OK, they have cosmetic differences. Space Chimps, as the title suggests, depicts a trio of chimpanzees on an outer space rescue mission (complete with aliens) and opens July 18. Opening August 8, Fly Me to the Moon depicts three young houseflies who secretly stow away on the Apollo 11 mission and thus share in the first moon landing experience with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I shudder to think of the puns based on his name.

Now, I can get how the arm’s race-style competition between Hollywood studios yields to suspiciously similar movies like Antz and A Bug’s Life, or Deep Impact and Armageddon, or Dante’s Peak and Volcano (I could go on and on), but does either of these look like a good enough idea to be made — let alone twice? I dare you to watch them:

Space Chimps

Fly Me to the Moon

Fly Me to the Moon may have the edge, since it’s in digital 3-D.

Airing on Atlanta’s Cartoon Network from 2003-2006, “Teen Titans” featured a theme song by perky Japanese twosome Puffy Ami Yumi and a peculiar but effective blend of serious, arcing episodes and zany comic relief. Funny scenes would draw on manga-style caricature: throbbing veins would appear on angry characters’ heads, hearts would bubble up for lovesick ones, and even odder exaggerations would appear that gave the show’s humor a fresh, funny attitude. The show’s fifth and final season is my favorite, as it pits the Teen Titans against an iconic supervillian team called The Brotherhood of Evil; pop references come even more quickly (including nods to Doctor Who’s Daleks and The Incredibles). Plus, it reinforces my theory that the show’s creators patterned the five Titans after the main characters of John Hughes’ beloved 1980s film, The Breakfast Club.

Both the teen crime fighters and the high school detention servers comprise a quintet sharply delineated “types,” each of which is familiar from high school experience (or movies and TV shows about teen life). Sometimes the comparisons fit perfectly, others are more of a stretch, but here they are. For convenience sake, I’ll use the Breakfast Club actor names rather than dig up their characters.

Raven = Ally Sheedy. This is the most obvious one. Although Sheedy’s character is not an extradimensional witch and Raven is not a “basket case,” they’re both Goth stereotypes to a T, with dark clothes, dark attitudes and deadpan wit. Plus they don’t say much and tend to keep to themselves. (Incidentally, Raven’s voice actress said she based her performance not on anyone you’d think of, but on Zelda Rubinstein’s diminutive paranormal investigator from Poltergeist — you can hear a similar quaver in the voice if you listen for it.)

Beast Boy = Anthony Michael Hall. OK, shape-changing, green-hued Beast Boy isn’t a “brain” like Hall’s Breakfast Club character, but they’re both the “geeks” of the group, and the characters have nearly identical nervous, self-deprecating senses of humor. Possibly he’s more like Hall’s “Farmer Ted” role from Sixteen Candles.

Cyborg = Emilio Estevez. Estevez was the jock; Cyborg had been a jock before the crippling accident that led to the mechanical replacement of much of his body. True, Cyborg’s personality is a little more confrontational, so you could make a case that he’s more like Judd Nelson in the movie. (Incidentally, I’ll bet if The Breakfast Club were remade today, the five students would be a little more diverse.)

Starfire = Molly Ringwald. Well, Starfire is an alien princess and Ringwald’s character is identified as the “princess” of the bunch, and Starfire is outgoing, apparently likes the mall and would probably be popular. Their personalities are kind of dissimilar, though. Since Starfire’s a alien and has kind of the comedic awkwardness of a foreign exchange student (she was apparently written that way for the show), she might be more accurately pegged as the Teen Titans’ equivalent to Sixteen Candles’ Long Duck Dong.

Robin = Judd Nelson. OK, this is might be a reach, since Robin doesn’t make an obvious “criminal.” But on the show, he’s not the wisecracking sidekick that he used to be with Batman (ceding the comic relief to the other characters). He’s actually got a pretty significant dark side: on the first season he masquerades as a thief to entrap the mystery evil-doer Slade, and later, Slade blackmails him into becoming his criminal apprentice. The Robin vs. Slade dynamic represents “teen independence vs. adult authority,” which is basically the same as Judd Nelson vs. Paul Gleason’s nasty school principal. Plus, Robin’s the leader of the Teen Titans, and Judd Nelson’s character, if not the stated leader, is the catalyst that spurs the Breakfast Club into action.

