Interview with Dr. Andrea Letemendy and Brian Ward on The Arkham Sessions

This is Kevin Conroy, and I am the goddamn Batman.

Hi, this is Dr. Andrea Letemendy. And Brian Ward

from the Arkham Sessions. And you are listening

to Legends of the Dark Knight. Welcome to Legends

of the Dark Knight. I am one of your hosts, Teodora

and Mike. Joining me is the Joker himself, Steve

Megatron. Hello. In this latest Legends of the

Dark Knight interview, we welcome Commissioner

Gordon and Dr. Harleen Quinzel. I mean, the Arkham

Sessions creators, Dr. Andrea Ledemendy and Mr.

Brian Ward. Howdy. Hello. Yeah, I wrote that

out earlier today. I'm like, oh. Because I've

seen Brian as Gordon, so I'm like, yeah. Yeah,

he does a good Commissioner Gordon cosplay. It

really just requires growing a mustache. That's

probably true. Alright, so the Arkham Sessions

is the latest and greatest podcast to hit the

interwebs. It is... Letta Mendy and Brian Ward

from Shout Factory. And they are doing something

that I don't think I've heard in these seven

or eight years that I've either been podcasting

or have been listening to podcasts. They are

going through Batman the Animated Series and

analyzing the psychology of it all. Yeah, we

figured we'd put her degree to good use. Her

doctorate. You know, she spent enough time in

school. Might as well use it. wow dang all right

um man that bus must hurt wow no that's that's

that's the biggest compliment i could give you

know you could well we kid around i mean the

truth is all i talk about is batman and uh one

of my favorite shows is batman the animated series

so as as brian is is trying to describe um he's

like just get a podcast already Yeah, I mean,

I sort of talk about Batman all the time. I'm

a clinical psychologist. I have a PhD in clinical

psychology from UCSD. And I just really find

that there's a lot of psychology in Batman. And

recently in the past, well, the past year or

so, I've been more and more talking about the

psychology of Batman, the animated series and

the characters that are in that show. And really,

Brian was just like, all right, you just need

to get a podcast because otherwise you're just

talking to me about it. Other people need to

hear. Which I enjoy. You make it sound like it's

such a chore, Brian. We would have amazing conversations

about it, to be honest. It really clicked for

me when last October, Drea was in a documentary

that Warner Brothers and DC Comics made called

Necessary Evil, the Supervillains of DC Comics.

And she was in there with writers, artists, comic

creators, publishers, her colleague, Dr. Langley.

And it occurred to me that when they would cut

to her, she was like the resident Batman, the

animated series guru. Like she remembers there,

there are moments in that documentary where if

you're watching it, she's talking about like

specific shots that she remembers from say two

phase part one and stuff like that. You know,

just talking about like, I will never forget

the moment I saw, you know, Harvey walk out of

the, the hospital room and the lightning flash

behind him. And, And I was like, you know, it's

interesting because those filmmakers even brought

up the point that that she really knows the animated

series like exceptionally well. And, you know,

people people analyze comic books all the time.

They, you know, they either critics of comics

or critics of television or whatever. But to

be a clinical psychologist, to have the expertise.

To actually say this is what I would do if these

people were my patients is is a unique gift.

And, you know, I'm very thankful to be a part

of it with her. Oh, that was really nice. Oh,

were you here? Yeah, I'm here. That's just validating

my my geeky geekiness. My geeky fandom is being

appreciated and validated, which isn't the case,

which wasn't the case when I was a kid. So thank

you for that. So, Brian, it's been four years

since we had you on a Geekcast Radio Network

interview. So what have you been up to since

we last chatted with you about the Beast Wars

set? Wow, is it about Beast Wars? Yeah. Must

have been a boring interview. Right. Right. Hey,

in the last four years, I've been working on

Transformers Prime, which, you know, I guess

I haven't really talked to you guys about it,

but as far as I'm concerned, it's the greatest

thing to ever carry the name Transformers. And

this is coming from a G1 fan. You know, but it's

literally everything that I grew up wanting to

happen in a Transformers show. Right there. You

know, there are moments of humor, but it's not

a comedy. And there are moments of darkness,

but they're they're managed to to balance the

levity with it very well. And it's all the characters

that and I don't necessarily mean the character

by name. I mean, like, this is the kind of character

that I enjoy. And and so I'm very sad that we're

done. producing those DVDs and Blu -rays. And

they look beautiful. And some of the bonus features

were some of the best that I've had a chance

to work on. And then I've spent the last two

years working on the Power Rangers, the 20th

anniversary Power Rangers collection. That's

a massive set. Yeah, 98 discs total and all in

a gigantic helmet. I was going to say, talk about

a set with a giant eagle on its head. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's, you know, and that was a great joy

for me because we did six discs of bonus material.

And I literally couldn't have fit another minute

onto those last couple of discs. So, you know,

they were bulging at the seams. And that just

means I had a lot of fun over the last two years.

