ANI-MOVIES, *Hellboy: Blood And Iron

The second and so far final outing of Hellboy's animated movies is Blood And Iron. There was a stinger at the end of this movie hinting at a possible third feature highlighting the spinoff character Lobster Johnson, but the only extension into the Hellboy universe included in this was a short available only on the physical release titled The Red Shoes where Hellboy hunts down a small demon. Blood And Iron was animated by Madhouse along with Film Roman and tried to create a darker mood than was used in Sword Of Storms, but the angular character designs and brightened backgrounds rob the movie of any real chance of that. Most of the regular voice actors from the previous film are back including John Hurt reprising his role of Professor Broom, and James Arnold Taylor portraying the younger version of Broom. Oddly enough, there are a few scenes where Taylor is filling in some additional vocals for the modern day Broom's dialogue, possibly due to John Hurt's availability at the time. Other voice actors included Jim Cummings, Grey DeLisle, and Cree Summer. The story folds out in two separate paths, one of the early Prof. Broom's adventure when he was trying to kill the vampire noble Erzsebet prior to his first meeting with Hellboy, except that its flashbacks shown in reverse chronological order, and the rest of the movie is set in modern day.

Hellboy and Abe tackle a clockwork minotaur in the legendary Labyrinth and are later called into help secure the authenticity of a haunted mansion in the Hamptons recently bought by a huge backer of the BPRD. Prof. Broom, Liz Sherman, and newbie Sydney go along to investigate whether this house really has any ghosts. The rich guy in question is a dead ringer for Xanatos from Gargoyles, and wants to turn the mansion into a tourist attraction by bringing a ton of artifacts from the home of the dead vampire Erzsebet who worshipped the Greek goddess Hecate. Part of Hecate's essence was sealed up in an old iron maiden which two witch harpy sisters are literally raising spirits to bring back to life. Hellboy and crew have to deal with pesky non-confrontational ghosts, a werewolf, a den of giant snakes, and the resurrected Erzsebet herself who Broom does away with via holy water. Hellboy himself gets into a slugfest with the awakened spirit of Hecate now in a giant iron body who was defeated after being exposed to sunlight.

Hellboy: Blood And Iron was partially based on the Wake The Devil storyline by creator Mike Mignola, but clearly went in its own direction. The movie does have shades of old Hammer Horrors but curbed even for modern day viewers. For a Hellboy adventure, the title character is a secondary character in his own movie and used only for when he's fighting goliaths. It's not set in the same continuity as any of the live-action movies as Prof. Broom is still alive in it, although possibly a prequel to the Guillermo del Toro duology. This movie catches the look and feel of your average Hellboy comic book, but you would be better off with Sword Of Storms if you want a more epic action fantasy.

Justice League Action: You Missed Out On A Great Show

After Cartoon Network dropped DC Nation, they were relying solely on Teen Titans Go as the only intake on their lineup of parent company Warner Bros’ comics publisher. The Arrowverse was in full swing, so a show that would bring children's attention to the Justice League was overdue. Young Justice didn’t count since they were a team operating under the League, so a cartoon that would motivate kids into buying a new brand of action figures was the answer. Unlike Young Justice, they produced some toys from Mattel to go along with this second Justice League animated series titled Justice League Action. This merchandise included some toys at Burger King that they had in their King Jr. Meals that were in rotation for years after JLA was cancelled. The regular action figures didn’t sell as big as your regular Turtles or Transformers at the time.

Justice League Action only lasted for 52 episodes until its cancellation, each one only took up 15 minutes of screentime that got a single weekly airing on early Saturday mornings. It's easy to see that Cartoon Network could have planned for this to air with two episodes back-to-back for a single half-hour, but for some reason they kept it to a scant single episode once a week. Despite all the talent they poured into it, Cartoon Network seemed to have a secret agenda with sabotaging their own production.

