ANI-MOVIES, *Spriggan

Based on the manga of the same name that ran from 1989-1996(known as Striker in the U.S.), the series gained enough success to garner an anime movie adapataion in 1999. The movie was produced by none other than Akira creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, which helped push its success out in America. It was a major release for ADV FIlms back in their hayday.

The story is about a special orginization known as Arkham(or “ARCAM”)which seeks out ancient artifacts that could threaten humanity. They have special agents called Spriggans who hunt down these artifacts. One of their best agents is Yu Ominae. He heads out to stop the ones who have been killing off his friends and other Arkham members. Turns out its the U.S. military, who are trying to prevent Arkham from claiming the actual Noah’s Ark, which has been found in the mountains of Turkey. The Americans send in their “U.S. Machine Corps” to stop Ominae, although he first gets some resistance from the local government, and a few of your standard backstabbing turncoats. He then has to take on two killer cyborgs, one of which is a giant dude with a minigun arm that was Ominae’s old commanding officer. Ominae gets some help from a French Spriggan, and then has to free the Ark from the young psychic cyborg, Colonel McDougal. McDougal is under the delusion that God himself lead him to the Ark. The Ark itself is actually an alien spaceship which apparently created all life on Earth. McDougal activates it, and plans to use it too wipe out humanity, and begin a new world. Ominae uses his pumped-up cybersuit to ultimately stop McDougal, although their fight seems like something more out of the last level of an old Mega Mangame. The Ark implodes, and the threat is neutralized.

The movie makes for one badass action flick. The only thing is that it seems too come a little short as far as the actual story, while in some parts its padded out too many long shots of scenery, even if the attention to detail is exquisite, plus some of the flashback sequences come in at the most inappropriate times. The main drawback is all the speeches and overdone exposition. However, the action scenes make up for it big time. This is mostly due to the excellent direction by Hirotsugu Kawasaki, whose other works include Memories and the Naruto movies. Sprigganmakes for a great summer blockbuster movie, so make sure you check it out before school starts.

The first known case of tentacle rape

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 5: Page 1

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Aimi Tokutake.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Cosplay Complex

This 3-episode OVA series was one of several titles which came out at the time that catered to a specific branch of anime fandom. Just like Comic Party was about doujinshi artists, Cosplay Complex deals with the obsession some otaku have with cosplay, both in wearing costumes and the fans view of it.

As in most anime, in what seems like a mundane average event like a costume contest and hypes it up to "are you freakin' kidding me" levels. Here, a Japanese high school has a special cosplay club which frequently takes part in competitions, which apparently are supposed to lead up to something called the Cosplay World Series. The ditsy Chako is trying her best to be the group's best cosplayer, but her klutziness gets in the way all the time. Fortunately, she gets help from a small bunnygirl fairy(yes)who came to our dimension with a strange owl creature, and she uses magic to help Chako fit into costumes better. You'd think this would count as cheating as the other cosplayers she goes up against aren't using some genie or fairy godmother to help them win a masquerade contest. Chako first has to compete against the Italian exchange student Jenny who has an anti-Lolita complex. The club then goes for a retreat at a shrine near the beach to hone their cosplay skills, where Chako falls for the photographer in her school. The final part is yet another cosplay contest where our heroines clash with a club from a rival school, who its revealed in a post-credits scene has their own bunnygirl fairy. There's this big subplot involving the sexy widow who Chako lives with who is supposed to be connected to rival school's cosplay club, but that also seems to be left ambiguous at the end.

This is a fairly enjoyable anime, although its mainly done for fan service. The really weird part is that this actually ties into the same universes as both G-On Riders and Hand Maid May(and subsequently Hand Maid Mai), as all three of these were directed by Shinichiro Kimura. It's worth checking out if you're a huge cosplay fanatic, or just looking for some blatant ecchi.

ANI-MOVIES, *Surf's Up

I caught this on Cartoon Network a while back, and was pleasantly suprised. It was marked when it first came out as yet another “penguin movie”, although it kinda made fun of the fact that there was already about 2 or 3 other movies with nature’s most perfect waterfowls in it. Hell, it was a step up from Pebble & The Penguin! This was created by Sony Pictures Animation who later did Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, and you can see how their direction improved from this movie.