But, you know, now I'm getting back into. to

the swing of other shows and, um, you know, some

stuff that, uh, that sadly I can't talk about,

but can't mean to, um, they're, they're going

to be some good sets this year. Awesome. Awesome.

The first time I heard you, Andrea was way back.

I don't even think this podcast is still going

on the way back on the geek girls podcast when

you did their bullying episode. Yeah. Yeah. That

was the first time I had ever heard you. So why

don't. Yeah. Why don't you tell the listeners

a little bit about yourself? Well, I would say

that's around the time a couple of years ago,

like two or three years ago, I started to kind

of enter the geek community in the sense that

I would be speaking at. conventions, um, you

know, speaking on podcasts and really talking

about the psychology of, um, heroes and villains

and comic books, science fiction, TV shows, things

like that. And, um, and yeah, it's, it's been

a lot of fun. Um, I always, I always tell folks

I'm not, I don't consider myself to be in the

industry. I'm, I'm kind of in the outside commenting.

and analyzing if you will what's going on so

i've talked about things like um cosplay the

psychology of cosplay i've talked about extreme

fandom and collecting um i've talked about star

wars batman the anime series batman in general

so as as i was saying earlier it's it's really

a chance for me to dovetail both my psychology

you know professional um interests as well as

my my geeky side and the expertise too i mean

like you know the experience because uh when

i first i think the first panel i ever saw of

drea's was uh the the panel that she calls the

superhero battlefield and to this day i tell

people about it because it was so interesting

like You know, you would start out she would

start out the panel with like a big image of

Batman swinging through the city and explosions

and all of that. And then she'd be like, you

know, how many people in the in the room think

this is fictional? This sort of thing is not

happening in life. And and, you know, most people

would raise their hands and then she would cut

to like two videos from, you know, Afghanistan

or Iraq with with guys and, you know. dealing

with IEDs buried in the ground and, you know,

real life Humvee situations where suddenly there's

an explosion next to you and you're like, wow,

these people exist. The people who have to get

up, put on the body armor every day and go to

work and then they come home. And, you know,

so she she really enlightened me in that in that

regard. So it just becomes that much more fascinating

to listen to these professionals talk about this

stuff. All right. So the Arkham Sessions, tell

us the background story of that. How did this

come about? Now, Brian, you said off air that

you're like, just get a podcast already. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I mean, it really it really did start

with that documentary that she did last year.

You know, she and I would have conversations

a lot about Batman. And I and I had seen a number

of panels that she had done. But it really came

down to she's got a Web site under the mask online

dot com where she gets an opportunity to sort

of. waxed psychological about fictional heroes

and villains. And it's an interesting read for

sure, but her schedule just sort of doesn't allow

for as many posts as she would like to do. So

I was like, well, why don't we just do a 30 to

45 minute podcast every week, which gives you

the opportunity and we can go through one episode

at a time and we can treat them like they were

sessions in Arkham Asylum. um we set some ground

rules basically we are not she knows the series

much better than i but we're not allowed to reference

anything that we know happens we are only allowed

to reference what we have seen up to this point

so it gives us an opportunity to look at these

characters and how they evolve over the course

of however many episodes we get to watch them

in. And the challenge there, too, is that we're

in the world of BTAS. So we also, as part of

the rules, we're not allowed to reference other

storylines and arcs and comic books and other

films. Now, we do sometimes mention other versions

or if something, what just came out in Bruce

Timm's animated short just came out. So, of course,

we had a moment to kind of talk about that. Right.

Right. But but yeah, we're we sort of the idea

is that if you were Bill Finger writing Batman

75 years ago or if you were Frank Miller or,

you know, Scott Snyder now, all of these people

write Batman differently. And you'll notice,

you know, reading comics now, if you read. a

batman title he is one way and if you read like

the justice league he's a completely different

way because it's just a matter of perspective

within the justice league he's the jerk that

stays by himself no one really knows him but

if you're reading the bat title you get to know

more about him because he's the person you're

following um so really just it's a matter of

perspective so what we decided to do was we decided

We're going to stick to Batman the Animated Series

because this has a writer's Bible. And no matter

how many writers are writing on it, they have

to stick to this writer's Bible. So Batman can

only be the way that Paul Dini and Bruce Timm

and Eric Radomski dictated in this Bible, which

gives us a sense of consistency, which is exactly

the kind of thing Drea needs in order to analyze

properly. Interesting. All right. Well, with

the show going on now, when I first found it,

I think it was because I follow both of you on

Twitter, and I listened to a number of episodes,

and I'm like, wow, no one has ever really tried

doing it this way. And it's by far the best analysis.

cartoon show I've heard in a long time thank

you that's that's actually that means a lot because

as Brian said we we weren't sure you know we

had a few rules we had some ideas um but I I've

never done a podcast before um like I said before

I've I've guessed it on on some podcasts and

um I didn't know how much work would go into

it. I didn't know if people would care. I didn't

know if people would want to listen. But it's

been a really exciting venture because we get

to sit down and watch an episode. We talk about

it. We write about it. We put a microphone in

front of ourselves and then just analyze. We

do talk about the story. We talk about how the

episode opens. We talk about new characters.

