Apparently, even static images are able to overact. While hammy villains are no stranger to the other categories, they seem to have an even higher concentration in the world of comics.
Marvel Comics
- Fantastic Four:
- This is probably a big reason why the Fantastic Four cemented so many Marvel-specific tropes in the late Silver Age and Bronze Age.
- "Doctor Doom is displeased that people think he underacts. Doom NEVER underacts. Doom is also displeased that some one-shot video-game tie-in lout is calling himself DOOM in the third person! There is only one DOOM - Doctor DOOM! These are clearly plots by that perfidious dolt REED RICHARDS!!"
- Lampshaded during the Onslaught saga; Joseph was telling Captain America about being rescued by someone and Cap interrupted to say he knew it was Dr. Doom. When Joseph asked how Cap knew that, Cap's answer was "Frankly, the entrance line alone told me that much."
- Also lampshaded during a cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #50, in which Doom expresses displeasure at being escorted through the public terminal of an airport due to mechanical difficulties (amusingly, the guard turns out to be Captain America undercover.):Doom: Typical shoddy American workmanship. Such incompetence would not be permitted in the Latveria of — DOCTOR DOOM.
Guard: How do you do that?
Doom: Do what?
Guard: Speak in all capitals like that?
Doom: Silence, minion. - In an essay about his run on Fantastic Four, Mark Waid once noted that "you know you've Doom's voice down when every single sentence contains at least one pompous adjective."
- "I am GALACTUS... And I HUNGER!"
- "ANNIHILUS IS THE WILL AND THE WAY AND HE WILL NOT BE DENIED!" Marvel's Annihilus always refers to himself in the 3rd person, always shrieks at the top of whatever it is giant purple-and-green bugs have instead of lungs, and got a whole Cosmic Crisis Crossover named after him, during which he murdered billions and threw frequent temper tantrums because all of creation wasn't dying quickly enough.
- Super-strong characters tend to get this way, especially those who are gods. Marvel has Hercules and Thor, DC has Orion of the New Gods, and the Dark Avengers have Ares. Who possibly tops Thor for sheer hamminess.
- Thor has the excuse that he comes from a world of ham — Asgard. Where you know the inevitable fate of the scenery the moment anyone at all opens their mouth.
- According to Thor (2014), Thor's hammer Mjolnir is a ham-filter. That is, if it's wielder tries to talk normally while transformed, it will automatically filter it into ham. Asgardian ham. Including calling Earth Midgard.
- Thor has the excuse that he comes from a world of ham — Asgard. Where you know the inevitable fate of the scenery the moment anyone at all opens their mouth.
- When Stan Lee was still writing comics, he wrote every character this way. Lee himself has shared his love of ham on many occasions. "EXCELSIOR!"
- Pick a Jack Kirby character. Any Jack Kirby character. And when Lee and Kirby collaborated, it was something to behold.
- Captain America: Almost any time Batroc the Leaper shows up, you know ham is going to be on the menu.
- Deadpool: Deadpool is always talking, cracking jokes, and being full of himself.
- Doctor Strange: Strange himself, on many occasions. His Magical Incantations were what appealed him to fans in the first place. (Like, "By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth." Or, "By the All-Seeing Eye of Aggamoto.")
- Ghost Rider: Originally, Johnny Blaze put on a "spook act" as the Ghost Rider. When the Rider started manifesting its own personality, it's revealed that while Johnny is acting, Zarathos really is that dramatic.
- The Mighty Thor: Loki is displeased that thou hast not included me into this page.
- Monsters Unleashed: THE MIGHTY SCRAGG'S SYNTAX RESEMBLES THAT OF A TYPICAL MARVEL VILLAIN, BUT HIS NATURE AS A PACIFIST RENDERS IT HILARIOUS INSTEAD OF INTIMIDATING! WHICH HE IS PERFECTLY FINE WITH, AS SCRAGG IS FRIEND TO ALL LIFEFORMS AND GLORIES IN AMUSING THEM MOMENTARILY!
- Spider-Man:
- Spidey gets to ham it up and have fun doing so in his Marvel Adventures team up with Doctor Strange. In fact, the level of ham becomes essential in bluffing a Cosmic Entity, who is blind and can't see how small the "Great Hidden One Known As The Spider-Man" is.
- Spidey purposely took the ham up to eleven in his own title, during the Identity Crisis storyline, where he took four new superhero identities while a fugitive, specifically in his identity as Prodigy. (An exaggerated version of Golden Age heroes.) When he finally ditched that identity and the other three, he told Mary Jane that "even Mighty Mouse wouldn't say half the things" he had said as Prodigy.
