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Mr. T: Sucka, you have a choice: you can face prison or you can face me.
Crook: Prison! Prison!.
In many series, there will be a character who is much larger than most everyone else, very strong, often quite quiet, and very often they will be black.
Sometimes they can be the Token Minority, sometimes they're a Proud Warrior Race Guy, and sometimes they're a Gentle Giant. But the fact remains that when you get right down to it, they're a Scary Black Man.
Authors will often claim this is not actually done in a racist way (not intentionally, anyway), as most anybody who is so much larger than the other characters will usually be equally scary (unless they're also outgoing or jolly). However, perhaps because of a lack of very large Asians who aren't sumo or very large white people who aren't professional wrestlers in a cameo role, they are often black. (This is the same reason that a Huge Schoolgirl usually isn't mean, either.) However, media generated in the U.S. or territories influenced by U.S. media depictions cannot escape the legacy of the Big Black Buck (as featured in such influential films as D. W. Griffith's pro-Klan propaganda film Birth of a Nation) or the savage (noble or not). Amongst other reasons, when much of the creating population and the consuming population is not of African descent, then the Black Guy becomes other, and as such, easier to position as an imposing, scary force.
The few black characters in anime are usually some variation on this.
See also Scary Minority Suspect. Often Crosses over with Gentle Giant, Genius Bruiser, Proud Warrior Race Guy, and Token Minority, as noted both above and in the examples below. Compare Angry Black Man.
Examples:
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- Dutch from Black Lagoon — though despite his somewhat menacing appearance he's not very scary once you get to know him, being one of the most cool-headed and easygoing people in the show. He certainly has nothing on Revy
 ◊.
- Well, like just about everyone else in this anime, he's also an unflinching killer. So his scariness/lack thereof is relative.
- Swamp Gordon from Coyote Ragtime Show
- Briareos from Appleseed is a rather hidden example. Although he's almost entirely machine, pictures drawn by creator Shirow Masamune have shown that he was black before becoming a cyborg, and he fits otherwise.
- It's also worth noting that, based on evidence from the movie Appleseed Ex Machina, the artificial skin under Briareos's armor is literally black — as in, the color of a car tire.
- In that movie Briareos is more Asiatic than black, though - the artists wanted him to be a traditional pretty-boy, apparently.
- Slightly different version - Chad from Bleach is a scary Gentle Giant Mexican.
- Bob from Tenjho Tenge. His physique's not the only thing that's scarily large. If You Know What I Mean.
- Gray from the Gunsmith Cats manga.
- Blaster Knuckle. The Entire premise is about having an intimidating black protagonist kick vampire/demon KKK ass.
- Killer Bee and Kidoumaru from Naruto are both this, but approached from opposite ends with some subversions thrown in for fun. Killer Bee not only looks the big and scary part right down to sporting shades and rapping, he also beats the living tar out of Sasuke (who'd by then had been pretty infamous for pulling victory out of freaking nowhere); then he turns around, fools the Akatsuki, and fakes his death *all so he can go on vacation*. Kidoumaru, on the other hand, looks no scarier than the other members of his Five Bad Band, the Sound Four...right up until the retrieval squad members from Konoha have to face him alone and realize he's an amoral, easily-bored sadist gamer who thinks Knife-A-Naruto is a great pastime; he's also able to reason his way around the powerful Hyuuga clan's Achilles Heel and start nailing the clan's prize genius, whom nobody but the Kyuubi vessel has been able to put the hit on in the manga up 'til now, with arrow nukes.
- The main (possibly only) black character in Death Note was a tall, ugly, hulking goon of Mello.
- Subverted in Hajime No Ippo, where rookie boxer Jason Ozma has the perfect Scary Black Man looks... but is a cheerful, sweet Gentle Giant outside the ring.
- This shows up in Getter Robo, of all places. This trope shows up at /least/ in Neo Getter vs. Shin Getter Robo, Getter Robo Armageddon, and New Getter Robo, though it could've appeared in many different mangas. The funny thing is that the gigantic hulking black man is invariably beaten by the main character in the episode they appear in, then never shows up again. They mostly go without a name, too.
