The New Avengers Cartoon, And Why I Love Voice Actors

Even more than live actors, voice actors get around....with different roles, that is. And it never ceases to entertain me how many different characters can be attached to a voice actor, especially one with a distinctive voice. For example, with the new Avengers cartoon...

The Jarvis AI ( Phil Lamarr ) is also Vamp, the bisexual, flamenco-dancing, nigh-unkillable villain from Metal Gear Solids 2 and 4. Presumably, he's planning to hijack the Iron Man suit so he can go down on the Avengers Mansion's silverware.

Rhodey ( Bumper Robinson ) is Bumblebee from the Transformers Animated show. I really hope he'll call Tony " Boss-Bot " at some point.

The Wasp ( Colleen O'Shaughnessey ) is Konohamaru, the tag-a-long kid from Naruto. Aside from the different genders, they're equally annoying and largely useless.

The Black Widow ( Vanessa Marshall ) is Irwin, the nerdy sidekick from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Hail Hydra, yo!

The Red Skull ( Steve Blum ) is, amongst other characters, Leeron, the flamboyantly homosexual tech guy from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. He certainly gave the Third Reich a hard, manly twist.

Amora the Enchantress ( Kari Wahlgren ) is, amongst others, Haruko Haruhara, guitar-slinging space-wacko from the dub of the even wackier anime FLCL ( Fooly Cooly ). And lo, was Midgard besieged by a pox of vespas..

Dr. Leonard Samson ( Cam Clarke ) is Liquid Snake from the first Metal Gear Solid. Hopefully the gamma treatment will compensate for his DAMNED INFERIOR GENES!

Any others?

Comic Animated Movie Fantasy Cast #1: Captain America in " Winter Soldier "

While there has yet to be a truly great direct-to-DVD Marvel or DC movie ( though the Last Frontier was pretty close ), the productions are steadily improving. Better yet, the production companies are bringing in some top-notch voice talent. In addition to the legendary voices for the characters ( Kevin Conroy for Batman, Clancy Brown for Luthor, Steve Blum for Wolverine, etc. ), we're seeing a great mix of B-List talent from TV and movies, and veteran voice actors. Who would've thought that David Boreanaz would make such a great Hal Jordan? Anyone who's seen a single episode of Bones, that's who. And the people who've watched Summer Glau on Firefly and Sarah Connor Chronicles know she'll be an excellent Supergirl. Of course, this isn't the leave out the veteran voice actors, but a solid mix of talent from diverse sources helps dispel the Animation Age Ghetto.

Since I spend a LOT of time thinking about who would voice which comic characters, both in my own readings and in my work, I've been doing fantasy voice casting for many years. The difference is, this time it's not too distant. So as I give my example voice casting list for the Winter Soldier story ( the first Ed Brubaker story with the character, and the one that immediately made me a fan of both Cap and Bru ), I feel good knowing the chance that this will appear as an OVA is closer to " slim " than " none ".

Anyway, the list...


STEVE ROGERS/CAPTAIN AMERICA: David Hayter. Hayter already played Steve Rogers in a flashback episode of X-Men Evolution, but he only had a few grunts. But he's qualified for the role because of his voice work as another legendary super-soldier-- Solid Snake of the ridiculously awesome Metal Gear Solid games. Brubaker writes Steve harder and rougher than most Captain America writers ( to his credit ), but keeps the heroic aspects of the character. If Hayter did a slightly less gravelly tone ( as he did with Naked Snake/Big Boss, Solid's clone-father, in MGS3 ), he'd be perfect for Cap.

BUCKY BARNES/WINTER SOLDIER: Yuri Lowenthal. Lowenthal has made a name for himself as the go-to guy for precocious boy heroes. He's done spunky, idealistic young men with Ben Tennyson, Iceman, and Superboy. He's also shown a darker side, as seen in his portrayal of troubled boy hero turned psychopathic man-child Sasuke in the English dub of Naruto. For Bucky Barnes, especially the twentysomething brainwashed cyborg Bucky, Lowenthal would do quite well.

FALCON/SAM WILSON: Phil LaMarr. LaMarr has a very strong hero voice, which can range from dead serious ( Samurai Jack, Green Lantern John Stewart, Vamp from Metal Gear, Hermes Conrad in a lovably uptight way ) to easy-going and jocular ( Virgil " Static " Hawkins, the Transformer Jazz, Wilt from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the doofus Earth King from Avatar ). For Sam Wilson, unofficial heir to Bucky's sidekick mantle and the only man capable of being badass while dressing like a bird and talking to a hawk, he would do quite well.

SHARON CARTER: Tricia Helfer. A veteran actress of action heroines in both live action ( #6 from Battlestar Galactica ) and voice ( Black Cat from Spectacular Spider-Man, Boodika from the Green Lantern OVA, Sif from The Super Hero Squad Show ), Helfer could do exceptionally as Cap's on-again off-again girlfriend/ SHIELD liason. Both by being able to shoot bad guys and tell the Patriotic Super-Jesus things others wouldn't have the nerve to say to him.

NICK FURY: Paul Eiding. The Ultimates has ensured that all non-comic Furies will be played by Samuel L. Jackson or an effective imitator of Samuel L. Jackson, so picking the voice for an Ultimate-style Fury is about as difficult as breathing. For the MU Fury, I'd go with Eiding, Colonel Roy Campbell from ( again ) Metal Gear Solid as well as Grandpa Max from Ben 10. Though he has a wide vocal range, he's also master of the aged warhorse voice.

