In this video, Kevin Conroy talks about how, 25 years ago, he was diagnosed with a brain infection and informed he was dying. He lost over 60 pounds, could not walk and even slipped into a coma for a few days. His friends and family even threw him a 40th birthday party six months early as no one believed he would see it.
I remember all those nasty comments online about Kevin over the years, regarding his appearance. How frail and old he looked... much older than his age, etc. You just never know what people are dealing with.
The fact that he fought and still managed to give us 25 more years of wonderful BATMAN performances is a gift. It sounds like he had a hard life and I'm so glad he found true love and admiration from the Batman fanbase (those that weren't decrying that he was starting to sound too old). How lucky we were that he was just starting to sound too old. He deserved to get much older. I would have gladly taken an 85 year old Kevin rasping it up behind the microphone.
This just hit me like a truck. And seeing as I don't believe I have actually told this story on here and because my way of dealing with my emotions is to write them, I think I'm gonna tell it.
From ages 10-14, I went through a very dark period in my life where me not being here was a very real possibility. There's a lot of combining factors for why I am still here, but I am not using hyperbole when I say a very specific episode of BTAS is a significant reason for why I am.
Around the time TDKR came out, I got a bit more into Batman which led me to watching BTAS episodes. It was part of...a list I had of stuff I wanted to do
before I tried it, if that makes sense. Eventually, I got to this episode
Now, before I explain why this episode hit me as hard as it did, I gotta give a bit of context. At this point in my life, I never thought that superheroes dealt with stuff like depression. There's no way Batman could be depressed, because he's Batman. He's a superhero and superheroes don't deal with that sorta "lower" stuff, they're too busy saving the world. It just didn't make sense in my head.
Then the first thing I see in that episode is Batman, slumped in his chair...and the first thing he says is that he's tired. That he has...a weary spirit. That he wonders whether he's doing any good out there. That essentially, despite what he does, the war goes on and on and he doesn't know if he's having an effect. He doesn't know if he has any value to the world.
I had to pause the episode then and there to start utterly sobbing. Because I just heard this grander than life figure...describe how I was feeling at that point in my life when I couldn't. And he felt like that, too. I watched the rest of the episode and it finally dawned on me that he does deal with that and just continues to push through it via his will and determination. And as the ending of the episode shows, it is worth that. Because Batman does make a difference. Because despite all that pain, Batman does have...value to the world. The idea that this...mythological being does deal with this stuff and keeps moving forward despite it, and in a more meta sense, the idea that someone who clearly
understood that in reality wrote that
it was the first time in a very long time that I didn't feel alone. It was the first time something, anything, introduced me to the idea of using your pain in favour of something better. And that...that's ****ing everything, man. It was the first time since I was 10 years old that I thought life might be worth living. It's why I still think, to this day, that life is worth living.
I owe my life to Michael Reaves, to Boyd Kirkland, to Kevin Conroy...to Batman. To
his Batman. I wouldn't be here without them. I mean that with complete sincerity. Kevin Conroy will always be Batman, to me. And Batman, to me, is everything.
Rest in peace, Kevin. You being gone is always going to ****ing hurt. But thank you for giving a severely mentally ill kid his life back. He'll always be grateful for that.
Lily Adler#forthecontent! 📹 (she/her)
DKDetectiveElementary, Dear Robin (he/him)
