I found some canon-ish (or at least DC-approved) Dadwald content in the 1980s short story collection The Further Adventures of Batman 2, in a story called Hide and Seek by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The Penguin starts kidnapping children, no doubt for some terrible nefarious reasonâŠ! Which turns out to be that these kids were all victims of abuse, and that thereâs an epidemic of child abuse in Gotham that social services and the GCPD are doing nothing about. Penguin figures heâs rich and can do way better as a parent (and he freely admits it wonât hurt to have some judges and lawyers in his pocket once his kids have grown up into successful members of society). Batman, despite being âalmost sucked in by Penguinâs explanations, by his obvious commitment to those kidsâ takes him down, concluding that âno matter what material possessions Penguin had, he could never give those kids loveâ (because, uh⊠pretty much because heâs a supervillain, I guess?) At least it shames both Bruce and Jim Gordon into doing something about the kidsâ parents and looking at the state of child welfare in the city, and Penguin gets away, vowing to be more subtle next time.
One more excerpt that didnât photograph properly:
Penguin pulled his gun, aimed, and was about to shoot when
something crashed into him. âImbecile!â he cried as he turned â and saw a little boy, so
thin that his bones stood out in his skin, bruises covering his tiny body,
staring at the guns all around him. The world froze for a split second. Batman swinging
overhead. Bullets spraying around them. Guards on all sides, focusing on
killing. And a little boy, the kind Penguin wanted to save, in the middle of it
all. âGet him out of here!â Penguin cried. Someone grabbed the kidâs arm, then Batman swooped down and
scooped the kid up with one hand. The guards continued shooting. Bullets ricocheted around the
small space. They could all get killed. The little boy would get killed and
Penguin would lose his one and only chance to be benevolent. âStop firing!â he called. Batman vaulted over the railing and disappeared.
Batman:Penguin is giving all of these abandoned kids a home. Food, opportunities, education, adoration, everything that their biological parents neglected upon them. Things that the system might never provide.
Also Batman:But, these kids with their education will grow up as lawyers 20 years down the line and protect Penguin. Nope. Canât let this happen.
Ugh- Oswaldâs going to rot in off-the-rack hell for the way he treats that little boy. In all likelihood, Sofiaâs going to join him there. On the positive side: this is terrible to watch, but it is in keeping with what was said about Oswald becoming âmore depravedâ, and Iâm certainly happy to see that Sofiaâs a complete monster. So⊠good work on this characterization⊠Gotham writers? It feels so weird to say that!
@rhavewellyarnbag  Oswald is treating Martin not as a child, but as a small adult. Yes, he should know better. I wonder, though-if thatâs how Oswald was treated, or if he had to act as adult at an inappropriately young age.
Why is Martin crying? Because Oswald has frightened him, or hurt his feelings; or, because heâs already working for Sofia and knows heâs going to betray Oswald?
Another thought: At the dinner, why did Pyg select Martin to use as a hostage, rather than any of the other children? Without inside information, how did he know that Martin was special to Oswald?
Sorry to butt in on your conversation, but your recent posts about Oswaldâs relationship with Martin and the light it might shed on his relationship with Gertrud has just been fascinating to me, and I wanted to chime in here because this thought occurred to me as well. Like, Gertrud and Oswaldâs relationship is weird on multiple levels, but one of them is the way it sort of collapses age? Is that the word I want? From the scenes we get of them in season 1 it seems like Oswald occupies several roles for his mother simultaneously. She obviously treats him like heâs still a young child in several scenes (the bath, talking about bullies), but sheâs also jealous of imaginary women when he disappears for days, treating him more like a lover or husband. And then we see him having to comfort and humor her several times, in a reversal of the parent-child dynamic. So yeah, I definitely get the sense that in some ways, Gertrud never wanted him to grow up, and in others, he was forced to grow up too early. (Related to that, I always wonder when he started having to work to support them both? Gertrud doesnât seem well enough to have been consistently employed. Do you think he finished high school?)
(I hope Iâm not coming off as excusing Oswaldâs treatment of Martin, btw. Itâs super gross, but also very intriguing as to what it says about his own childhood.)
honestly we better get a callback to fish telling oswald âmake this city yours or burn it to the groundâ next episode what with these promo shots of oswald standing at the front line of an aesthetically apocalyptic tableau of burning debris and car headlights. he looks like a war general. there is nothing more important to me than penguin proving he isnât a guy to fuck wifh
đ„ There is beauty in destructionđ„ 