Bane Steals the Show in Harley Quinn Spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah!

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). 

Where most characters in Harley Quinn could be someone’s favorite character—and one-off guest appearances from characters like Clayface (Alan Tudyk) and Frank the Plant (J.B. Smoove) are very welcome in Kite Man—I suspect almost everyone’s favorite character in Kite-Man’s regular cast will be Bane (James Adomian). Some people might worry that elevating the ’splosion-loving internal-monologuing big guy to third billing could run the joke dry. Those people are wrong. Where Kite Man is pathetic in ordinary ways, Bane is pathetic in extraordinary ones, so he’s perfect for the show’s wackier B-plots. Adomian’s horrible Tom Hardy impression still cracks me up every time he speaks, he gets the funniest lines, and he even gets some good character development! By almost every definition (kinky, cheesy jokes, trying his best to take care of children), Bane is Daddy.

Some of the villain-villains our “villain” protagonists have to fight have been seen previously in Harley Quinn, although some notables have been recast (the late Lance Reddick replaces Giancarlo Esposito as Lex Luthor, Keith David replaces Michael Ironside as Darkseid) and at times reconceived (Darkseid now has a choir singing about his every action). The big new original antagonist, chain restaurant/online shipping/awards ceremony mogul Helen Villigan (Judith Light), feels like someone we probably should have heard about before; the first few episodes of this season could have used some rewrites so her suddenly being this world’s Jeff Bezos (or Mom from Futurama) feels less out of nowhere. Also, it’s weird to do another villain awards ceremony episode; are they really just trying to erase the entire Harley Quinn Villys episode from our memory along with the Golden Glider retcon?

When making a spinoff of a show that already covers a lot of ground, it can be hard to find a distinctive identity. In the R-rated superhero realm, Gen V might be the best case scenario, fitting into the universe of The Boys while still offering something unique. Kite Man: Hell Yeah! fails to reach that level, but then again, it’s not really trying to. As a less-ambitious but still funny sidestory for Harley Quinn, it gets the job done. And I really liked the episode where Bane uses the ‘80s time-travel toilet.

Kite Man: Hell Yeah! premieres July 18th on Max.

Reuben Baron is the author of the webcomic Con Job: Revenge of the SamurAlchemist, a member of the neurodiverse theatre troupe EPIC Players, and a contributor to Looper, Wealth of Geeks, and Anime News Network, among other websites. You can follow him on Twitter at @AndalusianDoge and Bluesky at @andalusiandoge.bsky.social.

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