Batman turns 75 this year, so DC Entertainment is planning a year-long tribute to the Caped Crusader, like they did last year when Superman turned 75. As part of those celebrations, DC has released a couple new clips of the Batman in action.
The best thing about these clips is that Kevin Conroy is back as the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Who’s Kevin Conroy, you ask?
Kevin Conroy is Batman. Not Adam West. Not Michael Keaton. Not George Clooney, Val Kilmer or Christian Bale. The others are actors playing a role; Conroy, however, has given voice to Batman for over twenty years.
More than that, Conroy is my Batman. I grew up with Batman the Animated Series, which in my opinion ranks as the greatest Batman interpretation in any medium. The animation, the storytelling, the voice acting and the musical scores were all top-notch. Bruce Timm and Warner Brothers weren’t creating an after-school cartoon for kids so much as crafting 22-minute movies entertaining enough for all generations. I own the four seasons on DVD, and they still hold up two decades later. (I’m impartial to the fourth season, after the unnecessary character redesigns made to the bring the show in line with the Tim Daly Superman series. The scripts were still great, but that lack of continuity irks me to this day. And don’t get me started on Batman Beyond . . . )
Batman is my favorite superhero because there’s nothing super about him. He’s just a guy. A guy with a ton of money and serious psychological issues. Plus he’s got the strangest, coolest rogue’s gallery of villains in all of comicdom.