Kevin Conroy Isn't Happy About Ben Affleck's Batman

If you haven't been paying attention over the weekend, you might not have noticed that certain DC fanboys have decided to attack one of their own: the single greatest Batman actor of all time. It all stems from the fact that Kevin Conroy - THE voice of Batman, just as Mark Hamill will forever be THE voice of The Joker - criticised the approach to Batman in Batman v Superman.

While promoting Batman: The Killing Joke - a film with its own fair share of controversy - Conroy said the following about Ben Affleck's Batman:

"I love the fact that Warner Brothers have for the live-action Batman changed the casting so frequently. I think it’s really interesting to see different actors in the role, to see what they bring to the character. Everyone brings something different.And there have been so many actors that have been wonderful. I liked Michael Keaton and I like what Ben Affleck is doing with it now. But they couldn’t be more different. It’s just the same with the Joker. When I started working with Mark Hamill I thought no one would ever nail the Joker better than Mark Hamill, and then I saw Heath Ledger, and he knocked it out of the park in just a different way."

So that's positive: he likes the performance... BUT, he doesn't agree with the way the film presented the character.

"Personally I love the fact that Batman – in the stories I’ve done, and the way he’s been rendered by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, the people I’ve worked with most closely – he never kills anybody. He doesn’t cross that line. Batman is not a killer.He puts them into Arkham Asylum, which is what is so brilliant about the Arkham Games – someone realized, 'my god, all these incredible villains are all in the same institution – let’s get a video game in there'. It’s a brilliant idea. But the fact that Batman never kills anyone – I loved that fact.In the most recent live action movie, that seems to have been a line that was crossed and it’s not one I’m particularly comfortable with."

He has a point: no matter how many times people say "Batman has killed in the movies a lot", it doesn't make any of it right. It is part of his make-up not to kill (unless there is absolutely, positively no way around it), and it always made the character more interesting. To have him acting like any two-bit superhero is just not right.

Inevitably, the DC fanboy army has turned on Conroy (mostly because he hasn't been in one of their precious live action movies, so is deemed somehow fair game). Check your privilege guys, Conroy is royalty.

Here's the video in full...