Warner Bros. Animation oversaw the show’s production with Sam Register as executive producer who was smart enough to give Lauren Faust’s DC Super Hero Girls a TV series. Producers included Alan Burnett who was involved in nearly every DC animated gig since the original Super Friends, plus longtime collaborator of Paul Dini. Speaking of which, Paul Dini from Batman: The Animated Series played a major part in this and leant a few of his original characters to the cast including Brother Night.

The major thing that JLA had going for it was the voice talent. Once again, Kevin Conroy is Batman and Mark Hamill is Joker, as well as Swamp Thing, Trickster, and Mark Hamill. Another holdover from the DCAU is Gilbert Gottfried returning as Mister Mxyzptlk, Khary Paton as Cyborg, Josh Keaton as Green Lantern, and Tara Strong as Harley Quinn. Former Batman, Diedrich Bader is now doing Booster Gold. Future Batman, Troy Baker is cast as Hawkman. Various former Star Trek alumni make appearances such as Michael Dorn as Atrocitus, John de Lancie as Brainiac, Robert Picardo as Two-Face, Armin Shimerman as Zox, and Brent Spiner as Riddler. Several comedians also played roles like Hannibal Buress as Mr. Terrific, Ken Jeong as Toyman, Thomas Lennon as Amazo, Jon Lovitz as Sid Sharp, Patton Oswalt as Space Cabbie, and Andy Richter as Chronos. A few serious legendary actors dropped in too like Carl Reiner as Wizard, John Astin as Uncle Marvel, Sean Astin as Shazam, Jon Cryer as Felix Faust, Cloris Leachman as Granny Goodness, Jerry O'Connell as Atom, Christian Slater as Deadshot, Gary Cole as Black Adam, Jessica Walter as Athena, and James Woods as Luthor. Some anime voice actors had parts in limited roles like Crispin Freeman, Max Mittelman, Patrick Seitz, and Travis Willingham. Other regular voice actors included P.J. Byrne, Darin De Paul, John Di Maggio, Grey Griffin, William Salyers, Dana Snyder, and Fred Tatasciore. It should be noted that voice actress Rachel Kimsey makes for a fine Wonder Woman, and Jason J. Lewis is amazing as not only Superman, but also as Zod, Krypto, Streaky, DeSaad, Dex-Starr, and Red Tornado.

Each TV episode was self-contained with only a reoccurring storyline running through the first 4 episodes. This is how it ran from Dec. 2016-Jun. 2018. At least 80% of every episode had Batman featured in it, so if you’re a heavy Kevin Conroy fan, you were getting your money’s worth. The series started out with the Justice League already operating out the Hall of Justice but moved it to the new Watchtower located on a freshly made dormant volcano in a bay near Metropolis. Aside from their previous ranks, they also added newbies like Stargirl, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle. A few Justice League Dark members were also signed on including Zatanna, Constantine, and a much more relaxed Swamp Thing. Some heroes only appeared in a few episodes, for example Martian Manhunter or Hawkman, while obscure DC characters such as Space Cabbie were frequent. Leaguers such as Dr. Light and Red Tornado were barely a blip on the radar. Other heroes like Aquaman, Guy Gardner and Robin only get a brief mention.

A good number of the JLA adventures featured part of, or all DC’s Big 3, but usually accompanied by other well-known good guys getting some spotlight like Atom, Green Arrow and Mr. Terrific. Firestorm particularly had a large portion of spotlight shined on him, specifically his two personas of Ronald and Prof. Stein. Stargirl must deal with being the newest rookie on the team and living up to Batman’s expectations. Supergirl also appears but near the end of the series, and she somehow managed to skate through any kind of orientation simply because she is Superman’s cousin. Constantine has taken a page from the Fox One Piece dub and replaced his smoking habit with lollipops. Swamp Thing is also way more laid back and not droning on about how The Green is suffering. Cain from The House Of Mystery narrates an episode where the Justice League Dark spend their Halloween magically turned into kids. Booster Gold takes up a good chunk of the series as the cause and/or solution to many of the League’s troubles. Shazam gets some exposure at the beginning of the series with only getting one episode to himself that sincerely takes the real-life father/son team of John and Sean Astin playing Uncle Dudley and Billy Batson. Hal Jordan is the only Green Lantern to ever see the light of day in this series, although there is the brief appearance of a legendary leftover from Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Mister Miracle here is more of an overdramatic celebrity wannabe. The goddess Athena also shows up to give Batman a hard time. Plastic Man is the real comedic gem here with Master Shake voice actor Dana Snyder scoring it, although Tom Kenny is still the best Plas. Original character Sid Sharp is humorously voiced by Jon Lovitz in his animation premiere as Clark Kent’s rival reporter who gets kidnapped by Darkseid.

