Is The Penguin Giving Victor Zsasz a Brand New Origin?

While James Gunn works on building out the new DCU, the version of Gotham City that Matt Reeves created in The Batman will continue to live separate from the bigger DC franchise as its own little Elseworlds entity. That gives the team behind HBO’s The Penguin room to get creative with the popular characters that dwell in Gotham. Known rogues like Sofia and Alberto Falcone are a part of the series, but there are likely more beloved Batman baddies waiting in the wings, though none of them have yet to be revealed. The premiere of The Penguin, which dropped Thursday on Max, seems to be teeing up the arrival of one such villain: Victor Zsasz.

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the first episode of The Penguin! Continue reading at your own risk…

In the first episode of The Penguin, which takes place in Gotham City about three weeks after the events of The Batman, Oz (Colin Farrell) finds himself in a part of town called Crown Heights. When he catches a group of young men trying to steal the rims from his car, he scares shoots at them and causes them to run away, though he’s able to catch one.

Played by Rhenzy Feliz, the name of this young guy is Victor Aguilar. The last names might not match up, but the rest of the premiere episode plants some seeds that hint at Victor and Oz having a similar relationship to the Oz and Penguin in the comics (as well as on Gotham).

The entire origin story of Victor Zsasz involves him gambling away everything he owns and losing it all to Penguin. This creates a massive debt and eventually drives Zsasz a bit insane, as he realizes there is no meaning to life and chooses instead to become a serial killer.

Now, it only takes one episode of The Penguin to realize that the Victor on the show is nothing like the Zsasz that we know. However, the relationship to Oz is key to theorizing where he might go next. After being caught by Oz, Victor surrenders and agrees to help Penguin get rid of a body that he was hiding. Oz contemplates killing Victor, but he instead chooses to take the young man under his wing, utilizing him as a driver and showing him the ropes of his budding criminal empire.

Victor is much more pure of heart than Oz, and he seems like a genuinely good kid. But he’s also desperate and alone, and it seems like Oz will use that to create a loyal soldier over time. By slowly stripping away the good elements of Victor, forcing him to think more like a career Gotham criminal, Penguin could be creating a brand new monster in his own image.

There is still a lot of The Penguin left over the next several weeks, and anything could happen, but we know some big Batman villains are bound to show up. Consider Victor Zsasz officially on the radar as the series unfolds.