Vixen (web series)

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Television broadcast
Original title Vixen
Country of production United States
original language English
Year (s) 2015-2016
length 4-7 minutes
Episodes 12 in 2 seasons
genre Action adventure
Director James Tucker
script Brian Ford Sullivan ,
Keto Shimizu
production James Tucker,
Marc Guggenheim
music Blake Neely ,
Nathaniel Blume
First broadcast August 25, 2015 on CW Seed

Vixen ( German  Vixen ) is an American web , animation, and mini-series that premiered on August 25, 2015 on CW Seed . The series is about the cartoon character Mari McCabe alias Vixen and takes place in the same fictional universe as the series Arrow and The Flash . The series tells the story of how Vixen came about. While James Tucker is the director for all episodes, Megalyn Echikunwoke is the voice actress for the lead role Vixen in the original .

In May 2017, both seasons were released in the USA as a cut film called Vixen: The Movie with 15 minutes of additional animation on DVD , Blu-ray and in Digital HD.

action

season 1

The series begins with a chase. Flash and Arrow chase a person with supernatural abilities through Detroit until the chase slips on a high-rise building and falls into the depths.

Three days before: Mari McCabe is released from a prison cell she was held in for an attack with a pen against a potential employer. When she is released, she is also given back a necklace representing a family heirloom. Mari returns to her foster father, Chuck, in Detroit. While walking in the street, both are ambushed by an armed gang who knock Chuck out and demand the necklace from Mari. She touches her necklace, thereby gaining supernatural abilities and is able to overwhelm the band of robbers when her foster father regains consciousness. In her room, she remembers her foster mother, who asked her at the age of ten why she was left behind by her birth parents as a small child. Her mother answers Mari that she doesn't know and that Mari didn't even have a name before. However, she gives her a necklace that her mother left behind and that Mari should receive when she was old enough. This necklace is a totem and Mari hopes it will provide a clue to the answer to her origin.

Mari brings the necklace to Professor Macalester, who should inspect it more closely. He states that the necklace is extraordinary and probably comes from the M'Changa province of Zambesi in Africa and that it is an artifact of the god Anansi , who should have given the necklace to the warrior Tantu. Mari tells him that until now she always thought it was a common family heirloom, until the incidents with the robbers made her rethink. Now she hopes the necklace will provide an answer to her origins. The professor explains to Mari as she leaves the office that the bearer of the totem would receive all the powers of the animal kingdom if he used the power to protect the innocent. However, he appeases that it is just a myth about the necklace. After Mari leaves the office, Professor Macalester calls a woman named Kuasa and tells her that Mari has just left his room. Back at Chuck's, Mari tells her foster father that she thinks her necklace is magical . At first he doesn't believe it until she both lifts a heavy table with one hand and walks straight up the facade of the house. Chuck is worried, however, and doesn't want Mari to continue using these powers.

In Central City at the headquarters of the STAR Labs company , Cisco Ramon becomes aware of Mari through her conspicuous behavior. He suspects a so-called meta-being behind her , people with various supernatural abilities that were created by an explosion of a STAR Labs particle accelerator . Barry Allen, who is behind The Flash , also emerged from this. Cisco explains to Barry that he calls the newly suspected meta-being Vixen and that, unlike the other meta-beings, she would not live in Central City. Since Barry has to get out of town to investigate, he gets Oliver Queen as Arrow for reinforcement.

During this time, Mari talks to her foster father again about the necklace and the possibilities of finding out about its origin when the doorbell rings and Arrow and Flash are standing in front of the front door. Mari, who doesn't know why they are looking for her, flees and the car chase that was shown at the beginning of the series ensues. When Mari falls from the roof, Flash tries to save her. However, she can make use of her totem and hovers like a bird in the air when Arrow tells her that they just want to talk to her. Mari agrees, and Flash tells her they were chasing her because they thought she was a meta-being. However, Mari denies the assumption and claims not to have been in Central City during the explosion , which they can confirm after research by Felicity Smoke, an assistant to Arrow . Arrow and Flash offer Mari to help her, but she threatens that neither of them should show up again.

