MISC. MANGA, *Tomorrow Girl

With superhero movies being the biggest thing in theaters over the last decade, Antarctic Press thought it was time to revitalize their pretend legacy character of Tomorrow Girl. Originally featured in the pages of Ninja High School(specifically Version 2), the series itself was one of the first manga-inspired comic books in America, Tomorrow Girl was the prodigy of reocurring Superman parody, Tomorrow Man. She became the love interest of NHSV2 main character Ricky Feeple, a ginger ninja in training years before Naruto was even made, although she had a secret identity of Heidi Yfory where she blended into the other average students at Quagmire High filled with other ninjas, aliens, robots, mad scientists, witches, and sentai heroes. Although this particular storyline starts off in a completely different timeline.

The first issue begins with Tomorrow Girl trying to rescue her friend Professor Steamhead in a dystopian world only to run into the villain Tomorrow Lord under the control of evil entity known as D-Ky. The superpowered duel is cut short with the arrival of the Peeper, a parody on Marvel's The Watcher who is a cosmic being that pulls TG back in time to stop D-Kay's initial conquest of Earth as the wicked spirit takes over the body of what is this universe's version of Mary Marvel from Shazam who here is known as Mary Miracle. Peeper assembles a team of public domain superheroes like the original incarnations of Black Cat, Daredevil, and Blue Beetle, along with Antarctic Press' Blue Beetle homage of Crimson Scorpion and drops them all off in the 1940s where D-Kay is rampaging through Washington DC in Mary Miracle's body. Thanks to Crimson Scorpion's energy stinger, Tomorrow Girl manages to free Mary from D-Kay's control, leading the Peeper to send everyone back to their original realities where our heroine finds the timeline has been slightly altered to a less-dystopian present day.

This series was the result of a Kickstarter project of a large Tomorrow Girl anthology trade paperback with an additional short appearing in the first mainstream issue which is supposed to be released on a bi-monthly basis. Another project reprinted most of the characters' previous appearances in other Antarctic Press titles. The manga-style varies from each story's artist, even though a diverse selection of takes on a single character does provide an interesting experience for otaku.