Paramount+What does it take to be a great Batman? One of the easiest answers to that question is that the actor behind the mask has to have a great voice. While Kevin Conroy’s work as Batman in Batman: The Animated Series is legendary, other great voice actors have become Batman, including Peter Weller in The Dark Knight Returns, and more recently, Hamish Linklater in the excellent throwback series Batman: Caped Crusader. Now, with the announcement of a new series of animated Knightfall films, another voice actor will play Batman/Bruce Wayne — none other than Captain Pike himself, Anson Mount. Mount is a great choice to play Batman in this seminal story. But, here’s what’s interesting: Not only is that the second time Mount is playing Batman, it’s also the second time an actor who previously played Captain Pike in Star Trek is playing Batman. That’s right, did you forget that Bruce Greenwood — Captain Pike from the Kelvin Universe — also voiced Batman in 2010’s Batman: Under the Hood? Why do Captain Pikes make such great Batmans? Crisis on Infinite Enterprises: The Pike-Batman Connection Although Mount is taking on the role of Batman in the new R-rated animated Knightfall films, he previously voiced Batman in the animated Injustice movie in 2021. So with Knightfall, Mount will be playing a different version of the Dark Knight, and in some ways, a version many of of fell in love with. Does Mount’s connection to playing Captain Pike help prepare him for Batman? Sure! Like Batman, Captain Pike understands impossible responsiblity, and, in most versions of Trek, is a somewhat lonely figure. Plus, just as Captain Pike has to hand over the reins to the next generaiton, so does Batman in various stories, either to Dick Grayson, or, in Knightfall, tragically, to Jean-Paul Valley.In 2009, Bruce Greenwood played Captain Pike in the Star Trek reboot film, and in 2010, Greenwood played Batman in the excellent animated film Under the Red Hood, which partially adapted the backstory of Death in the Family, as well as the 2005 DC Comics storyline “Under the Hood,” in which Jason Todd, believed to have been murdered, comes back alive as the mercenary known as the Red Hood.Star Trek and Batman stars Bruce Greenwood and Peter Weller in 2016. | Jason Kempin/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesGreenwood was a great Captain Pike of course, and also a great Batman. After Under the Red Hood, he went on to voice the Dark Knight in Gotham by Gaslight in 2018, Batman: Death in the Family in 2020, and throughout the Young Justice series from 2010-2019.So clearly, the tragic-leader figure of a Captain Pike actor works perfeclty for the tragic-hero figure of Batman. All we need now is for Mount and Greenwood to star in a some kind of multiverse crossover as both Captain Pike and Batman. Batman: Knightfall Part 1 — starring Anson Mount — is expected to be released later in 2026. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 hits Paramount+ on July 23.