- Played for laughs in Kaleido Star, when Jerry the Policeman (a Gentle Giant) has to go to Japan with Ken to visit Sora. People actually ran away from him in the streets of Tokyo.
Character Actors
- Any character ever played by Michael Clarke Duncan. He notably played Kingpin (in the comics, a white character) in the Daredevil movie, partially due to being the largest qualified actor casting could find.
- Which led to a version of the same character in a Spider-Man adaptation also being black.
- But he's damn cuddly in The Green Mile and Armageddon.
- And with his voice work as Commander Vachir in Kung Fu Panda, he returns to being a Talking Animal version of this trope. Although the rhino's hubris and smugness end up rendering him a lot more impotent than most ScaryBlackMen tend to be. The fact the entire contingent of guards at Chorh-Gom are based off of his character design only makes things worse, since it gives us a whole fleet of ScaryBlackMen who become cannon fodder for the resident Badass.
- This troper (who knows some Cantonese) wonders whether the above is at all related to the fact that the prison's name is (if you pronounce it differently than it's spelled, more like "chaw gaam") actually Cantonese for "go to jail."
- Considering that we're talking about Kung Fu Panda, almost certainly.
- In the otherwise unwatchable remake of Planet Of The Apes, he plays an amusingly big scary black gorilla. And man, does he have fun with it.
- Deconstructed in the CSI: NY episode "The Closer" in which his character cited his height, build, and deep voice as effectively damning in any murder trial. So of course he lies about possessing the murder weapon (a hammer), is found out by CSI use of Applied Phlebotinum and is sent to death row. Fortunately his name is cleared by use of newer, shinier Applied Phlebotinum.
- He was even the Scary Black Man in The Scorpion King, an impressive feat given the main character is The Rock as an Akkadian killing machine.
- Any character ever played by Samuel L Jackson, amongst other things.
- Though Black Snake Moan subverts this somewhat, as he's trying to rehabilitate Christina Ricci's character.
- And not so much in Jurassic Park... or Loaded Weapon.
- Similarly, many characters played by Laurence Fishburne. Jackson and Fishburne are, in fact, frequently mistaken for one another.
- Any character ever played by Keith David.
- Even Goliath on Gargoyles?
- Mr. T, although he is rather more outgoing than most Scary Black Men.
- Vin Diesel is mixed-race, but he often fits the mould.
- So does Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
- B-movie actor Tom "Tiny" Lister. 6'5", ripped, cross-eyed, and very shouty. Even his IMDB headshot is scary.
- Ving Rhames from Pulp Fiction.
- Kevin Michael Richardson.
- Lester Speight, better known as Augustus Cole and "Terrible" Terry Tate, Office Linebacker. WOOO!!
- Terry Crews definitely qualifies as Damon in Friday After Next. I've got seven words for you: "I like my fish wet and squirming."
- He was great as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in Idiocracy though...
- Kevin Grevioux was one of these in his role as Raze, the scary black werewolf, in Underworld. Most of his Scary Black Man-yness was due to his awesome voice, though.
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays one in every role, and has yet to subvert his typecasting.
- Chico Roland, who starred in several Japanese films and shows in the 50s, 60s, and 70s(His most notable role was Pagora the kaizo-ningen(Reconstructed Human) in Warrior Of Love Rainbowman), usually as villains or musclemen.
- Tony Todd's made a decent career out of this trope.
Comic Books
- The second Tattooed Man, a Green Lantern villain, is a huge black ex-Marine (and a member of the Geoff Johns Awesomely Revamped Villains Club). Unlike the previous bearer of the powers, this Tattooed Man knows how to use his powers to maximum effect.
- It took Batman wielding a Power Ring to stop him.
- Interestingly, the Justice League Unlimited Green Lantern, John Stewart, is also a huge black ex-Marine. He's only scary to bad guys.
- Killer Croc's pre-croc form is typically black.
- Thunderball of Marvel's Wrecking Crew. He's also the smartest of the group.
- As noted above, Tombstone.
- Barracuda from The Punisher series. Run while your legs are still attached.
- Uriel in Lucifer is the only black angel (the only non-white angel actually) and sufficiently scary that he spends most of the series in charge of Heaven. Whether he's a good guy or not is a matter of interpenetration.