The movie is done like a documentary for an unknown network for animals(kinda like Animalympics)that is covering a surfing contest named after the dead surfing penguin, Big Z. Cody Maverick is a short but determined surfer from Antarctica who is major fan of Big Z, and makes his way into the contest, which takes place on the tropical island of Pen Gu. He makes friends with fellow surfer, a chicken from Wisconsin named Joe, plus the cute penguin lifeguard Lani. Cody’s main competition is Tank, the champion of the last few years, and the one who defeated Z in his final surf. Cody ends up loosing in a challenge to Tank, and Lani takes him to a hermit, who Cody figures out is really Z. He faked his own death in his last match because he felt threatened by Tank, and was tired of all the fame that came with being a big surfer. Z tries to get Cody to get his confidence back by helping him to make a new board. With a little cohersion from Lani, Cody gets his groove back, and re-enters the contest. He, Tank, and Joe are the finalists, but Cody sacrifices his chance to win by stopping Tank from knocking out Joe, so Joe ends up winning. Z has to save Cody from some reefs, in so revealing himself to the masses. However, Z convinces the other surfers to do surfing just for fun, so Cody and the other have a big party at the end of the movie.

I’d say that this was an enjoyable send up of surfer movies, without it pulling in alot of tropes and stereotypes. The voice acting was a seller too, with Shia LaBeouf almost paroding himself as Cody, Jon Heder(Napoleon Dynamite)is great at the clueless Joe, and Jeff Bridges(“The Dude”)is awesome as Z. The animation is pretty impressive too, matching the positive surfing scenes with the funny animal motifs. Surf’s Up is a decent movie for animation fans, and worth showing the kids for a good time.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 20

Story by Jer Alford. Art by E. Aedo.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Plastic Little

Satoshi Urushima is best known for his work on such anime productions as Record Of Lodoss War and Bubblegum Crisis, or his designs for the Langrisser and Growlanser video games. However, a few of his own creations like Legend Of Lemnear have been adapted into anime as well. One is the oddly-titled Plastic Little, a one-shot OVA that was not originally a manga but the basis for its own action/sci-fi anime.

Set on a colonized alien world in the future, Tita is the spunky teenage captain of an airship/submarine called the Cha-Cha Maru whose crew seeks out exotic creatures. This trade is referred to as "petshop hunters", although it makes you think that they track down strip malls. Tita saves Elysse, the daughter of a brilliant scientist while she is on the run from the corrupt military. The highly-helmeted commander, Lord Guizel, plans to use Elysse's knowledge of a gyro system which sustains their nation's capitol in the air so he can take over the government. Tita takes Elysse back to the Cha-Cha Maru where she introduces her to the rest of her crew(who have some of the most stereotypical European accents ever!). Guizel eventually works out how to operate the gyro system, and its up to Tita to storm the complex and stop him. After making short work of the stormtroopers, Tita copies the ending to Return Of The Jedi by sending Guizel down an energy shaft. She then pulls out a Capt. Kirk-like deus-ex machina by exploding a typhoon to take out the rest of the evil fleet. Elysse leaves to help repair the damage caused by Guizel, which pretty much caused the entire city to be destroyed.

The OVA makes for a good story, although there was some pretty blatant boob-shots thrown into it, so much so that for its DVD release, ADV Films implemented their patented "jiggle-counter" with it. It features some impressive animation and character designs, plus the ending undersea battle is a real eyegasm. A short-lived manga series by Urushima acted as a sequal to the OVA, and released in America through CPM Manga. This is one of those anime titles that was a standard to own in the 90s, and I'd mainly recommend it to anyone from the era of gratuitous fan service!

Top 10 Great Things About Avatar: The Last Airbender

Since The Last Airbender movie sucked unbelievable amounts of @$$, I thought it was worth reaffirming what was so awesome about the actual TV series so that one crappy film wouldn't tarnish its street cred. So, here's my top 10 reasons why the ATLA series totally rocked!

10. The hero is a bald kid!

With every anime hero having an insanely complex mane of hair, its refreshing for once for the main protagonist to be bald, even it is because he shaves it off.

9. The Ember Island Players

Probably the single greatest recap episode ever is done by a theatre group that retell the entire story of the Avatar and his friends up until the final story arc. The exaggerated portrayals of the characters are hysterical, and the fact that Aang is played by a female midget is so keeping with all those cheesy Peter Pan plays your parents used to drag you to as a kid.

