10 Things DC Wants You To Forget About The Penguin
2. He's A Judo Master
As a ganglord, the Penguin tends to avoid getting his hands dirty, often delegating combat to his underlings. When he does have to fight for himself, he can rely on his trusty gun or sword umbrellas. After all, it's not like he can go against Batman hand to hand.
Except apparently he can. In some stories, Penguin is portrayed as a skilled fighter, having trained in judo, ninjitsu and bare-knuckle boxing. Sometimes, these skills are even enough to give Batman a run for his money.
One of the common complaints about the Penguin is that he isn't a physical match for the Batman and so he is seen as a less interesting villain. However, the idea of the diminutive and overweight Oswald Cobblepot being a martial arts expert is pretty ridiculous.
Like a lot of things in comics, it was an attempt to explain an inherently silly concept, in this case how the world's greatest martial artist could struggle to fight a fat guy in a top hat, that only made things sillier.
More modern stories seem to have completely dropped this plot, preferring instead to show Penguin as more of a behind the scenes villain who tries to avoid physical confrontation whenever possible.