Brian will start asking psychological questions.

Why would a villain behave that way? What would

motivate them? Is that realistic? Is that kind

of loss or trauma realistic? And how would someone

react? So certainly when we have characters like

Two -Face and the Joker and... And of course,

Mr. Freeze, then we have quite a bit to talk

about as far as the development of some of these

really great villains. And with Batman, the animated

series, a lot of times we get their origin, which

is hugely important when it comes to understanding

their transformation into a villain and their

motivations and reasoning for doing what they

do. What amazes me more than anything, I've got

to be honest, you know. you guys know me as a

DVD and Blu -ray producer, and I've spent a great

deal of my 10 years with Shout Factory doing

a lot of animated series. So when we sort of

had the idea, I did think, because many of these

episodes I hadn't actually watched since I watched

them back in 92 and 93 and going forward, but...

I did find myself wondering just how long can

we go? Because after all, it's an animated series.

It's a kid's show. It's 22 minutes apiece. And

once we got into it, Drea just started... going

off about like oh this character has this this

character is is you know oh i'm leaning toward

this diagnosis i'm leaning toward this oh last

time we saw this person i thought it was this

now i'm thinking it's closer to this and i'm

like wow we really could go on for a long time

because there's a lot of depth that these writers

um put into this show whether they realize it

or not like Well, there's a lot of depth, yes,

but there's also a lot of depth in the way you're

doing the show. Because most podcasts I know

or that I've heard of doing a review -style show

will do two, three, four, sometimes five or even

six episodes per podcast episode. And they'll

make their shows an hour, 45 minutes or something.

It's not going to be like a three -hour show

for six episodes. You know, they'll give their

opinions and whatever else. But what you guys

are doing is something completely different.

You're going one episode at a time. So 22 minutes

at a time. Right. Out of 108, 109 episodes, whatever

the series is. You guys are going to be around

for a while. And we might take little breaks.

We've talked about it where there might be occasionally

where we'll do an episode on something else.

We haven't done any of that yet, but we always

want to stick to Batman. But occasionally we

understand that we might have to break it up

a little bit. So every now and again there might

be a special episode of whatever, whether it's...

I'm thinking about some of the films. Yeah, like

the Nolan films or some of the DC animated titles

or something along those lines. We might take

a brief break, but the core of the show will

always be Batman the Animated Series because

it's the animated series that we... grew up watching

um andrea has famously said um both on the podcast

and in interviews that uh it really was her gateway

to not only um batman but to psychology so um

you know we're gonna we're gonna ride that way

for as long as we can the one thing i'm hoping

you guys get to eventually down the line is uh

analyzing um six characters batman superman the

joker lex luther harley and mercy you guys have

to do world's finest yeah that's one that uh

that's one that i would i would be very interested

in taking a look at at some point yeah that's

such a deep like it's such a good a good story

that um To be perfectly honest, I'm one of those

people. Actually, I might be the only person.

I don't know. I never really talked about it

with too many people. It really bothers me, the

idea of Batman and Superman living in the same

universe. Okay, explain why this is. Why does

this bother you, Brian? It bothers me because

the longer Batman and Superman are living together,

Superman becomes a bigger jerk and Batman becomes

less and less effective. I think that as characters,

I get why DC put them together when they were

in the beginning, you know, because they sold

books and these were two of the most popular

characters in the world. I get it. I think that

one of the mistakes. And I say mistake loosely

knowing that DC would never do it. But when they

relaunched the new 52 and were basically creating

a new universe, you had the opportunity to not

necessarily put characters together again. Batman

is a real, you know, flesh and blood earth human

with no meta powers of any kind. And he's on

a singular mission to clean up Gotham city. Well,

I personally blame Bob Kane and Bill Finger for

the way I think. They basically, you know, I

can't imagine a worse mistake than giving a superhero

a mission statement. And if you say, I'm going

to terrorize the criminal, the superstitious

cowardly lot, I am going to instill fear in them,

and they will quiver, and they will stop doing

all the things they're doing. You can't do that

and still have a successful book because there

needs to be crime in Gotham City. And unfortunately,

Batman is so ineffective at stopping crime, we

still have common muggings in Crime Alley. We

still have random shootings. These aren't just

supervillains. These are actual just run -of

-the -mill criminals who are theoretically terrified

of the bat. but not enough to not commit the

crime. So just how terrifying is the guy? And

in every iteration of Batman, Gotham is worse

and worse. So now not only is he not good at

his job, they are overrunning Gotham city. And

now he's got the bat family of like 20 people

helping him out and they can't clean it up either.

So, you know, and then keep in mind that just

a hundred miles away. Superman is hanging out

in Metropolis, a clean city. He's got nothing

else to do, so he's a journalist. Gotham needs

Superman at this point, and the only thing keeping

Superman from cleaning it up is Batman going,

no, this is my turf. Is it? You're not very good.

