ANI-MOVIES, *Vixen: The Movie

Spinning off from the "Arrowverse", this online animated series was edited together into this video release. Taking place in the same universe as Arrow and Flash, this spinoff shows the origin story of a member of the ill-fated Justice League Detroit from back in the early 80s, but in modern day with a heroine discovering her magical heritage.

Starting up with our heroine Mari being chased by both Flash and Arrow, we then flashback to her to her hometown of Detroit after getting bailed out by her foster father, but getting held up by thugs who want her mother's necklace which gives her the magical power to use the abilities of whatever animal she can think of. This leads Mari to discovering that the necklace is really an enchanted totem from Africa that her influential sister wants to use to avenge the destruction of their village. After going back to Mari's first meetup with Arrow and Flash seeing if she's a meta-human(person given superpowers), she then gets kidnapped by her sister Kuasa, taking her to Africa in an attempt to claim the totem for herself. Mari manages to call on the spirits of the animals to defeat Kuasa, Mari returns to Detroit where she's confronted again by Arrow and Flash who give her the name "Vixen" as she uses her newfound powers to protect the people. The story then skips ahead to about a year later where Vixen helps Flash and Firestorm stop Weather Wizard. From this point on, the rest of what is the second season has Vixen locking horns with the user of another totem which gives him firebending powers, and having to call on help from Black Canary(the 2nd one)and The Atom, along with her now-waterbending sister.

The movie collects both seasons of the internet series(12 episodes), which was directed by most of the regular creators of the WB superhero live-action shows, which does come through quite clearly as the flow of the story is more sporadic than a full-length story. It seemed more interested in trying to shoehorn Vixen in the rest of the Arrowverse than actually fleshing out the title character, which so far has lead to having Vixen showing up in a single episode of Arrow that was portrayed by the animated series voice actress Megalyn Echikunwoke that actually fits Vixen in 4-D. The animation is good, although not up to the same standards as the regular DCU animated films. It's worth possibly renting it on its own, or just watching it for free on the CW Seed website.