Penguin, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, occupied a different niche from the other villains and Gangsters in Gotham, a city crawling with lunatics and packed with villains.
Most Gangsters fought over nothing but profit. Villains like Bane were obsessed with defeating Batman and ruling Gotham. Riddler was arrogant in his belief that he was smarter than everyone else, while villains like Joker wanted nothing but chaos.
Penguin, however, was Gotham's most complicated villain, and its most grounded-a gentleman on the outside, a gangster at his core, and an insecure soul beneath it all.
He had been born into a distinguished family, but its fortunes had declined. His own father had despised his unusual appearance and tried to abandon him. His short, stocky build, beaklike hooked nose, and waddling gait from an injured leg had earned him the mocking nickname "Penguin," leaving him to spend his childhood enduring discrimination.
At the same time, his sharp mind had made him precocious and sensitive. The deaths of his father and older brothers, one after another, had left his mother somewhat neurotic, while also causing her to pin all her hopes on Oswald.
Because his father had died of pneumonia after getting caught in the rain, his mother had insisted that Oswald always carry an umbrella. That umbrella would later become a weapon he modified himself, as well as a symbol of his identity.
With no friends, he had become absorbed in studying birds and treated them as his companions. Birds had become his emotional refuge, and later, a means of gathering intelligence.
Through his talents and methods, he had gained control of the Gangsters, but he was not content to be a conventional Gangster who did nothing but fight over territory.
So he had established the Iceberg Lounge, whose clientele consisted entirely of Gotham's most