With the release of Iron Man 3 just months away, Marvel fans are watching and re-watching the handful of Iron Man 3 trailers available on YouTube. And, if you’re like me, you’ve noticed the slow cadence of Ben Kingsley’s voice as the Mandarin. “Some people call me a terrorist,” he says, slowly and deliberately, “I consider myself a teacher. Lesson No. 1: Heroes. There is no such thing.” Then explosions and all hell breaks loose.

Kingsley’s voice as the Mandarin reminded me of the voice Tom Hardy used for Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. It, too, is slow and calculated. His voice is something between a purr and a growl when he says, “When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.” Then, again, explosions and chaos.

This made me think: How many movie villains are defined, in some way, by their voice? There are, of course, some classic villains with classic voices, like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. Dracula is another. Gary Oldman in Coppola’s Dracula and Richard Roxburgh in Van Helsing, among others, have given Dracula his Transylvanian tongue. And there’s Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 The Wizard of Oz. Her voice was part of the reason that I was too afraid to watch The Wizard of Oz as a kid. And as a pre-teen. And teen.

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