Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Penguin: Pride and Prejudice #1 (of 6)

By Garth the Geek
October 7, 2011 - 00:04

While I DO appreciate art, I find it can only take a comic so far, and if I had to choose between a mediocre story with amazing artwork, and an amazing story with mediocre artwork, I would choose the amazing story every. single. time. I used this philosophy with my New 52 purchases, buying titles like Animal Man (Jeff Lemire), Batgirl (Gail Simone), All Star Western (Jimmy Palmiotti), and so on, and it didn’t let me down once. That these comics all had pretty good artists attached to them was simply an added bonus, but the fact remains that no matter how many times the artists may change over the next few years, as long as the writers remain, I will continue to purchase these titles.

And that brings me to ‘Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #1’ - a comic with amazing artwork and, at first glance, mediocre story. In fact, Szymon Kudranski’s artwork was so good it overshadowed the story quite a bit, causing me to spend more time on the drawings than the words. In addition, the colourist, John Kalisz, does an OUTSTANDING job. The colours are incredible, conveying mood, emotion, etc. His colour choices work so well with Kudranski’s art that I’m left wondering if he and Kudranski share a studio, or if they talk on the phone or discuss ideas via email. It’s really THAT GOOD.

And so for the first fourteen pages I gushed over the artwork and colours. And the story? It was good enough to keep me going, but it certainly didn’t GRAB me. That’s not to say the writing was bad - it wasn’t - but for the first three-quarters, ‘Penguin: Pain and Prejudice’ was just another villain’s sympathetic origin story, in which we’re all meant to understand and feel sorry for him. But I don’t need my villains to be sympathetic - I need them to be MEAN.

I think my initial problem began on page 3, with the Penguin’s statement, “I am feared.” It’s like, yes, I understand that people fear you, and yes, I see that people DO fear you, but I don’t understand WHY people fear you. And that was what was missing for me: the reason WHY. And while Hurwitz does do a great job showing us Oswald’s early childhood, he doesn’t do much in the way of showing why Oswald is now so fearsome. He was telling us, sure, and he was showing the end result, through the fear, obedience, and so forth of the people around him, but as for the REASON for their fear? Not so much. Until, as I mentioned, page 16. This was where the story turned around for me. This was where we learned what a badass the Penguin truly is.

It’s the strength of the final five pages that saved this comic for me. They took a story which, until then, had been good but forgettable, and turned it into something much greater.

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12