Batman ’89 just brought an iconic part of the Batcave into the world of director Tim Burton’s Batman movies for the very first time.
The Giant Penny is one of the most iconic features of the Batcave, In Batman’s gloomy headquarters, the 12-foot tall decorative trophy looms over the Dark Knight’s workstation and enormous vehicle collection. But as iconic as it is, no cinematic iteration of the Batcave has ever featured the Giant Penny. However, Batman ’89 #1, by Sam Hamm, Joe Quinones, Leonardo Ito and Clayton Cowles, redresses the balance somewhat, finally bringing the Giant Penny into director Tim Burton’s cinematic Batman universe.
The first issue of this six-part miniseries picks up where Burton’s movies left off. Batman remains the sole guardian of Gotham City, while ambitious District Attorney Harvey Dent is set to crack down on the vigilante’s exploits, blaming him for the rise in crime. With the city beset by vicious gangs of Joker imitators, Batman takes to the streets to restore peace. While foiling an attempted bank robbery, he comes under fire from a gang of heavily armed goons. As bullets hail down upon him, Batman takes cover behind a very familiar-looking oversized penny.
The surprise appearance of the Giant Penny isn’t the only Easter Egg fans may find in the pages of Batman ’89. Several characters and locations from comic book lore also show up within the first issue’s pages. Quinones’ opening set piece is also influenced by Batman: The Animated Series — which is itself informed by Burton’s movies — most explicitly in the design of the bank. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the bank’s architecture is almost identical to the one which features in the animated show’s iconic opening credits sequence.
There may be no room for oversized memorabilia in the BurtonVerse’s Batcave, but the Penny’s brief appearance is a fun nod to an iconic bit of Batman history. The Giant Penny has appeared in almost every iteration of the Batcave outside of film.
In both Pre and Post-Crisis continuity, the Penny first made its way into the Batcave after an encounter with Joe Coyle. the Penny Plunderer. In both versions of the story, Batman confiscated the penny after battling Coyle. However, in Post-Crisis continuity, Coyle was crushed to death by the coin after knocking it over during battle. Such accidents can tend to happen, as Batman would himself learn during the events of “Knightfall,” when Bane dropped the coin on top of Batman during their own fight.
In Batman’s New 52-era “Zero Year,” the Penny was used by Batman and Lucius Fox to defeat the Riddler as an art exhibit that doubled as a signal booster to beat the system jammers Riddler was using to shut down and control Gotham. Once Batman and Fox had successfully stopped Riddler, this version also made its way into the Batcave as one of Batman’s trophies.
The Penny remains a Batcave mainstay in various animated universes too, most notably in an episode of The Brave and the Bold, where it originated as part of one of Two-Face’s dastardly death traps. After escaping the giant coin-flipping device to which he was tied, Batman captured Two-Face and, ultimately, kept the coin for himself at the behest of the Gotham Police.
While it’s unlikely that the Giant Penny of Batman ’89 will ever take permanent residence in this world’s Batcave, its appearance is appreciated. Tim Burton’s Batman movies always played fast and loose with comic book lore, so the penny’s appearance here works as a form of reconciliation between the world of the comics and Burton’s movies. Both are really just Easter Eggs, but their appearance also serves as a form of reassurance that the character’s comics roots haven’t been entirely forgotten.
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