- Revenge of the Nerds pulls out a whole squad of 'em, when the Tri-Lamb head gives Gilbert the support to speak out in front of the Alpha Betas.
- Kynette of Cliffhanger is an evil martial-artist who dispassionately guns down a helpless teenage boy for just having seen his face. Of course, this allows us to cheer when Sylvester Stallone shoves his evil heart LITERALLY into a stalagmite.
- Hightower in the Police Academy movies.
- Directly referenced in a Discworld context by a scary troll, Detritus, who appears in an exact
rip-off parody of the "Your uniform doesn't scare me!" gag.
- The Duke, portrayed by Isaac Hayes, in Escape From New York, is a villainous Scary Black Man. He's the Duke of New York! He's A-number one!
- Idi Amin, as portrayed in The Last King of Scotland and in Real Life itself - especially when threatening his frightened Scottish Doctor.
- Danny Trejo is a Scary Mexican Man in everything he has ever done, particularly his brief role in Grindhouse.
- He's got his non-scary roles though, like Enrique and Octavio (Your Mileage May Vary) in Kingofthe Hill, Machete in the Spy Kids movies, and "Spyder" Rudner in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" (sure he plays a violent inmate, but he does save Monk from being killed by a gang of neo-Nazis before the big reveal, and not only that, he doesn't kill Monk once he finds out he's really an undercover cop).
- And he is a friendly janitor in the Halloween remake.
- In Mississippi Burning, the FBI brings in a professional Scary Black Man to intimidate the corrupt mayor into revealing who committed a hate crime.
- From the movie The Last Dragon, we have Sho'Nuff! Shogun of Harlem!
- John Coffey from The Green Mile can be considered an example of this due to his massive size, spooky healing powers and the fact that he is a convicted child murderer, though he turns out to be innocent as the film progresses.. He is also a Gentle Giant. Played by Michael Clark Duncan.
- Kidulthood has Uncle Curtis, a cruel and terrifying Jamaican crime boss.
- Kingsley Shacklebolt came out kind of like this in the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie.
- A minor subversion of this character appeared briefly in The Dark Knight. Towards the end of the film, the Joker sets up a prisoner's-dilemma-type situation: two ferries, stalled in Gotham Harbor, both loaded with explosives. One ferry is carrying prisoners, the other is filled with civilians. The captains of the ferries have the detonators—to each other's boat. If one boat blows up the other, then it will go free. If neither boat destroys the other, they'll both be blown up in a few minutes. The captain of the prisoner's ferry is struggling with the decision, when a very large, very scary black man (Played by Tiny Lister) in prisoner's orange and chains comes over to him. He states that the captain knows what he needs to do, but doesn't have the guts to take a life—but he does. He convinces the captain to hand him the detonator, then immediately throws it out the window and into the water. One of the most powerful moments in the movie.
- In the film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a Scary Black Man played by Ving Rhames joins the Fire Department and is remarked by others as Ax Crazy due to his silent and cold behavior. Later on he is inspired by Chuck and Larry's marriage to come out of the closet, from that point displaying traits of Camp Gay.
- Baron Samedi in Live And Let Die. Especially scary as it is implied that he cannot be killed, even by Bond (he's the voodoo god of the dead, after all).
- From the same film, Tee Hee - fella with the metal arm - also qualifies.
- Serrano from the Major League movies starts off as an example, then subverts it all to hell after becoming a Buddhist in the second film.
- If an interracial porno has a black man in it, he's guaranteed to be Scary, often with some sort of gangsta gimmick even if that just means wearing a bandana while otherwise nude. "Watch as Susie/Billy is split in half by T-Dawg's massive 10-inch black cock!"
- A rare female example would be Mayday in the James Bond flick A View To A Kill. Despite not being male (arguably), Grace Jones fit this trope to a T and her character was far more memorable than the Bond Girl in that movie.
- Same goes for her role in Conan the Destroyer. Grace Jones is a scary lady.
- Or fetish fuel, depending on whom you ask. Her advice to the princess on how to attract a man sums it up: "Grab him! And take him!"
