ANI-MOVIES, *Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

After several animated movies based on Marvel Comics(either made-for-TV or OVA), their biggest solo-star finally gets his own full-length cartoon feature! Being the also the first animated Marvel movie to be initially released in theatres, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse takes a fairly recent story arc from the Spider-Man comic series, and narrows it down reducing the amount of dozens of Spider-heroes shown in the original crossover. Another thing to bear in mind is that none of the other non-Spider-Man heroes in it, so don't expect to see any Avengers or X-Men show up.

Beginning in reality based on the Ultimates Universe, teenage Mile Morales is feeling the pressure of attending an upper class academy instead of expressing himself as a graffiti artist, much to dismay of his police officer father. His uncle Aaron encourages him to pursue his inspiration, which Miles does in subways, and just happens to get bit by a stray radioactive spider. Another trip underground leads him to witnessing Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin(who here is more like the Hulk)in the middle of a particle accelerator experiment, scrupulously hidden by the Kingpin. Spider-Man gets killed during the battle after discovering Miles similar powers, but Miles escapes with a special flash drive designed to take down Kingpin's infernal contraption. People morn the Spider-Man's death, publicly revealed as Peter Parker, however and older and out of shape Peter Parker encounters Miles. Turns out, this Peter is from another universe, but one that has been at the superhero act for a decade longer, and has paid for the keeping of the "great responsibility" with his life having one setback after the other. Turns out when the Spider-Man of that universe made contact with the particle accelerator, it ended up pulling other Spider-persons from other realities. This includes a Spider-version of Miles classmate Gwen, a Shadow-inspired Spidey, a Japanese schoolgirl with a spider-robot, and the anthropomorphic pig Spider-Ham from a cartoon world. The Spider-Family converges on Kingpin's hideout, leaving Miles behind believing his inexperience might get him killed. Miles however manages to master his new powers, gets a leftover suit from May Parker, and joins the Spider-Persons mission to stop Kingpin, whose efforts to bring versions of his dead family into his universe might be sympathetic, but could ultimately destroy the city.

The animation produced for this film gives off the feel of a comic book in motion, but not in the way Ang Lee's Hulk tried to do, although the only drawback is the motion isn't exactly as fluid as other CGI pictures, and at times looks like a 3-D movie without using the glasses. The adaptation of most of the characters is spot on, even though the older Peter Parker is somewhat more original, as if he's a Spider-Man that had been around since the 90s with no reboots or faustian bargains resetting his timeline. The other Spider-heroes represent their comic counterparts well, specifically Nicholas Cage voicing the noir Spidey, also check the end of the movie for two other Spider-Man cameos! Into The Spider-Verse is setting up for sequel, hopefully leading to other Marvel characters being included, but also possibly bleeding into the live-action MCU.

Spider-Man's European Vacation

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Cyborg 009 Vs. Devilman

In a rare crossover between different franchises released through different studios, Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 009 and Go Nagai's Devilman were brought together into a 3-episode OVA series. American fans might know Cyborg 009 when its remake TV series played on Toonami, another that is on Netflix, and it was the foundation for several Japanese superhero teams such as Super Sentai. Devilman has had numerous incarnations released in the States, including a 2-episode OVA, a live-action movie, and a reverse-gender remake TV series branded in English as The Devil Lady. The OVA takes place in a world where both manga titles take place, but some events already covered in previous incarnations are part of its shared continuity.

009 and his fellow cyborgs have just taken down the last of a group of evil cyborgs modeled after the Greek gods, while Devilman finishes off an evil turtle demon holding his family's souls hostage. Now, a new strain of demons seem to have risen up possessing the bodies of teenagers and using them to draw Devilman out. The Cyborgs learn that their arch-enemies, the supervillain organization known as Black Ghost has created a new line of evil cyborgs called High Teens set to stop their efforts of fusing a devil in a cyborg body, similar to how Devilman is really a human bonded with the demon Amon. Black Ghost's new devil-cyborg gets out of control by killing off his creators, and setting his sights on Devilman. The High Teens also confront the Cyborgs, but only the combined efforts of super-fast 009 and Devilman are able to turn the tide in their favor.