So, you know, I think... If Superman and Batman

were not living in the same universe, there would

be no excuse. Batman would be a guy who was doing

everything he could to keep Gotham. He is doing

everything he can. And I sort of look at Superman's

role as one that has to kind of recognize the

prime directive. This version of the prime directive.

He can't go in and sort of dismiss Batman's role

and clean up. That's just not his way. At this

point, Superman is... I think you could be right,

but I think at this point, Superman could either

be, like, really lazy, or he could be letting

all of the villains go to the one city. You know,

he could be like, look, I'm cleaning up the rest

of the world by letting them go there. But at

the same time, if you let them control everything

and clean it up, you'd have the Justice Lords.

Well, yes. Because in that two -parter, Lord's

Batman says to our Batman, they would have loved

it here, wouldn't they? Who? Mom and Dad. Because

in that timeline, Gotham is Metropolis. Yeah.

But it is one of those stories, World's Finest,

that I think would be pretty killer to put in

front of Drea and just get her thoughts on it.

Yeah, because like I said, you have those six

characters. They all have psychological issues.

They all have psychological issues dealing with

each other. You've got Batman and Superman, Lex

and Joker teaming up, and then Harley and Mercy.

I mean, that's just a chick fight anybody wants

to watch. Well, then you have the love triangle.

Well, yeah, there is that, too. Oh, God. Technically,

Batman had Lois before Superman because Dana

Delaney voiced Andrea Beaumont in Mask of the

Phantasm. Wow. That's one I want to get to as

well. Alright, what's the next one we got for

him, Steve? So, do you guys have any particular

favorite characters from Batman the Animated

Series that you like or you like exploring the

psychology of? Throughout the series. I do have

favorites. There's. What we've encountered so

far. I think we're in episode 17. 17. We just

wrapped up. We're wrapping up 17. Next week will

be 18. There are a couple different types. Of

episodes. There's the kind of. The kid. The bullied

kid who has a single parent household, who's

a ginger, who inevitably is an outcast and, you

know, adores Batman. There's sort of the kind,

you know, the after school special kind of episodes.

And then there's the kind of the villain centric

episodes where you see the development of a villain.

So naturally. While I don't mind those after

school special type of episodes, I prefer the

episodes that focus on the origin of Two -Face,

the origin of Mr. Freeze, sort of these stories

that really go into the events and the traumas

that they experience that lead to them developing

into a villain. And of course... Those episodes,

while I love Batman and I love talking about

the psychology of Batman, my preference is to

talk about the psychology of Gotham villains.

So that's kind of what I lean toward. I think

my favorite thing to do is to count up all the

redheads and figure out how many of them are

victims, how many of them are thugs. And I try

to psychoanalyze the writers and try to figure

out why they hate us gingers so much. So what

you're saying, Brian, is that you are a younger

slash middle -aged, not middle -aged, but almost

a younger version of Roland Daggett. Yeah. Yeah,

yeah. But I noticed that the art director, whoever

decided to design the various character models,

all the thugs, all the henchmen are redheads.

And occasionally, if they're not the thugs, They

are the random person who's, like, quivering

out of fear of whatever fight they're watching.

I'm like, wow, you guys really hate us. Well,

look what they did to their most popular ginger.

They had the Joker shoot her, so, you know. That's

true. But now she's back. She's back. With a

vengeance. And a psychologist. Yeah, we'll get

to that a little bit later. Who are the characters,

or who's the most interesting for each of you

to analyze out of all the BTAS characters, not

just the villains? Brian, you can go first. You

know what? I'm actually... I've got to say Bruce

Wayne. Because... this is one of those cases

where i found myself thinking well bruce will

be the least interesting character because he

is just batman every episode it's all the other

characters that'll be interesting when really

the more we watch we're 17 episodes in and now

i realize that like batman is just a really anti

-social person like he um this particular iteration

of Batman, he's not even really all that nice

to Alfred, you know, like, uh, he's just not

kind, you know, I don't know. There's some, he's,

he's very standoffish, um, in all kinds of ways,

except when it came to Selena Kyle and the cat

in the claw. Um, and, uh, and he's a little more,

um, personable toward, toward little Kimmy in

the new episode that we just did. He's particularly

compassionate toward, um, young vulnerable children

which makes sense to me because hey shut up brian

it's true she she you know yes it absolutely

makes sense which as i was going to say before

you got weird and pervy um which makes sense

because His trauma, his origin really happened

when, of course, he experienced his parents'

murder. He witnessed his parents' murder, which

is, I can't think of a bigger, most impactful

trauma to experience as a child. So he, you know,

I wouldn't say that he's stuck as a child, but

I would, as some people might, you know, kind

of, I don't know, jump to as far as a conclusion.

But I think that he is particularly compassionate

and even, I would say... Unless you're the kid

who lives in the sewers, in the underdwellers.

