I’m still working on my best of 2008 lists so for my first post of the new year I thought that I’d look ahead to see what’s coming out in theaters and on DVD…

In January, Marvel Animation releases its next direct-to-DVD feature. Hulk Vs. stars the green Goliath in two stories. Wolverine faces the Hulk in one story as an homage to the classic ’70s comic which introduced Wolverine. The second story has the Hulk squaring off against the thunder god Thor.

On the anime front, Bandai Entertainment releases the 2004 Ghost in the Shell sequel Innocence. Unlike the previous DVD release, this one features an English dub with most of the voice actors from the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex television series.

February’s DVD highlight is the release of Afro Samurai: Resurrection, the sequel to the first Afro Samurai series. The DVD will be released after Resurrection’s television debut on Spike TV. Samuel L. Jackson will reprise his role as Afro.

Woman Wonder hasn’t made it to the big screen yet, however, DC Universe will release the animated movie to DVD in March. Keri Russell (Felicity) will voice the character. I have high hopes for this direct-to-DVD film because the other DC animated films have been very good. Tales of the Black Freighter, a “side-story” to the upcoming Watchmen movie, should be released to DVD shortly after the live-action film hits theaters. I haven’t read the Watchmen graphic novel yet but the trailers for the movie have peaked my interest. The classic The Real Ghostbusters cartoon will get a volume one release of the first thirty episodes in late March. Time-Life reportedly has released the entire series in a mega-DVD set. The pre-order price I saw online was pretty expensive. So I will probably pick up the first couple of sets as the series started strong but dipped in quality near the end in my opinion.

The currently DVD release lists I’ve stumbled upon only list the first quarter of 2009 so I’m sure many excellent titles will hit the shelves throughout the year. I’ve read good things about the anime series Darker Than Black. And a series I thought would never see the light of day on DVD, the 1993 Exosquad series (called an American anime by some) drops in April.

On the big screen along with the usual family fare from Disney, Pixar, Fox and others, Imagi, the studio which released the recent TMNT will bring the anime/manga classic Astro Boy to theaters in October. The animation-to-live-action trend continues with the theatrical releases of Dragonball Evolution, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra. Based on the Akira Toriyama manga but probably known to more Westerners through its various anime series, Dragonball Evolution is Hollywood attempt to bring the worldwide franchise to the big screen. I’m not all that impressed with early photos and trailer. Of course, I’m not the target audience for this film. So if enough teenagers who grew up on Cartoon Network’s version of the Dragonball, Dragonball Z, and GT shows go see, maybe 20^th Century Fox will have a new movie franchise. I was not a fan of Michael Bay’s first Transformers movie but it appears that many others were . . . oh well. I am curious to see G.I. Joe’s big screen debut though I’ve read that “he” is no longer a Real American Hero. Ugh, politics. The still images look good. Just waiting for the first trailer.

It should be another great year to be animation fan.