Mari seeks help from Professor Macalester. She tells him what happened and asks the professor to find out who actually gave her the totem and where she comes from when the office door is kicked, two armed men stand in front of her and Kuasa, who is between the two, threatens to kill Mari if she is did not give her the necklace. Mari wants to give the necklace to Kuasa if she tells her in return where it comes from. However, Mari cannot free herself from the necklace. Kuasa wants the armed men to remove the necklace from Mari when she tries to escape, but is shot by one of the men and falls unconscious. She wakes up in a room in Zambesi Village and Kuasa is sitting next to her. She tells her that she is Mari's sister and leads her out of the room and shows the destroyed village in the province of M'Changa , where Mari comes from. Kuasa tells Mari that her ancestors asked the god Anansi to protect their homeland. This eventually gave them a totem in which his power was bound and so that the wearer can preserve the capabilities of every animal to protect people. The totem is said to be passed on from generation to generation. Next, the totem should be passed on to her. One day, however, the village was attacked and destroyed by a local warlord . Her father, who wanted to protect the village, was executed and the mother fled with Mari and the totem.

Mari apologizes to her sister, who says it was her own responsibility to save Zambesi from destruction. Although Zambesi has now been destroyed, Kuasa says she is responsible for protecting the remains for the dead in the country. Because of this, she wants to get the totem back. Since Mari cannot get it off her neck, Kuasa wants to sever the tie between Mari and the necklace with the help of a spider bite. However, through the power of her totem, Mari can escape from her sister's clutches and runs through into the night when she loses her strength, she collapses and Kuasa snatches the totem. In an inner apparition , Mari learns that she has to stop her sister and get the totem back and learns that the reason her mother left the country was that she tried to keep the totem and Mari at a distance from her sister.

Kuasa officially wants to take the totem at a ceremony when Mari appears and tells her that Kuasa is responsible for the destruction of Zambezi. Mari selected the totem as the carrier and told her that her mother wanted to keep it at a distance from Mari's sister. Kuasa then wants to kill Mari and a duel ensues, in which Kuasa can use the powers of the totem. However, Mari gets the spider, which can sever the bond between the bearer and the totem, in her hands, and can thus outsmart her sister and get the totem back. Back in Detroit, Mari explains to her stepfather that the totem predicts that the porter's home will be protected - and that her home is now Detroit. When she meets Arrow and Flash again that night, she explains to them that she will now use her skills to protect Detroit and that they can call each other to help at any time. Barry tells that Cisco is already calling her Vixen and suggests that she adopt that name for her second identity as the city's protector. When both are gone, Mari decides to take the name.

background

On January 11, 2015, The CW announced that it would produce the six-part animated series Vixen . The broadcaster also announced that the series Vixen will have six episodes and will be shown for the first time on its online platform CW Seed in autumn 2015 . It was decided to produce the series as an animation series, because various actions can only be realized in this way and you have greater freedom of production. Marc Guggenheim , executive producer on the series, said the series was designed to be similar to a pilot episode and said he could envision producing a live series on Vixen if The CW orders it. Overall, the series should have a duration of 30 minutes. An episode should be about five minutes long. The choice of the voice actress for Vixen fell in the original on the African-American actress Megalyn Echikunwoke. All episodes in the series are directed by James Tucker, who has played the role in DC animated films. The companies WB Animation , Blue Ribbon Content , DC Comics and CW Seed are responsible for the production. Keto Shimizu and Brian Ford Sullivan were hired as scriptwriters . The music for the series is by Nathaniel Blume and Blake Neely , who are also responsible for the role at Arrow and The Flash .

At San Diego Comic Con , the release date for the first episode was set for August 25, 2015. The series is free to watch on the website and a new episode is uploaded every week up to and including the release of the sixth episode. The CW left it open whether there will be a paid download version of the series and whether the series will appear on DVD or Blu-ray.

