Batman: The Animated Series

Forget West, Keaton, Clooney and Bale; my favorite Batman has always been Conroy. As the voice of the animated Batman since 1992, Kevin Conroy has done what few actors can; he’s captured the spirit of both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Included in this collection are three series—Batman: The Animated Series, The Adventures of Batman and Robin and The New Batman Adventures. The collection starts in top form with character-driven episodes that are propelled by reverse storytelling, multiple perspectives and a mesh between reality and dreams—techniques usually absent in the “villain a week” formula normally found in cartoons. After three seasons, it starts to dip in quality but never bottoms out (the Batman Beyond series holds that honor). The origin of Mr. Freeze in “Heart of Ice” is so perfectly tragic that we forget the character’s slaughter in the hands of our governor in the Batman & Robin film. Gritty, with a wise-ass Alfred and a tolerable Robin … Holy execution, Batman, they got it right!