“The Penguin” cleverly tells the story of a villain who grows up

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The following story contains minor spoilers for The penguin.

FROM THE BEGINNING jump what we see in HBOs The Penguin is very obvious: Oz Cobb, also known as the Penguin (Colin Farrell), is making moves to gain power and take over Gotham City's criminal underworld. It is also obvious that there will be people standing in his way – like Cristin Milioti's Sofia Falcone – who he should to get on his side or risk getting into a big problem considering their consolidated power and their psychopathic murderous tendencies. But did anyone notice that The Penguin would tell some kind of villainous coming-of-age story?

Because in addition to everything that concerns the intrigues, plans and schemes of our title character to take over a criminal empire, there is also a more sympathetic story. This comes early in The PenguinIn this very first episode, Oz takes a young boy named Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) under his wing and initially has him dispose of a corpse before eventually sparing the body and making him his driver and unofficial sidekick/sidekick/protégé.

Yes, his protégé! We've seen all sorts of sidekicks and sidekick-like characters over the years, from the obvious Robin to someone like Jimmy Olsen, but it's rare to see someone like Victor; a seemingly inexperienced boy learning the ropes from a seasoned veteran when “the rules” involve committing murder and many other illegal acts with impunity.

The relationship between Oz and Victor becomes the core of The penguin, However, Oz lets Victor in on numerous aspects of his life, including meeting his mother and casual love affairs. Victor eventually pulls it off and bails Oz out by framing a dangerous crime family for murder. And all in one day's work! The two enjoy their success in a less scary way by having Slush Puppies. But that's all in the first episode of The Penguin; We can be sure that things will never be that easy and that the road will be bumpy for both Oz and Victor – and we will learn a lot more about them both, too.

But now let us take a closer look at this relationship and what The Penguin could be set up.

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Is The PenguinIs Victor Aguilar based on Victor Zsasz or another Batman or DC Comics character?

There is no character named Victor Aguilar in DC Comics or Batman canon; Victor Aguilar appears to be a completely original creation for The Penguin and Matt Reeves The Batman Universe.

But that doesn't mean there are no clues as to which direction things might go. One of the most famous Batman villains, for example, is a sadomasochistic murderer named
Victor Zsasz, known for carving a tally into his body for everyone he murders (and he has many tally marks). Zsasz was previously played by Barryis Anthony Corrigan in Gotham and Chris Messina in birds of prey, and while that might be the direction things ultimately go, it doesn't seem to be the case here. Just like the fact that Batman's famous adversary Mr. Freeze (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman and Robin) is actually called Victor Fries; that doesn't seem to be entirely consistent either.

Although the name Victor doesn't matter, it makes more sense to look at the origin story of Jason Todd, who was Batman's second Robin after Dick Grayson. Batman #408.

In this issue, Batman encounters a young man named Jason Todd after catching him trying to steal the rims from the Batmobile. Sound familiar? Jason Todd has been Batman's sidekick for a long time, but unlike Dick Grayson, Jason Todd Robin was full of rage and anger, upset with the world and his place in it. Eventually, Jason is killed by the Joker (in Jim Starlin's “A Death in the Family”) and eventually returns as a vigilante named Red Hood. That's a whole thing!

But it's interesting to look at Jason's origins in comparison to what we see with Victor Aguilar and the Penguin. The two have exactly the same connection that Batman and Jason have, and while Victor seems a little more pure of heart and decent than Jason, he's also clearly willing to do a lot of the Penguin's bidding, whether it's disposing of bodies, driving him around, or framing mobsters for murder.

This way, we could see not only Oz Cobb's rise to the top of the criminal underworld, but also Victor Aguilar's transformation into a true villain. Hopefully Victor's path won't be quite so dark – but we wouldn't hold anything back from this dark, gritty drama.

Victor Aguilar is played by Rhenzy Feliz

The Penguin is the most important job to date for actor Rhenzy Feliz, 26, but it's actually not his first big superhero show. He previously played Alex Wilder in Hulu's outliers, based on Brian K. Vaughan's famous Marvel comic book series of the same name; he was the de facto lead in both seasons of this series.

Feliz has appeared in a few other roles you may have seen, including the lead role in an episode of Ryan Muprhys American Horror Stories Anthology series and appearance in George Clooney's film The Tender Bar alongside Ben Affleck. He also lent his voice to Disney's successful animated film Enchanting.

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