- The Black Panther cell in Forest Gump has a handful of Scary Black Men, and one Malcom Xerox ranting about The Man.
- Another rare female example is Mabel King's rendition of Evilene, the Wicked Witch of the West, in the 1970s film version of The Wiz.
- Raze in Underworld and prequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Played by Kevin Grevioux, who possesses what is possibly the deepest, most gravelly voice known to man.
- Diary Of The Dead. The teenaged protagonists are captured by what appear to be black gang members led by a softly-spoken Bad Ass who is the embodiment of this trope. The group are visibly nervous, with the Ms Fanservice of the group pulling her coat across her cleavage for the only time in the entire movie. It turns out they're ex-National Guard who end up (after some aggressive negotiating) giving them the supplies they need — which ironically enough are stolen by a group of white National Guardsmen.
- In The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, the only black person in the entire movie (if I remember correctly) was the bare-chested elevator operator in the executioner's hood. Those EYES! And the song was freaky, too, as he talked about the "assorted simple tortures" awaiting the prisoners in the dungeon. Even the normally unflappable Mr. Zabladowski was visibly unnerved by him.
- In the 2009 version of The Taking of Pelham 123, the trope is subverted when a female hostage consults an African American male one if he has a plan to fight their abductors. The annoyed man asks if she is asking because he's black, but she explains that she saw he was wearing a ring that marks him as a veteran of the elite US Airborne paratroopers.
- Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird is accused of this. Of course, it's wrong.
- In the Alamut Hassan, leader of the Ismailis, had a personal regiment of African eunuchs of massive stature bearing maces. They stood within the fortress never saying a word just glaring at people. One thinks Hassan deliberately put them at the top of his extremely tall stairway just to give people a scare.
- Subverted in Richard Wright's short story Big Black Good Man, which turns out to be Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- The title character from Shakespeare's Othello, the moor of Venice. The first black man to play him on screen was the previously mentioned Lawrence Fishburne. And yes, I know everything about the argument about what "Moor" actually means, but Othello is most oftenly portrayed as black.
Live Action TV
- Teal'c, from Stargate SG-1. Lampshaded when SG-1 gets sent to a prison planet, where O'Neill tells him to, "Look scary and take point."
- Worf, from Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine; beneath the fairly dark makeup is black Michael Dorn.
- In the live action 'You'reUnderArrest, American football player turned pro kickboxer Bob Sapp played a villain. At 6'5" and 375 lbs of muscle, the fact that he was black was a relatively minor component of his scariness. The fact that he was in a Japanese show made him look like a bleeding kaiju in comparison.
- Tyr, from Andromeda.
- I'd argue that one. Tyr appears to belong to a race best classified 'miscellaneous' or 'all of the above', especially the way he looked pre-haircut, and the actor seems to have been cast for precisely that, for several rather apparent reasons: 1) as the ultimately superior son of a superior race, it would be very very un-PC to have him look especially white (and a Hitler-Jugend posterboy would have come across as epic fail in America at least), 2) since his culture practices selective breeding, that would be the expected appearance of 'the best of all worlds', and 3) he was picked as the most obvious Estrogen Brigade Bait in the series, and looks that would appeal equally to women of all races, without leaning too heavily in any direction, are top choice here. Women observed to never show any taste for black men whatsoever absolutely drool over Tyr.
- Plus, his erudite nature and upper-class Euro-ish accent leans toward subverting black stereotypes, not supporting them.
- Toberman, one of the few black characters in the classic Doctor Who (in the episode "Tomb of the Cybermen").
- The Haitian on Heroes.
- In Volume 3, a black villain named Knox inadvertently takes advantage of this trope seeing as how fear powers his Super Strength. Unfortunate Implications, away!
- Later, we are introduced to the Hatian's brother, who is quite possibly the scariest black guy yet to be seen on the show. Although his power is invunerability, it is off for most of his appearance. Just to give you an idea of how scary he is.
- Before the writers got lazy and started playing the Unfortunate Implications completely straight, they brilliantly subverted this trope with DL Hawkins. His white, blonde wife Niki first describes him to the police as a terrifying, unstoppable felon who's committed a string of brutal murders. When DL actually shows up, he turns out to be a devoted, cuddly father who was actually framed for the killings - by his frail-looking white wife, no less, whose psychopathic, super-strong alter ego actually committed them.
