MISC. MANGA, *Soulfire

Michael Turner's work on Superman/Batman brought it to godlike popularity. This was a comic of his own that he collaborated with writer Jeph Loeb.

Soulfire takes place in the early 23rd Century. Even though it doesn't seem as advanced as a future you'd imagine would be two hundred years from now, they still cling to outdated concepts like virtual reality arcades. Its here that young Mal and his mates were enjoying a nice afternoon engaged in electronic fantasy worlds. They are soon brought back to the real world when a mysterious bikini-clad woman approaches them, and grabs Mal and hurls them both out of a skyscraper. What seems like a botched suicide attempt turns into something different as the woman reveals to have a pair of large wings on her back. Mal manages to knock himself free from her, only to plummet to almost certain doom. Luckily he hits a few streamers on the way down to break his fall. After landing, another strange woman on a motorcycle rides up and offers to save him. The winged woman chases after them. The biker chick also has a pair of wings, and she flies up after the other one where they engage in mortal combat. After the evil winged-chick leaves, the other one reveals herself as Grace, and that she must take Mal to Hawaii on a matter that involves saving the entire world. At the same time, reports start coming from all over the planet about dragons showing up and causing devastation to numerous major cities.

Soulfire has a very crisp and colorful look to it. The dragons featured in it look like they're something that the makers of Evangelion would quake at. The story itself has a great "Blade Runner meets Lord Of The Rings" appeal to it. It appears to have a bright future, provided the creators can avoid the pitfalls of other hyped-up fantasy comics like Battle Chasers and keep their mind on track with their artistic vision.

Pony Hunt NES

ANI-MOVIES, *Howl's Moving Castle

Hiyao Miyazaki came out of retirement for like the third time to do this adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ book. It was originally going to be directed by Mamoru Hosodu of Digimon(although he went on to do the awesome Summer Wars!), but bugged out early, so Miyazaki stepped in to fill in the part. Like Castle In The Sky, Miyazaki elegently fuses steampunk with magic in this romantic fantasy.

Taking place in a European-like country, Sophie Hatter is a young hatmaker(convenient name!)that has a brief encounter with the bishonen sorcerer Howl. Sophie has a curse put on her by the spiteful Witch of the Waste who is jealous of Howl flirting with her. Sophie is now turned into an old version of herself, so she heads out into into the land known as the Wastes to find a way to break the curse. With the help of a living scarecrow(shades of Wizard Of Oz), Sophie makes her way to the mobile castle of Howl himself, which is powered by the fire demon Calcifur that is under Howl’s service. Sophie takes on the role of Howl’s housekeeper, although she can’t tell him about the curse she’s under. Howl on his own becomes aware of Sophie’s enchantment, but also starts falling for her inner-self, just as Sophie is stricken with him. While all this is going on, a war has been escalating between Sophie’s country and an opposing kingdom. Howl is called in to be of service to their king, but has set up multiple aliases to keep from being drafted. He sends Sophie to the castle to answer for him disguised as his mother, although its trap set by the royal sorceress Madame Suliman. The Witch of the Waste is caught in her trap first and has all her magic stolen from her, reducing her to an old woman. Howl rescues the both of them, and then tries to set up a new life for everyone away from the war. Suliman sends her goons out to hunt down Howl, which seems a bit wasteful of resources since she should be using them to help fight in the war going on. Howl ends up using too much of his magic though, and it causes the castle to fall apart. Sophie has to travel deep inside Howl’s psyche in order to bring him back from turning into a monster from his overuse of magic. She manages to save him, and at the same time the curse on her is lifted(even though her hair is still grey). It’s revealed that the scarecrow is the prince from the warring country, and returns to stop the conflict, while Sophie and Howl go to live happily ever after in their new “castle in the sky”.

The movie goes off in a different direction towards the third act than that of the original novel, plus a few things are altered like Howl being a skirtchaser, as well as less emphasis on the actual war going on around the characters. There is a real sense of romance in this movie as opposed to some of Miyazaki’s others, at least in the sense of a more mature nature instead of between two children. Visually, its one of the best anime movies of the 2000s, and finely handles CGI with 2D animation. Its been met with mixed reviews, even though I believe it has a well-thought out storyline, especially for a Miyazaki film which sometimes tends to get a little muddled near the conclusion. The Disney dub is fair too, with Billy Crystal as Calcifur, even though Christain Bale is a little weak at time as Howl(especially when he uses the Batman voice). This is a great storybook fantasy, and one of my personal favorite animated movie classics.

Brock Samson Vs. Black Dynamite

MISC. MANGA, *Sokora Refugees

Another of Tokyo Pop's original manga-styled graphic novel series. This was is put together by writer Segamu(assuming that's his real name)and artist Melissa DeJesus. It's take on the time honored tradition of a girl travelling to other dimensions. But Alice and Dororthy didn't have monsters and fanatical elves to deal with.

