I am obviously rather late with this, but I couldn’t let it pass by without any comment. Kevin Conroy, the one and only voice of the Batman, is dead. He died a few weeks ago after a short battle with cancer, apparently. I only realised it after watching the documentary, “Died Suddenly”, which mentioned in passing that he was gone. I do not know whether he died of Suddenly (i.e. the not-vaxx), nor do I particularly care.

All I can say is that this hit me hard.

I grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series and all of its spin-off media. As far as I am concerned, Conroy is the only voice actor in the entire HISTORY of the franchise who truly understood the character. All you have to do is listen to his voice acting in ANY of the DC Animated Universe or DC games related to Batman, and you’ll understand exactly why.

Here is a reminder of just how good BTAS really was, considering how campy and silly the 1960s Batman TV show was by comparison:

Now compare that to the original 1960s series and movies with Adam West – no disrespect to the late Mr. West, either, who was himself a great voice actor later in his career:

Of course, every Batman is only as great as his Joker – and there is NO greater Joker than Mark Hamill. This clip is from nearly 10 years ago, and consists of Hamill hamming it up as the Clown Prince of Crime – and it takes on a VERY different meaning in light of the recent news:

Conroy’s voice acting gave life to the Dark Knight – and yeah, I know, Batman as a whole is a GIANT Gamma wet-dream. But the voice acting, delivery, and understanding of the character that Conroy brought, elevated the whole thing far beyond those rather silly roots:

It’s impossible to sum up in one post just what a great actor Conroy was – there is SO much material to choose from to show off what he was capable of doing with the character and the voice. So if you want to watch just ONE movie that displays every aspect of Conroy’s skill at bringing Batman to life – watch Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm. I can pretty much guarantee you will enjoy it.

As for Mr. Conroy himself:

Rest in peace, sir. You are very much missed.