Accent On The Accent

What's the deal with the comic book movie villains and their crazy accents these days? Say, how's that for a classic stand-up comedian intro?

It all started with Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in 2008's The Dark Knight. His nasal, idiosyncratic Tom Waits-ian delivery was certainly an odd choice. Effective, but odd.

You can compare and contrast the Joker with Tom Waits here, around the 2 minute mark.

Then we had Bane, from 2012's The Dark Knight Rises. Bane was an erudite supervillain who sounded like he was doing a bad Sean Connery impression muffled by a bizarre gas mask. Hopefully nothing he said was integral to the plot because I only understood about half of his nearly-incomprehensible dialog.

Now we have The Mandarin, from the upcoming Iron Man 3. Now granted I haven't the film as it's not yet been released, but based on the trailers he's continuing the tradition of eccentric supervillain accents.

Throughout the trailer he delivers his lines in an oddly flat bassy drawl, saying:

"Some people call me a turrrr-ist. I consider myself a teechurrrrrr. Lesson. Numburrrrrr. One."

You can hear his weirdo accent here, around the 50 second mark.

At this rate I fully expect General Zod from the new Man of Steel movie to speak like an Austrian Burgermeister, a 17th century French fop, Astro from the Jetsons or perhaps with a cutesly Betty Boop voice.