A good portion of the villains that showed up were Batman or Superman enemies. Joker is back to being a fun-loving prankster, Riddler is reformed, Penguin is more of a gangster, Harley oddly never has Mr. J with him, Poison Ivy forgets her ecological crusade to be another bad guy, Zod is still into having people kneel before him, Deadshot is literally “shoot first and ask Christian Slater”, Toyman is obsessive with his action figure collecting, Brainiac is more anal retentive, and Luthor has refreshingly returned to being the greatest criminal mind of our time. Darkseid and his forces routinely appeared to show how much of a threat they truly were. The writers tried to make the lame criminal organization of HIVE a reoccurring menace to no avail. The Red Lanterns also dropped in but were usually upstaged by the awesomeness that is Dex-Starr who managed to hold off both Krypto and Streaky at the same time. Mxyzptlk guest-stars too, including one where he switches the Leaguers personalities around. Stock villains like Felix Faust, Chronos, Amazo, Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Grodd, Mr. Mind, Clarion, and Calculator managed to have an entire episode dedicated to each of them being the big bad. Roxy Rocket shows up once now running her own intergalactic passenger transport service. Some villains who’ve never been featured in the comics at all got their premiere here, specifically Calythos and Uthool that were only mentioned in the comics as two of the items The Demons Three were sealed up in. Brother Dark is more of a power broker of dark magic instead of the demonic cultist from the source material. Lobo is his gruff bounty hunter self, even though here he’s a chaos factor instead of his normal anti-hero status. The only supervillain group we see in the whole show are The Nuclear Family, a family of robots who turn a nuclear power plant into a sitcom. There are some random crossovers like Luthor teaming up with Chronos, or Mr. Freeze tricking Killer Frost into being the energy source for his latest caper, but weirdest of all is when Joker is abducted by Mongul to makes his subjects laugh. The better villain pairing is when Joker steals a Mother Box and busts Luthor out of jail with and teleports all over the world for vacation with the League failing to catch them. The only original addition to DC’s rogue's gallery is Red Velvet, a ticked off time traveler that Booster Gold left at the altar who manages to destroy the Watchtower with her future tech.

Aside from the regular TV show, Justice League Action also had a series of 2-3-minute-long shorts that premiered on YouTube and were also made available on streaming. 22 episodes aired halfway through the TV series and were more like quick comedic vignettes with an emphasis on laughs. One is an entire take on Looney Tunes where Lobo is chasing Flash around like Road Runner. Viewers get to see the League in their downtime where Firestorm and Stargirl share a quick romantic moment, or the team go bowling after busting another super villain team up. The short where Plastic Man poses as Superman to throw Lois Lane off Clark Kent’s secret identity. There’s a nice bit where Wonder Woman and Supergirl have some girl bonding on Themyscira. Plastic Man and Booster Gold manage to steal most of the laughs in these tales, but funniest of all is where Batman is playing good cop and Superman is playing bad cop much to Deadshot’s shocking confusion. One of mention is where Firestorm’s constant changing of different kinds of Kryptonite keep shifting Superman in multiple ways, including turning into a woman. Arguably the best one is where Joker and Trickster unite to kidnap Mark Hammil and the actor gets them to work against each other while being rescued by Swamp Thing, all of which were of course voiced by Hammil himself.