Well, we talked about why he didn't get close

to that kid. Then he just watched him from a

distance on monitors while he let Alfred take

care of him. Because, as I argued, he knew that

if he were to parent that child, he would get

too close to that child and it would be difficult

to do his job. Right. So I feel as though he's...

you see him be more human, more compassionate,

um, toward younger children, especially ones

that are victimized or ones that are more vulnerable,

um, because he wants to protect them and he wants

to avoid them, you know, experiencing any similar

types of, of life altering trauma, um, which

is why he takes on a Robin. Um, now we've only

seen that one time so far. Yeah. And then he

sends him off to boarding school. And for some

reason we haven't seen Robin in a while. And

I'm sort of wondering why that's the case, but,

um, But then, you know, you're right that Bruce

sometimes is distancing and kind of, like, especially

with Alfred, just doesn't connect with people,

just is isolated, withdrawn, doesn't really develop

kind of, you know, strong interests in people.

And I don't know. I think it's problematic. And

I actually agree that of all of the characters,

Bruce Wayne slash Batman slash Bruce. is an incredibly

dynamic character. I'll say this, though. There's

an episode called POV that deals with the cops

and their different recollections of what happened.

And as Drea pointed out in that episode, memory

is actually really faulty. More often than not,

your brain will fill in gaps. And I'm going to

say it first here. I've been thinking a lot about

that, and I'm not so sure Bruce remembers his

trauma quite as well as we think he does. He

doesn't. Yeah, I think he's invented a really...

They probably went off to, like, the Bahamas.

You're awful. And he's like, you died in Crime

Alley. You're awful, but you're correct. You're

correct in that he doesn't quite... Actually,

research shows that when there's a childhood

trauma... Especially during adulthood, a child,

well, the adult will remember the trauma differently

or may fill in gaps, as you said. It's not to

say that they remember things incorrectly, but

they may remember pieces of it that are more

traumatic. Or conversely, the parts that were

more horrifying to them, they will completely

have forgotten because it was too traumatizing.

This is what happens when you get us. hey hey

it works for us it's gonna make a really interesting

interview um now i have i have my own theory

on bruce and alfred and it actually stems from

chicken soup what am i supposed to do with this

alfred yeah um okay now think about this all

right bruce's parents got killed alfred has to

raise him technically alfred is his father so

technically bruce has been eight years old all

of his life when interacting with Alfred, whether

he's in the suit or not, whether he's being Batman

or not. He's always going to be that eight -year

-old kid. Well, we did talk about that. Yeah,

there was an episode where we actually discussed

the fact that Bruce may have never gotten past

a certain level of emotional growth. And from

that point on... That's sort of why we see him

the way he is. It's kind of it's kind of interesting.

But I would say, you know, one of the one of

the most important relationships he had following

his trauma was with Alfred. And so it's it's

it's very important the way that Alfred treats

him and the way that Alfred parented him. And

we don't see him quite a lot. You know, we we

see that he's taking care of him. We see that

he's. The really weird thing about Alfred in

Batman the Animated Series, and I realize this

is because it's Batman, but unlike other versions

of Batman, he doesn't treat Alfred as he would

someone who raised him. Bruce treats Alfred like

an employee more often than not, where it'll

be like... alfred go hand me that thing go make

me some chicken soup go you know i can never

forget the um uh the what was it garbage the

joker episode yeah uh the the the uh the episode

with the joker where he's laughing fish no that's

the last laugh last laugh um uh Last laugh is

interesting because not only does Bruce sort

of show that he has no sense of humor, he doesn't

understand April Fool's jokes. When he actually

tries to pull one on Alfred, it's by telling

him he's going to dock his pay for a, you know,

a priceless Ming vase, you know, where he's just

like, I'll just take it out of your paycheck,

you know, and then April Fool's. And I'm like,

wow, this is the guy who raised you. And you

treat him like an employee. So it's kind of weird

to me, but Drea has a particular affection for

the Bruce -Alfred relationship. Well, I mean,

I think Alfred is doing the best that he can.

It's an interesting theory that he hasn't really

changed in his parenting style when it comes

to Bruce. developing and becoming an adult and

and having different needs across that his lifespan

and alfred shifting in his role at this point

they should be more like peers more like um you

know close friends almost but that's not the

case so i'd be like master bruce you go up to

your bedroom you're not allowed to go down to

the bat caves tonight he's like don't tell me

what to do tonight this is why he's a rebel You

know, I said Bruce is probably eight years old

when he interacts with Alfred. I would say that

he's more of a rebellious teenager when he's

being Batman towards Alfred, just because that's

the way I kind of see it now. We will see, and

I absolutely loved it in The Forgotten. This

Alfred is not good with technology. Very bumbling.

Oh, God, that Batwing scene. Yes. Yeah. All right.

Commissioner Gordon, you could almost argue,

is more of a father figure to him because he's

always trying to please Gordon. Yeah. For sure.

Well, because Gordon, I think that he knows Gordon

represents Bruce's values. And so he knows that

if he wants to continue with his mission, Gordon

is really important. Why are you making a face?

I'm not. Oh, I thought you were disagreeing with

me. I was just thinking Gordon is the hero they

deserve, but not the hero they need right now.