8. Wuzzles

In ATLA, nearly every animal is half of one animal and half another one. Appa is half-bison and half the Catbus from Totoro, while Momo is part-lemur/part-bat. The blending of two animals is very creative, although the appearance of a "just bear" completely baffles our heroes.

7. Fan love

The love from the fans on this show is STRONG, more than most "cartoons" have. The ATLA otaku are seriously into this series, but treat at with a real appreciation, and not just some passing fad. It has gained followers from both fans of anime and of general animation.

6. Detail on martial arts

Where as most action animated shows just have the characters learning basic martial arts or just leaping around and giving karate chops, ATLA actually went a few miles further with studying and getting assistance from genuine ancient Chinese fighting styles. Shaolin, Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Hung Gar, and Praying Mantis style were incorporated to show the different types of "bending".

5. Toph

Toph is one of single most interesting characters to show up in a TV show, animated or otherwise. Appearing as a secondary character halfway through Season 2, she takes center stage as Aang's Earthbender sensei. During the rest of the series, Toph grows, and shows she's practically one of the strongest ones in the cast, both in power and in spirit. Despite her handicap, she has a great sense of humor, and fills out the role of the token "tsundere girl".

4. Not just another "anime ripoff"

During a time when alot of anime-styled or anime influenced series were coming out like Totally Spies, American Dragon, and Puffy AmiYumi, ATLA stands alone as an original concept involving an epic quest, grand adventure, and breaking alot of anime tropes. Even though there's some fights during the last season that seem that might be out of Dragonball Z, the series stays the course with being its own genuine story.

3. Mako

ANYTHING with Mako is solid gold! This Academy Award nominee made Samurai Jack an even better experience as the villain Aku, but as the sympathetic Uncle Iroh was one of the best mentor characters since Yoda. RIP, Splinter!

2. It's all about LOVE!

Now, it might not seem like its a new thing in an American animated series, but ATLA sheds a serious light on the characters' relationships. This isn't your regular cartoon infatuation where some guy falls totally in love with some girl and spends the entire series trying to win her affections, but where the characters develop their feelings over the course of three seasons. There's some "head-over-heels" stereotypes, like Ty Lee's small obsession with Sokka, although some romances seem to spark a little to early, like Sokka and Suki. But mostly, they're handled very believably.

1. No damn fillers!

The series runs a perfect 3 seasons, with no pointless filler story arcs. Something that shows like Bleach and Naruto could learn from.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 19

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

ANI-MOVIES, *Futurama: Bender's Big Score

After four solid seasons of sci-fi sitcom gold, “We’re back, Baby!”, Futurama returned with the first of four made-for-video movies(or OVAs)which on its own made for the beginning of the unofficial Season 5 of the series. This was also a major payoff for hardcore fans of the series.

Set about two years where Season 4 ended, Hermes gets his head cut off, and then put in a jar like most of the other long-dead celebrities. At the hospital, Leela meets the heads’ attendee, Lars, who starts dating her. After the Planet Express crew accidently give all their personal info to some alien Scammers, they take over the company. Its later shown that Fry has a tattoo of Bender on his butt that contains a code which opens a time travel portal that can take anyone to anytime in the past. The Scammers get control over Bender from a virus, and use him to go back in time to steal treasures from Earth’s history, and then waiting out in an underground cave until the future/present. Fry gets sad with being rejected by Leela, so he uses the code to go back in time to 2000 just after he was frozen. The Scammers send Bender back to kill him to make sure the code can’t be used against them, and several other time-duplicates are made of Bender and Fry in the process. Bender eventually believes he kills Fry, and then becomes free of the Scammers control in the future. The Scammers then swindle everyone on Earth, and they all have to move to Pluto. The outcast Earthlings team up with Robot Santa and his holiday army to launch an assault on the Scammers gold-plated Death Stars to take back Earth. Bender’s old switcheroo of one of the Professor’s doomsday devices defeats the Scammers, although their leader Nudar survived. He is later killed by Lars, who sacrifices himself with an exploding Bender duplicate. It’s revealed that Lars was really Fry from the past who spent several years in the 2000s before finding out that he Lars from when Bender attacked him, and froze himself to wake up two years before fry was first let out. Bender then lets out all the other duplicate Benders from the cave, which causes a tear in time and space. This leads directly into the sequal,The Beast Of A Billion Backs.

