The Latest Supervillain Attacking Batgirl's Gotham City: Gentrification

In Batgirl: Son of Penguin, Gotham City’s favorite daughter must confront a new threat to the neighborhood: change. Ethan Cobblepot, the son of the notorious Bat-villain, the Penguin, has arrived in Burnside, the hip, transitional Gotham neighborhood where Barbara Gordon (a.k.a. Batgirl) lives. Cobblepot Jr. represents a force even more sinister than his waddling father’s collection of lethal umbrellas: He’s a major tech mogul, a disruptor to put Elon Musk to shame. The tech incubator that he launches in Burnside could transform life for the worse in Gordon’s neighborhood, which is growing less affordable by the minute. Cobblepot would be a major irritation in her world—if he weren’t kind of cute?

Son of Penguin is one of the best storylines so far in Hope Larson’s run on Batgirl, a comic that looks beyond the Bat Cave to find a more familiar, lived-in world within Gotham City. Larson, an Eisner Award–winning comic-book writer and New York Times best-selling graphic novelist, has won over readers of gritty Bat books and charming indies alike through her vibrant world building.