I hate to say it, Brian, but you really need

to work on your Christian Bale gravel. I don't

wear hockey pads. Except that Batman's not the

one who said that line. What line? Which one?

Ah, see, from the Nolanverse. Oh. Yeah. I'm stuck

in the 90s. Yeah. That's sometimes not a bad

place to be. All right, so you guys have said

that Arkham Sessions is fully ensconced in BTS

right now, and you've said that there's potential

for exploring other aspects, whether it be the

films. I really want you guys to go into the

other aspects of the DCAU. Because I think it

would be awesome once you get at least through

over the edge and old wounds that you go to Batman

Beyond. Right. Because then you have to have

to figure out and discuss the psychology of Bruce

getting old. Right. Yeah. Well, let me put it

this way. We own Batman Beyond the complete series.

So who knows? You know, it could certainly happen.

That's true. If people keep listening, I mean,

if it's not already obvious, I like to talk about

the psychology of Batman. If there's not a microphone

in front of me, I will do it anyway. I will do

it at the grocery store. I will do it before

bed. Anyone who wants to listen, I will talk

about that. So if we get through BTAS and folks

are still listening, then absolutely. Definitely

get into other iterations of animated Batman.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Let's see. Do you

plan on getting interviews for the podcast at

all? Brian? We've got... There's potential. I'm

not asking you who you're going to get, Brian.

I'm asking if there's... There is potential.

The thing about this particular show, because

we've thought about it in the past, it's one

of those situations where it's such a unique

take on the series in that, as far as I'm concerned,

I realize Drea doesn't necessarily feel this

way, but... To me, she is the person I'm interviewing

every week because everyone else like I could

I could ask writers or I could ask cast members

or whatever. But just from my own experience

in my job, a lot of times writers and actors

and directors of especially animated series don't

necessarily always remember. the hundreds of

shows that they wrote or that they appeared in.

So sometimes getting someone to be specific about

an episode and specifically the psychology of

what that character was thinking at that moment,

whether it's from the mind of a writer or of

the actor who portrayed that person, it can be

very difficult. So I've sort of... but we've

not ruled it out. Um, in fact, there is something

that we would like to do coming up. Um, and if,

if it works out, um, then, you know, I'm very

excited about it, but, but otherwise, I don't

know. I think, I think rather than interview

these people, we would rather bring them in to

actually discuss the psychology. A lot of me

again, that'd be really interesting. Yeah. Yeah,

definitely. All right. Let's see, what else do

we have for you guys? Are there anything that

you don't want to see from any of the characters?

Like the main characters? Anything that we don't

want to see? Say a character does a turn where

you're like, oh no, they took this route with

them. Oh, you mean in terms of the writers? In

terms of the character portrayal, yeah. Gotcha.

That's probably more for you, Dre. Like, you

know, having seen what you've seen so far and

thinking about, because you, in our current episode

or one of our current episodes, you talk about

there's sort of a checklist of things that are

going off in your head. Are you reaching that

cusp where you're like, oh, please don't show

signs of this one? Well, yeah. So what Brian's

talking about is for some characters, I do talk

about potential diagnoses that I would give the

character. We've talked about the Joker, for

instance. I think it was the second episode.

Was it Christmas with the Joker? Yeah. That we

really went into that. And, you know, I talked

about some potential. diagnostic characterizations

of the Joker just from that episode. And one

diagnosis that comes up for the Joker just overall

is antisocial personality disorder, which is,

you know, really quite a rare... but go -to diagnosis

for, you know, usually a criminal who enacts,

you know, violent types of behaviors and is rule

-breaking, doesn't have empathy, is out for themselves.

So I also, in that particular episode, mentioned

borderline personality disorder, which is...

Is that the one that the two that we talked about,

which is a completely different type of diagnosis,

which is characterized by more of an emotional

person. So very hyper emotional and draws people

in, but but can't tolerate closeness. So then

pushes people away. And so from that, just within

that episode, I talked about these two competing

diagnoses. And that was probably the most realistic

we really got with kind of taking a fictional

character and applying real psychopathology.

to them. And that's what I did with a lot of

my work, that you would have two competing diagnoses

and you would pick one with the evidence that

you have and the time you spend with the patient

and you would have a potential list, but you

would go with one. And so to answer your question,

I think one of my... One of my worries I've seen

all the episodes at some point or another of

course But one of my worries is that I will choose

a diagnosis that really fits a character and

then later As you know as we learn more about

a character or if a different writer wrote them

differently it would just not fit the criteria

anymore and That's not terrible. We can always

discuss what happens when that happens in real

life. But it's certainly something that I worry

about happening. You can't be sued for malpractice

in real life if you're analyzing a cartoon character.

No. And you can't be sued if you do have a, you

know, you learn more information and you change

a diagnosis. That actually happens. Right. But

if, you know, I would like to think that I know

these characters well enough that that won't

happen here. Right. Yeah. No one's going to come

up and name him Jack Napier after all. All right.