- Norman Osborn has shown surprising talent for this trope when he staged an attack by the Green Goblin on Air Force One. It's filled with such delightfully hammy lines as "GET BEHIND ME MR. PRESIDENT!" and "No Goblin! What YOU need is YOUR GLIDER!" However, when it's Osborn in the Goblin suit, the ham quotient goes up to 11. As does the insanity quotient.
- Mysterio is loud and boastful, true to his origins as a showman, to the point of Spider-Man mocking him for it. This is also the reason he doesn't go back to making legitimate money with his special effects skills, as he loves chewing the scenery and villainy gives him the perfect excuse.
- This is your old pal Carnage saying you can't spell slaughter without laughter, AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
- Squadron Supreme: Master Menace, Marvel's alternate-universe equivalent of Lex Luthor heavily mixed with Doctor Doom, shamelessly chews the scenery whenever he appears.
- The Tomb of Dracula: Dracula was incredibly hammy even by most vampire standards. Every issue had him speaking in terms like these:Dracula: Feel HONORED clod—Be PROUD that your pitiful life can be used to further MINE. You did not DIE for any peasant...but for Dracula—LORD OF THE DAMNED!
- The Blue Blade from The Twelve or, as he would announce, "The Bluuuue Blaaaaaade!!!", was an Errol Flynn wannabe, with the camp elements of his original design turned up to eleven for laughs.
- X-Men:
- Apocalypse is full of this.
- The villain Mojo. Even in the Ultimate Universe where he's human. If the Joker were a fat, alien media tycoon, this is who you'd get. Mojo runs a world where people are engineered to be reality TV stars. Needless to say some of these people are quite the large hams when they come over to 616, Shatterstar for example.
- Most of the Azraels had a penchant for this."Know that men call you liar! Know that men call you betrayer! Know that men call you defiler! Therefore, it is the duty of the angel Azrael to bring you punishment — the punishment of death by fiery sword!"
- Batman:
- The Joker, especially in the Comics Code Authority days, thrives on this trope.
- The Riddler, an Insufferable Genius who will always find a hammy way to boast about his intelligence.
- Black Mask, especially during Judd Winick's run on Batman.I swear to God! I spent serious quality time thinking about ways to TORTURE your irritating, BOMB-THROWING BUTT TO DEATH!Brother... I am ready to TORCH this hell hole into ASH... to KILL every sad mouth breather who was dumb enough to live here... and I'm ready to GO DOWN WITH THE SHIP. And between the two of us, little man... we both know I'M the one who's not afraid to die.
- Of all the characters that qualify for this trope, Darkseid deserves a special mention.
- Green Lantern: Orange Lantern Larfleeze: The greediest creature in the universe!"The spotlight is MINE! This wiki is MINE! If you're reading this page, you're MINE! The blinky cursor letters are mine, too!"
- Justice League International villain Manga Khan is not only the founder and former president emeritus of the Manga Khan School of Melodrama, he suffers from a disorder that causes him to behave in a ridiculously grandiose manner. He neglects to take his medication because he's in denial.
- The New Guardians: Snowflame
◊, who is powered by cocaine, and deems himself a "TRUE GOD" after beating up some nobody. - The Sandman (1989): Destruction of the Endless, who was modeled after BRIAN BLESSED!
- Falstaff (again) in the Seven Soldiers of Victory story from Leading Comics #14, "The Bandits from the Books." In a story where everyone talks in all capitals and ends their sentences with exclamation points, his dialogue is in bigger, bolder type with more exclamation points. He even makes eating a banana sound epic.
- A rare instance where the narrator is a Large Ham occurs in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein."All in a day's work...for FRANKENSTEIN!"
- Superman: Superman and Supergirl villains tend to get this way. Scenery-chewing, dramatization and verbosity are practically mandatory. Some examples:Lex Luthor: I'm the only sane inmate of Asylum Earth. I'm not eager to hand tomorrow over to an interplanetary extremist with laser eyes. There's only room on this world for one leader, Superman. When I'm finished with you, every last gibbon out there will know you for the menace you are... and they'll realize that Lex Luthor is their savior.
Dru-Zod: KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
Nightflame: NAY! Your chrome-plated chariot does not frighten me! Now you shall know of the power of Nightflame! And of my flame-sword!
Black Starr: FOOL! You think all there is to reality is what is seen? Yes – I appear young – and I may be younger still... or even be you, if I so desire!
Satan Girl: Fool, you'll NEVER find a cure for them! I know... because it was I who unleashed this doom of the crimson virus on them!
Darkseid: Darkseid IS!
Reign: Yes, my child. Let the universe bear witness to your pain. Grieve the life you knew.
