Batman Returns ended up being Tim Burton's last comic book film, and though it does have its critics, it's just as gothic and as entertaining as 1989.
One of the undoubted highlights of it was Danny DeVito's Penguin, a far more monstrous depiction of the bird-themed Bat-rogue than the comics had portrayed up until that point. To match the aesthetic, DeVito's Penguin also got up to a whole manner of horrid things throughout the film, including biting a campaign staffer's nose off, weaponising actual penguins after abducting Gotham's children and, well, just being plain creepy to Catwoman too.
The film boasts a list of offences that easily dwarfs most of what the character got up to in the comics, and considering he hasn't returned to live-action since - save for TV's Gotham - it's fair to say that DeVito's turn as the villain was equally iconic.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
