KEVIN CONROY TALKS BATMAN

SAN DIEGO -- It happens at least once during every convention appearance. Kevin Conroy is asked to bring out that voice and that line: "I am vengeance, I am the night, I am … Batman!"

And sure enough, during a recent panel at Comic-Con International, Conroy got the request within just a few questions. He smiled, as always, and obliged, as always. And the crowd roared like it usually does.

After 12 years, Conroy is still having fun playing Batman, most recently in the second season of Cartoon Network's Justice League and in Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, the direct-to-video movie being released Oct. 21.

"I just love the character," Conroy says during a press conference to promote the film before its premiere screening at Comic-Con.

"And the people who create it. It's such a great team; that's really why it's been so successful. Everyone involved, from '91, the very beginning, I've never seen such collaboration. Usually, and everything I had done before that had been on camera, you see such in-fighting in Hollywood. There's always a million opinions and no one can ever really agree on anything and everyone lets their little egos get in the way.

"This show, it was, from my perspective, nothing but positive input from everybody. It got the best out of everybody, down to the music. The score was incredible. In most shows, this would be overlooked. Everyone involved was so proud to be involved, and it shows."

Conroy has been Batman in every animated incarnation since Batman: The Animated series premiered on Fox Kids. He also voiced the character in Kids' WB!'s Batman and Batman Beyond, Cartoon Network's Justice League, guest-appearances on Kids' WB!'s Static Shock and now in two feature movies.

In Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, when a new vigilante in the guise of Batwoman appears in Gotham City, she is so ruthless and destructive that Batman feels compelled to stop her. As he tries to uncover her secret identity, he comes to realize that she has targeted a criminal consortium headed by Penguin, who is trying desperately to export a cache of high-tech arms out of Gotham City.

Eventually, Batman comes to suspect that Batwoman is Kathy Duquesne, the spoiled daughter of criminal kingpin Carleton Duquense, who is Penguin's partner. But just when Batman thinks he's got the goods on her, evidence points to another woman, and then another. By the time Batman realizes who the mysterious Batwoman really is, she has been captured by Bane, whom Penguin has hired to oversee the export of arms. It's up to Batman to save her, defeat Bane and stop the shipment of arms before it leaves Gotham Harbor.

"It's a complicated story," said Alan Burnett, supervising producer who formed the story and handed it off to writer Michael Reaves.

"We weren't out to reinvent anything in this show. We wanted to tell a good, fun story. We wanted to tell a story that was a little more fun. So there's a lot of laughs, and there's music and there's girls with size two waists and they're all beautiful. So we had a lot of fun, we really had a lot of fun."

The cast of Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman also includes Kyra Sedgwick as Batwoman; Kimberly Brooks as Kathy Duquense; Kelly Ripa, as Rocky, a Bruce Wayne employee who Batman suspects might be Batwoman; Elisa Gabrielli, Harvey Bullock's new partner who Batman suspects might be Batwoman; David Ogden Stiers as Penguin; Kevin Michael Richardson as Carleton Duquense; Efram Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred; Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon; Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon; Robert Costanzo as Harvey Bullock; Hector Elizondo as Bane; and Eli Marienthal as Robin.

Voice acting has drawn premium talent in recent years, especially with big-budget animated movies and stunt-casting in television series.

"In a way it's flattering because doing the animated voices is so in that people with huge film careers now want to do it," Conroy says. "So, in a way, it's kind of flattering. It's an area of the business that used to sort of be in the corner. Now everybody wants to do it.

"It elevates everybody. Unfortunately, it makes the work more scarce. You have a lot of actors who have been sort of elbowed out by that. Fortunately, I've been associated with a character that, for a while anyway, I've been able to keep doing."

Conroy hasn't necessarily been stereotyped, but he has been linked to that deep sound.

"I do get requested a lot to do things that require that kind of voice," he says. "People like that sound. I just did some stuff for MTV yesterday. They definitely want that sound."

In addition to voicing Batman, Conroy, of course, does the voice of Bruce Wayne. That voice has changed over the years and is now much closer to Batman's than in the original episodes.

"That was a deliberate change from the producers," Conroy said. "They wanted it to become darker and more dramatic. It's a challenge doing two voices, but they felt it lightened the character too much. Bruce Wayne was neighborly and they wanted to get away from that.

"I still slightly vary it, but it's just slightly."

Conroy said his favorite actor to work with on Batman is Mark Hamill. "To watch him voice the Joker is fascinating," Conroy says. "He transforms himself physically."

And how long does Conroy want to transform into the Dark Knight?

"As long as they ask me to," he says.