When Batman Visited Ground Zero

A beacon of hope

My first day of college was September 14, 1992, and before venturing over to the dining hall for a hearty meal of Peanut Butter Crunch, I watched that day’s episode of Batman: The Animated Series, “Pretty Poison.” It’s the first appearance of the Batman villain Poison Ivy in any non-comics medium. Actor Diane Pershing delivers a chillingly seductive performance, and the late composer Shirley Walker’s score as ever elevates the series to a level beyond anything you might’ve previously seen in a weekday afternoon time slot. (Watch below.)

However, despite my personal nostalgia, the episode that aired the next day, Nothing to Fear, is the relevant one for this piece. It’s the first appearance of the Scarecrow (Henry Polic II), whose fear gas causes Batman (Kevin Conroy) to experience overwhelming self-doubt, as we discover his greatest fear is that he’s let down his parents, whose senseless murders inspired his crimefighting crusade. It’s not an unreasonable fear, and one to which most people can relate. Sure, he’s Batman and all, but some parents are impossible to please.

Batman eventually overcomes the Scarecrow’s gas when he confronts the monstrous hallucination of his father, who mocks him as a failure. He declares, “You are not my father. I am not a disgrace. I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman!” (Watch below.)

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When Spider-Man Was Scarier Than Batman

This line had become legendary even before the series aired. I recall the early advertisements for Batman: The Animated Series, and they ended with Batman delivering this line. It was when we knew Kevin Conroy was bringing something special and unique to the character. The creative team for the show realized this almost immediately during Conroy’s audition for the role.

“I did a cold audition, I had never done an animated voice before. I said the only exposure I’ve had is the Adam West show from the 60’s and they said “NO! NO! NO! That’s not it.” I said ZIP POW POP and they said “NO! It’s, think film noir, think the 40’s New York. Think dark, think a kid who just watched his parents get murdered and spends his life avenging their deaths and he lives in the shadows. He’s got this dual personality and he’s never resolved this torture of his youth. I said you are telling the Hamlet story, this is heavy stuff. And he said yeah, no one has ever said that before, but yeah I guess it is. This is like a classic archetypal, Shakespearian tragedy. So I just used my theater training and put myself into that head. And I got into this very dark place and came up with this voice. And as I did it I saw them all running around in the booth. And I thought well either I did something really bad or something really good because I hit a nerve, I know I hit a nerve. And they came out and they said well we’ve seen about over 600 people and how would you like to do the part?”

Conroy was gay, which he kept private professionally because in the late 1980s/1990s his sexuality had cost him multiple on-screen jobs. It’s arguably why he was auditioning for the Batman cartoon in the first place. Conroy later revealed that growing up in a strict religious household and hiding his true self helped him connect to Bruce Wayne’s dual life. It also adds resonance to the scene in Nothing to Fear where Batman “defeats” the specter of a disapproving parent.

Almost a decade after Batman: The Animated Series premiered, Kevin Conroy, who lived in New York, answered the call after the September 11 terrorist attacks. He helped feed first responders in those grim days. When asked if he had restaurant experience, Conroy laughed and said, “I’m an actor. Of course, I have restaurant experience.” He went to work at Nino’s, a few blocks from Ground Zero. In the documentary I Know That Voice, Conroy describes a conversation he had with a fellow volunteer.

“In the middle of the night, the nights into this, this one guy goes ‘So, my day job is I’m an architect. What’s your day job?’ I said I do voices mostly.”

“I knew it!” the architect exclaimed. “You’re the guy who does Batman. You’re that Kevin Conroy!”

“So this guy goes into the dining hall,” Conroy said, “and this is the first week after the attack and there is just this sombre sadness and you hear the guy go, ‘guys, guys, you’re not gonna believe whose been cooking your dinners. It’s Batman!”

“There’s this long silence and you hear ‘bullshit’ from the back of the place. Then somebody else said: ‘Make him prove him’ and I was like ‘oh, this is good.’”

Conroy’s normal speaking voice is closer to the one he used as Bruce Wayne, so for these brave men, he shared his secret identity, unmasking himself as the Dark Knight by lowering his register and proclaiming, “I am vengeance! I am the night. I am Batman!”

A brief, stunned silence was broken when someone shouted, “Holy fuck, that is Batman!” And the room was filled with laughter for the first time. The architect then turned to Conroy and asked, “What does it feel like to be Santa Claus because that's just what happened here.” (Watch below.)

‘Are You Afraid?’

The Santa Claus allusion fits well, because like Santa, Kevin was giving selflessly to others, without seeking acknowledgement or glory. That is also the hero Batman truly is — the one Conroy played so well for decades. He doesn’t only seek “vengeance.” He helps those in need however he can.

In his moving autobiographical short story “Finding Batman” from the 2022 DC Pride anthology, Conroy describes discovering his version of the immortal hero.

“I began to speak, and a voice I didn’t recognize came out. It was a throaty, husky, rumbling sound that shook my body. It seemed to roar from thirty years of frustration, confusion, denial, love, yearning ... yearning for what? An anchor. A harbor. A sense of safety, a sense of identity. Yes, I can relate. Yes, this is terrain I know well. I felt Batman rising from deep within.”

A voice Kevin Conroy had channeled through his personal pain had become a beacon of hope for so many. Conroy passed away in November 2022, but that beacon still shines.