(Photo courtesy Horizon Theatre)

In the comics, Mignola’s shadowy, Gothic-drenched artwork tends to be more stark and his dialogue more spare than their equivalent images in the Hellboy movies. There are two animated Hellboy films, but perhaps the best cartoon showcase for the tone and look of Mignola’s work is “The Amazing Screw-On Head.” This exceedingly odd 20-minute animated horror spoof features the voice of Paul Giamatti as a low-tech mechanical secret agent circa the Civil War called “The Screw-On Head.” (Yes, other characters, like Abraham Lincoln, address him as “Screw-On Head.”) David Hyde Pierce voices his arch-villain, the foppish ghoul Emperor Zombie. From Bryan Fuller, creator of “Pushing Daisies,” the 2006 pilot film looks exactly like what you’d get if the creators of Adult Swim made a Halloween-themed version of “Wild Wild West.” The introductory scheme perfectly captures Mignola’s penchant for occult action scenes and demented whimsy:

Speaking of Hellboy II, have you seen the viral videos of James Lipton interviewing Hellboy, as well as Hellboy’s public service announcement? Funny.

The teaser emulates old-fashioned corporate training films and is quite clever. The Dad’s people seem to have a flair with the viral video form:

If the premise of a human being being “operated” from the inside by a band of controllers looks familiar, Woody Allen’s already done it in his 1972 anthology comedy Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask). In the last and best chapter, “What happens during ejaculation?” Allen depicts the internal “crew” of an unseen man on a date that goes, uh extremely well. Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds lead the crew that controls the brain, blue collar-type workers in the stomach labor to digest the incoming meal (”Italian food? Jesus CHRIST!”), etc. Allen plays one of numerous sperm, preparing to be deployed like parachutists: “What if he’s masturbating? We could end up on the ceiling!” You can watch it in its entirety on Youtube:

Meet Dave opens this Friday, July 11.

Based in Ware, Mass., Tanglewood Marionnettes adapted The Dragon King based on a Chinese folktale, in which a drought has turned the land brown and lifeless. (It could be torn from today’s headlines.) For reasons unknown, the supernatural Dragon King has neglected his duties of bringing rain to countryside, so a grandmother goes on a quest to find the Dragon King in his undersea kingdom.

Not surprisingly, the show features many influences from Chinese culture, including a lovely, scrolling backdrop that imitates Chinese illustration style, as well as a lively parade dragon that snakes around the audience near the end. The script draws cleverly from other storytelling traditions as well, from Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” to the movie Finding Nemo (in thankfully subtle ways). The marionettes, manipulated by Peter Schaefer and Jenn Tebo, are absolutely gorgeous, particularly such animals as the hare, a sea turtle and a giant squid at least six feet tall. In one of the show’s most charming surprises, a pair of huge goldfish (like koi pond escapees) turn out to be “flip-over puppets,” and when their oversized tails turn inside out, they turn into completely different characters.

Tanglewood’s dialogue and music are prerecorded, which can sometimes rob a puppetry performance of a certain spontaneity, but Tanglewood makes up for that by having puppeteer Peter Schaefer chat up the audience before and after the performance. Plus, Schaefer and Tebo perform in full view of the audience for most of the show, which adds to the personal touch.

The Dragon King plays through July 13 at the Center for Puppetry Arts. The remaining shows on the SummerFest bill are The Bremen Town Musicians by Crabgrass Puppet Theatre of Halifax, Vt. (July 15-27), and Sleeping Beauty, a one-puppeteer performance by Paul Messner Puppets of Kansas City, Mo. (July 29-Aug. 10).

PES’s fun food-related shorts are completely work safe and kid-friendly — which is more than you can say for his hilarious “Roof Sex,” which features furniture instead of food, as well as a killer punchline.

Black superheroes have a spotty history in comics, cartoons and movies. Before the mid-1960s, you’d be hard-pressed to find any African-American comic book superheroes, and the ones who subsequently emerged were frequently treated as tokens with either utterly bland or highly stereotypical characterization. With so many real-world heroes breaking the color bar in arts, sports, politics and civil rights over the past generations, it’s not a surprise that the likes of, say, Black Vulcan from “Super Friends” never made much of an impact. For simplicity’s sake I’ll focus here (mostly) on the black superheroes who have crossed over to other media, with varying degrees of success.

Blade

By default, the character to make the most successful leap from comic books to other media is Blade, played by Wesley Snipes. The super-powered vampire hunter first appeared in Tomb of Dracula in 1973, remained on the margins of Marvel Comics but in 1998-2004 received the big-screen treatment in three films (not to mention a short-lived TV series with Kirk “Sticky” Jones). The success of the Blade films blazed the trail for higher-profile Marvel Comics adaptations like X-Men and Spider-man. Despite his pointy silver weapons and vampire-type powers, Blade is arguably more of an R-rated horror/action hero than an iconic superhero in his own right. Still, director Guillermo Del Toro made Blade II into one of the most surprisingly entertaining guilty-pleasure hero films. The clip above features Ron ‘Hellboy’ Perlman as a racist vampire and includes some of Snipes’ liveliest macho posturing.