- Hawk, from Spencer For Hire.
- Vaughan Rice, from Ultraviolet.
- The Knights Of Prosperity lampshades this, as Rockefeller is explicitly referred to at one point as "our big scary black dude", a label he has no problem with.
- Bounty hunter Jubal Early from Firefly.
- He's actually quite slightly built, but makes up for it with the scary.
- There's also the Operative, who is a very chilling and calm kind of scary; and Shepherd Book, whom Zoe refers to as "the scary preacher" in Better Days when he beheads a killer attack robot with a single swing of a sword.
- In one episode of Scrubs, Doctor Cox has an old friend who deliberately slips into Scary Black Man mode when he wants to put a quick end to annoying conversations.
- That's Angry Black Man.
- Turk and JD frequently play "World's Tallest Doctor" by having JD stand on Turk's shoulders. They once did it the other way round. People ran.
- Hooch. Just Hooch.
- Arguably, Hooch is a subversion, since he is not physically imposing at all: short and kind of skinny. He only fits the trope because, well, Hooch is crazy. Leonard the security guard is a more typical example. Especially since he has a hook for a hand.
- Mr. Eko on Lost.
- Simon Adebisi from Oz. For most of the show's run, Adebisi is the official "toughest guy in Oz," which is impressive given that most of prisoners on the show are Axe Crazy and have an average life expectancy of about three episodes.
- Law And Order:Criminal Intent lampshades this in one episode where the Captain comments that they can't arrest a suspect for being a "large, scary black man".
- Chris's father from Everybody Hates Chris is a Scary Black Man. Chris's mother is even scarier.
- Wyatt, the new executive agent in Prison Break.
- B. A. Baracus from The A Team. He's played by Mr. T. Most goons seem suitably cowed when he gets in their face.
- Chuck has several:
- Big Mike, the Buy More manager, is rarely seen actually being scary (his usual laziness is punctuated with occasional angry yelling) but all the employees are terrified of him.
- Michael Strahan had a cameo as an employee from a rival store who terrorizes Morgan until Anna beats Michael Strahan's character up. ("Chuck vs the First Date")
- Michael Clarke Duncan appeared as a villain and even said to Chuck, "I assume you find me imposing. I was going for imposing." ("Chuck vs. the Breakup")
- Uriel on Supernatural is a scary, black, possibly evil angel. He does not like humanity and he has threatened to go against his orders and destroy the Winchesters as well as an innocent town.
- Colonel Ike Dubaku of Sangala from 24.
- Even more so, his boss, General Benjamin Juma, played by the above-mentioned Tony Todd.
- Onyx Blackman in Strangers With Candy, played by Greg Hollimon. Also a Bald Black Leader Guy. Paul Dinello describes suddenly being nose to nose with Greg after a game where they all had their eyes shut.
- In an episode of Salute Your Shorts, counselor Ug goes looking for his runaway campers at a movie theater. Since he does not plan to see a movie, he senses his presence to be awkward and tries talking friendly to the large black usher/bouncer. The usher remains silent and stone-faced. To be fair, the white woman at the refreshment stand treats Ug just the same, even helping the usher to throw Ug out the door when he crosses the line. But only when the camera's on the usher do we hear a beast growling in the movie.
- Charlie Murphy!
- Gloriously subverted in Sesame Street where the main actor who plays Gordon is African American, but he is never depicted as anything but the ideal father figure. That extended to real life when the actor was hugged by a little girl who was sexually abused and feared all men, but she knew she could trust good old Gordon.
- Some Toku shows in the 70s and 80s such as Warriorof Love Rainbowman and Denji Sentai Denjiman had Scary Black Men as villains. In Rainbowman's case, the first Scary Black Man is drugged and made to fight the titular hero, he speaks perfect Japanese before he is drugged, then when he is drugged, he does nothing but grunt. The drug wears off and he is vaporized much to the horror of Takeshi Yamato/Rainbowman.
- Charlie and Alan in Two And A Half Men encountered one as a bouncer.