Justice League Action had a terrific blend of action and comedy with incredible animation, even though it would seem slightly choppy at times. Cartoon Network should have had more faith in their product instead of limiting it to once a week on early Saturday mornings. It also didn’t help that they did little to no advertising for it. Since streaming wasn’t as prominent at the time when it came to shows currently running on TV, the show didn’t get as much attention as it should. Unless you had a DVR, you probably didn’t get a chance to watch the show as it was airing. It is currently standard on streaming services, plus available as a pair of 2-disc DVD sets, although currently no Blu-Ray release. At least the Justice League finally got their own battle cry, even if they only used it once during the whole series.

ANI-MOVIES, *Space Warrior Baldios

Movie compilations of an anime series are a seriously hard coin flip. Sometimes they can add to the existing story like Macross Plus: The Movie, while other times it's just one big theatrical clip show like Evangelion: Death. Space Warrior Baldos was a single-season giant robot show from 1980 that was cancelled before the last three episodes aired. In 1981, a movie recounting the series was released with a totally different ending which was picked up by an American distributor who added a dub to it, but with a few minutes cut from the final release, possibly for content. Baldios was one of those gritty anime shows of the 70s-80s where they weren't afraid to show entire masses of people being killed either in a spray of bullets, getting stepped on by a giant, or being absolutely done away with from a natural disaster, whereas in the American dub of it would show the victims escaping due to some convenient parachutes. The English release of the Baldios movie does keep most of this material in, although you can tell that there is some they left out. For a show about a huge space mecha, the titular robot doesn't play a big part in the story and is more focused on the feuding characters. There are even some parts during the few scenes with the robot where the pilots are speaking but there is no dialogue for it, which worked out okay for something like Power Ranger because you can't see their lips flapping, but this was just unprofessional considering most of the rest of the dub in the movie is acceptable for the time.

Starting out on a planet called S-1, the inhabitants are growing restless because the world's resources are running dry. The renegade General Gattler leads a revolt against the government and takes a portion of the population into a giant space ark to find a new planet to colonize. One S-1 citizen that escaped this was Marin, the son of a scientist whose Gattler's forces killed during their coup. Marin enters a space warp and ends up on Earth in the year 2100. The other S-1 remnants set their sights on conquering Earth as their promised land and have launched several attacks on the more heavily populated cities. Marin has been drafted into Earth's special Blue Strike Force that are using a giant robot comprised of fighter ships that merge into the colossal Baldios. For a brief montage, we see the Baldios wrecking the S-1's attempts to take over the world. From this point on, the movie becomes a stretched-out space opera with stereotypical drama cliches like Earth politicians not trusting Marin's loyalty, bickering officers in the S-1 ranks, and romantic subplots that go nowhere. The S-1 forces eventually melt the polar ice caps flooding most of the Earth and killing of billions, and then later use nuclear warheads they stole to cause a radioactive fallout. It is later discovered that the planet S-1 was in fact Earth itself from hundreds of years in the future and that all the S-1's attempts to conquer the Earth of the past lead to the planet's near extinction that they originally came from. Gattler doesn't care about this anyway as he plans to take over his old home world anyway. Marin takes the Baldios in to wreck the S-1 space arc reactor leading to a final conclusion between Marin and Gattler with a confused love interest caught in the middle.

Space Warrior Baldios is a decent enough 80s mecha anime, despite the large lack of actual mechas in it, or at least in the movie compilation version. As the whole feature is going over highlights of the plot, a bunch of the story gets left out with characters showing up for a single scene and then are never seen again. If you want the complete narrative, you are better off watching the TV series and then popping in the movie version during the last act. Discotek Media has both the series and movie available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as both being on Crunchyroll. Only the movie is dubbed, but you can watch the uncut Japanese language edition with the full intended runtime.

Weird Fact: Adam West played a mayor on both Family Guy and the 2004 Batman cartoon!

ANI-MOVIES, *Hellboy: Sword Of Storms

Two years after making his cinematic debut, Mike Mignola's big red monster hunter had a short-lived franchise of animated films, the first of which was Hellboy: Sword Of Storms. This was animated mostly by the famous production company Madhouse who have been involved in several anime titles. Milestone writer Matt Wayne handled the adaptation of a Hellboy short story along with Tad Stones. This direct-to-video feature got a little traction from some screenings on Cartoon Network, but the timing of Anchor Bay Entertainment's release was just in the middle of DC and Marvel's opening shots in their war of original animated movies that they were also coming out with at the same time.