This was a really good movie. It played on alot of small things from the original series, and blended it together wonderfully in a single story. Granted, the first musical number is kinda bad, although the “Holy Trinity” one with Mark Hamill as Chanukah Zombie was great. I really enjoyed this release, and the full episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad included with the DVD/Blu-Ray is hysterical. Granted, if you’re not a fan of Futurama and haven’t seen anything of the series prior to this, then you’ll really be lost. Although, that alone should be an incentive to go out there and get the last four seasons.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 18

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm

The very first original animated movie of our favorite caped crusader was this spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series. The story reveals several “secret origins”, plus goes a step further than the TV series did with its dark subject matter.

Several old mafia bosses keep getting bumped off by a unknown vigilante(never actually called the Phantasm in the movie), but just because he wears a dark oufit and a cape the cops think that Batman is the one doing the killings. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne’s old flame, Andrea Beamont, comes to town. Batman thinks there’s some kind of connection between her return and the murders. He deduces that all the gangsters were part of an old gang run by the dying mob boss, Valestra. It turns out that the Joker was his hitman, and goes to him to stop Batman who he thinks is the killer. Joker betrays him, and uses him as bait to flush out the killer, and learns that its the Phantasm. Batman then nearly gets caught by the police, but rescued by Andrea who had already known his identity. The masked killer then tracks down the Joker, who figures out that the Phantasm is really Andrea. They fight for a bit, before Joker nearly kills her with a giant fan. Batman shows up to save her, and chases after Joker who almost escapes with a jetpack. But, Andrea makes off with the Joker as his entire hideout blows up. Batman remains unaware of Andrea’s fate, although we see her later moping on a cruiser, and obviously Joker survived too.

This movie is probably one of the best stories used in a superhero film ever done, and up until Batman Begins it was definately one of the best Batman movies. Their use of the Joker wasn’t just done for fan service, but actually served the story in the end, although it would’ve been interesting to see Robin in this too. You’d think if his mentor was wanted by the police that he’d look into it. There could’ve also been a little more interaction between Batman and the Phantasm aside from a brief fight they had that only lasted a few seconds. Aside from this though, the film opens up some major windows into Bruce Wayne’s past, and the hard decisions he had to make between leading a normal life or becoming Batman. Most of the other episodes in the animated series didn’t go this deep into Batman’s character, or his motivation for being a crimefighter. Once again, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are great as Batman and Joker, plus Dana Delany is fine as Andrea, which helpled her nab the role of Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. You simply must check out this awesome superhero epic.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 17

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

ANI-MOVIES, *Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin

Hoping to capitalize on the success of the original Star Wars trilogy, this foreign movie was put together as one of the first ever animated films to blend computer & standard animation. It was also one of the very first animated 3-D movies.

Set in the far off future, a society of humans is subjegated by an underground cult who use them as slaves for mining. The youthful Orin finds a sword one day while mining, and a vision appears from it of an old man claiming that there is a world beyond there own, and once the blade of the sword is found, then their people will be free. The blade then disappears, and Orin sets out to look at the world above. In the escape, his lover Elan is killed by the cult leader, the super-strong Zygon. Orin makes it to the surface, and is almost cannibalized by some Mandroids, but uses the sword to get away, as it creates a blade of pure energy when needed(aka: a Lightsaber!). He is rescued by Dagg, a space smuggler and this movie’s obligatory Han Solo character. Dagg takes him to a military station, but Zaigon’s robots are after them, so Dagg makes off with a bootylicious fembot called Silica, who he reprograms to be more agreeable. After a pitstop at a smugglers’ city, the crew gets shot down by Zygon’s robot goons, and Dagg gets captured. Orin is found by Avaiana(a buxom clone of Teela from He-Man)who is the daughter of the planet’s governor. She revives him and helps him learn about the history of his mysterious sword. It was an ancient deus ex machina used to free the galaxy time and again from evil overlords, the last of which was a tyrant known as Nexus. Aviana then leads Orin to the head of the mining operation, which she thought was completely run by robots. The one running it is in fact Zygon, who reveals himself to be the long-thought dead Nexus in a robot body. He has been infiltrating the entire galaxy with his loyal robots and androids for years, and is planning on making his final push to take over the galaxy. Through some major “use the Force” mojo, Orin manages to pull his crap together along with Dagg and Aviana to stop Zygon, and liberate his people.

