Pennyworth: Sep 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. With that out of the way, now, after Pennywise the clown we turn to Pennyworth the (future) butler, from one of the latest DC/CW shows, ‘Pennyworth’. ‘Based on characters from the DC comics’, this show features our titular character before he became a butler, but after he quit SAS and is trying to be his own man, whatever – and whoever – that is. He has met Thomas Wayne (and maybe Martha Kane, the future Mrs. Wayne), and became a piece in the struggle between the Ravens and the No-Names. Waynes are on the latter team, which supposedly makes the No-Names the white hats in this struggle… though in one of the early scenes of the pilot episode we learn that the Ravens want to destroy the government and built a fascist utopia, while the No-Names are going for a socialist utopia instead, so who knows? As ‘Native Son’ – a real-life American novel – shows, the American society was heavily involved with communism, and right now – in 2019 – it is still involved with socialism, (and maybe communism will come back? It is still better than the banana republic that the RF currently is). It would be interesting to learn that the Wayne parents were actually socialist/communist at heart… Bruce Wayne is notable apolitical. Maybe he/Batman is a communist as well? That would certainly be an interesting turn of events in the DC worlds…

Back to ‘Pennyworth’ the TV series. The premise above sounds interesting, but on TV, the Ravens at least are something else: as soon as I saw their leader make an appearance, I knew exactly who he was: professor Ratigan from Disney’s ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ animated movie. Seriously, you should look it up, it is one of the more obscure Disney films, but it is still good to see – and it is very British.

Pause. We try to move away from the secondary details, such as the black-and-red cloaks that even rank-and-file of the Ravens are wearing to the more important facts.

Firstly, ‘Pennyworth’ is visually overwhelming, as its’ set designers tried to cram as much of U.K. visual imagery into it, all done with rich, even lavish, details. That, coupled with all kinds of British accents, (Good God, Professor Henry Higgins), makes ‘Pennyworth’… simply overwhelming and tiring. ‘Swamp Thing’ may also be a CW/DC TV series, but it is more moderate…and enjoyable to watch.

Secondly, the premise. On one hand, it brings to mind MCU, and more precisely… not exactly, AoS, but AC, which was set in the beginning of the Cold War, 1950s and 60s, and was featuring not just the titular character, who was also British, remember, but also Jarvis, the human, who was British and a butler of Howard Stark… who would eventually marry a woman named Martha, and whose younger version is rather reminiscent of this younger version of Thomas Wayne as well. Bring on the copyright issues? We will just have to wait and see.

Thirdly, MCU’s AC aside, ‘Pennyworth’ is also reminiscent of ‘The Three Musketeers’, especially the Soviet version, which closely followed the original novel…unlike the later Western adaptations, some of which went steampunk and ended with the British launching an air fleet of zeppelins in order to invade France. Yes, the original novel also involved the French-British conflict over La Rochelle of that time, (the reign of Louis XIII, if anyone cares), but still, zeppelins. There was a reason as to why that movie, though it ended on a cliffhanger, never got a sequel.

Back to ‘Pennyworth’. The titular character and his two friends are three of the musketeers, with Thomas Wayne becoming a fourth. Alfred’s new girlfriend, Esme, is Constance, a chambermaid and go-to-girl of the queen and d’Artagnon’s love interest. She has been already kidnapped by the show’s version of the milady de Winter… period. Just like Constance – spoiler alert – Esme is going to die, though later on in the show; why? Because otherwise Alfred is going to marry her, and screw the Waynes. On the other hand – more spoiler alert – Al and Martha are going to develop some sort of a relationship, at least for a while, so maybe Al is actually Bruce’s real father instead? Got to admit, didn’t see that coming, especially in the canon, (fanon is other thing entirely, fair enough), but regardless, Esme is a dead girl walking because reasons; another one of them is that she’s a civilian and Al and his mates are about to join DC’s rip-off of S.H.I.E.L.D., whatever that is going to be, but anything but civilian, period.

And then there are the ravens. No, not the fascist utopists who are the main villains of ‘Pennyworth’ so far, but the actual birds. Now, in North America, there are several species of ravens/crows, (aka corvids), but the most common is the American crow, (Corvus brachyrhynchos). From beak to tail it measures about 46-50 cm and weighs up to 500 g – a very formidable bird, I’ve seen it kick the metaphorical shite out of the red-tailed hawks in my neighbourhood, for example; but-

-But in Europe, the raven is the so-called common raven, (Corvus corax), and that includes the U.K. – the tower of London has a lot of semi-domesticated ravens, because supposedly if they are gone, London will fall. (I do not know if Martin’s Westeros has anything similar to that concept). If the American crow looks impressive, the common raven doubly so: it is even bigger than the American crow is – about 60-65 cm long, and it weighs up to 1.2 kg, making it the biggest and heaviest bird in the Passeriformes order… aka perching birds or songbirds. Think of that next time you want to get yourself a pet canary! …This brings us back to ‘Pennyworth’, as we saw several times flocks of ravens flying around the show’s London. In Toronto, for comparison, the sight of several American crows flying around can be very impressive, as they are big birds that can catch one’s attention especially if they start to croak, and common ravens are even more so, but… unlike their smaller cousins – the American crow, the hooded crow of Europe, the carrion crow of Eurasia, they are solitary birds that don’t like humans very much, which is why the raven is also called the northern raven, and it prefers to live in remote places – Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada, for example. They just do not form flocks and do not live in London, England, in a natural state. A flock of wild common ravens in London would certainly be a newsworthy event, Cold War or not. Atypical for a comic-book TV series, ‘Pennyworth’ tried to get involved with the natural kingdom, and as usual for such franchises, it is an especially bad idea. Even ‘Swamp Thing’ does not try to go there, and it is actually partially set in a swamp!

…The reason, of course, is that in a certain movie-verse iteration of ‘Sherlock Holmes’, Moriarty had a pet crow or raven, (yes, a single pet bird). As the leader of the Ravens (we are back to talking about the human secret society) has shown, the cast and crew of ‘Pennyworth’ has also tried to go for that look for him, but instead they ended up with Ratigan. Yes, Ratigan was also based on Conan Doyle’s canon Moriarty, sort of, but that probably isn’t the direction that ‘Pennyworth’ wants to go, given that the relations between DC and Marvel (Disney) are not so good, eh?

Will I be watching ‘Pennyworth’ in the future? Probably not – if I want to see a fictional take on the Cold War, there is AC, which is not overwhelming, but is actually just right, (especially S1 – S2 is more ambiguous but still fun to observe) and it does not go for ridiculous either. Yes, ‘Pennyworth’ is DC, but so’s ‘Swamp Thing’, for comparison, and it is nowhere being as over the top as ‘Pennyworth’ is – but that is my opinion, and it is subjective: if anyone disagrees, I will be happy to hear from them.

…This is it for now; see you all soon!