A developer who worked on Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has finally spoken out on the Kevin Conroy question.
Amy-Leigh Shaw lists herself on her Twitter profile as a former staffer at Rocksteady Studios, and currently working at Sweet Baby Inc, a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal.
Amy-Leigh quote tweeted an article making a claim about Kevin Conroy and his role as Batman in Suicide Squad. The caption on the article says:
“A lot of fans are hopping mad about Batman’s role in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and rightly so. Here’s why Kevin Conroy’s Batman is wasted in the game.”
Amy-Leigh made this response:
“Kevin was our teammate and many of us worked with him directly for years. I would expect games journalists to know that, and understand how callous it is to use his memory to stoke hatred. We do not need strangers to tell us what he would have thought. He told us himself.”
Amy-Leigh responded to a fan who had replied to her, explaining her viewpoint further:
“Thanks Julie. And I agree, I’ve been appreciating reading reviews! But this – I just don’t understand what it is they’re reporting on? I don’t think any of the time Kevin spent with us was “wasted”.”
So as Amy-Leigh made clear, she was not rejecting any criticism directed at Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. Of course, she knows more than we do about what happened behind the scenes of this project, which was in development for at least seven years, so she would know firsthand what things happened that made the game turn out the way it did.
But Amy-Leigh is also right to claim that Kevin Conroy, or his role, was ‘wasted’ in the game. Specifically, she took offense at the insinuation that Kevin must not have liked what he had to act and say in the game.
But that idea is predicated on the assumption that Kevin knew this would be his final sendoff. We as fans may not like it, but this was clearly an erroneous assumption. The conditions of Kevin’s passing were somewhat sudden, and given that it happened before this title released, we can’t verify such with him now.
This isn’t to say that fans are wrong to express their opinions about that leaked scene in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. In fact, it’s clear that the writing was deliberately intended to provoke a reaction, and surely the people at Rocksteady, including Amy-Leigh, knew they were going to get a response.
But what Amy-Leigh is saying, is that if Kevin did like it or not, or was ambivalent or mixed about it, we don’t actually know. Maybe someday Rocksteady’s staff could talk about this more, if they are at liberty to clear up the misconceptions the public may have about this game.
It’s also rumored that datamining indicates Batman and the rest of the Justice League aren’t actually dead in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, and they will become playable at some point in the future. As for Kevin Conroy, there are still some other posthumous projects where we can still appreciate his talents, such as the upcoming animated feature Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 3.
