I'm so glad to see this thread still going strong! Awesome to see so many opinions and so many sweet dials being shared.

I just traded for this guy recently and haven't used him yet, but I'm excited to. Feels like the appropriate power level, and the sculpt is awesome, especially DAWG.

From the start I loved using Batman Enemy and Sinister Syndicate pieces because everyone thought they were terrible (and let's be honest, they mostly were) but if you could find that diamond in the rough with the 11 attack (Bullseye and Unique Joker after letting him take a 3 damage hit), suddenly the team was unexpectedly dangerous with all the 13-15 defenses all over the board. The last Spidey and Bats sets were excellent for their respective rogues, I never feel a need to reach back into the past for any of these characters:

I feel like the original dial design theory was to cost Batman Enemy and Sinister Syndicate TA pieces as if they had an 11 attack on every click. Even if that wasn't strictly true, it is true that every team ability (except Wild Cards) that required a second adjacent figure to make the team ability work pretty much inflated the cost of a figure with that TA (Masters of Evil, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Sinister Syndicate, Superman Enemy) by 50%. Somehow team abilities like SHIELD and Hydra did not appear to be affected by this design philosophy, but that may have been because they were mostly no-name grunts.

This falls short of definitive, in my mind, for a number of reasons:

1. Running Shot. For a morbidly obese, middle-aged person that moves by waddling, and doesn't like to get his hands dirty, this seems inappropriate, especially at the beginning of the dial.

2. Printed 3 damage values. I think that 1-2 suits him better, not only for the reasons in #1, but also because his trick umbrellas should be able to compensate via BCF, RCE, PPB, etc.

3. The BCF+EW combo. DEATHSTROKE rarely gets this kind of treatment. Penguin cleaving Superman like a hot knife through butter is ludicrous.

4. Umbrella-sharing. I have never seen, nor can I imagine, Penguin allowing his hare-brained goons to put their grubby hands on his luxury umbrellas that he uses for self-preservation.

5. Sidestep. Give him Force Blast instead. He doesn't warrant excesive mobility because of reason #1.

* * *

This is the definitive Penguin, to me. His damage potential is reasonable, and his dial isn't predicated on some silly bird spawning gimmick.

I think of this boss fight when I'm playing Penguin It's not him running or Sidestepping, it's him flying around and shooting his trick umbrellas. The sculpt even has one flying Umbrella and one 'shooting' umbrella on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCczT5RK8HA

LOL. Penguin as a boss fight.

If you think that's wild, you should see the final boss in that game, he runs around (faster than Batman) and everything. It's a sight!

Speaking of sight, or moreso not needing line of sight, of all the Xaviers that have graced the game, this one stands out to me as the one that has all the right stuff.

Chuck should be capable of much more violence than that, IMO.

Totally agree! The newer sets villains are fun all around. Kudos for highlighting them.

To me, this is the Illuminati.