Storm

Perhaps the most respectable black big-screen hero would be the weather-controlling Ororo, better known as Storm of the X-Men. Halle Berry, an Oscar-winner for Best Actress, plays her in all three X-Men films, and she becomes the superteam’s leader in X-Men: The Last Stand. The clip above showcases her tornado powers from X2: X-Men United (one of the best, smartest hero films ever made), but the trouble is that Berry displays little of the charisma she brings to roles like Jinx in that James Bond film, so Storm seldom stands out amid the zillion other X-Men and X-Women.

Catwoman

Berry also most of her X-Men good will for her solo stint in Catwoman, which awkwardly reimagines the Batman villainness/dominatrix as a sort-of superhero. There’s absolutely no reason that an African-American actress couldn’t play the role, but probably nobody could have reconciled Catwoman’s kinky sexuality, campy heroics and corny cat jokes.

Steel

Catwoman felt like an unwelcome reprise of the spate of terrible African-American superhero movies from the 1990s, which include Robert Townsend’s Meteor Man and Damon Wayans’ Blankman (a variation of Wayans’ disabled hero “Handiman” from his recurring “In Living Color” sketches). At least those films were would-be comedies based on original characters, keeping expectations low. None proved as clunky as Shaquille O’Neal’s Steel, a character with Iron Man-type armor and loose connections to both the Superman mythos and the John Henry tall tale. One of the problems of the film (apart from simply requiring Shaq to act) is that Steel arguably looks less impressive than Shaq himself in his street clothes, holding a big sledgehammer. He makes his hilarious, costumed entrance at the 7:30 mark in the clip above.

Spawn

A little better, but still pretty crummy, is Spawn (1997). Michael Jai White plays an assassin for a covert government agency who is killed by his employers, but accepts a literal deal with a devil by returning to Earth as a “Hellspawn,” with powers that include magic, whipping chains and a flowing, malleable cape. Spawn deserves a little credit for carrying the broody, Gothic, Tim Burton-era superheroics into weird territory, and for taking the protagonist’s race as a given, but the film’s execution is still largely unpleasant.

The Black Panther

Considered the first black comic book superhero, The Black Panther originated in The Fantastic Four in 1966. Known in real life as T’Challa, he’s the prince (and later king) of the African nation of Wakanda, which sort of resembles the idyllic African kingdom on the other side of the Paramount logo in Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America. T’Challa has feline-style powers, but as an African head of state, you’d think he has better to do than fight costumed ne’er-do-wells. Marvel seems to be testing the waters for a Black Panther live action project and showcased the the character in the DVD animated feature Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther. Here he’s fighting the Fantastic Four in one of their old cartoon series.

Luke Cage, a.k.a. Hero for Hire, a.k.a. Power Man

A wrongfully-incarcerated ex-con who specializes in helping out people in Harlem, Luke Cage debuted in 1972 as Marvel Comics’ answer to blaxploitation icons like Shaft. The 1970s stories have dated rather embarrassingly — the slideshow above shows how the title evolved, giving him the more conventional name “Power Man” — but Cage was my favorite black superhero from the 1970s. There’s rumor that John Singleton intends to direct a Luke Cage film with Tyrese, but so far, the character’s only connection to the big screen is that movie star and comic book fanboy Nicolas Cage named himself after the role.

Green Lantern (John Stewart)

Occasional comic book publishers have allowed black characters to take up the mantle of heroes established by white ones. (In Iron Man, Jim Rhodes has worn the armor for extended periods, frequently coinciding with Tony Stark’s alcohol problem; Terence Howard winks at this bit of history in the new film). In Green Lantern mythos, ex-Marine John Stewart has wielded the power ring and provides a particularly strong take on the character in the animated “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” TV shows. Voiced by Phil LaMarr, John Stewart’s Green Lantern doesn’t take a backseat to the better-established superheroes, and is one of the show’s most well-rounded characters: he keeps ties with his old Detroit neighborhood and is one of the points in a romantic triangle with Hawkgirl and Vixen, a promising African-American heroine in her own right, voiced by “Firefly’s” Gina Torres. Reportedly, director George Miller cast Common as John Stewart in the aborted Justice League movie. The clip above shows him in action in a guest appearance on “Static Shock” which showcased a young African-American hero who never really caught on.

Verb

Is it wrong of me that my favorite African-American superhero is “Verb” from the old “Schoolhouse Rocks!” shorts? As the cartoon shows, Verb is clearly a movie star and an inspiration in his own right: “Verb tells it like it is.”