We all remember Mark Hamill for his role as the saviour of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker. But there was a time when Darth Vader wanted to turn Luke to the Dark Side. That might not have happened in “Return of the Jedi,” but Mark Hamill has played a surprising number of baddies after his turn as Luke Skywalker. Maybe it’s to bring balance to the Force, but here’s a list of all the times Mark Hamill turned to the Dark Side.
1)The Joker (Batman: The Animated Series, and the DC Animated Universe)
Who can forget that freaky laugh of the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series? He had a way of delivering dialogue that was in perfect contrast to whatever atrocities he was committing on screen, and only helped accentuate his already psychotic demeanour. He’s perhaps the most memorable of the animated Jokers, having played the role over over 10 years. He even went on to menace the Justice League as the Joker in the animated series of the same name (set in the same universe), taking them all on with his Royal Flush Gang.
2)Fire Lord Ozai (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Mark Hamill returns to menace the whole world once more as Fire Lord Ozai, the despotic Firebender who’s intent on the genocide of nations. His mastery of fire is so absolute that only the Avatar can defeat him, and it takes three whole seasons before Ozai can be defeated. With that power comes delusions of grandeur too, because in the series finale he calls himself the Phoenix King as nature conspires to make him more powerful than ever before.
Fire Lord Ozai has a son and a daughter too, and his son eventually turns to the side of good. That sounds strangely similar to Luke Skywalker’s father…
3)The Trickster (in both the 1990 & 2014 series of The Flash)
Mark Hamill’s not just limited to voicing villains. He’s actually played another DC villain, the Trickster, who’s kind of a watered down version of the Joker. So in a way, he’s sort of rehashing the role. But the cool thing is that he gets to play two different live action versions of the same villain — once in The Flash (1990), and in the modern day The Flash series! How many actors can lay claim to playing the same character in two different TV series?
4)Hobgoblin (in Spider-Man: The Animated Series)
Once again, Mark Hamill surprises us by revealing that his repertoire of villainous voices isn’t just limited to DC villains. He plays the Hobgoblin in the 1995 Spider-Man: The Animated Series, debuting in a two-parter that sees the villain trying to take over the criminal underbelly of New York. He even briefly manages to unseat the series’ big bad, the Kingpin!
5)Darth Bane (in Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
And finally, we see Mark Hamill literally voice the Dark Side in Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series! He plays the ghost of Darth Bane, who is the Sith Lord who mandated that there can only ever be two Sith Lords in existence. Prior to his ruling, there could be more than two Sith Lords roaming around the galaxy, and his rule came to be known as the Rule of Two. Darth Vader would have been happy to know that in a galaxy long, long ago, his son did turn to the Dark Side, in a way.
But despite all the evil Mark Hamill has wrought in his other roles, we have to remember that Luke Skywalker saves the day by blowing up the first Death Star, then manages to get Darth Vader to turn on Emperor Palpatine and ends the line of the Sith. Well, maybe he didn’t clean up the Sith line as well as he did, seeing as “The Force Awakens” has another evil Force wielder as its primary antagonist.
In any case, he does save an entire galaxy, so hey! That’s got to count for something.
This article was first published on Yahoo.
Leave a Reply