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X-Mentality: All the New Superhero Shows

By Frank Lovece

Flash! The Marvel movie X-Men is a Hulk-sized hit! And nowseveral superhero series and TV movies are awaiting theirturn at bat, man.

TV has always had room for superheroes, even without theimpetus of a media-event movie. They're the modernequivalents of heroic figures from Gilgamesh to Robin Hood,after all. And whether based on comic-book characters, fromThe Adventures of Superman in the 1950s to The Flash in the'90s, or original TV creations like Manimal or The Six MillionDollar Man, they feed the human desire for larger-than-lifemyths embodying moral values of right and wrong.

And you thought they were just adolescent male powerfantasies !

Here's the latest lineup of TV wonder women and supermen,in chronological order of upcoming release. They were all inproduction even before X-Men was released, demonstratingthe one superpower no TV executive can do without: theability to sense buzz in the air!

Witchbtade (TNT telefilm; premieres Sunday, Aug . 27,8 to10 p.m. ET)

For NYPD homicide detective Sara Pezzini(Yancy Butler), life's a witch and then youdie - especially if obsessive billionaireKenneth Irons (Anthony Cistaro) and hishenchguy, Ian Nottingham (Eric Etebari),have anything to say about it. They'rebattling for control of the Witchblade, dn

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ancient bracelet that's been grafted ontoSara and which can morph against her will into monstrous,techno-organic weaponry that makes her iook half human,half something out of Lovecraft. Loosely adapting the firsteight issues of the popular Top Cow comic book, the telefilmco-stars David Chokachi (Baywatch) as Sara's police partner,detective Jake McCarthy. Butler should know her way aroundsexy superheroines: She played an android police detective inthe 1992 series Mann & Machine,

X-Men Evolution (WB, Saturdays, 11:30 a.m. to noon ET,fall; premiere date undetermined)

"De-evolution" seems more like it: This latest animated seriesstarring the Marvel Comics mutants returns thetwentysomething heroes to their teenage roots. In thisversion, the students at Professor Xavier's school for giftedyoungsters are now a mix of two original X-Men (Cyclops,Jean Grey), two later additions (Nightcrawler, Kitty pryde)and a new character called Spik€, d made-for-TV nephew ofthe weather-controlling Earth mother Storm. She andWolverine now head the faculty - with movie baddieMystique as the principal! Oooh, now that's evil! Fellow Marvelmutants Quicksilver, Pyro, Avalanche and the Blob will appearas teens in the 13 episodes ordered so far.

Static Shockt (WB, Saturdays, 10:30 to 11 a.m. ET, fall;premiere date undetermined)

Inner-city high-schooler Virgil Hawkins, a. k.a. Static, was thefirst African-American teenage superhero when he debuted in1993 as part of the black-oriented Milestone line of comics.The sharp-witted 1S-year-old gained electromagnetic powersthat allow him to fire off lightning charges - talk aboutjuice! - and to move metallic objects and so on. Milestone,distributed by major player DC, folded in L997 - but Staticgets a brief recharge with an upcoming four-issue miniseries,Static Shock! : Rebirth of the Cool. Virgil is voiced by Mad TVsPhil LaMarr, who also voices the Jamaican bureaucrat Hermeson Futurama. The cast also includes Danica McKellar (Winnieon The Wonder Years) as Virgil's best bud, Freida Goren.

1

The Tick (Fox, midseason)

Patrick Warburton , Seinfeld's Puddy, donsbig blue tights to play the, uffi,"tick-skulled" superhero in this live-actionadaptation of Ben Edlund's parody comicbooks, which previously inspired thecult-hit cartoon first run on Fox from 1995to 1997. Oddly, however, the sitcom's beendumbed down for grown-ups: TheBatman-like Der Fledermaus is now Bat Manuel, while theunionized American Maid is now Captain Liberty. Fortunately,no one's changed the heroic name of the Tick's faithfulsidekick, Arthur. Nestor Carbonell (Suddenly Susan), LizVassey and David Burke play the respective supporting roles.Overseeing the man in blue: executive producer BarrySonnenfeld, director-producer of Men in Black.

Black Scorpion (Sci-Fi Channel, early 2001)

If you watched the 1995 Showtime movie and its 1996 sequelto see Joan Severance as a Batman-like vigilante in blackbustier, spike-heel thigh-high boots, a mask and little else -and what other reason was there? - then you might feel alittle stung by this spin-off series: Joan no longer plays thetitular Black Scorpion. The good news? She's now played byformer Miss Kansas Michelle Lintel, who's not exactly hogfeed. The 22-episode series from legendary low-budgetproducer Roger Corman had been batting around without aU.S. distributor since 1999 - and this despite Adam West asthe archvillain Breathtaker. Adam West! C'mon! Guest villainsand others include L7 Playboy Playmates and Penthouse Pets(among them Shae Marks, Julie McCullough and L997Playmate of the Year Victoria Silvstedt), plus direct-to-videogoddess Shannon Whirry, Diet Pepsi "Uh-Huh Girl" GretchenPalmer and nostalgic TV hands Lou Ferrigno, Frank Gorshin,Soupy Sales, Lydia Cornell and - yesl - Family Ties' ScottValentine.

Robocop: Prime Directives (not yet sold in U.S.)

Like The Movie Channel's three Universal Soldier sequels,Robocop continues on the small screen. Page Fletcher (TheHitchhikgr) takes over the role of cyborg supercop AlexMurphy, played by Peter Weller and Robert lohn Burke inthree theatrical films and Richard Eden in a 1990s syndicatedseries. Also starring is Geraint Wyn Davies, the cult-favevampire detective Nick Knight of Forever Knight.Producer-director Julian Grant says the four newCanadian-made telefilms - Dark Justice, Meltdowfr,

Resurrection and Crash & Burn - disregard the existingsequels, and use the original 1987 film as springboard for astory that takes place 10 years later. They're running this fallon Canada's Space: The Imagination Station cable channel;given the iconic Robocop's huge fan following, we'll almostcertainly see these during the upcoming season. How else ishe gonna serve the public trust, protect the innocent anduphold the law?

Witchblade photo couftesy of TNT; The Tick photo courtesy of Fox

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