Did The Penguin want a brand new identify? Sequence producer Dylan Clark reveals why the villain is now known as Oz Cobb in The Batman universe.
The Batman introduced a whole lot of refined modifications to the world of Gotham. One of the complicated to many followers was altering The Penguin’s identify from “Oswald Cobblepot” to “Oz Cobb,” with many questioning why such a refined distinction was even made. When requested about this alternative, The Penguin producer Dylan Clark revealed that it was their approach of modernizing a basic villain for a extra grounded story.
They by no means obtained round to altering his identify within the comics like they did with the Riddler,” Clark defined to SFX Magazine. “Going from Edward Nigma to Edward Nashton, from an unreal identify to an actual identify. By doing that they grounded the character.”
“We had a whole lot of conversations with DC Comics and with Jim Lee [President, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer]. They’d considered altering his identify sooner or later however had by no means achieved it. Matt requested, ‘Can I name our character Oz Cobb?’ And Jim mentioned, ‘Completely!’ So we obtained a blessing from the king himself. That small change of the identify allowed us to take a look at this character in a grounded approach.”
The identify Oz Cobb definitely matches higher on the planet of The Batman than Oswald Cobblepot, particularly given the villain’s new origin in The Penguin. Nevertheless, some followers throughout social media nonetheless dislike this resolution, claiming that this and Todd Phillips’ massive changes to Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn are indicators that the administrators are ashamed of their comedian guide origins. Although given the standard of each franchises, many are prepared to show a blind eye!
The Hidden Which means In The Penguin’s Identify Change
Many eagle-eyed followers had been fast to note that “Oz Cobb” doesn’t appear to be simply any random identify. Relatively, The Penguin‘s new moniker appears to attract from the enduring DC comics villain The Talon, whose actual identify is William Cobb. This led many to consider that the identify change from Oswald Cobblepot meant The Batman could also be organising a Court docket of Owls storyline. Nevertheless, in line with showrunner Craig Zobel, it’s a connection he personally wasn’t made conscious of.
“I can’t 100% reply that as a result of I don’t know all the things in Matt Reeves’ thoughts,” Zobel defined in a latest chat with The Hollywood Reporter earlier than reiterating. “However largely, all of us kinda felt like Cobblepot wasn’t an actual individual’s identify. The objective was to only discover a actual, rooted, extra grounded identify.”
In fact, this doesn’t imply that the Court docket of Owls isn’t coming to The Batman universe. It’s attainable that Matt Reeves and his staff merely didn’t discover the connection between Oz Cobb and The Talon. It’s fully attainable that, now that the web has made them away of the villain’s related identify, a attainable season 2 of The Penguin may shift gears to concentrate on that storyline!
The Penguin is about to drop on HBO on September nineteenth, 2024. Keep tuned for the most recent information relating to Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe and ensure to remain tuned to our YouTube channel for extra content material.