THE LOSS OF BATMAN

 

            Celebrities have died before. It’s just a part of life. However, none have hit me as hard as when it was announced that Kevin Conroy died this week. For the few of you who may not recognize the name, that’s the man who’s voiced Batman regularly over the last 30 years beginning with Batman: The Animated Series.

Signing a life-sized Batman.

            I can’t tell you why his death has affected me unlike so many others. Maybe it’s because TAS debuted the year I was first getting into comic collecting. Maybe it’s because Batman is my favorite DC character. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned a lot about the man himself in the last few years, and all of it was good. I don’t know.

In the recording booth.

            What I do know is I’m not alone in saying that Kevin is my Batman. His is the voice I always hear when I read a Batman comic. His is the performance I always compare actors following to. In my younger years, I loved his performance just because it was pitch-perfect in my mind. In fact, I’ve always said that the one thing the comic-based programs of the early-mid 90s got right above all else was their casting; just about everyone selected was a fantastic fit for their character. But as you get older and revisit these performances, you come to really experience the nuance in Kevin’s portrayal of Batman. The way he takes the scripts given to him and digs deep down to express Batman’s rage. His humanity. His empathy. And, when the time called for it, his smug dickishness.

Confronting Batwoman in the Arrowverse.

            There’s a reason why Kevin kept being cast as Batman beyond TAS. And yes, most of that started before nostalgia-baiting was even a thing. Kevin Conroy was the voice of Batman for an entire generation of fans and creators alike. His performances will continue to live on in those people for the rest of their lives, regardless of who else dons the cowl. He was vengeance. He was the night. He was Batman.

With the Justice League cast on Rob Paulsen's podcast.

            Thank you for 30 years of excellence, Kevin. Condolences to all the ones you left behind, but all the better for having experienced your existence.

 

THE OWL HOUSE “THANKS TO THEM” REVIEW

 

            Hey! Long time! Miss me? I’ve been undergoing some health issues that made it difficult to do, well, anything lately. I’m on the mend, but not completely better yet. But, enough about me—we’ve got pop culture to talk about!

Just a fun little show about a magic world, right? Right??

            The Owl House, created by Dana Terrace, is currently my favorite show on air right now. For those who’ve been sleeping under a rock, it’s about an ordinary teenaged girl named Luz Noceda (Sarah Nicole-Robles) who found herself taken to an alternate dimension full of magic, witches, demons and other assorted supernatural creatures. She decided to stay with the first witch she encountered, Eda Clawthorne aka The Owl Lady (Wendie Malick), and learn magic herself. While there she made new friends in plant-manipulating Willow (Tati Gabrielle) and illusion-casting Gus (Issac Ryan Brown), found love with abomination-making Amity (Mae Whitman), and became embroiled in a battle to save the world from the evil Emperor Belos (Matthew Rhys). I’m not gonna go deeper than that, but there will be some minor spoilers in the actual review so if you’d like to totally experience the show brand new, stop reading now, go load it up Disney+, and come on back when you’re done.

Promotional poster for season 2.

            Beyond the superficial storyline, the show digs deep and tackles issues such as fitting in, mental health, familial expectations, bigotry, loss… It’s like animated therapy. The series became immensely popular with fans to the point it’d be a trending topic on Twitter even when new episodes weren’t airing. And then Disney cancelled it. Let me explain: it was renewed for a second season early, and then for a third earlier still. But then COVID hit and shut down the parks, which is apparently what generates most of their money for projects, so they cut a lot of shows down. Additionally, Disney decided to change focus and move away from serialized storytelling—which The Owl House is—in favor of more episodic shows, so the show no longer “fit the brand” (although many maintain it’s because of the amount of LGBTQ+ representation found in the series). As a result, the third season got cut down to three 44-minute specials. Of course, after the first special got over 2 million views within the first week on YouTube, Disney came to realize their mistake a bit too late, but that’s where we are.

Season 3 promotional poster.

            So, we’ve gotten the first of the three specials titled “Thanks to Them.” We picked up right where the season finale left off with the Hexside gang trapped in the Human Realm and The Collector (Fryda Wolff), a cosmically-powered being with seemingly no limits, running rampant in the Demon Realm. Unfortunately, because of the diminished run time, we were denied the full adventures in the Human Realm we got treated to in the first half of season 3 of Amphibia (which had a similar plot element). Instead, they were relegated to a 6-minute montage spanning months that was expertly crafted and well done (and made us lament our loss further). Luz deals with her struggle to adhere to the promise she made her mother—to remain in the Human Realm once she got back—and the belief that she ruined all of her friends’ lives with her actions. Belos’ former right-hand man, Hunter (Zeno Robinson), also deals with his identity crisis and loss of purpose, and how his newfound family would react to learning what he really is. The other Hexsiders have their own mini adventures away from those two in trying to locate a possible way home.

Camilla realizing the Hexside kids have seen some stuff.

            The standout for the episode, however—the MVP, if you will—was Luz’s mother, Camilla (Elizabeth Grullon). We met her briefly in the pilot when she was sending Luz off to a normalization camp to tone down her imaginative ways (leading to her stumbling into the Demon Realm), and sporadically since. A lot of fans of the show weren’t happy with her because of the camp thing. They felt like it was saying she was ashamed of her daughter and wanted to change her; make her not herself. This episode adds a lot of context to that moment. A. LOT. And not only do we understand Camilla better, but we learn she’s not the person we were led to believe she was (a running theme in this show). Much like with Edith’s sister Lilith (Cissy Jones), who began as the first season’s antagonist, fans came around to absolutely loving this character.

"I'm coming out..."

            Overall, the episode was bittersweet. It was great because The Owl House crew has just been killing it with pacing and writing and acting and animation. It brings the laughs and all of the feels. But, it does mean we’re beginning the end. And we were cheated out of so, so much story potential that can now only be filled with fanfiction or Morning Mark’s excellent ongoing fan comic. If you haven’t checked out The Owl House yet, I recommend you do so. All of the episodes are currently up on Disney+, and new ones will air on The Disney Channel sometime in early 2023. I will say the first season, while good, is a bit uneven as they find their voice and do a lot of world building. But once you get halfway through that you see what the show is going to become. And, silver lining to the shortening, the crew was forced to step up their game to incorporate everything they wanted to accomplish with limited time, resulting in their killing it.

Post hoot action with Eden Riegel, Rebecca Rose, Zeno Robinson, John Bailey Owen, Sarah Nicole-Robles and Cissy Jones.

            Additionally, stars Jones and Robles, as well as YouTuber-turned-production associate Rebecca Rose, host an informal talk show called Post Hoot on Jones’ Instagram every so often. They talk to their co-stars, people who work behind the scenes, and even branch out into other programs occasionally. Give that a watch if you like that kind of stuff. They’re on Jones’ Instagram and older episodes are archived on Rebecca’s YouTube channel.