After a mission to a Mayan temple filled with mummies and a giant bat, Hellboy along with Abe Sapian and firestarter Liz Sherman head back to BPRD headquarters only for Hellboy to get called into his next investigation. A Japanese professor named Sakai gets possessed by the demon brothers of Thunder and Lightning, which most mythology junkies would know as Raijin and Fujin. Hellboy visits the home of a sword collector that Sakai attacked and is sent to another dimension when he finds the titular Sword of Storms. In this otherworldly realm, our hero is accosted with a never-ending barrage of yokai monsters sent by the possessed Sakai who want to break the sword to free Thunder and Lightning. The sheer number of monsters from Japanese folklore is staggering which Hellboy has to confront, including a kappa, a giant skeleton, an arachne, rubber-neck women, disembodied heads, and an army of zombies. Liz and Abe meanwhile are separated from Hellboy as they confront a kaiju-sized dragon in the Japanese sea who wants to join forces with Thunder and Lightning, all of which is being manipulated by the spirit of an old woman posing as a kitsune fox spirit. It all boils down to a final battle between Hellboy and the demon brothers in Japan.

The "animated" styled of Hellboy is different from what you see in comics and the live-action movie where Hellboy's legs seem much shorter, and his tail is much more noticeable. Most of the rest of the characters stick to their original models, even though the big draw is the voice cast they had for these productions. Ron Pearlman is back as Hellboy, Selma Blair is Liz, but the live-action actor for Abe, Doug Jones, takes up the speaking role of the gill-man for the first time after being voiced by David Hyde Pierce in the original movie. Peri Gilpin also appears as Kate Corrigan from the Hellboy comics who never showed up in the live-action movies and was more of Hellboy's love interest. The animation is above TV standards, but not so much up to theatrical level. The best bits involve Hellboy's journey through the Japanese spirit world where great detail was given to highlighting mythological creatures from eastern folklore, more than even some supernatural anime had done at the time. Most of the material of the movie involving the other BPRD members is pretty forgettable, even when Liz and Abe are fighting a giant dragon. Sword Of Storms isn't the best made-for-video animated superhero feature of the time, but it is worth checking out if you happen to be getting both Hellboy Animated movies.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico

Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka came up with his emblematic manga of Unico in 1976. It has a happy unicorn on a constant quest for peace encountering different fantasy characters in each installment. The one-horned horse seems more like a cross between Astro Boy and Tezuka's other creation Kimba The White Lion than an actual equine. Aside from a pilot film done in 1979, there never was an anime adaptation of the manga until 1981 that was founded by Tezuka Productions and Sanrio with the animation being handled by Madhouse Studios spearheaded by Yoshiaki Kawajiri who later went on to more violent productions like Ninja Scroll and Wicked City. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico was the first of a duology and adapts two of the manga chapters into a single story. The main difference between the anime and manga is that the original source material had the goddess Venus being the main antagonist.

An unnamed unicorn gives birth to a bunch of babies, one of which conveniently called Unico. This newborn causes so much happiness for mortals that the gods themselves become jealous of him and task the living entity of the West Wind to carry him away to somewhere called The Hill Of Oblivion which the viewer can only guess is the edge of the world. West Wind feels sorry for Unico, so she drops him off the Island of Solitude where the young unicorn befriends the young devil who lives there named Beezle. Their friendship brings the attention of the gods as they realize the island isn't so lonely anymore, and they dispatch the Night Wind to recapture Unico and take him to The Hill Of Oblivion. West Wind shows up and flies off with Unico again to a hidden forest where he befriends a cat named Katy who wants to find a witch and be turned into a human girl. The two of them find an old lady living alone in the woods which Katy believes is a witch and the cat starts warming up to. Unico uses his empathic magic to transform Katy into a girl who decides to move in with the old woman and help her clean up. This all seems fine, but a dark stranger shows up and tempts the now human Katy to his castle where he plans to feed off her. Unico shows up and frees Katy as the demon turns into an eldritch horror straight out of the end of Fantasia. This leads to an epic JRPG fight where Unico digivolves into his final form as a winged adult unicorn and pierces the colossal nightmare right through the heart bringing life back to the forest. West Wind returns to take Unico away to his next adventure in the sequel leaving the friends he made along his journey behind.