Where can they find the Arkham Sessions online,

the listeners and all that good stuff? Well,

we are on iTunes. You can also find the player

over at Drea's website, underthemaskonline .com.

And, yeah, just about any place where you can.

Plug in an RSS feed, you can find us. Awesome,

awesome. We're also, we are on Twitter. We're

at Arkham Sessions. And we're on Facebook, so

you can like us there. And we do a lot of interacting

with folks, so we always encourage questions.

Or comments, you know, we encourage people to

watch the episode ahead of us if they can so

that they can get in their own questions or their

own observations. And that's actually ended up,

you know, spurring some pretty interesting conversations

on the podcast. Yeah, I really like when people

actually contact us and ask us questions or make

comments. I always like to clarify that. When

you listen to the podcast, you absolutely are

not, it's not like you're required to see the

episode or if you don't have a chance to see

the actual BTAS episode we're talking about because

we do a fairly good job of summarizing what happens

in the episode when we talk about it. And something

that I try to do as often as possible is talk

about and mention places that people can get

more information or help. Regarding a topic that

we've covered. So, for instance, you know, resources,

the suicide prevention hotline, you know, more

information about post -traumatic stress disorder,

more information about how to obtain treatments.

So in line with my general professional mission

to try to. broaden the public awareness of psychology

i always try to include some kind of um some

kind of uh you know resource or information at

the end of the episode to tell people how they

can learn more about that topic Yeah, because

that's sort of the whole point of the show. Anyway,

it's fun to look at the Joker and try to psychoanalyze

him. But really what it comes down to is it's

real psychology. Real people have these sorts

of diagnoses, whether it's a mental disorder

or just good or bad mental health. So it's important

to understand that real life people have this

psychology attributed to them as well. So always

looking to help out. Awesome. Awesome. Now, you

know, Brian, you mentioned at the beginning of

the interview that Andrea was in the Necessary

Evil DVD. When I saw you pop up, I'm like, hey,

I know her. What's she doing on there? So you

all can see her there as well as, you know, Brian

said underthemaskonline .com and on the Arkham

Sessions Twitter and Facebook page. You can also

find her in comic form. Now, how did this come

about that you are now the new 52 Batgirls psychologist

in the comics? I'm just still. in awe and, uh,

and, and still sort of, uh, experiencing, um,

just how awesome that was. But, um, it's start,

I would say it's a couple of years ago. Um, Gail

Simone, who of course is, uh, currently writing

the new 52 version of Batgirl and has written

for Birds of Prey and is just a, a very talented,

well -known writer. Um, she had, reached out

to me to ask me some questions about an interaction

she was planning to write between Barbara Gordon,

aka Batgirl, and Barbara's therapist. And so

at the time, I consulted with Gail and gave her

some information. Gave her some scenarios, some

kind of realistic dialogue that would happen

between a patient and a psychologist. Specifically

one that, because Gail opted to keep the famous

gunshot to the spine. Right, right. So you mentioned

the victimization of Barbara Gordon back from

the killing joke. Right. This is when the Joker

showed up at her house and shot her. Within the

original story arc, she's paralyzed from the

waist down due to this injury. In the new 52,

while the Killing Joke incident with her and

the Joker still happened, this new arc is that

she recovered physically from the injury. So

she was in a wheelchair for some time and was

able to recover and walk again. Andrea has dealt

with real life trauma victims from Afghanistan

and Iraq. So it made sense to ask her, how did

you deal with these patients, you know, recovering

from these traumas? So Gail knew that I had worked

with soldiers who had returned with. with physical

and psychological injuries. And something that

she already had down was the physical recovery.

She had already written that part, but she was

working on the psychological recovery and decided

to include a mental health clinician who would

aid Barbara in working on some of the flashbacks

that she was having and the difficulty with these

awful traumatic memories of what happened to

her. And it was, you know, honestly, at the time,

I was just super just thrilled and honored to

be asked for that information and to give her

that feedback. And then as an incredibly kind

gesture, she wrote in a character. with my likeness

and using my name, who is Barbara Gordon's clinical

psychologist. So it's an issue. The first one

is issue number 16. That's where we see an interaction

between the fictional version of myself and Barbara

Gordon. And then later in issue 20, there's some

additional interactions between Barbara Gordon

and her psychologist. So it's really cool. I

would think after the last two or three stories

recently that she would have to come see you

again. Oh, my gosh. Did you pick up that one?

I'm just, like, horrified. The Midnight Man?

The Midnight Man? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, I was

like, whoa. It was intense. Yeah, it was very,

very intense. It was pretty much Batgirl meets

a horror movie. Yes. Yes, very much. Yeah. The

cool thing is this coming weekend, Drea will

be on a panel with Gail for the first time since

that happened. Sweet. Talking about Batgirl and

the trauma and the recovery. Where's that going

to be at? WonderCon in Anaheim. Awesome. Awesome.

