Steve Blum
Now leave the room and you'll find him in the corridor fixing a panel.
"A completely ****ing awesome voice actor with a voice so manly it instantly claims the virginity of all men and women who hear it."—1d4chan on Steve Blum
There's no doubt that Steven Jay Blum is the American equivalent of Norio Wakamoto.
Blum is notable for his incredibly versatile range, though his most well-known is his Guttural Growler voice. He can play just about any role from heroes, to villains, even to the just plain weird. His most notable role is Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, giving the show Superlative Dubbing status (surpassing even the already famous Koichi Yamadera. WOW!) He is the voice of TOM for the character's second, third, fourth and fifth incarnations of Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block, Leeron from Gurren Lagann, as well as the title character of Wolverine and the X-Men. He's worked with Wendee Lee a few times as well. He's equally known for having a ludicrous number of roles in the same work at times, with some videogames having him voice so many extras that it seems as if you've stepped into some bizarre World of Steve Blums, which actually happens in a recent G.I. Joe animated feature.
According to The Other Wiki, Steve Blum has also worked under a handful of known aliases, and the page contains many more examples of his work. Or you can go straight for the four hundred and fifty-one roles listed on his IMDB page.
He's shown to be good friends with Vic Mignogna (as their con appearances and Real Fans of Genius Videos can attest to), and regards Wendee Lee as one too.
Has a Twitter account. In April and May of 2012 he used it to lead the charge to charge to bring Toonami back on the air, which was announced as successful on May 16.
Officially holds the Guiness World Record for being the most prolific video game voice actor, having 261 credited appearances as of May 10, 2012.
A few of the characters he has voiced are found here.
Notable roles from Steve Blum:
- Sergei in Asura's Wrath
- Joseph "Super Joe" Gibson in Bionic Commando (sequel).
- Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop
- Kazuma in S-Cry-ed
- Mugen in Samurai Champloo
- Roger Smith in The Big O
- Dhalsim in Street Fighter II V
- Gale in Digital Devil Saga
- The Thugs-4-Less Leader in Ratchet and Clank Going Commando.
- Grunt, Red Shirt Wilson, The Shadow Broker and about half the crewmen in Mass Effect 2
- Orochimaru, Zabuza, The Third Kazekage, and various minor characters in Naruto
- He's the voice of any male protagonist in Guild Wars: Prophecies and Factions, As well as Justiciar Habilon of the White Mantle.
- He's also to do the voice Rytlock Brimstone, the leader of the Charr in Guild Wars 2.
- Jericho in Tribes: Vengeance.
- Master Contra in Neo Contra
- Gene in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
- Ramon Galvez Mena in Peace Walker
- Dark Star in No More Heroes
- Walnut the Bounty Hunter in Phantom Brave
- Black War Greymon, Hawkmon's Baby forms, and all 3 of Veemon's Armor forms in Digimon Adventure 02
- Guilmon, Kenta, and Yamaki in Digimon Tamers
- JP in Digimon Frontier
- Falcomon in Digimon Savers
- Jack Cayman in MadWorld and Anarchy Reigns
- Sun Jian and Xiahou Yuan in Dynasty Warriors 4 & 5.
- Guan Yu in Kessen II
- Kyoshiro Tohdoh in Code Geass
- Leeron in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (betcha didn't see that one coming)
- Shin in Fist of the North Star
- Shizuma Kusanagi in Real Bout High School
- Has voiced Killer Croc in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Lego Batman, where he also voiced several other characters in the latter, such as The Joker, Two-Face, Batman himself, and Killer Moth.
- Do note that all characters in the latter are Speaking Simlish.
- He also voiced the majority of the nameless guards and thugs in Asylum.
- Captain Bartlett in Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.
- In Psychonauts, voiced the Tiger in Black Velvetopia and the horde of
government agentsplumbersgrieving widowsG-men in The Milkman Conspiracy. Because of the G-men, he may well have the single largest speaking role in the game, aside from Richard Horvitz. - Makoto Shishio in Rurouni Kenshin
- Otsdarva/Maximillian Thermidor in Armored Core: For Answer
- The Laughing Man in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
- Father Denis in The Saboteur
- Wolverine in any Marvel Universe media from the video game X-Men Legends onwards (except for the X-Men movies, obviously)
- Wolverine and Taskmaster in Marvel vs. Capcom 3
- He's actually done a lot of work for Marvel; he voiced Bullseye in The Punisher game and Vanisher in Wolverine and The X-Men.
- Wolverine, Red Skull, and Beta Ray Bill in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
- Unfortunately, he didn't reprise his role as Wolverine in the Wolverine anime, but he will in the X-Men anime.
- Jamie in Megas XLR
- Duke, Roadblock, Zartan and about half a dozen others in G.I. Joe: Resolute.
- Green Goblin and Chameleon in The Spectacular Spider-Man
- T.O.M. 2 and onward (1 was Sonny Strait), the narrator of Toonami.
- The Vindicare Assassin and Scout Sergeant Cyrus in Dawn of War and Dawn Of War II, respectively.
- Also from Dawn Of War II, he voices Eliphas the Inheritor and Techmarine Martellus.
- The American Commander voiceover for Company of Heroes.