Starchaser was done with a little bit of the same treatment as Heavy Metal as it was mostly intended for older audiences. Sorta like if you had grown up on Star Wars and wanted to see something a little more mature in a sci-fi/adventure. The animation is actually pretty good for the mid-80s. It’s not Akira, but around the same quality as Transformers: The Movie. I’d say that this one is at least a rental for fans of cheesy space flicks like Barbarella or Flash Gordon(but which are actually good!).

ANI-MOVIES, *The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Roald Dahl has left a long legacy in children’s literature. Many of his works have been turned into movies, including: Charlie And The Chocolate Factory/Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, The Witches, plus James And The Giant Peach. Revered director Wes Anderson went an extra step further for making this film the first fully-animated adaptation of one of Dahl’s books.

Set in the British countryside(even though most of the cast has American accents!), Mr. Fox has to give up his life of stealing from farmers to start up a family with Mrs. Fox. A few fox years into it, their son Ash is going through his akward teenage phase while resenting having his cousin Kristofferson moving in on his territory at school. Mr. Fox decides though to move his family into a new place, while at the same time planning heists on the three local major farms with his new landlord possum, Kylie. After somewhat successfully strealing from them, the ex-Nazi owner of the cider ranch that Fox stole from plans to go WWII on his ass by attacking his new home. After he and the other two farmers run them out, the Fox family heads for the sewers along with the rest of most of the forest critters. The animals then dig under the farms and totally wipe out their stock. The farmers retaliate by flooding them out into the sewers, and eventually capture Kristofferson thinking that he’s Ash. Fox then leads a rescue mission to get Kristofferson back with Ash and Kylie. The Fox family then make a new home underneath a supermarket which happens to be owned by all the farmers.

This movie mixed stop-motion animation with computer effects pretty well, especially since it was done by Henry Selick, whose wizardry includes his own movie Coraline, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Selick also worked on the animation for Anderson’s The Life Aquatic. I was very suprised with the detail given to the animals’ fur and expressions. There are times when the characters seem slightly out of place, like the 4ft. rat that worked for the farmers. Plus, they never explain why the regular forest animals wear clothes and can talk, while the other animals like bloodhounds and wolves are just regular animals. I was suprised though at how much good criticism this film got, especially from critics who aren’t normally fans of animation. I thought it was in all a good movie overall, although not as funny as it could have been at times. Despite its charm, its not totally a movie for the entire family, but is truly one for the ages, and I have to say I’m impressed with its look at old fashion style for a modern day production.

ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: Sub-Zero

Also called Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, this was the second full-length animated movie of the Darknight Detective, although, this was the first one to be specifically made-for-video. It was meant to draw attention to the Batman franchise enough to coincide with the appauling Batman & Robin live-action movie, although most people were suprised at how much better this film was from that one.

The story takes place after Season 3 of Batman: The Animated Series, but sometime prior to when Dick Grayson left to become Nightwing. Mr. Freeze has been hanging out in the North Pole with his trained polar bears, and his wife Nora has been “chilling” inside the same oversized snowglobe until Freeze can find a cure for her. Unfortunately, an arctic exploration crew crashes his pad, causing Nora to relapse into her disease. Making his way to Gotham, Freeze abducts Belson, an old medical colleague who is desperate to make some quick money to pay off some debts. Freeze offers him a gold deposit to help him save Nora. They look for an compatible donor to replace one of Nora’s organs that was damaged(which one is never said), and their search leads them to Barbara Gordon. After kicking some ass as Batgirl, Barbara goes out with Dick on what looks like the beginning of their romance. Freeze breaks up their date, and kidnaps Barbara. Dick and Bruce head to the Batpoles and locate where Barbara is being held, which is at an offshore oil rig. Barbara manages to get away, but Belson accidently starts a fire. Nora gets trapped underneath in the fire, so Mr. Freeze helps Batman and Robin get her out of the burning wreck, although Freeze seemingly doesn’t make it out. Although the movie concludes with Freeze back in the Arctic conveniently making it to an outpost station to see the CNN report that Nora recovered thanks to Bruce Wayne’s big wallet.