The OVA has so far only been released in English via Netflix, with no future plans to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray, but its worth logging on to their service at lease to check this out. The anime captures the brutality of past versions of Devilman along with the stalwart superhero action of Cyborg 009 that became the basis for shows like Power Ranger. It also manages to reach a comfortable middle ground of merging the character designs from both franchises into a singular vision. Like most crossovers that boast "Vs." in their title, there's little if at all actual fighting between the titular heroes, but most fans have come to expect that from superhero team-ups.

ANI-MOVIES, *Frozen

First intended to be a full-length animated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, Disney instead decided to take a spin on it similar to their take on Rapunzel in Tangled. Where as the titular characters was a standard fairy tale villainess set to steal the heart of a young boy whose sister defeats all odds to rescue him, Frozen shows an enchanted romantic comedy focusing on family ties. Directed by Chris Buck(whose previous Disney work was Home On The Range), and Disney's first female director Jennifer Lee, this CGI movie brings together a fantasy story with modern social views of what is considered to be "love".

Two princesses grow up in the mountain kingdom of Arendelle, but after their parents die on their way to Rapunzel's wedding(no kidding!), the older sister Elsa eventually grows up to be its reluctant queen. Elsa's conflict is that she has uncontrollable cryomancy powers that her younger sister Anna wasn't aware of, so Elsa kept herself secluded for most of her teenage years. The castle is eventually opened up for Elsa's coronation, but her powers are revealed after she disagrees with Anna's "brilliant" decision to wed a visiting prince she just met. Elsa's departure leaves the kingdom cursed with an ongoing blizzard during summer, so Anna sets out to bring her sister home. Along with the help of the iceman Hans, his reindeer, and a living snowman brought to life by Elsa's power, Anna confronts Elsa who accidently freezes her heart. Hans brings Anna to his troll friends who tell him only an act of true love can break the curse.

Frozen was a real record breaker in theatres, with a sequel already on the way, along with a short movie follow-up, and an extended holiday special that was met with mixed results. The production value was set even above Tangled for Disney's non-Pixar CGI movies. This is one of those "must see" features no matter the viewer's age!

It's 2019, Bitches!

It's not Mary Poppins, ya'll!

ANI-MOVIE, *Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors

Following up to DC's Super Hero Girl, Marvel decided to instead focusing on their more recently introduced teenage superheroines shown in the comics. Marvel Rising first started out as an online mirco-series that was collected into a single special titled Marvel Rising: Initiation, mostly highlighting the character of Spider-Gwen(here called "Ghost Spider"), and Secret Warriors is a follow-up to that with only a brief offhanded remark to Gwen, possibly since she's already getting plenty of airtime in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This one focuses more on the current Ms. Marvel and the other Inhumans popping up in the Marvel Universe. This is a leftover plan Marvel had to replace Inhumans as their standard for the X-Men after their constant head-butting with Fox for the movie rights to the characters, but since Disney bought out Fox the Inhumans are being swept under the rug. Marvel did though take advantage of the "rise" of new super-powered teenagers that were created during this storyline, and reserve some of them to be part of this "toyetic" line-up.

In Secret Warriors, Kamala Khan is a girl turned into an Inhuman by a special mist that covered the Earth due to a story arc involving Thanos, and because of this she gains the ability to stretch and mold her body, allowing her to occasionally change her appearance like Mystique, or make parts of her body large like huge hands. Kamala then takes up the moniker of Ms. Marvel, which was previously used by the current Marvel Comics version of Captain Marvel(not "Shazam"!). She teams up regularly with plucky unbeatable mutant, Squirrel Girl, and they become involved in a plot where young Inhumans are being kidnapped by the alien Kree race to use as super-soldiers. With some help from other heroes like Patriot, Quake, America Chavez, and Inferno, they mount a rescue with Captain Marvel to stop the space invaders.

There was a few differences between the story in the movie and what goes on in the comics, like America Chavez being an Inhuman when her powers are magic-based, and bad guy Exile really gets his powers from one of the Mandarin's rings instead of himself being an Inhuman. The animation used in the movie was a little below quality, even compared to some of Marvel's Disney shows like Ultimate Spider-Man, even though it works considering it was created as being a free online promotion for their Marvel Rising toyline. There's supposed to be two follow-up specials to this showcasing Spider-Gwen and Iron-Heart, possibly with the same tone of animation. It would be nice if this new incarnation of the Secret Warriors succeeds in creating a new young superhero series that aren't either mutants or Avengers.