This was a really slow starter for me. I enjoyed The Batman but I wasn’t sure how I’d connect with a show about Oz’ rise as a crime lord. Matt Reeves has created a decent ficton for his Gotham and Batman, but did I really want to spend time caring about “Oz Cobb”? I’d probably still say that Burgess Meredith is “my” Penguin, and that’s almost a completely different character.
That said, the addition of “Vic” to humanize Cobb, and several scenes where Cristin Milioti really chews up the scenery helped to make it interesting. Even though this is another tale where we get Yet Another Origin Story {YAOS(tm)} there is an especially slow burn on revealing aspects of Oz’ character. I knew his mother wasn’t a throwaway character but it takes until the end of the show to really show case Deirdre O’Connell’s acting. And I suppose I really need to mention Colin Farrell’s literal transformation into Oz Cobb/the Penguin. The prosthetics are amazing, but so is Farrell’s accent, use of his eyes, and hand gestures.
It’s hard to care about a villain, but what is interesting is that this world is now a little harder for me to discard for the DCU in its coming phase. I hope there is enough room to see how -this- Gotham plays out.
When the news came out that Sharon Lee is the 2025 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award given by BSFS with support from The Heinlein Society, it marked the latest in a string of noteworthy authors that I hadn’t read. Since the writing duo of Sharon and her late husband Steve are best known for their “Liaden Universe” I figured I would start with book #1.
This is the SIXTIETH book in J.D. Robb’s tales of near-future NYC. J.D. Robb is just a pen name for Nora Roberts, keeping this series separate from the other books Nora writes, at a pace around four books a year!