Superboy-Prime: I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!! - Wonder Woman:
- Hercules is always bombastic, proud and prone to the use of antiquated English, all of which is made even more noticeable by the fact that he considers himself to be a great hero who is in the right no matter what messed up thing he's in the middle of. This includes professing his intent to rape Diana, while bragging about raping her mother.
- In most continuities Dr. Psycho tends to be incredibly over dramatic, and loudly infuse his speech with his own sense of his superiority and intelligence.
- Wonder Woman (1942): Bedwin Footh, a stage actor by trade, overacts his part as Red Fitz to the point that it clues Wondy into the fact that his gang is made up of fake versions of her villains before their lack of powers comes to light.
- Wonder Woman (1987): The '90's version of Dr. Poison has a particularly unsettling inhuman manner. Her lips are peeled back in a constant manic grin and she speaks using clinical words in a way that would seem robotic, if not for her bizarre poses and proudly frantic delivery.
Other Publishers
- Asterix and the Actress manages to pull this off as Stylistic Suck with Latraviata, in static images. She's a famous Roman theatre actress and thus acts out her ingenue character like a Melodramatic sex bomb.
- Doctor Dinosaur in Atomic Robo.
- Empowered's Caged Demonwolf. He spends all of his time as a voice emanating from the alien power-draining bondage gear he's stuck in, but even as a talking inanimate object, he has the biggest speech balloons and an endless supply of Expospeak Gags. The sinister, sealed sovereign's hammery rivals that of blessed Brian himself!"Heh, heh, heh. The merely mortal fools have failed to perceive the ravening shadowlord's burgeoning powers of suggestion! And by the time they do — too late will it be — for the sinister snuffer of civilisations will have seized ABSOLUTE CONTROL of the much-vaunted TV REMOTE!!!"
- R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat is very hammy in a number of early strips.
- Rasputin in Hellboy has a tendency to ham it up even when he's losing. In his final appearance, as a ghost, he was shouting a hysterical tirade at a god. She didn't take it too well.
- Haazen from Knights of the Old Republic is one, though he hides it well for decades by pretending to be a fawning servant to the Draays in public. When he unveils his Evil Plan, he does so by having a hijacked Republic fleet blow up the Draay Estate's courtyard while standing unflinching before the explosion, turning to the heroes in full Sith armour, and delivering a thunderous speech on how they've played straight into his hands throughout the story.Haazen: The time for visions is past — the Prophecy of Five is fulfilled! LET THE FIRE OF TRUTH RAIN DOWN!
- Sergei Korolev (the head of the Soviet space program during the Cold War) is like this in public in the graphic novel Laika ("All because of that lying b*stard, GLUSHKO!"), but in private, it turns out he's actually much quieter and very sad.
- Les Légendaires have several of these. One of the most notable examples includes Captain Shamira, Shimy's mother, who often delivers Badass Boasts in an overly aggressive tone.
- Of course, considering Evil Is Hammy and what the villains are, Darkhell, Skroa, Anathos and Abyss all displayed large ham tendencies. Notably, most of them are usually quite calm (though still having a taste for Evil Gloating), but will easily go full large ham when excited or angry.
- Elysio had a very hammy moment at his introduction (which was most likely a foreshadowing of the fact he was actually an amnesiac Darkhell). After Darkhell and him split up, however, he seems to have lost this tendency and become calmer.
- Logicomix depicted Ludwig Wittgenstein as being like this.
- Every single major character in The Metabarons by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
- Rainbow Dash, the Cloud Gremlins, and the TV news anchorpony in My Little Pony Micro Series Issue #2 .
- Sporting her Season 1 look hasn't stopped Luna from showing she's the real Princess of Ham in the second story-arc of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW):Twilight Sparkle: "One more chance" to what?Princess Luna: To claim what Nightmare Moon promised - An all powerful kingdom of their own! *said while on her hind legs with a dramatic lunar eclipse in the background*
- Pinkie Pie turns up the ham when she confronts her nightmares in Issue #6.
Pinkie: I am the MOST laughter-giving, fun-having, friend-making pony ever! YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME! - Scott Pilgrim: Matthew Patel, the first of Ramona's Evil Exes, loudly and dramatically announces everything about him and what he does. His first appearance is him tearing through the ceiling of a club while shouting "MISTER PILGRIM!" at Scott before their battle. The comic was also free of any fighting before his introduction, making him stand out even more.
- The British Lion comic book character The Spider is rarely loud, but constantly over-acts in the most pompous and self-assured way imaginable.
- Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan."Who did you vote for vermin woman? Did you vote? Can you Read? Have you got Thumbs? Show me your fucking Thumbs! THUMBS!"
- The graphic novel Twice Blessed has Cade Masters, ADVENTURER EXTRAORDINAIRE!