Steve, any more questions? No. I think you guys

pretty much rounded it out. Awesome. All right,

we would like to thank the good doctors and Brian

for taking the time to chat with us in this latest

Legends of the Dark Knight interview. We'll ask

you to hold the line. Steve and I will be back

after this. Oh, my God. Master Bruce, I... Miss

Gordon, I heard that you discovered our little

secret. Yes, I admit it. I am Batman. Brian was

formerly Yogi Bear. How did this happen? I was

in high school and needed a job. That's it? Yeah.

I mean, I lived 30 minutes away from a theme

park. And so during the summers, I would spend,

you know, in the summers between, I think it's

April. Yeah, between April and October, I would

go and work. Paramount's King's Dominion in Richmond,

Virginia, or just outside of Richmond, Virginia,

in Doswell. And, you know, Hanna -Barbera characters

were, you know, you could run into a number of

characters. It was either Hanna -Barbera or Star

Trek. Now, were these the non -talking? Oh, yeah.

Okay. I was going to say, do you have a yogi

voice? No, we're not allowed to talk, thankfully.

Can you do a yogi voice? That's what I was asking.

I think everybody can do a yogi voice. I can

do it. Go ahead, do it. Really? Yeah, please.

Well, okay, I'll do other people. I'll do what

I heard a million times a day. Oh, please do

Pussyfoot or whatever. What? What's the other

guy? Boo -boo? No, not Boo Boo, the pink, the

panther guy. Oh, Snagglepuss? Oh, Snagglepuss.

Do Snagglepuss. Snagglepuss was like, exit, stage

left even. He would do that. Yeah. But then Yogi

would be like, hey, Boo Boo, we're going to go

get up and get an egg basket. And then, you know,

that sort of, the creepiest story that ever happened

to me is I was walking on the street with my

escort and a little kid walked up to us and,

you know, was like knee height level. So I bent

down and I was, you know, listening to the kid

talk to me. And the kid was like, Yogi, Yogi,

you know, sometimes me and my daddy play you,

except we're the bad Yogi and Boo Boo. We're

Yagi and Baba. And the dad's just sort of like,

shut up, shut up. We're like, what are you doing

to this kid on the weekends? Yagi and Baba. Creepy.

Yeah. We're just like you, except we're the bad

ones. That's where you gotta call Child Protective

Services. That was one of the best jobs ever,

except for the multiple concussions and dislocations.

You know, stuff like that. Hey, yo, boo -boo,

I just crashed into this tree. Yeah, see? That's

a good one. Something that I try, one of the

things that I find to be the most entertaining

is just to have Brian do voices while we record

the podcast. Many of them actually don't get

onto the final cut because they're not all relevant.

But, I don't know, a good five minutes is just

making him do voices. Just to entertain me, just

to please me. I think he does a good BTS Batman.

Yeah, you do like when we were doing the Harvey

stuff. The thing is, this mic doesn't have a

very good bass, like a low end, so you can't

get a good one. Or if you're doing the Christian

Bale, you can't do a good one. Scary. Well, that

was sadly anticlimactic. See, that's good. That's

a good one. Thank you. That is also a very legendary

outtake. A disgrace to the name Joker. Why, in

my day... Hi, my name is Dr. Andrea Linamendi,

clinical psychologist. And I'm Brian Ward, nerd.

And we want to invite you to listen to our new

podcast, The Arkham Sessions. It's a podcast

dedicated to the fun. And geeky. Analysis of

Batman the Animated Series, episode by episode.

We pay tribute to the writers and the stories

of the animated series. While also exploring

the very real psychology behind Gotham's rogues.

And maybe even its heroes. All of this and more.

Each week. On The Arkham Sessions. underthemaskonline

.com I give the punchlines around here. Got it?

Alright, Steve and I are back on this Legends

of the Dark Knight interview. I want to thank

Dr. Andrea Letamendi again and Brian Ward as

well. It was an interesting discussion and interesting

opinions on Batman. I almost want to see if I

can get Brian back for a pullback origin since

he kind of went into comic fan rage mode when

it came to Batman and Superman. That would actually

be kind of funny. Yeah, that would be. A pullback

after dark. Yeah, that might work, actually.

There you go, folks. The latest interview with

Legends of the Dark Knight. we will be having

episodes 31 and 32 coming soon. Most likely the

end of May, beginning of June. I know it's been

since February, since we did episode 30, but

a whole bunch of stuff has come up and we're

in super planning mode for the year five celebration

coming up and everything else with GCRN. So we

apologize to the listeners for not having episodes

31 and 32 out by now, but it just, it hasn't

been feasible because Steve and I have been mass

recording my epically long batman spotlight for

the pull bag but we will get to it and legends

will um be working stuff soon uh as brian said

in the interview you can you can find the arkham

sessions on uh itunes you can find them on facebook

and twitter uh the facebook page is the arkham

sessions the twitter is just at arkham sessions

my twitter is tf2 and mike and yours is scp21

All right. Thank you for listening. Until next

time. No! What have you done? My coin. I can't

decide without... Oh, no! It's gotta be here!

It's gotta... I have to have it! As always. But

I really must run. May the floss be with you.