The Giant Penny and the Penny Plunderer: the enduring legacy of a loser villain

[about_faces]

Like many or perhaps even most comics fans, there was a time when I naturally assumed that the giant penny in the Batcave was--alongside the robot T-Rex and the big Joker playing card--a trophy from some previous clash with Two-Face. Well, either that or the time the Joker dressed up as Simple Simon and used a giant penny to try busting open a bank

Comments

[psychopathicus]

Yeah, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for this guy. He's basically the ultimate loser - not only does he have an origin which is basically 'I shall overreact as epically as possible to extremely minor things', but he's one of the few Bat-villains who has been screwed out of having any modern-day relevancy at all simply because he is instantly and inescapably dated. Most older members of Batsy's rogues gallery can be dusted off and modernized with a minimum of fuss and bother, but not THIS guy. Ohhhhh no. Mr. Coyne's career makes absolutely NO sense in modern-day terms, because (as that video you added points out) WE DON'T USE PENNIES LIKE THAT ANYMORE. The only thing we use pennies for these days is to make up the difference in sales tax, or to save up until they accumulate into dollars. So basically, his whole theme has faded into complete cultural irrelevancy - he's one step below where, say, a Jimmy Durante-themed villain would be today. This guy has been thoroughly screwed by the progression of rates of exchange - how's THAT for bad luck, huh?
That being said, he's actually a surprisingly successful villain if you can take him on his own terms. I mean, this guy is actually pretty smart - he manages to both run a fairly successful racket and come very close to wiping out the Dynamic Duo, something that even characters like the Joker have had (to say the least) a certain amount of trouble with. And he manages to do the latter TWICE in rapid succession, too - first he manages to ensnare the two of them in a deathtrap that they need outside assistance to escape from, and right after they've escaped from THAT, he skillfully maneuvers them into a position where his boys can rub 'em out. In each case, it's only his obsession with his "crime symbol" that foils his plans, and that can often be said of even the greatest villains. Really, it's a bit of a shame that he's so culturally irrelevant, because he makes quite a good showing of himself, and if he HAD been more than a single-appearance character, I have no doubt that his second appearance would have been enjoyable. I wonder if he could be retconned into an old JSA villain or something...?
Oh, and Batman? You STOLE that giant penny. It was the property of the museum. It's one thing to spirit away crime props that belong to the villains themselves - after all, they ARE the bad guys - but not only did that outsize piece of currency NOT belong to Joe Coyne, he never even used it in any way. You just yoinked the thing because you figured it'd give you a chuckle in later years to look at it and reminisce about how you mowed down some two-bit thugs with it. You, sir, are a THIEF. A burglar. A swiper. A purloiner. Shame, shame.

[about_faces]

I mean, really, writers want to hold someone like Killer Moth up as a loser Batman villain, but really pales in comparison to the Penny Plunderer. It's not even that the guy's necessarily a bad character, he's just... well... a loser! He's so completely down on his luck even from the start! And now, that loser-ness has taken an almost meta dimension, since he's lost any sense of relevance in the modern era! Well, unless you were to go the John Green route and reinvent him be a walking commentary on the uselessness of pennies in today's society, or something.

That being said, he's actually a surprisingly successful villain if you can take him on his own terms.

Very true! I wish I'd been able to post the whole thing rather than just snark over an excerpt, because he wasn't a thoroughly incompetent foe, all told. He really did manage to make the pennies obsession work for him up until the points that it bit him on the ass. As you note, there is the potential for great classic villainy here. It's almost like the old version of the Riddler, who is undone by his own compulsion to give away his clues. In the right writer's hands, it's a tragic flaw. But of course, in the wrong hands, it only serves to make characters like that even more of a joke.

Oh, and Batman? You STOLE that giant penny. It was the property of the museum.

Well, if the first example on this list is any indication, Golden Age Commissioner Gordon was more than happy to just give Batman crime scene evidence as trophies!

[mothy_van_cleer]

Sure, but the difference is, Killer Moth and others suffered from the mad, overweening hubris of their writers: they didn't just want to create a villain, they wanted to create the GREATEST Batman VILLAIN ever. And, yeah, time and again, that meant some cheap re-hashing of the more formulaic bits of Batman's troubled past.

What would happen if Bruce Wayne had CRIMINAL parents who were gunned down by COPS? He'd become Wrath, or Owlman! What if he suffered CHILD ABUSE and became a Aristotle-quoting SURGEON? Hush! What if he suffered CHILD ABUSE and became a SURGEON, but was also BLACK? Grotesk! What if he suffered CHILD ABUSE (are you noticing a pattern?), and YELLED ALL THE TIME? Black Mask! And, of course, what if he was ONLY PRETENDING to be rich? He'd be everyone's favourite punching bag, Killer Moth.

The difference is, Joe Coyne had no delusions of grandeur. He knew he sucked, plain and simple, and therefore never took out any grand designs on old Bats. He was happy to languish in obscurity... and, in the end, he got his wish.

[psychopathicus]

Actually, I'd say Coyne's motive was more to get AWAY from obscurity, not revel in it - he was a nobody, and he wanted to be a respected crook. Still, you're right in that 'respected crook' was pretty much the limits of his ambition - he didn't get into crime to fight Batman, he got into crime to make some dough.