Of the three original Batman: TAS animated movies, this one probably has the weaker plot to it. I don’t mind them bringing back Mr. Freeze, although you would’ve had to see the prior episodes of the series to get his backstory which is pretty essential for watching this movie. There also is an absence of the Batman Family doing much any real “crime-fighting” in this, aside from a scene at the beginning where the Dynamic Duo make a real thing about stopping a couple of crooks when they could’ve taken them out easily. It’s also a little disappointing when we catch up with Freeze again in Season 4 of the TV series where he returns again as an emo psychopath because he’s then just a head on a robot spider-legs(BTW, Freeze’s suit was originally designed by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame). I’d say that your average Bat-Fan would like this, but only if they had the TV series boxset to go with it.

ANI-MOVIES, *Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

With the prior success of Open Season and Surfs Up scoring them some points in theatres, Sony Pictures Animation followed up with a movie based on the children’s story from the 1970s by Judi & Ron Barrett. This relatively short book was concieved into being a full-length motion picture by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, who created the cult MTV animated series, Clone High.

Set on a small island off the American east coast, Flint Lockwood is a tinkerer who has spent a good portion of his life coming up with invention-after-invention, all of which have failed, including his spray-on shoes which have never come off since he put tested them on himself as a kid. His father wants him to help around his tackle shop, but Flint tries one more take at achieving his dream of being a great inventor. He makes a machine that is supposed to transform water into any kind of desired food, but he ends up accidently sending it into the atmosphere which starts turning the moisture in the air into random food. Flint manages to set up a way of controlling the machine so that he can make it rain whatever food the townspeople want. The greedy mayor convinces him to help use this as a tourist attraction for the town, but Flint mainly wants to do this to impress Sam, the cute weather reporter from New York reporting on the falling food phenomenon. He even goes to the lengths of making an entire castle made of jello to win her over. Unfortunately, the machine goes haywire, and starts dropping giant entries all over the globe. Flint and Sam, along with their mistmatched crew, head off in Flint’s jet car(which now has wings!)into the eye of the food-storm, and manage to stop the machine before the entire world is covered in takeout, even though everyone in the town has to escape on pizza-boats.

I’ll was really impressed with the animation in this. What really bought it for me was the cartoonish look of the characters and the world they lived in, while keeping it very detailed and slightly realistic. The movie goes the extra step to ellaborate from the original source material of how the small town started having it rain food. It pays homage to alot of disaster flicks, and this shows with the hilarious scenes of entire cities being ravaged by falling giant pancakes. There are some intensely funny moments in this, and I loved all the running gags with Flint’s failed former experiments. It’s a clever comedy for the whole family, and any film that has both Bruce Campbell and Mr. T in it is a solid win!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 16

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

Top 10 Green-Skinned Girls

Let's face it, emerald lasses in sci-fi and fantasy are the ones fanboys have always had a real thing for. Whether they are from comics, movies, or TV, green gals are way hotter than those prissy blue chicks. Even Smurfettes and Navi' dames ain't got nothing on She-Hulks and Orion hotties. So, here's the top 10 green-skinned girls in the history of geekdom!

10. LYJA from Fantastic Four

At first thought of being one of the only "good" Skrulls, Lyja was an agent from the Skrulls sent to spy on the World's Greatest Superheroes as Thing's squeeze, Alicia Masters, but eventually fell for Human Torch. Even after her secret was revealed, she still managed to seduce both Thing and Torchy. Being able to shapeshift into any human form(top that, Mystique!), she can also shoot out lasers. Despite her slightly gruff chin, Lyja has a smokin' hot bod, and can also make herself into any Playboy Centerfold you'd want!  

9. BENNY from Looking For Group

Benn'Joon("Benny" for short)is a half-breed, meaning she's half-human, although her other half is unknown, but possibly troll. Despite her fangs and dual digits on each hand, Benny has an unbelievably great rack, which is usually gratuitously exposed. She's an accomplished priestess, who can not only heal by bring the dead back to life, or at least the mostly-dead. Benny is the resident babe in her RPG fellowship, but she's a fresh change of pace from your regular elf whore.

