Kevin Conroy has passed away at age 66

[-batmat-]

The news have settled in for me, and I've been able to resume my rewatch of BTAS I was doing. I've watched "Avatar", "House And Garden" and "The Terrible Trio" since. What I noticed is that BTAS is completely immersive. Once the show starts, I forget about everything and I'm completely into the episode. So enjoyable!

 

[SweetShop209]

Apparently, the opening to Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm on HBO Max has a dedication to Kevin Conroy.

 

[Frontier]

Apparently, the opening to Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm on HBO Max has a dedication to Kevin Conroy.

That's really decent of them .

 

[#TeamMike]

Not that it's necessarily our business, but it seems like Kevin Conroy had been in remission from cancer or some sickness for about 20 years. Seemed like a long ongoing issue.

George Newbern mentions here that 20 years ago Conroy struggled with a big health issue and that he almost past away.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Yes, for further clarification, Kevin Conroy talks about his health struggles in the mid 90's in the following cameo he recorded:

I wanted to share with you something from my life. Twenty five years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain infection and I was dying. I slipped into a coma for a few days. I lost sixty pounds. I stopped working. I couldn't walk. I couldn't... I wasn't... It was over! And I faced my mortality and I was angry and I was scared, but I didn't stop fighting. I was a walking x-ray. I was written off.

They threw me a 40th birthday party six months early because I was not going to make it. I was not going to make it to 40 and everyone knew that. But I fought and I fought and I kept seeing a tomorrow. But at the same time, I had to get over my fear of passing because it was very likely I was going to. I never knew I had the strength that I had to get through that year.

A man of great strength and bravery who deserved a much longer life, especially with all the joy he gave to others. Think of all the wonderful performances we would have lost if he left us in 1995. What a gift those 27 years were and we didn't even know it.

Still the best to ever do it.

 

[Frontier]

Kevin Conroy really was an absolute legend in all sense of the word.

 

[-batmat-]

Yes, for further clarification, Kevin Conroy talks about his health struggles in the mid 90's in the following cameo he recorded:



A man of great strength and bravery who deserved a much longer life, especially with all the joy he gave to others. Think of all the wonderful performances we would have lost if he left us in 1995. What a gift those 27 years were and we didn't even know it.

Still the best to ever do it.

I had NO idea about this. Really makes you appreciate everything he did post-1995 indeed. Can you guys imagine Batman Beyond, Justice League/JLU without Kevin? A part of me even doubts Bruce Timm & Co. would have wanted to have the "teenage Batman show" that would become Batman Beyond in continuity with BTAS if Kevin would have passed away then. Maybe JL/JLU would have been its own thing too. Who knows. What a gift, indeed.

 

[DBTrilogy100]

It looks like my original post in this thread was lost during "The Great Outage of 2023", so I'll take this chance to re-post it while I'm thinking about it.

In the past, I have spoken about how the DCAU was my introduction to DC characters and I was fortunate enough to be able to start the DCAU from the beginning with Batman: The Animated Series. Naturally, this means Kevin Conroy's portrayal as Batman was the first portrayal of the Dark Knight I was able to experience and it was a very impactful first impression for me. While my first exposure to a crossover was through The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones, my mind as a kid was still blown when I first saw Superman: The Animated Series' "World's Finest" 3 Parter and Kevin Conroy's Batman was a major factor for that as that was one of the biggest signs for my kid self that this was the very same Batman I watched in Batman: The Animated Series (of course, Mark Hamill's Joker along with the return of Harley Quinn were also big signs of this to my kid self). I suppose it would be accurate to say that the DCAU with Kevin Conroy's Batman was to me (and I'm sure the same holds true for others, as well) as I'm sure the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury was to others in the sense of being one's first exposure to a work of fiction with its own expansive universe made up of many entries, installments and what have you.

Of course, I still feel many others have given great performances for Batman (such as Bruce Greenwood and Diedrich Bader) but Kevin Conroy's voice is the voice I hear in my head whenever I imagine Batman talking. Rest in peace Kevin Conroy, your portrayal as Batman will remain the definitive portrayal of the Dark Knight in my mind.