Over the years, there have many people that have played the Dark Knight and contributed to the Batman mythos, but none have come as close as Michael Keaton and Kevin Conroy.
While Adam West laid the groundwork, Keaton and Conroy took that and created two of the greatest interpretations of Batman.
However, it needs to be asked: which is the better Batman?
Now, I know you’re not really supposed to compare live-action and animation, but I feel like this needs to be discussed.
Also, if you’re going to talk about this down below, please stick to versions of Batman that stick with the main interpretation from the specific actor.
For example, Kevin Conroy’s Bruce Wayne from Crisis on Infinite Earths is off-limits since normally, any Conroy version of Batman would never consider murder.
Also, the comic versions of Conroy and Keaton’s Batmen are fair game.
Examples:
Conroy: BTAS comic spin-offs
Keaton: Batman '89 comic run.
Absolutely! Batman Forever is far and away my absolute favorite of the Burton/Schumacher quadrilogy and has been since I first saw it via a sneak preview on the night of June 15th, 1995 (one day prior to its theatrical debut).
A large portion of that favoritism is due to Kilmer’s portrayal of Bruce and Batman, along with how badass his regular suit in the movie (dubbed “the panther suit” during production) is.
They’ve never really bothered me, as we all have nipples.
That said, nipples weren’t ever needed on Bat-suits and its good that it was only a two-time (three, if the suit from the end of B&R has them, which I don’t immediately recall if it does) gig.
Most definitely.
When Batman takes down Two-Face’s thugs in the opening of the movie, that’s Batman!
Same goes for when he does that wicked backflip onto Harvey’s goons at the Ritz Gotham.
That was one tough poll, All due to respect to Michael Keaton, I really had to vote for Kevin Conroy, cause he played Batman for 30 years! Think about it, he played him with many different versions from TV shows, movies, and videogames.
Conroy was well love by his fans, he would go to conventions to meet them. He really enjoyed saying, “I am the night, I am vengeance, I AM BATMAN!”
I had never seen or met him in person, I have huge respect for him, and thankful that he got to play Batman longer then anybody to my knowledge.
It might be a question that I’d have to revisit after The Flash comes out (and the Batgirl film leaks, perhaps?). As it stands, we have two wonderful performances by Michael Keaton. The work is superb and consistent.
With Kevin Conroy, it’s a mixed bag. His early work in the Fox Kids show was top-notch, but once he was brought back for subsequent productions, he lost some of the charm he had previously brought to the role. Perhaps a lot of that is simply that everyone started writing Bruce as an unrepentant jerk, but the whole thing kinda became one-note, and the distinction between Bruce and Batman largely disappeared. And he was not up to his own standards in some of his final performances, especially The Killing Joke.
So at his peak, Conroy was on par with Keaton at the very least. But he had many more opportunities to play the role, and with that came many instances where he slipped in consistency and felt a little two-dimensional. Perhaps Keaton will do the same now that he has returned to the role after so long. We’ll see.
