Steve Blum Gives Voice To "Ultimate Spider-Man's" Wolverine

[CBR News]

Veteran voice actor and longtime Wolverine star brings his unique growl to Marvel's "Ultimate Spider-Man" series as Steve Blum tells CBR what it was like to mix it up with Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Fury.


Full article here.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

Cool interview.

[cookepuss]

It was a fun episode, mostly due to Bendis' knack for dialog, but I had a problem with it on a few levels.

1. Blum, while a really awesome Wolverine, went a bit too far out of character. I get that it was Peter inhabiting Logan's body, but it almost didn't sound like Blum's Logan at a few points. Not just in terms of portrayal, but in the tenor and richness of the voice. Too far off point.
2. They really made Sabertooth a punk here. He was really the comic relief of the episode, more clumsily funny than scary.
3. What? No epilogue? I'd love to have seen Peter worm his way out this one and explain to MJ and his friends why he was acting weird. No follow up. Very un-Bendis-like.
4. Bendis made Logan kinda dumb. Common sense would've told Wolverine that the crowd was being mind controlled. Instead, Bendis had him jump to the conclusion that Spidey,a fairly established hero even on the show, was the bad guy.

Like I said, Bendis' dialog was snappy. I also loved the cards that were used to cut away every time someone got accidentally stabbed and such. Pretty funny and rather clever, given the demographic for this show. However, like almost everything on USM, the rest of this ep was a fairly dumbed down team up and not Marvel or Bendis' best.

It's such a shame that Avengers EMH got the reboot instead of USM. Hopefully, Avengers Assemble won't be this dumbed down and S2 of USM will be a bit more mature. Maybe they can meet somewhere in the middle.

[cookepuss]

BTW: I love it when people accidentally leave the hyphen out of Spider-Man's name. It always reminds me of this clip..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvwbVGDk_5A

[CTpitch]

I'm a Cal Dodd fan

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

I'm a Cal Dodd fan

Looking him up, I actually think I prefer Cal Dodd's Wolverine. Blum's good though.

[cookepuss]

Cal Dodd was good. Definitely the most memorable for a certain generation of TV fans. Blum's great too. Personally, I'm partial to Neil Ross' version. He did the voice for the one off "Pryde of the X-Men" pilot back in 1989. If they could have removed the dumb Aussie accent, he might've been a fantastic Wolverine. He sounded somewhere between Dodd & Blum.

[0bsessions]

I'm a Cal Dodd fan

I do always go to Dodd when I think of Wolverine's voice (Simply because it's what I grew up with), but I'd say Blum is overall better at it. Dodd was more than serviceable, but man did he have some clunkers (Part dialogue, given). Blum is just such a natural go-to for anti-hero voice acting.

"C-c-covered in scorpions!"

No Neil Ross fans? Where's the Scottish (Was it Scottish? I can't remember if he was blatantly Scottish or blatantly Australian) Wolverine love?

[cookepuss]

Neil Ross, afaik, didn't play Wolverine as Australian. At least not in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the A Firestar is Born episode. Not sure that he sounds Aussie. Given the fact that Ross is from England, I'd say that it's more of a gruff cockney thing. Too hard to tell with such a small bit of dialog.

He DID turn him into a straight up Australian in Pryde of the X-Men though.

EDIT>>> I found the Neil Ross version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRvtB8Wtuw (His bit is at 6:40)

[MagSeven]

I haven't been really watching this show, I've seen maybe 3 or 4 episodes. I think it's on when I'm usually working, but this episode was a lot of fun. More like it, please!

[Nitz the Bloody]

I'm a Neil Ross fan, though not for his Wolverine. But the dude was Shipwreck, Norman Osborn, and Colonel Volgin!

[0bsessions]

Neil Ross, afaik, didn't play Wolverine as Australian. At least not in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the A Firestar is Born episode. Not sure that he sounds Aussie. Given the fact that Ross is from England, I'd say that it's more of a gruff cockney thing. Too hard to tell with such a small bit of dialog.

Note: I apparently mixed up the voice actors. Wikipedia's page for Pryde of the X-Men (To which I was referring with regards to the Australian or Scottish Wolverine) cites Ross as the voice actor for Wolverine.

[cookepuss]

Yeah. It's confusing. Different sources cite different things. IMDB.com claims that Pat Fraley did Wolverine & Pyro in Pryde of the X-Men while Neil Ross did Nightcrawler. Other sources say that Ross did Nightcrawler and Wolverine while Fraley only did Pyro. I recently converted my old Pryde VHS over to digital. Listening to it, I think that Neil Ross might actually be doing both Nightcrawler and Wolverine. Pyro is just so drastically different; not just in voice quality, but also versions of the Australian accent. I could be wrong, but It's a mindf*** alright. I can see why Wiki & IMDB can't agree.

[Sam Robards, Comic Fan]

I'm a Cal Dodd fan

Agreed, though Blum's isn't bad. Anyone remember when Mark Hamill voiced Wolvie back in the game X2: Wolverine's Revenge? He actually did a good job with it.

And the Aussie Wolverine is always good for a laugh.

[cookepuss]

Anyone remember when Mark Hamill voiced Wolvie back in the game X2: Wolverine's Revenge? He actually did a good job with it.

Oh, yeah. I forgot that. He was really great, actually. I wouldn't mind if he replaced Blum. Not in the least.

And the Aussie Wolverine is always good for a laugh.

In all fairness, when did they concretely define that Wolverine was Canadian? I know that he first appeared against the Hulk in the Canadian wild (1974). When he joined the X-Men, he resigned from Dept.H in Canada (1975). Been a while since I read either issue, but was it explicitly stated that he was a Canadian citizen back then and not just a resident who worked for them? I mean, he's part of the X-Men and Avengers, both American teams, and he's not an American. Just playing devil's advocate here.

Wolverine was shrouded in mystery for so many years. It took Marvel 2 years just to show him without the mask - X-Men 98 (1976). It took them 3 to give him a (wrong) first name of Logan - X-Men 103 (1977). I don't think that Marvel went out of their way to establish any part of his origin as Canadian until the BWS 1991 Weapon X story in Marvel Comics Presents. Even then, that didn't do much to expand on him as a person. It took 2001's Origin mini to do that.

I mean, we all KNEW that he was Canadian. Byrne, a long time Canadian resident, also did his best to establish him as having strong ties to Canada. I just don't remember exactly when they said outright that Wolverine was Canadian. Considering that Wolverine's first TV appearance was on the 1982 "A Firestar is Born" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, it's possible that there was still some debate about his origin. In terms of the X-Men's publication, 8 years isn't a lot. Wolverine really didn't break out until his Claremont/Miller limited series in 1982.

Again, just playing devil's advocate here. There could be any number of reasons why they thought it was acceptable to make Wolverine Australian on his first TV appearances.


EDIT>>> I just looked back at Giant-Size #1. It only says there that he's an agent of that then unnamed Canadian agency.