- Quick quiz: Name the DC superhero movie that:
-
- 1) Has a runtime of less than two hours.
- 2) Stars an African-American woman in a leading role.
- 3) Is not terrible.
- If you said Catwoman, then you really need to read more carefully, because the only remotely correct answer is the animated film Vixen. Despite its rather inauspicious origin as a series of loosely connected webisodes, I am comfortable claiming that Vixen is actually the best DC superhero movie to come out in the last ten years. I realize this is very much a minority opinion, given the popularity of last year's Wonder Woman, but I also think that the best versions of Superman and Batman are animated, so at least I'm consistent.
- If nothing else, Vixen, aka Mari McCabe (Megalyn Echikunwoke), stands out as one of the few DC superheroes whose origin story is not widely known. As Mari discovers early on, the animal totem she inherited from her late mother (Toks Olagundoye) has suddenly started granting her the powers of various African beasts, such as the strength of an elephant or the speed of a cheetah. At first, she uses these gifts to fight crime in Detroit, which quickly draws the attention of Flash (Grant Gustin), Green Arrow (Stephen Amell), and various other DC characters (Carlos Valdes, Emily Bett Rickards, Katie Cassidy, Brandon Routh, Franz Drameh, Victor Garber). Although the CW tie-ins all feel a bit forced, Vixen also creates some interesting new characters in Mari's supportive foster father (Neil Flynn), an ethically dubious professor (Sean Patrick Thomas), and a set of powerful adversaries (Anika Noni Rose, Hakeem Kae-Kazim) from her ancestral home in the fictional African country of Zambesi.
- Making Vixen an animated feature gives it two significant advantages over its live-action film and TV antecedents. One is that the activation of Mari's powers, depicted as a ghostly silhouette of the animal she's channeling followed by some superhuman behavior, looks really great in animated form. I'm sure that the CW did its best for her live-action Arrow appearances, but I have difficulty believing that a woman charging through badguys like a rhino or soaring through the skies like an ibis would fail to look stupid in real life. The other major advantage of an animated feature is that cartoons have an easier time depicting absolutely horrid events, in this case the slaughter of Mari's village, without being overly traumatic. The end result is a fun, interesting, and creative look at an underappreciated superhero who, let's face it, would never have landed a watchable live-action DC film.