Professional Wrestling
- WWECW wrestler Big Daddy V is 500 pounds(!) of half-Scary Black Man, half-The Giant; of course, the one thing (well, two things... possibly three) that's even scarier than his power and his quietness are his gargantuan man-boobs. I tells ya, those things are just creepy... Nelson Frazier, the man behind V, has actually been in the WWE off and on for 16 years, first as the rapper Mabel, then as the aristocrat King Mabel, then the gothic Viscera, and then as the world's largest love machine. However, he has always been a scary black man, as anybody who saw him break The Undertaker's face in 95 can tell you. Though at least, in those incarnations, he had a shirt.
- "The" Brian Kendrick has Ezekiel, a Scary Black Man, as his bodyguard. So far it has been played straight, although he was shown reading The Cat In The Hat for no apparent reason. He has also quoted Sun Tzu, so take that as it stands.
- Amazing/Awesome Kong is a Scary Black Woman.
- Another Scary Black Woman of wrestling is Jazz, who towered over most of the other female wrestlers when she was in the WWE.
- WWE wrestler Mark Henry, a few inches shorter and a 100 lbs lighter than Frazier but 6'1", 380 lbs is still a whole lot of Scary Black Man
Close Professional Wrestling
Table Top Games
- War Hammer 40000 has a Space Marine chapter that's an entire army of Scary Black Man called the Salamanders. Let me count the reasons. They have expertise with fire weapons, also making them an example of Kill It With Fire. All fire based weapons (flamers and meltas) and hammers are master-crafted because they're also trained as black smiths. That means that you're also better off running from their Assault Terminators (who's armor makes them even larger and scarier than a normal Space Marine) who wield Thunder Hammers. In 5th edition, they're now examples of Red Eyes Take Warning as well. These guys are actually one of the nicer chapters around.
- They're not "black" as in "of dark complextion", but "black" as in black. They're specially bred to be resistant to radiation burn, justifiying their color.
- True, but they also count under this trope because they have the nastiest army list in the entire Space Marines codex.
- Inquisitor Mordecai Toth from Dawn of War. A scary black man with a thunder hammer and a pistol. Made more Badass by the fact that he's demon-possessed.
- Don't remember that happening...
Video Games
- Barret, from Final Fantasy VII, who's pretty much Mr. T with
the serial numbers filed off a machine gun arm.
- Back Alley Brawler from City Of Heroes... interestingly enough, he USED to be white, but was Ret Con'd black when the designers realized that their NPC superhero lineup lacked a Token Minority.
- Balrog (M. Bison in Japan) and Birdie from Street Fighter play this straight. Dudley, on the other hand, is a subversion.
- Atlas from God Of War II (That would be Mr. Duncan again). Also Kratos to some degree; while he is white, his voice actor is black.
- And his skin is gray, thus splitting the difference! Everybody wins!
- Craig Marduk from Tekken 4/5 is a white example.
- Kongol from Legend of Dragoon is an example, though he really doesn't have any specific ethnicity.
- Dr John of Gabriel Knight seems to be a subversion at first - he has the build to be a Scary Black Man, but not the personality. Until you discover he's in fact a Psycho For Hire
- Heavy D! and Seth from The King Of Fighters.
- Zasalamel from the most recent Soul Calibur games. The eye of solid gold and Sinister Scythe merely add to it.
- Garcian Smith from Killer 7.
- Joker (no, not that one) in Mega Man Star Force - particularly notable since he seems to be the only character in the series to outright kill someone... albeit temporarily.
- Potemkin from Guilty Gear is black (or at least very, very dark-skinned), enormous, and hugely strong — he sketches in his spare time, but needs special supplies, as he breaks ordinary pencils just by trying to use them, applying several tons of pressure. He's also one of nicest guys in the entire series.
- Kung Fu's "fat black man".
- The Demoman from Team Fortress 2.
- Averted with Value's Zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, in which the only black character is the least assuming of the lot, being a fairly whiny (ex-)office worker, while the others are a complete thug; an old man who is a BadassGrandpa on account of being a War vet, and a female student who has the advantage of being GenreSavvy at least...
