#93 - Penny Plunderer
First Appearance: World's Finest #30 (Sep 1947)
"It's a pay phone! I need a single nickle to be able to dial! BETRAYED by PENNIES!" ~Penny Plunderer
In a world where comic villains are a dime a dozen, there's one villain that is quite literally 20% cooler than the average, and that's the Penny Plunderer. In fact, Batman really wouldn't be Batman without the Penny Plunderer. After all, the most memorable item in the Batcave, the giant penny, is a souvenir from the one of the cases against PP.
Wait... what? The object that's appeared over 200 times in comic books as well as in various animated series is from some two-bit no-name villain?
The answer is yes and no. Yes, it's the Penny Plunderer, but no, he's not two-bit. That would be a gross overestimation of his value. Okay, I'll stop the penny jokes. Anyways, the Penny Plunderer was a worthless owner of a Penny Arcade who attempted to rob banks. I mean, he's not all that original, but his Giant Penny has become a staple of the Batman mythos, whether you know it or not. Sadly, in the post-Crisis DCU (and thanks to Batman: The Animated Series), the giant penny has been retconned into a Two-Face weapon. Personally, it will always belong to the Penny Plunderer in my mind; I've always loved that such a minor villain could live such a major impact on Batman's life, even if it's in such an innocuous way as a prop in the Batcave. Batman doesn't have trophies from Catwoman cases, Scarecrow cases or Mr. Freeze cases, but he's got this giant-ass penny from some early case against a one-off Z-Lister. It's Batman having bouts of nostalgia, wistfully remembering the more innocent cases of days gone by... and I love thinking of a Batman that has such a deep and meaningful history behind the mask
Greatest Penny Plunderer Story Ever Told: World's Finest #30 - Sure, it's his first appearance, but for my money, this is one of the top five post-World War II, pre-Silver Age Batman stories. It's memorable, charming, a little bit goofy, and it highlights Batman's amazing resourcefulness.
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