In what's often considered one of the storylines that reinstated Cobblepot's place at the forefront of Batman's rogues' gallery, The Penguin Affair (written by Marv Wolfman and Alan Grant), saw the character not only terrorise the entirety of Gotham with his own flock of birds, but kidnap an actress he'd been stalking too.
In terms of showing just how gross, over the top and thoroughly extra the Penguin is, stories don't get much better. Chief among his offences in the comic is the time he uses his birds - now controlled utilising technology created by Harold, a hunchback inventor first introduced during Dennis O'Neil's Question - to crash a plane, killing all those aboard and sending Gotham into chaos.
It's Hitchcock's worst meets Gotham's worst, and the results are about as over the top and as terrifying as you can imagine. Little wonder that the Penguin hasn't attempted something on this scale since.
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.