The story continues a year later in the concluding film of Unico In The Island Of Magic, the title of which is confusing enough. This first film was a good outing for Tezuka's little bundle of joy with the first half seeming like an amusing family picture, but once the evil demon shows up in the final act it changes into an extravagant battle with amazing visuals and some seriously dark imagery including the bad guy actually getting impaled. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico is a great feature for kids in its initial portions, but parent might want to supervise the conclusion as it could traumatize them for life.

MISC. MANGA, *Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant

After making her return in the Castlevania-esque video game Wonder Labyrinth, everyone favorite anime elf Deedlit comes back in the latest in the Lodoss series, Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant. Ryo Mizuno wrote a new light novel in 2019 taking place in the Lodoss universe over a century after the previous installment, making it the first one actually set in the genuine Lodoss timeline in a few decades, even though Mizuno has only written a single volume so far of this sequel. The manga adaptation is 3-volumes long written and drawn by Atsushi Suzumi which covers the entire light novel, meaning we won't get further chapters of the manga until Mizuno finally gets around to doing it despite the fact he had been plotting this for a whole decade. Lodoss fans are probably now feeling what Game Of Thrones fans having to frustrate with. Udon Entertainment has released the entire manga so far but beware that their lettering can get condensed in many of the narration boxes making it difficult to read in print.

A hundred years of prosperity have come to the cursed island of Lodoss with all six of its kingdoms conceding to a pact called the Covenant thought up by the wizard Slayn binding the six kings to peace treaty which was supposed to last a millennium. The once monster-infested smaller island of Marmo was settled by the previous heroes Spark and Neese as they became that nation's king and queen. Marmo currently has a royal family made of four brothers, the oldest of which left to become a priest. Word gets out that Diaz, the new king of the desert land of Flaim, has taken up his family's old crown and plans on separating Flaim from the Covenant. The three remaining princes of Marmo decide to take the initiative and secure their kingdom's future by planning a conspiracy where the second in line Alucia assumes the throne while the younger brother Zayd takes their brave sister Bino pretend to be outcasts and ally themselves with Diaz. The fourth prince Lyle embarks on his own quest with his thief friend Nola and former wetnurse-turned sorceress Helide go to search for the missing high elf Deedlit. Lyle gets some help from former Lodoss hero Leaf who is still alive because she's a half-elf and gives them griffins to speed them on their way. Lyle spends a few weeks in the Forest Of No Return where time moves differently than on the outside because its where Deedlit is supposed to be, and he eventually finds her after passing her personal test. Deedlit refuses to help as she doesn't want to tarnish the legend of the Knight of Lodoss that her mortal lover Parn left behind. Lyle then resolves to become the new Knight of Lodoss if Deedlit agrees to back him up. After returning to Marmo with his new title, Lyle plans to lead his new party to rescue the king of Kanon whose nobles have overthrown and taken prisoner while allying with Flaim. The saga continues from here with the Marmo princes' plot growing to fruition, even though Lyle is the main focus of the story.

The Crown Of The Covenant does suffer from what The Phantom Menace did as it focuses more on politics than being a genuine epic quest, like if the scene from Lord Of The Rings where the Fellowship was formed took up half of the first movie. Since Lodoss is largely based on Ryo Mizuno's old Dungeons And Dragons gaming campaigns, you would expect there to be a greater emphasis on high fantasy instead of royal protocol. Atushi Suzumi does a great job with his adaptation, meaning that the flaws are mainly Mizuno's fault. As there is currently no continuation until the next light novel comes out, Lodoss fans will be hungering for more.