Kite Man: Hell Yeah! Review
Nobody takes Kite Man seriously. Not in the pages of DC Comics, where he’s a second-class member of Batman’s rogues gallery, and not in the superb animated comedy Harley Quinn, where Matt Oberg first played the green-suited buffoon as an unlikely love interest for Poison Ivy (Lake Bell). She’s obviously out of his league, and this stable and kind dude (who is, let’s not forget, also a supervillain) is eventually pushed aside so that Ivy could end up with Harley. He may have found a better fit in the equally minor DC baddie Golden Glider, but that sweet note within the madcap symphony of Harley Quinn isn’t enough to sustain the new spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, which lacks both the sharp writing and deep respect for the source material of the series that spawned it.
Characters Lack Depth
Following a similar trajectory to the one that led from Big Mouth to Human Resources, Kite Man: Hell Yeah! spins a workplace sitcom out of the more character-driven raunchiness of Harley Quinn, with a sprawling cast of mostly new characters and lots of cameos from familiar faces. Due to a poorly thought out conflict with Lex Luthor (Lance Reddick, in one of his final roles, succeeding Harley’s Giancarlo Esposito), Kite Man and Golden Glider (Stephanie Hsu, taking over for Cathy Ang – lots of recasting going on here) wind up owning Noonan’s, a Gotham City dive bar frequented by goons and villains who have fallen on hard times. It’s a premise with promise, like the inverse of The Tick’s heroes-only Comet Club or any of the many great gatherings of put-upon henchmen from The Venture Bros. Unfortunately, showrunner Dean Lorey, who worked on the first two seasons of Harley Quinn, doesn’t seem sure of what he wants from Kite Man: Hell Yeah! or any of its characters.
Poorly Developed Characters
Kite Man’s only power – as we’re repeatedly reminded – is kindness, while Golden Glider has a fearsome, uncontrollable ability to slice and dice through whole crowds of unfortunate bystanders with astral-projected tendrils. The show explores Kite Man’s feelings of inadequacy and Golden Glider’s desire for control, as well as the significant issues they both have with their parents, but it never achieves the kind of earnest emotional payoffs found on Harley Quinn. By the end of Season 1, Kite Man and Golden Glider don’t feel any more fleshed out than they did when they were guest stars on somebody else’s show. (Some backstories aside.)
Thinly Drawn Characters
A lot of that comes down to a large number of equally thinly drawn characters. Malice (Natasia Demetriou of What We Do in the Shadows) is the spoiled goth goddaughter of Darkseid (Keith David), and is somehow able to make him proud by taking on the role of social media manager for Noonan’s. Malice’s blasé attitude and demeanor are reminiscent of Parks and Recreation’s April Ludgate, but while it took several seasons of that show for April to become more than a moody coworker who hates everyone and her job, Malice quickly develops a loyalty to the Kite Man crew without any real work from other characters pushing that growth. When she’s brought along for side plots, it’s only because people are obviously trying to avoid being alone with someone else.
Humor Falls Flat
Kite Man’s humor is as flimsy as its characters. It tends to overuse gags that weren’t especially funny the first time – there are two instances of a character ruining their dramatic entrance by getting something caught in their throat. Other jokes are either quickly over-explained or undermined. Golden Glider says her brother is on a no-fly list “because of Jan. 6. Jan. 6, 2014. He punched a TSA agent.” “Your clothes, give them to me now,” the villain Insect Queen (Rhea Seehorn) says when hitting on Bane in 1986, adding to this bit of Schwarzenegger quotation with “Terminator. No? I’m more of a Predator gal anyways. A sexual predator.” The show also makes some flaccid attempts at meta humor in a Rick and Morty vein, pointing out exactly how it’s aping pop-culture touchstones like Back to the Future and The Exorcist. But like the whole series, these nods just make Kite Man look like a pale imitation of something better.