8. GAMORA from Marvel Comics

Another galactic terror from the Marvel Universe, this greenie is the last of her kind, which kinda sucks because their women are hotter than the Skrulls. She's a super-strong space barbarian who was adopted by Darkseid-wannabe, Thanos. Gamora has been sent on numerous errands to get the Infinty Gauntlet, and usually ends up either screwing or trying to kill heroes like Nova or Adam Warlock, or switching sides to join the Guardians of the Galaxy. You don't know whether you want her to take her to the point of ecstasy, or just let her kill you.

7. SHEGO from Kim Possible

Shego is a former superhero-turned-supervillain. With the power to shoot out energy blasts and having slightl invulnerability, Shego usually hires herself out as a merc for high-paying bad guys. She has a major rivalry with "secret agent" Kim Possible, and this acts as her motivation for alot of her evil-doings. Despite being an occasional sidekick for Dr. Draken, Shego is capable of being a compentent villain on her own as she did end up taking over the world in an alternate timeline. She's got a great sense of style in her Harlequin catsuit, and her deviousness makes her very delicious.

6. OOLA from Star Wars

Even George Lucus wasn't immune to adding an obligatory green alien babe in his space opus. Oola is one of several Twi'leks who appear in the Star Wars "hexalogy", but she's the first one we're introduced to, and she's also pretty much the only green one we meet. A few other ones appear as blue, red, white, pink, etc., but Oola is a distinctly sexy shade of green. She's one of Jabba the Hutt's slavebabes, who unfortunately buys it in the Rancor pit. Sexy dancer Femi Taylor played her in both the original Return Of The Jedi, looked just as smashing reprising her role in the Special Edition done years later. Jabba was a damned idiot for turning that fine mama into Rancor poodoo.

5. POISON IVY from Batman

Even though she wasn't green gal to begin with, Pamela Isley was a botanist who was schoolchums with Swamp Thing, and was turned into a test experiment by her professor(who later became the villain Floronic Man). She can give of poisons, and control men with her pheramones. Ivy mutates with the power to communicate and control plants, which also turns her skin green. P.I. has flip-flopped between supervillain and superhero, unless she was getting drafted by Suicide Squad or the Secret Society. Her possible yuri relationship with Harley Quinn brings her hotness to the boiling point. Just remember, it's not nice to f**k with Mother Nature!

4. ELPHABA from Wicked The Wicked Witch of the West as she was portrayed in the Wizard Of Oz prequal book and musical was vastly different from her classical movie counterpart. Elphaba(or "Elphie/Fae/Fabala")was a girl in the merry old land of Oz mysteriously born green, although to mention why would be a major spoiler. While seen as an outcast because of her slighty unfashionable skintone, she seems to blend in when she reaches the E.C. Elphaba eventually learns magic, even though she's thought of being a witch long before she even started reading from Harry Potter's old textbooks. Her possible yuri releationship with Glinda is equally kinky, and makes her intriguingly sexy in a dark-Lolita kind of way. I'll admit I have a soft-spot for Elphie, and think she's totally a better witch than that upstart who pricked Sleeping Beauty!

3. JADE from Green Lantern

The daughter of the original GL from the Golden Age follows in her daddy's footsteps as an emerald avenger. Jade naturally has the ability to mimic the powers of a power ring, plus control plants. So, she's like a Green Lantern mixed with Poison Ivy! She actually joins the Green Lanterns later on, even though she's been in nearly every other superhero group in the DC Universe, Jade has jumped in the sack with GL Kyle Rayner and baddie/hero Brainwave Jr., so she's used to kinky superhero sex! After recently being brought back to life during the Brightest Day event, Jade's currently in the JLA along with a new generation of Leaguers. This luscious part-time model also followed in Starfire's steps by realizing fanboys love a lady of exotic color.

2. SHE-HULK from Incredible Hulk

Otherwise known as the "Savage/Sensational She-Hulk" and "Shulkie", Hulk's cousin recieved her gamma powers after a blood-transfusion from Bruce Banner. She-Hulk is pretty much one of the strongest women in the Marvel Universe, and pre-dates Deadpool as their hero who constantly broke the Fourth Wall. She's been in nearly every non-mutant superhero group, and a she's professional attourney. So, great green gams, and a successful law career to boot! Despite the fact that there are now three She-Hulks, the original one is the lime-flavored cheesecake we really want.

