Characters with accents (that aren’t General American)

[KurtW95]

We know that comics are a visual medium, so we don’t know all the time which characters have accents and which don’t. So, here’s the place to document the characters you know have accent or you think have accents. (By having an accent, I’m referring to something other than the General American accent. Something most Americans would consider to be speaking without an accent.)

Here are the ones that I can think of.

Colossus (Russian)
Nightcrawler (German)
Black Panther (Wakandan)
Storm (thin Egyptian)
Blade (British)
Captain Britain (British)
Psylocke (British)
Jamie Braddock (British)
Meggan (British)
Rogue (southern)
Cannonball (southern)
Husk (southern)
Gambit (Cajun)
Sabra (Israeli)
Rocket Raccoon (British)
Omega Red (Russian)
Northstar and Aurora (French Canadian)
Batroc (French)
Sunfire (Japanese)
Armor (Japanese)
Banshee (Irish)
Moira MacTaggert (Scottish)
Morbius (Greek)
Red Skull (German)
Baron Zemo (German)
Arnim Zola (German)
Kraven the Hunter (Russian)
Pyro (Australian)
Crimson Dynamo (Russian)
Lucia von Bardas (Latverian)
Kristoph Vernard (Latverian)
Pete Wisdom (British)
Abomination (Russian)
Rhino (Russian- though I don’t like the retcon that made him Russian in the first place and think it doesn’t fit)
Manifold (Australian)

Then comes my own interpretations that I’m sure some people will disagree with. I don’t see Magneto or the Maximoff twins having accents. Magneto comes off to me as someone who would have learned it when learning the language. Pietro and Wanda also come off as having dropped accents quickly upon learning the language. Perhaps through their powers. Doom is a perfectionist. He comes off as someone who wouldn’t dare learn a language without also learning the precise way of speaking it. Therefore, I can see him speaking English in a Mid-Atlantic dialect. I can also see Namor speaking with a Mid-Atlantic dialect because he just comes off that way. Plus the location of Atlantis being in between America and Europe and all that. Thor and the Asgardians, I picture with Mid-Atlantic accents as well. Hammerhead would probably have a New York mob accent. And Black Widow can speak in whatever accent she wants presumably.

So, what do you guys want think? Any disagreements? Additions?

[Seren]

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) has been confirmed by both Bendis and Dennis Hopeless to have a British accent.

[responsarbre]

I never really considered the possibility of Storm having an Egyptian accent, nor the fact that she speaks Egyptian Arabic. The idea of Storm saying "Bebsi" or "Al-Gazeera" is pretty amusing.

I think a lot of Marvel heroes should have pronounced New York accents, but I'm not 100% sure on which ones. Hawkeye feels like someone who has at least some kind of non-standard accent, maybe a mix of New Yorker speech and carnie speaking habits.

[danielsan52]

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) has been confirmed by both Bendis and Dennis Hopeless to have a British accent.

And her enemy, Sybil Dvorak (Skein) is from Romania.

[Mike_Murdock]

I'm glad to hear Hopeless confirmed the British accent. I was worried that was a Bendis-only thing. I'm going to focus on American characters who don't have what is thought of as the generic American accent (which is more or less a midwestern accent). I'll leave aside characters that can be unknown (I suspect Jim Rhodes has a Philadelphia African American accent, but most people don't know what a Philly accent is so it's not going to have textual support beyond where he grew up). That being said, as far as I'm concerned, I took some inferences that I think are fair:

Jubilee - California/San Fernando Valley accent
Boom Boom - Southern accent/western Virginia (I know this isn't spelled phonetically, but I'm willing to bet on it given her trailer park roots)
Cannonball - Southern/Kentucky accent
Husk - Southern/Kentucky accent
Skin - East Los Angeles Chicano accent
Gambit - Cajun accent
The Thing - New York accent (specifically the old-time New York accent that's going somewhat extinct)
Spectrum - New Orleans accent
Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers - slight Boston accent (this one might be controversial. When Rogue had Carol's personality come to the forefront, Mike Rossi noted that she was speaking in a Boston accent, but no attempt was done to write it phonetically. I would suggest that it's an accent she's more or less buried while her father has a thick Boston accent).

Since the overwhelming majority of the Marvel universe is based in New York, I strongly suspect at least some of them have New York accents, but I didn't want to assume anything.

[Crimz]

Wolverine and Deadpool - Canadian (I don't know which parts they are from to be more specific)
Sue and Johnny Storm - Long Island accent (Kind of shocked that when I think about it they likely have typical New Yorker accents)

[Mike_Murdock]

I don't know if it's part of the comics canon, but the movie said that Deadpool is from Saskatchewan so I'm going with that.

Are Johnny and Sue from Long Island? Not everyone from New York has an accent, but I've never met someone from Long Island that doesn't have one.

[tsaimelemoni]

Elektra's gotta have one. I think Soule incorporated it in one of Elektra's appearances in his DD run, something about playing up her accent when she wants something.

[Crimz]

I don't know if it's part of the comics canon, but the movie said that Deadpool is from Saskatchewan so I'm going with that.

Are Johnny and Sue from Long Island? Not everyone from New York has an accent, but I've never met someone from Long Island that doesn't have one.

Yeah they were born and raised there. Reed is the only member of the Fantastic Four not from New York. He's Californian.

[9th.]

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) has been confirmed by both Bendis and Dennis Hopeless to have a British accent.

I did not know this, guess I'll have to change her voice then

[Chainsaw Vigilante]

Now I want to hear movie Carol sound like Bill Burr, Nick DiPaolo, or Markie Mark and talk like a Masshole. Like Casey Affleck's Dunkin Donuts SNL skit character as a lady (and yes the native ladies in the eastern Mass., R.I., and eastern Conn. are often just as bold and frank).

Wouldn't Jessica Drew's creator be the person to ask about her accent? Not someone that wrote her decades later?

[Mike_Murdock]

Wouldn't Jessica Drew's creator be the person to ask about her accent? Not someone that wrote her decades later?

I think the best thing to do is to look at the actual stories and base it on that. Jessica Drew's father is American and her mother is French. She grew up in Transia. However, she was raised by Herbert Windham, who is British, and Bova, who is a cow. More importantly, Bova (and all the other animals) learned English from videos. To me, that's the question. Would Herbert Windham teach his animals American English? I think it's a safe bet that he a good Brit wouldn't do that.

[danielsan52]

Wouldn't Jessica Drew's creator be the person to ask about her accent? Not someone that wrote her decades later?

Bendis' aside, I always considered her to have a british accent. Her first issues were in England.............

I always read her in an English accent and wanted to see her in Excalibur.

[klynn]

And Black Widow can speak in whatever accent she wants presumably.

Agreed. But I like the idea that Natasha would speak in her natural Russian accent in her unguarded moments with friends & lovers.

[Mary Jay]

Nice idea for a thread, Kurt As someone who often "hears" the characters in my head, this is very informative!

Wolverine and Deadpool - Canadian (I don't know which parts they are from to be more specific)

I don't know if it's part of the comics canon, but the movie said that Deadpool is from Saskatchewan so I'm going with that.

There is no such thing as a typical Canadian accent. Someone from the East coast or the Maritimes might speak with a slighty different accent than someone west. Even the French-Canadian accent can vary from one region to another (both in French AND English ) And we do not say "aboot" :P Generally, the average Canadian and American roughly sound the same, at least to my French-Canadian ear