Bane Steals the Show in Harley Quinn Spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah!
Photo Courtesy of Max
To get the obvious complaint filling every comment section out of the way: yes, it is ridiculous that Kite Man has his own animated series before Wonder Woman. I’m sure the writers of Kite Man: Hell Yeah! would agree with that assessment. However, the show’s ridiculous existence is also a compliment to the strength of this team’s work on Harley Quinn, a cartoon with such clever characterization that it could take this kite-themed Z-list Batman villain, set him up as the big obstacle for the “Harlivy” OTP, and still make him lovable enough that people would actually watch his own spinoff.
Kite Man (voiced by Matt Oberg) is a positive role model for mediocre wealthy straight white dudes everywhere; a powerless and somewhat insecure but thoroughly non-toxic bro who loves quoting Borat and being there for his “babe.” Harley Quinn viewers met the “babe” in question, super-skater Golden Glider, in the Season 3 episode “The 83rd Annual Villy Awards,” but basically everything about her depiction has changed in the new show: different design, different voice actress (switching from Cathy Ang to Stephanie Hsu), and wildly different personality.
Glider came across as shy and sweet in Harley Quinn. While she still has lovey-dovey moments with Kite Man in this series, the defining aspect of Hsu’s version is anger (this appears to be closer to her characterization in the comics, though I’ve never read any Flash books, so I can’t make authoritative comparisons). When her anger gets too extreme, she melts people’s faces. Somewhat unusual for a character with this sort of emotion-based power, she doesn’t seem to make any real attempt at suppressing her feelings a la The Hulk or Mob from Mob Psycho 100, so there’s never a clear-cut dividing line between her everyday anger and her killer rage.
Compared to Harley Quinn’s wild plot developments and ambitious concept episodes, the Kite Man spinoff keeps things smaller and lower-key, even when the fate of the world inevitably is at stake. This is less “supervillain show that’s funny” and more “sitcom with supervillains”—with Kite Man buying out the low-tier villain/goon watering hole Noonan’s, the obvious sitcom comparison is Cheers (disclaimer: I’ve seen as many episodes of Cheers as I have read Flash comics, so I can’t get too deep there beyond “it’s set in a bar and the producers pitched it as a Cheers-like show”).
While Kite-Man and Glider make a likable duo of protagonists, one clear weakness of Kite Man in comparison to its mothership series is with the supporting cast. Where every major character—and most minor ones—in Harley Quinn are the funniest possible interpretations of the DC heroes and villains, the regulars at Noonan’s tend towards stock types. The original bar owner Noonan (Jonathan Banks) never leaves much of an impression. Malice (Natasia Demetrou) is written like every sitcom snobby rich girl. Most gags involving Sixpack (Eddie Pepitone) were funnier when The Simpsons did them with Barney Gumble. The conjoined gangsters Moe and Joe (Michael Imperioli) at least have a memorably-gnarly visual running gag and offer some playful back-and-forth with the decapitated Queen of Fables (Janelle James, replacing Wanda Sykes).