Kite Man: Hell Yeah! Producer & Star Talk Golden Glider, Harley Quinn Season 5 & Creature Commandos

Summary Kite Man: Hell Yeah! offers a humorous and chaotic look at Gotham's villains running a bar for supervillains.

Unexpected character Kite Man takes center stage in a unique journey against DC's biggest threats in this spinoff.

Matt Oberg's portrayal of Kite Man as a glass-half-full kind of guy adds a fun and optimistic twist to the series.

Kite Man: Hell Yeah! has finally taken flight, with the first two episodes now available to stream on Max. A spinoff of the hit animated Harley Quinn series, the first season finds Kite Man and his girlfriend Golden Glider plotting to run the neighborhood's best bar for supervillains, Noonan's. Unfortunately for the lovebirds, all kinds of obstacles stand in their way — from Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom to Darkseid himself.

Matt Oberg reprises his Harley Quinn role, and he leads Kite Man: Hell Yeah! alongside Stephanie Hsu as Lisa Snart, complete with a cast of goons plucked from both the original series and other unexpected corners of DC comics. Dean Lorey, who has also taken over showrunning duties for Harley Quinn, serves as Kite Man's head honcho and has mastered the sweet yet salty tone of the show. James Adomian also returns as Bane, while other familiar characters get new voice actors, including Lance Reddick as Lex Luthor in one of his last recorded roles.

Related Harley Quinn: Kite Man's 10 Best Quotes In The Animated Series Kite Man proved to be a breakout star of the Harley Quinn animated series. Here are some of his best quotes to warm up for his spin-off show.

Screen Rant interviewed Lorey and Oberg about Chuck's new journey in Kite Man: Hell Yeah! The duo discussed how the spinoff further explored Kite Man and other supporting characters in the world of Harley Quinn and how the show fits into the context of James Gunn's larger DC Universe.

Gliding Deeper Into Kite Man Outside Of Harley Quinn

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Screen Rant: Dean, why is Kite Man the chosen one to headline the first spinoff of Harley Quinn?

Dean Lorey: Partially because he was the most unexpected character. I don't think anybody expected that he was the logical next step, but we loved him, we knew the audience loved him, and we really wanted to find a character that we could take on a journey. Kite Man's a guy who has no powers. His dad thinks he's worthless, he's got all these issues, and he just came out of a breakup with Ivy. We wondered, "What if we took this guy and put him up against the biggest threat to the DC universe that's ever been, and then tried to figure that out?" What could a guy like this do in that scenario? That was exciting to us. And we just love Matt [Oberg]. We wrote Kite Man for Matt initially because we knew him from previous stuff, and then we fell in love with the character. He was only supposed to be in the Bar Mitzvah episode in season 1 and was never planned to be a bigger character, but everybody just fell in love with him. We kept writing for him, and by the time we were looking to do another show, we just wanted to spend time with him and let him take center stage. And I'm really glad we did because I love the show, and I'm very proud of it.

Matt, first things first: how does it feel to go from sidekick to star? What aspects of Chuck were you most excited to uncover in Kite Man, Hell Yeah?

Matt Oberg: Who among us has not felt overlooked and underestimated? Looked down upon and laughed at? That is where this guy comes from. He's been dumped, everybody thinks he's worthless, and yet he insists on finding the joy and riding the wind. That's just a great head space to put yourself in for whatever time you can. To be as optimistic as this poor guy is such a fun attitude to play I think. Dean Lorey: He's a glass-half-full kind of guy. There's nothing that'll completely knock Kite Man down. Matt Oberg: There are a lot of DC villains that have a lot more going for them, but are they happy deep down? Exactly.

Dean, I love how many Harley Quinn cameos and even supporting characters we get, which really helps it feel like a shared universe. I did notice that a lot of the voice actors have changed aside from Kite Man, Bane, and Harley herself, though. Was that an availability issue?

Dean Lorey: It was really that some actors weren't available. We would have always liked to continue with the actors that we originally had because they were all great, but sometimes people just aren't available. In a way, it's kind of fun to treat it like a Broadway play that you take on the road. Different companies perform the roles, and it's fun to see what they bring to it. We loved Giancarlo Esposito as Lex, but then we got Lance Reddick, and he was wonderful. It's very sad now, obviously, but he recorded almost all of it for us. He did a wonderful job. The new additions were nice, and I actually love all those performances.

The Women Of Kite Man: Hell Yeah! — Breaking Down Golden Glider & Malice

Of course, Kite Man is nothing without his other half, Golden Glider, and we have Stephanie Hsu voicing her which is absolutely mind-boggling. Take us through that vocal chemistry.

