Kevin Conroy passed away

 The Knight passed.

Shocked doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when I saw this news slip past in the grim dark of last night. How do you sensibly quantify the shattering of reasonable thought and coherence when a pillar of the world as you've known since childhood just isn't there anymore? How do you reconcile yesterday with today, and is that a distinction even deserving of definition; or is the fact that this is a world without the iconic voice of Batman so stark a contrast that we should actively recognise how vastly the voice acting scene has now shifted. Like many others, I grew up hearing Kevin Conroy's iconic performances on my TV screen during the animated series, relaying it in my head whenever I read Batman comics and amateurishly mimicing whenever I regurgitated classic Batman lines. More than any other actor has before and likely more than any other actor will have the breadth to do in the future, Kevin Conroy encapsulated the Batman role fully.

There's always room for interpretation and iteration, and of course those who brought the voice of one of DC's most famous mascots to life before Conroy's tenure; but how many of them rose to the level of defacto premiership over the role? To the point that every performance since has learnt something from his timbre, timing and measured delivery? Just as Mark Hamill's Joker is a pivotal and definitive performance around which all others branch, Kevin Conroy is that spine that supports the eclectic Batman vocal casts we've had over the years. Gravitas, stoicism, personability, humility, sarcasm, seriousness; all captured in the performance of an irrefutable icon. And it's an absolute crime that Kevin only got the chance to legitimately play an on-screen version of the character just once; and even then not wearing the cowl but an exosuit wireframe.

As with many actors of his calibre, Kevin Conroy was a Juilliard alumni with a great many other notable to-be-stars from the same age and spent much of his formative years trading roles on stage and on TV until his casting as the main role of the Batman Animated Series. That series in itself was something of a seismic shift to the way that America and the West looked at the role of cartoons and the way they treated their source material, with the Animated Series going so far as to try and challenge it's viewers with more mature narrative and subject matters to fill the space between Batman's bouts of violence. It was also an incredible feat of sustained high-quality animation which didn't take a lot of the usual shortcuts for shows of that size, belying a level of standard that pushed the rest of the industry to improve. And the voice behind the animated face of that franchise was provided by none other than Kevin Conroy.

Before the animated series, Batman's contribution to animation had been... limited. There was the silly Adam West animated adaptation of his live action show which rather intentionally took the edge and serious nature out of the Batman mythos to play up the absurdity of grown men running around in bright suits with silly masks. The mood and gothic routes of Batman had been reintroduced to the wider public through Tim Burton's movie, but there was little belief that a more straight-faced and serious version of the Batman character could persist on the small screen also. They'd need a personality with the gravitas to match Micheal Keaton. And for my money; I'd say Kevin matched and surpassed that standard with unending gusto and sustained talent.

One of my favourite childhood videos that I kept and watched again and again was my copy of 'Batman: Mask of the Phantasm'; a legendary animated adventure that still very much holds up to this day. But as someone with a rather obvious passion for video games, I also own a great many more copies of some of his performances in the form of the Batman Arkham series. Another, I'm going to use the word again, legendary entry to the Batman mythos that left an irrefutable mark on the culture of video gaming when it dropped. And, of course, it was Kevin's rumbling tones that bought the man in the cowl to life through all of these products. The only Arkham game that Conroy didn't act in was the supremely underrated 'Arkham Origins', in which he and Mark Hamill (Joker) were replaced with Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker respectively. Although even in that instance, go figure, both actors based their performances heavily on the example of their senior castmates, leading from their example to depict younger versions of the same characters.

Kevin's contribution to the role of Batman was so significant, that during the CW's major crossover event during which they slammed all DC cinematic universes together and drug every reference they could to the forefront; the team couldn't help but throw a big piece of the excitement Kevin's way. We're talking about a crossover event which drew in cameos from Burt Ward (60's Robin), Brandon Routh in the Superman outfit (Not quite as impressive considering Routh was already a member of the CW DC cast) and even a incredible moment where CW's Flash (Grant Gustin) met the movie Flash of Ezra Miller! The scene had supremely odd dialogue and didn't make any sense, but no one cared because it was such an incredible moment. (This was before Ezra went crazy.) And amidst all of these live action performances bought back, (and a few more besides) the showrunners knew it was in their power, and in many ways ordained to be their duty, to bring Kevin Conroy into the crossover as a live action version of 'Kingdom Come' Batman. A man who was known for being the voice of the role, but proved so synonymous that everyone knew he deserved to be his face too, at least once.

All of which is why it's so utterly shocking that this Superhero icon of the voice acting craft passed away at such a shocking age; 66! It hardly seems real. It doesn't seem fair. The rule of reality is that everyone comes to pass at sometime and we'll all find that moment where the artists who helped build the magic of our youths start to wither and die, but surely that moment shouldn't come so soon! Perhaps it's a selfish denial of being forced to confront one's own mortality, which makes loss ring so foul for us. But even I, someone haunted everyday by my own ticking clock, struggle to rationalise such abruptness. I wish we'd had Kevin Conroy around for longer, and that guttural disquiet is going to linger with many of us.

Undoubtedly the man will be fondly remembered for his role, I think it's safe to say he was already hailed as a legend. Future Batmen stepping behind the mic will do so atop the groundwork he was instrumental in laying and voice actors across the industry are already mourning for him. Yesterday we lost Kevin Conroy, it's only right that today we do our part to immortalise a figure who deserve it in the role that he defined. For though it might be presumptive of me to say, I think the majority can agree that there will never quite be a more encapsulating Batman than from the man who brought his shadow off the page. Or animation cells, as the case may be. What an unexpectedly sad blog I was compelled into writing; hopeful they'll be some time until another of it's kind.