[about_faces]

Man, I've been fascinated by the intended ULTIMATE BATMAN VILLAINS that writers and editors came up with over the years, and the varying ways they've succeeded, failed, or both. I'm glad to see that someone else has noticed this too. Personally, that's why I hate Dr. Hurt, because I feel like he's perhaps the most egregious example of the contrived "Ultimate" villains who is introduced with absolutely no history and having accomplished nothing to really show that he's deserving of that title.

And then there are the "Like Batman, but evil!" you mention as well. Hey, here's another one: what if he was a rich society boy who only pretended to be a hero and who also used guns? Deadshot!

[psychopathicus]

Oh, totally. Killer Moth in particular is held up as a legendary doofus by TODAY'S standards, but when he first came out, he kicked ass! In fact, I'm pretty sure he was played as a fairly formidable villain well into the early '70's or so before someone went 'HA-HA, a guy who wears brightly-striped leggings! What a joke!' and decided to play him as such. He's not a loser, he's a victim of retcons and an unfortunate costume choice. Coyne, on the other hand, is PLAYED as a loser from the very beginning - that's his motivation, even - and yet he still remains halfway competent throughout his entire career, however brief it was.
In a sense, I guess you could say he triumphed through compressed storytelling - back before twelve-issue sagas and long-lasting subplots were all the rage, each appearance of a character was short, and had to count if a first-time reader were to be coerced into buying more. Throwaway characters meant throwing away money - hence, even legitimately ridiculous characters like the Polka-Dot Man were at least played as POTENTIAL threats.
Regarding the Riddler, I think the key to writing Bat-villains properly is to look beyond the surface details and focus on what they're GOOD at. Yes, the Riddler generally gives himself away, but that's not the POINT of the character - the point is that he's a ferociously smart individual who, when written right, always gives Batman a run for his money. Really, even the most respected and formidable of Bat-villains often look a bit silly on the surface. 'The Joker - HAW HAW, a clown! The Mad Hatter - ehh, he's a short guy who likes hats. Poison Ivy - oooh, she likes plaaaants; whoopdee-doo. Be sure to look out for her at the next flower sale, HAW HAW!', etc.
As for Gordon, yeah, it's pretty clear he and Batman have some sort of an understanding worked out. Still, you'd think the museum would object - I mean, that's a BIG penny; it must have cost considerable time and money to have made, and the exhibition had just started, so they still had need of it.

[about_faces]

In fact, I'm pretty sure he was played as a fairly formidable villain well into the early '70's or so before someone went 'HA-HA, a guy who wears brightly-striped leggings! What a joke!' and decided to play him as such. He's not a loser, he's a victim of retcons and an unfortunate costume choice.

The same, sadly, can be said about the Riddler and the Penguin to varying degrees, depending on the writer and/or editor. I think these characters are seen as leftovers of the BIF BAM POW era, and if I've learned anything from reading letter columns in old Batman comics from the 70's and 80's, there were few things more loathed among Bat-fans than associations with anything bright, fun, or even vaguely Adam-West-ian. Rather than trying to make Killer Moth work in the modern era, they went the punching bag route.

--the point is that he's a ferociously smart individual who, when written right, always gives Batman a run for his money.

Here's the thing, man: I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you on this, but many of those same writers and editors I mention don't. I just read an interview with Denny O'Neil from the late 90's, back when he was still the main Batman editor, and he said that he disliked the Riddler because Eddie's "tragic flaw is that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and he just ain't." Go back a decade earlier, and this same idea was reinforced by the post-Crisis Who's Who profile for the Riddler, which clearly states (and shows, via a stupid ponytail which he never wore in any actual issue) how much of a loser he is:



Seriously. The best thing they can say about him is that he is a criminal strategist of "some cunning." What happened? I can only blame the one-two punch of Neil Gaiman's "When is a Door?" for explicitly depicting him as a throwback relic to the Sprang era, followed by Denny O'Neil's own Riddler story in The Question, which lego_joker reminded me featured Jim Gordon outright telling Eddie how much of a loser he's always been.

Personally, I think most writers aren't smart enough to write the Riddler (and as the TAS writers have attested, it is HARD, since you have to actually SHOW intelligence rather than bullshit your way through with brilliant characters like Doom and Lex), so my theory is that they've dumbed him down to get a better handle on him.

Sorry, I've just been meaning to rant about this properly at some point.

[psychopathicus]

I've never understood that whole 'it was attached to the Adam West TV show, so it sucks' mentality. I mean, yes, the goofy, campy nature of the show does not exactly jibe with how we think of Batman nowadays, but A: the show was wildly popular at the time, even legendarily so, so it must have been doing SOMETHING right, and B: the show also included a number of villains who were then and still are now considered some of Batman's classic rogues by EVERYBODY - the Joker and Catwoman, for cryin' out loud. Almost ALL the Bat-villains of the time were involved in the show, from what I gather, and most of them came out fairly untarnished. So why pick on Eddie and Ozzie? Sure, they may be ASSOCIATED with the show, but there's a lot more to them than that.
Wow, they really pulled it out there for Eddie, all right. It'd be one thing if he'd been like that from the very beginning, but you look back at some of the earlier comics and he was giving Bats quite the run for his money - it was the FACT he was a formidable foe that got him into the TV show in the first place, for Thoth's sake. Sometimes there is no justice.