The Airborne Identity

The aerial asshat flies solo in Kite Man: Hell Yeah!

- NICK SETCHFIELD

SOMETIMES YOU WANT to go where everybody knows your name – even if that name provokes nothing but titters, smirks and eye-rolls.

“What we really wanted to do was Cheers with villains,” says Dean Lorey, executive producer of Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, the new animated comedy series that puts Gotham City’s doofiest public menace front and centre after his show-stealing appearances in Harley Quinn.

“That was the concept, because it was something a little different from Harley while still being in the same universe. So we find him wanting to buy and run a bar. It just creates a safe space for villains, because no one wants them around. That’s where we meet him.”

An obscure Silver Age Batman foe, Kite Man emerged as the breakout character of Harley Quinn, reimagined as a dim-witted but decent-hearted jock whose aeronautical schtick is played strictly for laughs.

“He was originally a one-off,” says Lorey, who also served as writer and producer on Harley Quinn. “We’d written him for [voice actor] Matt Oberg. He was great and we just kept writing for him. We were surprised by how much people ended up loving that character. He sort of snuck up on us, too.