Matt Oberg: Yeah, we always do it in pieces, so to see it all come together and feel like a real relationship is pretty magical. And it's all credit to Stephanie. I sort of knew what this guy's deal was already, but she had to come in and figure out a way to harmonize with that. I don't know how difficult that was for her, but if there is chemistry — and I hope there is — I would give her credit for that. She had to meet us where we were. Dean Lorey: We thought they were both spectacular. When we were thinking about Golden Glider, we decided that we needed a character who was very different from Ivy. Stephanie really helped to develop that, and she did a great job. We just love the two of them together. They've created a home for the people that nobody wants.

Dean, Malice is iconic, but she also feels like she wandered in off the set of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Is she, in fact, Malice Vundabar? And how did you have the galaxy brain to incorporate her into this story?

Dean Lorey: Even though she has a clear relationship to Darkseid, she came about separately. We had initially wanted to put Malice and her cat Cheshire in Harley Quinn season 1, and I believe we wrote a full script that involved her doing a good bit of what she does in Kite Man. But for a few reasons, it ended up falling out as sometimes episodes do. We never actually produced it, but we always loved the character of Malice. So, when we saw that we had an opportunity to bring her in here, it made even more sense because she could be a regular and a waitress at the bar and all of that. It was just something we'd wanted to do for a long time that was independent of our bringing Darkseid in. But we loved the character of Darkseid, and we loved the idea of seeing these giant, powerful characters do very mundane things. We just like the idea of, "What if Darkseid enjoys having a beer when he is on Earth, and what if it's at this bar?" As the series goes along, we spend a good bit of time on the relationship between Malice and Darkseid. She's like an errant child that he has to deal with.

Noonan's feels like Cheers for villains, and it becomes a core part of Kite Man's identity pretty quickly. Matt, how does the staff and clientele help shape the hero - and by hero, I guess I mean villain - Chuck grows into over the season?

Matt Oberg: I think he's not a guy who goes out seeking opportunities for heroics or villain-ics or whatever. The opposite is true; they come to him, and he's forced to find the best — or the worst — within himself to meet the moment. That's a really fun place to start for any character. It's a very common sort of hero's journey, I guess. But it's particularly true for a Kite Man who would be happy just to be a homebody with Golden Glider and run a bar. But that's not how his life ends up working. I think that he starts not wanting this and continues not wanting it, but has to meet the moment. Dean Lorey: He is the very definition of a Reluctant Hero.

Keeping Continuity From Kite Man To Harley Quinn – And Placing Both Within James Gunn’s DCU

Dean, this show is starting while we're on the cusp of James Gunn's DCU, and everyone's got questions about what stories are part of which universe. I know he's not actively part of this show, but is there a grand repository of DC knowledge where you say, "Hey, we're doing this," and other teams respond with, "Great, cuz this jives that what we're doing over here?"

Dean Lorey: At the moment I'm also running Harley Quinn season 5, so I have a lot to do with the Harley Quinn team. And there were certain things that we needed to be consistent. For instance, the end of Kite Man season 1 — in a small way, but a fun one — leads into the beginning of Harley Quinn season 5. Matt Oberg: As for the larger DCU, I'm also producing Creature Commandos. I'm all over the place, so I talk to James quite a bit. First of all, his vision for the DCU is one I'm super excited about. When we were originally talking about a lot of his work, I was just saying, "This is tonally exactly what we want to do in Harley Quinn and Kite Man." Tonally. It's very consistent. He didn't have too much to say when we were in production; we just sort of did it. But we told him about it, it got his blessing, and he and Peter Safran would occasionally look at episodes and give us feedback. They've been just nothing but supportive.

Matt, in addition to Kite Man, you also voiced several other characters on Harley Quinn. Should we be in need of Killer Croc again in season 5, are you up to the challenge?

Matt Oberg: Yeah, I get to do a few other voices. I don't know if I can or should reveal what they are, but that's so much fun to do that because once you think you're out of different voices to do, that's when you find the one that's been waiting for you the whole time. That's a really fun challenge. Does Killer Crock come back? Remind me. Dean Lorey: I don't think he does in Kite Man. But those characters fall in and out now. It just feels like this large rotating cast of people that we use.

Dean, you're also working on Creature Commandos. What should DC fans expect from that, and how different or similar in tone will it be from Harley Quinn and Kite Man?

Dean Lorey: Well, I would say it is closer to the vein of something like Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy. It is more dramatic, it's more action-oriented and all of that. And it is, I believe, considered canon in the DC universe. We're thinking of that as very much the first show that James Gun's DCU is putting out. If you like James' stuff — he wrote every single episode, and they're great — you'll like Creature Commandos. I mean, it's very much his vision. It exists in a world different from Harley Quinn, but it's terrific and funny.

The first 2 episodes of Kite Man, Hell Yeah! are available to stream on Max, with new episodes arriving every Thursday.

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