1. MARTA from Star Trek

Alot of people think that Vina from the original Star Trek pilot was the first Orion slave girl, but Marta was the real deal! Vina was just an illusion made by big-brained aliens. Marta is a bellydancing seductress in an intergalactic looney bin. She tries to make out with Kirk(what Trek chick doesn't?)in order to kill him, but unfortunately ends up getting whacked by the inmates who take over the asylum. Marta is #1 on this list for several reasons. One, was she's played by Yyvonne Craig(Batgirl!)who is one of the single sexiest sirens of the 60s. Another reason is you gotta love a chick who wants to do you and then do you in. The main reason is though is that Marta is arguably the first live-action green chick in TV/movies, and she broke the mold when she did.

ANI-MOVIE, *The Animatrix

While anime-styled productions like Dark Fury, Batman: Gotham Knight, and Van Helsing: The London Assignment try to act as tie-ins to existing movie franchises, The Animatrix was one of the first of these types of animated films. Originally an online series (or “ONA”), this was a compilation of nine episodes, all dealing with seperate aspects of The Matrix trilogy. Four of these episodes premiered online, while the rest of them were first featured on the video release of the complete movie.

The first story, Final Flight Of The Osiris, was animated by Square Pictures, who also did Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This acts as a direct prelude to The Matrix Reloaded where the human crew of the hovercraft Osiris discover that the machine army is drilling directly into the underground city of Zion, so they send their Aeon Flux-wannabe into the Matrix to deliver this news to the humans. Unfortunately, the machines down the ship, and everyone buys it in the end. This had some pretty decent CGI in it, although it seems mostly dated by today’s standards. It also leads into the Enter The Matrix video game.

Following this is a 2-part story which actually gives a comprehensive history of how the world was eventually taken over by the machines. In The Second Renaissance, Mahiro Madea of Kill Bill fame animated this ellaborate retelling of mankind’s downfall from the perspectrive of the Zion computer archives that is represented as a goddess figure called The Instructor. She relays how the human race had created robots to do all their work, but they eventually rebelled. The machines start up their own city, which the humans weirdly enough open up trades with, although this sends the human economy into the sewers. The humans then decide to go to all out war with the machines by blocking out the sun, their main source of power. Of course, the machines eventually win, and begin to harvest the human minds. This origin is not totally compatible with the regular Matrix story as it was stated in the first movie that the entire history was sketchy due to the humans’ lack of information on it. This is possibly an idealized version of what was supposed to have happened based on what the future Zionites thought it would be.

Next is Kid’s Story where we’re introduced to the Kid(yep, he’s got no real name!), who was that annoying teenager who kept stalking Neo in Reloaded, and how he freed himself from the Matrix. This was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop. World Record(by Ninja Scroll‘s Yoshiaki Kawajiri)follows this same premise about an athlete who almost breaks free of the illusion of the Matrix. Kawajiri also directed the Program segment which is unfortunately the shortest one in the whole movie about a girl training in one of the humans’ VR sims which is modeled after feudal Japan, and is nearly taken out by what she is led to believe as a defector to the machines. This part features some very dynamic action, which make you wich that Kawajiri would do another full-length ninja/samurai movie.

After this is Beyond(by Koji Morimoto of Memories)where some kids find a glitch in the Matrix which they think is a haunted house. Next is A Detective’s Story where a private eye in the Matrix is hired by Agents to hunt down Trinity. Shinichiro Watanabe takes his knack for genre films and applies it beautifully to this noir piece.

Finally, is Matriculated by Aeon Flux creator Peter Cheung, where some humans working above-ground to capture robots and try to win them over to their side by using surrealistic VR, although they all end up getting killed off by other robots. This is the longest bit in the anthology, and is well executed, but at the same time gets too bogged down with the entire dreamlike sim used on the robot.

The Animatrix represented a major change in the way American animated media was handled, by having it branch out to different media like anime. On its own, it blazes alot of trails, and is worth viewing at least for seeing the eclectic views based on a similar theme. A better example of this would be Robot Carnival which is not currently available in America. Granted, this is a must for anyone who actually dug all three Matrix films, and is available in most of the collected editions of the trilogy.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 15

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.