Victor "Vic" Aguilar, played by Rhenzy Feliz, is introduced in the very first episode of HBO’s The Penguin. As the series focuses on Oswald Cobb and his attempts to rise in Gotham's underworld hierarchy, Victor’s character is established as his side-kick.
Like Robin to Batman, Victor becomes a trusted companion to Oswald’s Penguin. He drives him around and follows his instructions.
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Though Victor’s character is not in the DC comics, in The Penguin, he is a well written character with an origin story that eventually leads him to Oswald and the underworld of Gotham.
Who is Victor Aguilar in The Penguin?
The very first episode of The Penguin introduced Victor Aguilar as a small-time bandit who tried to steal the rims of Oswald’s car with his friends.
However, due to their misfortune, Oswald catches them in the act and while his friends flee, Vic is the one who is caught.
As he prepares to shoot, Vic tells him,
“No, no, no! Hold on! You can't! I can help you! With whatever you need, I can help you! [...] I got ambition! And I'm not... I'm not a waste, okay? I'm not! I could help you with whatever it is, whatever you need, whatever it is... Alright? It's just- Please, I need a chance. I need a chance!”
Oswald decides to spare him his life and takes him under his wings. On the very first night of his meeting the Penguin, Vic gets involved with the murder of Alberto Falcone, who was shot dead by Oswald.
Despite being a naive teenager who was definitely at the wrong place at the wrong time, Victor Aguilar appears to be ambitious and thus soon becomes a trusted ally of Penguin. He drives him around and gradually becomes involved in his day-to-day operations.
Penguin even gives him the responsibility of making Alberto Falcone’s body reach Sophia, his sister. The task initially scared Vic, but he completes it. This impresses Oswald.
Vic’s past life is shown in a series of flashbacks. It is revealed that he and his family were the victims of the flood caused throughout Gotham by the masked maniac, The Riddler. In that flood, Vic lost everything, including his home and eventually turned to a life of petty robberies.
That is how he ended up with Penguin, who hires him as his driver and pays him as well.
Is Victor Aguilar inspired by any DC comics character?
Though The Penguin portrays Victor Aguilar as the deuteragonist, there is no comic book counterpart of this character.
DC comics have a lot of characters named Victor, including supervillain Victor Fries a.k.a. Mister Freeze, the Justice League and Teen Titans superhero Victor Stone a.k.a. Cyborg, the serial killer Victor Zsaz, the lesser-known criminal Victor Singleton a.k.a. The Single Bullet Killer, the detective hero Vic Sage a.k.a. The Question.
However, none of these characters bear any similarity to Rhenzy Feliz’s Victor Aguilar, as shown in The Penguin.
Despite not having a direct counterpart of Vic, he does seem to be inspired by a DC hero nonetheless. The second Robin, Jason Todd, made his comic book debut in 1983's Batman #357 where he tried to steal the tires of the Batmobile in an alley, just like Vic does with Penguin’s purple sports car.
Just like Oswald takes Vic under his care and recruits him as his driver, Batman too took Robin under his wings and he turned into his trusted sidekick.
However, instead of making him dispose of corpses and asking him to plant jewelry bags inside cars, Batman taught Robin the ways of becoming a crime-fighting vigilante.
Episodes 1-5 of The Penguin can be streamed on HBO.
Stay tuned to SoapCentral for more updates on shows!
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