- Eikichi Onizuka and a bunch of incidentals in Great Teacher Onizuka
- Vincent Valentine in Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus
- Heatblast, Vilgax, and Ghostfreak/Zs'Skayr in Ben 10
- Sid of the Vultures in Full Throttle, in a very early role
- Balladbird Lee in the Gungrave anime, Fangoram and Bunji Kugashira in Gungrave Overdose
- The badass Bangaa bounty hunter Ba'Gamnan from Final Fantasy XII
- Ares in God of War
- Chen Shin in Planetes
- Duelo McFile in Vandread
- Captain Foley in Call of Duty and Tank Dempsey, REAL AMERICAN HERO!!!!' of Call of Dutys Nazi Zombies maps.
- The generic Sabbat vampires and the Tzimisce Andrei in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.
- Jim Skylark in Gate Keepers
- Zaka, Karl Landzaat, and Nils Daerden in Valkyria Chronicles
- Alex Cunningham in IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix
- A few dwarves and "ASSCHABS!" Oghren in Dragon Age.
- He's also First Enchanter Irving.
- German scientist Ludger Brink in The Dig
- Smytus (DESTROYER OF WORLDS!) in My Life as a Teenage Robot
- He also plays Cannan, The Professor, and Sellers in Xenosaga Episode III
- He was almost all of the random Marine voices in Quake IV. And this did indeed include Steve-to-Steve conversations.
- Captain Cold and Heat Wave in Batman the Brave And The Bold
- Monkey Yellow in Ape Escape 3 (and you thought Leeron was weird?)
- Schuenzeit Baren in Magna Carta 2
- Vincent in Last Exile
- Professor Nebraska in Trigun
- Barricade, Shockwave, Cliffjumper, and the Narrator in Transformers: War for Cybertron
- Collins and Moses in Blood Plus
- Darcia in Wolf's Rain
- Starscream in Transformers Prime
- Corporal Buzz in the 1998 Battlezone 1998
- Brad Hawk in Urban Reign
- Jack Shepard in Lost: Via Domus
- Kyohei Kadota in Durarara!!
- Grayson Hunt in Bulletstorm
- Cliff in Dead Rising
- Lieutenant Colonel Burns in Vanquish
- Male troll Player Characters in WoW.
- Rebel Alliance engineers in Star Wars Battlefront.
- Garcia Hotspur in Shadows of the Damned
- Yakky Doodle in Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (and you thought Yellow Monkey was weird?...)
- Several one-shot characters (most noticeably Utopia) from Regular Show.
- Captain Marshall and Phallinx Hagar in Rage
- The Zombie voice option in Saints Row The Third.
- Andronikos Revel, Sergeant Boran, a Separatist Commander on Ord Mantell, Baron Deathmark, and many others in Star Wars the Old Republic.
- Amon in The Legend of Korra.
- Did some English dubbing for the Sergei Brodov film, Nomad. He was the wily Jungar shaman.
- Vault 11 citizen Harry in Fallout: New Vegas.
- Heatwave in Transformers Rescue Bots.
- Jake Martinez in Tiger and Bunny.
- Zoltun Kulle in Diablo III
Tropes relating to Steve Blum
- Badass: A lot of the characters he voices fits into this trope. As mentioned in a Tekkoshocon panel, someone stated that he voiced "every badass character ever."
- Memetic Badass: There are some inside Internet jokes involving him.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: He gets rather pissed off about it. He points out the production teams work hard and are getting ripped off because of it.
- Particularly in regards to what happened to Bandai Entertainment.
- Guttural Growler: What got him a lot of attention and popularity. It should be noted that he talks like this in Real Life.
- Taken to its limit in Saints Row: The Third, where the Zombie voice option is just him making Tazmanian Devil-like noises.
- Hilarious Outtakes: According to Crispin Freeman, he and Steve are in a competition about who can make the most X-rated outtakes. Apparently Steve's outtakes for Leeron are just the tip of the iceberg.
- Judaism: He considers himself a Jewish Spiritualist.
- I Am Not Spike Spiegel Or Wolverine: He does have other roles, you know. Though unlike most examples of this trope, they aren't roles he hates or really tries distancing himself from.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Oh... YES!
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: Despite voicing villains like Orochimaru, Starscream, Amon and Makoto Shishio, and Jerk with a Heart of Gold Wolverine, Steve's a sweetheart in real life who donates the money he makes selling autographed pics of him at conventions to charity.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: He doesn't have the slightest interest in insulting people who have passed on, but when asked at conventions who he has bad recording experiences with, he can only get away with the dead actors and voice actors.
- "No. Just... No" Reaction: Prior to becoming a union member, he once worked on a Hentai anime. After about 15 minutes, he reached a scene he found so offensive that he left the studio immediately.
- One of Us: He worked as anyone (perhaps harder) to bring back Toonami. Not for a job but because he liked it so much.
- One Steve Limit: Averted with his multiplicity of roles in Quake IV and other videogames.
- Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Averted. He's played a large variety of roles and has a wide vocal range (including a gay mechanic and a cute Digimon). It's the fandom that only remembers him for Wolverine and Spike Spiegel.
- Relationship Voice Actor: He's often worked together with Wendee Lee and Nolan North.
- Talking to Himself: Again, in Quake IV and other videogames.
- Unions in Hollywood: The reason why he used to go by the "David Lucas" pseudonym before around the early to mid-2000s or so.
Also, it's pronounced BLOOM, bub.
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