Phil Bourassa was the series' lead character designer. He said he wanted to design Vixen so that it would be accepted by audiences as both an action figure and a female character. According to Bourassa, it should look powerful, but not look like a wrestler, for example . The series became an animated series: first a line art was designed, then the colors were added and the shades were added. Then the background was painted. Eventually the images were given to the storyboard team and after going through them, this was passed on to the animators.

On January 10, 2016, Mark Pedowtiz, President of The CW, announced a second season of the series. Just like the first season, the second season should also be seen online and comprise six or seven episodes, which add up to a total running time of around 30 minutes. The second season will be released from October 13, 2016.

marketing

The first trailer for the miniseries was released at San Diego Comic Con 2015, which took place in late June and early July 2015. At the end of the month, CW Seed posted a character design on Twitter drawn by Phil Bourassa . In the run-up to each new episode, a 20-second trailer was shown from the second episode.

reception

Vixen received an overall positive reception and received 9.0 out of 10 stars from 86 reviewers after the first episode was published in the Internet Movie Database . In mid-September 2015, when the fourth episode was already airing, the rating dropped to 7.9 stars from 279 reviews. In early December 2015, several weeks after the last episode aired, the series had 7.8 stars with 813 ratings in the Internet Movie Database.

Jesse Schedeen, author for IGN , also rated the first four episodes positively before the publication on CW Seed . He said that the series will manage to be part of the Arrowverse by then, despite the animation, including the sound. He also praised Echikunwoke's dubbing, who manages to speak a tough and hard-wearing Vixen, as well as Neil Flynn as MacCabe's father. On the other hand, he was critical of the synchronization of Amells, Grants and Valdes and said that they were "a bit stiff and lifeless" (in the original: "a bit stiff and lifeless"). In the first four episodes, however, Arrow and Flash succeed in playing an important role, but not overshadowing Vixen's background story. Schedeen criticized the fact that the animation was very static in places, but again praised it for action scenes. The author sees the use of various superpowers from Vixen as the "highlight" of the series. Schedeen also praised the fact that despite the short time of only 30 minutes in total, the creators succeeded in the first 20 minutes in proceeding "quickly and efficiently" (in the original: "quickly and efficiently") with the plot and particularly praised the scriptwriters, the MacCabes tell problematic backstories without dwelling too much in the past. Schedeen only recognizes the temporal problem by finding the superpowers. Hardly after the events with her family, MacCabe discovers the powers that emanate from the totem. Overall, however, Schedeen thinks that the episodes up to and including the fourth part were well developed. He held his position after each episode was shown to the press and gave the series a total of 7.3 out of 10.

Divided series universe

In announcing that it would produce the series Vixen , The CW also confirmed that the series will be set in the same universe as its own television series Arrow and The Flash and that the series is an offshoot of those series. In Vixen , the voice actors Stephen Amell, Grant Gustin, Emily Bett Rickards and Carlos Valdes are used, who are also part of the main cast in the series Arrow and The Flash as Green Arrow , The Flash , Felicity Smoak and Cisco Ramon. Marc Guggenheim confirmed on the last weekend in February 2015 that Gustin and Amell will slip into their roles from the series in Vixen . The storylines of the two real series in Vixen also evolve. Oliver Queen, who wears the mask of Green Arrow, finds out that his helper Felicity has kissed the scientist Allen, who is behind the mask of The Flash . That Rickards Smoak and that Valdes Ramon will be dubbing, was later confirmed as well.

Guggenheim also said that Vixen is a completely new character in the Arrowverse '. He said, "If Arrow is crime and The Flash is science, Vixen is a great magic component." The CW left it open whether Vixen will also be seen in other series. Should there be a crossover to the real series, Echikunwoke will play Vixen himself . The animated series takes place around episodes 15 and 16 of the third season of the Arrow series . In July 2015, Guggenheim said that the series is set there because at the time Vixen was written, Episode 14 of the third season of Arrow was being shot and they wanted to orientate themselves on that timeline, even though they already knew Arrow Go to the League of Assassins in later episodes and change his costume in the process. That's why his predecessor costume can still be seen in Vixen .

