Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy

As the world mourns the death of actor Kevin Conroy, we look back at how he used Bruce Wayne's latent humanity and compassion to craft the definitive ...

Not to create a dark terror of the night, but to build a Batman shaped by pain and defined by compassion for his friends and enemies alike. Conroy reflects on the difficulties of growing up as a gay man in a heavily conservative and religious community. He reveals the struggle he faced in trying to care for a mentally ill brother while also pursuing an acting career, and in watching so many friends and colleagues pass away in the ‘80s during the height of the AIDS crisis. And in the game’s dramatic climax, Batman battles for his very soul as a flood of Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin opens the door for Joker to take over his mind. Bone, Conroy gives readers a brief but powerful glimpse into his personal life and the struggles that shaped him on his road to becoming Batman. Conroy is every bit as skilled at playing an elderly, embittered Batman as he is a Batman in his prime. To him, the idea of Batman shilling products for corporate America, even in jest - went against everything the character stands for. He had the opportunity to age and grow old alongside Batman in a way we’ve never really seen from the various live-action versions. Conroy’s performance gives life to the turmoil of emotions quietly bubbling beneath the cape and cowl. Conroy’s Batman is defined by his relationships with these twisted misfits, and the fact that he shows such compassion for them no matter how many death traps and psychological gauntlets he endures. That episode is arguably the very best in the series, and notable for fundamentally transforming Mister Freeze from a crook with a high-tech gimmick to a profoundly tragic figure. There’s a scene in the episode “Heart of Steel Part 1” that captures this perfectly.