- Kold from Tomb Raider: Anniversary. He's an extremely large, extremely strong black man (the chief henchman of the main villain), he speaks in a gravely, threatening voice, and he likes to stab people with his extremely large knife.
- Mr. Sandman from the PunchOut!! series.
Web Comics
- Scipio from Templar Arizona. He's over six feet tall, built, proficient in several martial arts and works as a bodyguard. However, by personality, he's about intimidating as a cup of chowder, making him something of a Gentle Giant.
- I don't know, I've seen some damn scary chowder in my day.
- Bruce Camaro from The Wotch: Cheer! is also not very intimidating, generally coming off as a Black Best Friend-type and a Boisterous Bruiser, but he's also a bodyguard, and has shown off his, um, bodyguarding side.
Web Original
- Michelle Clore's Shadow in KateModern.
- Survival Of The Fittest has a few examples from versions one and three, most notably Marcus Roddy, Darnell Butler, and Bobby Jacks. Marcus Roddy and Darnell Butler are made slightly less scary by the fact that they're Gentle Giants, but Bobby Jacks is a professional boxer who has few qualms about playing the game to win, Marcus is one of the biggest students on the island during version one, and Darnell happens to be his school's most skilled fighter on top of being a star athlete, and strong enough that he is said to have once picked up a 6'11, 300 pound player on an opposing football team and slammed him to the ground.
- There's a web meme that involves photoshopping the face of a black man into a dark area of an image where it's difficult to spot him, and captioning the image with "When you see it you'll shit bricks".
Western Animation
- Roadblock from GI Joe. Also a Jive Turkey.
- Freight from GI Joe Extreme
- Heavy Duty from GI Joe Sigma Six.
- Lothar from Defenders Of The Earth. His teenage son Lothar Jr. might grow up into one of these.
- Mr. T (again) from his self-titled cartoon.
- Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames) from Lilo and Stitch.
- John Henry Irons/Steel from Superman The Animated Series. (Though he was quickly established as a Genius Bruiser, he's no less scary for it.)
- First mate Kale (voiced by Dennis Haysbert, 24's Pres. Palmer) from the Dreamworks' "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas".
- Dr. Joshua Strongbear Sweet from Disney's Atlantis. He's more of a Gentle Giant and Badass Bookworm, as he is the only one who enthusiastically takes to the exotic Atlantian food and utensils.
- As noted above, Commander Vachir from Kung Fu Panda.
- Randy Robertson from The Spectacular Spider-Man mostly subverts the trope; he's huge, but kind and level-headed. When he's being serious, though, he's being serious.
- If Black Steve isn't scary, he's sure as hell insane...
- Mr. Fixx, of Batman Beyond's premiere episode. Voiced, interestingly, by George Takei, who has Japanese ancestry.
Real Life
- Wrath James White not only has the imposing look and a Name To Run Away From Really Fast; he's also both an experienced professional fighter and an author of seriously disturbing horror novels.
- "If you have a weak stomach, a closed mind, rigid morals, and Victorian sexual ethics, then avoid my writing like the plague. Avoid me as well." *Awesome*.
- Idi Amin was mentoned in the Film setion but he was in Real Life, one of the worst men who ever lived. He massacred millions of his countrymen, created death camps, was accused of every crime against man and nature, and was, probably, guilty of most. He was, even, accused of feeding his enemies, alive, to pet crocodiles !
- Accusations of cannibalism, however, probably, result from confusing Amin with his predecessor, Bopha.
- Mobutu Sese Seko, former dictator of Zaire (Now called the Democratic Republic of Congo). One story of his brutality is the execution of revolutionary Pierre Mulele, which was slow and agonizing as he could possibly make it. After he was tortured, Mobutu had his eyes gouged, his testicles ripped off, and him dismembered, limb by limb, all while he was alive. This was a public execution to make an example out of him for anyone attempting a regime change.
- Kimbo Slice.
- Mike Tyson, anyone? Especially considering how he's card-carrying aggressive/unstable.
- When Commodore Perry was sent to Japan to "open it up" for trading, he decided to make an entrance. That is to say, he got the two biggest black sailors on his ship and had them flanking him as he stepped off.
Web Animation
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