There’s a new CDC-like plotline over at DC Comics.
In honor of supervillain Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot’s 80th birthday, Danny DeVito has penned a new story for the character, who he played in Tim Burton’s 1992 film “Batman Returns.”
The Penguin’s newest comic has him and Selina Kyle (a k a Catwoman) forcibly vaccinating the world — and falling in love. The issue, “Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant No. 1,” was released Tuesday by DC Comics as part of an anthology celebrating the anniversaries of various Bat-baddies and -nemeses.
According to a spoiler-filled review of “Bird Cat Love” by comic news site Bleeding Cool, the pair steal all five billion of the world’s vaccines, recruit all of the world’s villains and then somehow make the vaccine airborne, successfully ending the pandemic.
Bleeding Cool’s sneak peek at the issue shows the Penguin in a steamy kiss with Selina Kyle’s alias as the two devise their master plan.
“Since they’ve inoculated the planet and put an end to the pandemic, they’ve been awfully quiet,” Batman says in one panel while reading a newspaper in his Batcave.
DeVito says the storyline’s inspirations were quite straightforward: The current moment and Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Catwoman in the 1992 film.
“At first I was a little bit hesitant about doing the comic, but then I got into the fact that I’ve always been a big fan of Michelle Pfeiffer’s, and the Penguin obviously lusts after Catwoman,” DeVito, 77, told Entertainment Weekly in a November interview. “So I figured I’d put those two together, and then it was also in the middle of the pandemic, which we’re still fighting with. I thought it would be good if Penguin had a little bit of Robin Hood in him.”
The comic is also something of a fantasy for DeVito, who admits he is quite tired of continuing to deal with COVID-19.
“I just want this pandemic to be behind us,” DeVito told the publication. “Without the vaccines, I think we’re going to be in trouble. It seems like, at the moment we’re doing this interview, we’re having some problems — not only in our country but all over the world. That’s what Oswald wants: Get everybody vaccinated and give science a chance to get ahead of this. The thing mutates, and if we don’t give the vaccine to people all over the world, it’s going to keep mutating.”