In it, Kana is a girl who is suffering from lack of cleavage. Her friends Julie and Tamara try to cheer her up, but to no avail. Then, a new transfer studend named Tien shows up. He always wears a hat on his head, and it turns out its to hide the long elf ears he has. Tien is on Earth because his elvin brother Tristan is forming a resistance group in their dimension of Sokora against an army of monsters who are ravaging the land. These monsters had taken a voluptuous elvin sorceress called Veila hostage, but she just barely managed to escape being roasted alive by them.

Tien grows restless, and plans to escape Earth and go back to Sokora. For some reason though, he creates the portal between the two worlds in the school's girls locker room. Kana accidently falls through as Tien makes it, and ends up running into Veila. Veila is badly injured from her encounter, and transfers her essence into Kana. Unaware of this, Kana ends up running away back through the portal, but now with her body altered resembling Veila's gorgeous physique.

From here, the story fluctuates with Tien and his brother going back and forth from Sokora to convince Kana to come with them, Kana realizing the spirit and new power dwelling within her as well as how her new body will affect her social status, plus Kana's friends get in on the action too. All this while the forces of evil in Sokora plot to destroy all traces of the elves in their world.

Anime fans will totally dig the authentic manga artwork and storytelling. Plus, furries will undeniably fall for Salome, the sexy racoon girl/nymph who's a part of Tristian's resistance movement. There's lots of gratuitous fan service and fun in this gem.

ANI-MOVIES, *Superman/Batman: Apocalypse

Being so far being the only direct sequal to one of the DC Universe movies, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse acts as a follow-up to Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. It was based on the second story arc from the Superman/Batman comic book series which regularly teams up the World’s Finest, although this one acts more as an origin story for Supergirl in the new DC Universe. Lauren Montgomery takes over from Sam Liu as the director, who also did the Wonder Woman and Green Lantern animated movies. Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy return as the voices of the title characters, along with Susan Eisenberg coming back from Justice League as Wonder Woman, and Ed Asner reprising his role as nasty-ass Granny Goodness. The addition of the sultry Summer Glau as Supergirl is a real bonus for the fans too. Despite the title though, there isn’t anything really “apocalyptic” about it, at least not in the Earth-destroying kind of way.

Set sometime after Luthor was impeached, a chunk of the Kryptonite crashes into Gotham Harbor, which had a small lifepod in it. Batman goes to investigate, and discovers that there was an occupant in the pod with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal hot blonde chicks. While walking around dazed in Gotham, she realizes she has super-strength, heat vision, and can fly. Batman tries to bring her in, but the mystery girl accidently knocks down one of Gotham’s numerous automated police blimps(might wanna rethink about having those be piloted, Gotham PD!). Superman stops the blimp from causing any real damage, and after Batman scans the alien girl at the Batcave, he realizes that she’s really his cousin, Kara Zor-El. Superman brings her to the Fortress of Solitude where he brings her up to date on Earth and its culture. He tries passing her off as Clark Kent’s cousin, although Wonder Woman steps in to take Kara to Themyscara for special training so she can control her powers better. Cut to a few months later, Kara has had special warrior training under Wonder Woman and Artemis(the “ex-Wonder Woman”), and befriends Harbinger, who here she just goes by the name Lyla. Meanwhile, Darkseid plans to kidnap Kara to add her to his honor guard, so he teleports an army of downgraded Doomsday clones to keep the heroes occupied while he kills Lyla and makes off with Kara. The Big Three enlist Big Barda for a Boom Tube to Apokolips(that’s how its spelled!), and all go off on seperate missions. WW and Barda take on Granny Goodness’ Female Furies, Batman tracks down a storehouse of explosions, while Superman battles a brainwashed Kara who is intent on destroying her cousin. Batman threatens to use Darkseid’s explosives to destroy Apokolips if he doesn’t release Kara from his control, and he reluctantly lets her go. Once back on Earth, Clark takes Kara to live on the Kent farm for a while, but Darkseid bursts out of the house(probably was waiting their couch!)and wailes on Superman by Falcon Punching him into the atomosphere. Kara gets pissed, and starts tearing Darkseid a new a-hole, however Darkseid gets the advantage. Superman gets a brief solar recharge which gives him the strength to beat the rocks out of Darkseid, and ship him through a Boom Tube into deep space. Kara then decides she wants to use her powers to protect people, so she adopts the identity of Supergirl to follow in her cousin’s bootprints.

Unlike a few of the other DC Universe movies, this one followed the comic book pretty much to the letter. There were quite a few but still minor changes in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, but this really stuck to the original source material. The character designs were closely modeled after those of the artist’s, the later Michael Turner, with the characters being very lean and muscular. The film also has probably some of the best fight sequences in a DC Universe production since Wonder Woman. The Special Edition DVD and Blu-Ray also features an original DC Showcase of Green Arrow, plus a cool retrospective on the history of Supergirl. You don’t have to watch the original Super/Bats movie in order to enjoy this on its own, that and its a great introduction to Power Girl Jr.!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 11

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.