RED SKULL: Mark Hammil. Accents are tricky and can too often come across as stereotyped when voiced by English-speaking VAs, so I'm taking the Metal Gear approach of " Just Not Bothering ". Besides, Red Skull's evil has far outlasted Nazi Germany, making him his own insidious force. So who better than the master of animated villain voices-- former Luke Skywalker Mark Hammil, whose Joker voice out-evils even the late Heath Ledger, and who played the unparalleled paragon of wickedness that is Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar? It comes to my attention that he did voice the Skull in Super Hero Squad ( in an episode I didn't see ), but this isn't comedy Red Skull, but utterly depraved comic red skull.

ALEKSANDER LUKIN: Sir Ian McKellen. The master of the Cosmic Cube turned summer home for Red Skull's consciousness, Lukin is a suave but dangerous strategist, with experience as both a KGB soldier and the business oligarch head of the Kronas Corporation. Putting aside accents again, Ian McKellen could pull this off excellently-- he was a great Magneto in the X-Men movies, a menacing talking bear in the Golden Compass, and has a narrating voice that can easily shift from classy to dangerous.

CROSSBONES/BROCK RUMLOW: David Boreanaz. Boreanaz hasn't had too many VA roles, but those he's done evoked the strongest parts of his TV career. As Hal Jordan in the New Frontier, he brought the cocky competence and haunted past of Seeley Booth from Bones. As Squall Leonhart in Kingdom Hearts, he utilized the dour angst appropriate to both Squall and Angel. And for the right hand man of the Red Skull, he would bring the naked sadism of Angel's dark side, Angelus. Both are good at being bad, and both are unabashed cradle robbers, after all.

Whew! Any I forgot?

Voice Casting Your Favorite Comics

One of the reasons the comic book is my favorite artistic medium is how much more they offer the audience a chance to fill in the sequential blanks. It's common knowledge in comic theory that the action occurs in the gutters between the panels, just like music theory posits the importance of the space between the notes. Depending on how engaged you are in the reading, you can imagine massive theatrical productions between the lines, impressive animated motions with powerful voices. The voices and movements not provided for you like in TV or film; yet at the same time, you are given more to " work with " than with prose.

This is not to posit comics as the superior medium, but to emphasize the importance of voice in comics, and why it's such a useful tool for creators and audiences alike. When I read a favorite comic series, be it a gag strip like Penny Arcade, an enduring superhero comic like Iron Man, or a darkly comic satire like Preacher, I like to have clear ideas of what each character sounds like as I read. I draw upon my memory of various actor voices from animation and live-action, and try to find an appropriate voice. I also do this for my own work on Ruby's World; for example, every time I write Ruby's dialogue, I imagine her sounding like Alyson Hannigan playing Willow in the early seasons of Buffy.* The characters are different, but there's a similar vein there; Hannigan specialized in playing intelligent but socially awkward and unusual girls with strong senses of obedience to the rules. Prior to her transformation, Ruby was a pathological overachiever much like Willow, and that carries over even in her outlaw life in current strips, Hannigan's nervous, scattered energy adapted to my own work.

Of course, this isn't just a tool I use for my own stuff; it also enhances my fandoms. In the case of superhero franchise comics that have spawned countless extra-media adaptations, this task is easier; who in their right mind would NOT hearRon Perlman when they think of Hellboy's voice? Even with characters who have had multiple voices, there are still clear favorites; to me, tbere is no Wolverine but Steve Blum, and all others pale before the gravely adonis he represents. But then, there are plenty of characters who haven't appeared in other media, so how are they interpreted? What do we go on for those existing only in comics?

As much as it sometimes seems, comics do not exist in a vaccuum; they are stories connected to the rest of pop culture. For example, a character like the comic villain Herr Starr from Preacher draws upon several tropes; he's a bombastic dictator, a stereotypically evil German, a sexual deviant of increasing perversions, and a fool who's often humiliated by his own designs. So the connection I make; Kelsey Grammer, doing the voice of the Simpsons' erudite psychopath Sideshow Bob. The connection enhances the reading; Starr's lines sound much more horrific/pathetic when expressed through Grammer's voice, even if Sideshow Bob never endured nearly the same level of torment that Starr received ( getting hit in the face by a rake repeatedly still doesn't compare to being anally raped by an accidentally male prostitute in your first appearance ).

I rarely hear mention of this theory, since it requires so much internal influence; Wolverine may be Blum to me, but he could be
Cal Dodd, Scott McNeill, Hugh Jackman, or That Guy Who Made Him Sound Australian to any other reader. But they all contribute to the larger understanding of who Wolverine is, and how he goes from being lines on a paper in the form of a hairy little thug in a canary yellow clown suit to a meaningful icon. Every aspect contributes to the larger experience, even if it's just subjective interpretation of how the characters might sound.

Except for Australian Wolverine. That's just wrong.

( * Caveat; I write Ruby sounding like early Willow. Before all the Wicca crap; before the character went from a responsible, scientific mind to a magic junkie who blasts everything away when she's not pretending to be exclusively lesbian.