In December 2015 it was announced that Vixen would be seen in a real-life film for the first time in the episode Taken of the Arrow series , played by Echikunwoke.

Vixen: The Movie

At the end of February 2017 it was announced that the web series would be released in the USA on DVD , Blu-ray and in Digital HD. Both seasons of the series were cut into one film and got around 15 minutes of extra animated content. This compilation was titled Vixen: The Movie and was released in the USA on May 8, 2017 in digital HD and on May 23, 2017 on DVD and Blu-ray.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b CW Seed's Animated 'Vixen' Series Coming to Blu-ray as 'Vixen: The Movie'. In: collider.com, accessed November 29, 2017.
  2. ^ A b c d e f Albert Ching: Guggenheim Talks "Pushing the Envelope" in "Arrow" / "Flash" Animated Spinoff "Vixen". In: comicbookresources.com. Comic Book Resources, January 12, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  3. ↑ a b Russ Burlingame: Vixen Coming to CW Seed on August 25. In: comicbook.com. Comicbook.com, July 16, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b Mark Cassidy: New Vixen Image Ahead Of The Series Premiere In 2 Weeks. In: comicbookmovie.com. ComicBookMovie.com, August 11, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Vixen (2015 TV Mini-Series) Full Cast & Crew. In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 2, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Nathaniel Blume. In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 2, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Blake Neely. In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 2, 2015 .
  8. ^ A b Albert Ching: SDCC: First Trailer for Animated "Vixen" Arrives, Set in "Flash" / "Arrow" World. In: comicbookresources.com. ComicBookResources.com, July 11, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  9. ↑ a b Jesse Schedeen: Vixen: What to Expect from the Animated Webseries Set in the Arrow / Flash Universe. In: ign.com. IGN , August 24, 2015, accessed August 27, 2015 .
  10. ^ Albert Ching: Behind the Scenes of "Vixen," the Animated "Arrow" / "Flash" Spinoff. In: Comic Book Resources. comicbookresources.com, August 31, 2015, accessed September 14, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Eric Goldman: Vixen Animated Series Renewed for Season 2; CW Ponders More in live action. In: IGN Entertainment . ign.com, January 10, 2016, accessed February 4, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Vixen: CW Seed Announces Season 2 Premiere Date for Animated Arrow Spinoff - TV Insider. tvinsider.com, accessed October 4, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Jay Jayson: Early Design Of Vixen Released. In: comicbook.com. Comicbook.com, July 30, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  14. ^ Vixen (2015). In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed August 27, 2015 .
  15. ^ Vixen (2015). In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed September 16, 2015 .
  16. ^ Vixen (2015). In: imdb.com. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 2, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Jesse Schedeen: Vixen: Season 1 Review. In: ign.com. IGN , September 11, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015 .
  18. ↑ Steve Lam: SDCC 2015: Comic-Con Schedule For Saturday, July 11, 2015. In: bamsmackpow.com. Bam! Smack! Pow !, June 28, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Tamara Brooks: Guggenheim, Butters on "Agent Carter's" Future, "Arrow's" Rogues & More. In: comicbookresources.com. ComicBookResources.com, March 6, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  20. ↑ Ruchinka Upadhyaya: Vixen premiere: The Flash and Arrow stars set to appear in CW's animated series. In: ibtimes.co.uk. International Business Times , August 12, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  21. ↑ Nellie Andreeva: The CW's Mark Pedowitz On Expanding Flash-Arrow Universe, 'Dixie's Future, Another' Supernatural 'Spinoff & More. In: deadline.com. Deadline.com , January 11, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Russ Burlingame: Marc Guggenheim Talks Arrow, Vixen, Agents of SHIELD and the Overwatch Sequel. In: comicbook.com. Comicbook.com, July 23, 2015, accessed August 17, 2015 .
  23. ↑ Damian Holbrook: Exclusive: An Animated Vixen Comes to Life On Arrow. In: tvinsider.com. TV Insider, December 18, 2015, accessed January 4, 2016 .