Nashton, which is the name he has in The Batman. Something similar is happening with the Penguin.
That's all well and good, but one of the strengths of the Batman franchise is its adaptability. There have been eras where the character and his rogues gallery have been gronded in reality and others where they're off-the-wall and over-the-top. We're in a grounded era right now, but maybe Oswald Cobblepot will come back whenever the tide turns.
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