Storm Hawks is one of those half-hour animated shows that combines kid-violence with some touches of postmodern humor for the adults. It airs on the Cartoon Network.

The major characters are teenagers and they're a band of diverse-looking heroes who protect the make-believe world of Atmos - with a thousand mountain-top kingdoms - from evildoers. You've got Aerrow, the hip leader of the Storm Hawks; Finn, a wise-cracking blond-haired foil for Aerrow; Junko, a talking rhino strong guy; Piper, the supersmart girl; Stork, a morose green-skinned guy; and Radarr, a weird bunny rabbit thing who doesn't speak and serves as Aerrow's comic relief co-pilot. Together, they serve as the Storm Hawks Squadron. They travel around in fast-movin' and cool-lookin' tech and sport energy weapons reminiscent of lightsabers.

Storm Hawks: Hawks Rise Again collects the first five episodes of the show. The most significant episodes are the first two, as they serve as the origin story of the major characters. The episodes also introduce two major reoccurring villains: Master Cyclonis and her herald Dark Ace.

The computer animation looks very nice and detailed for a television series, and the humor is occasionally funny. The influences are obvious here: Star Wars, for instance, is written all over this show. Early in the first episode, Aerrow is asked "Aren't you a little short to be a Sky Knight?" - obviously parodying the first line Leia says to Luke Skywalker in George Lucas's seminal film.

The episodes included on this disc are Age of Heroes Part I, Age of Heroes Part II, Gale Force Winds, The Code, and Tranquility Now, which is given the dubious distinction of being a "Bonus Episode!" in the menu. The menu provides two options for playing through these episodes: a Play All Episodes option obviously does what it says it does while an Episode Selections option allows the viewer to select an episode.

I found this show moderately entertaining. It struck me as something I would have liked when I was in elementary / middle school. The show is best in small doses, though, as the action gets a little tiresome when viewed episode after episode straight through. I'd recommend Storm Hawks to others, but Sony's DVD package disappoints in the extras department, which I detail below.

The DVD

Video:

This DVD sports an anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen presentation. The colors look very bright and details are clear. The animation - while not earth-shatteringly great - is fun to watch on this disc.

Sound:

All five episodes are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. It's a solid sound presentation, with dialogue, music, and sound effects well-mixed. This track is the only audio option.

Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

Extras:

When the disc is played, trailers automatically begin for The Spectacular Spider-man: The Animated Series, The Prince and the Pauper, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The Final Season, Daddy Day Camp, and Roxy Hunter and the Mystery of the Moody Ghost. A Previews option in the menu system give access to those trailers and these additional ones: Are We Done Yet?, Surf's Up!, and The Last Day of Summer & Shredderman Rules!.

The Storm Hawks-specific special features are very disappointing. The Storm Hawks Squadron runs about 1 ½ minutes and shows short clips of each of the Storm Hawks in action. The Storm Hawks Weapons also provides brief clips of the following weapons from the show: Aerrow's Twin Energy Blades, Aerrow's Battle Glider, Piper's Energy Staff, Junko's Knuckle Busters, Finn's Energy Crossbow, The Dark Ace's Energy Sword, Master Cyclonis's Crystal Staff, Ravess' Energy Bow and Arrows, Snipe's Energy Mace, and Repton's Boomerang. This runs about 1 ½ minutes. The math, then, tells us that there are 3 minutes of special features on this disc, and they are comprised of quick scenes from the series edited together. As I said, very disappointing.

This DVD is basically a collection of five Storm Hawks episodes. The fifth episode, Tranquility Now, is billed as a bonus episode, which seems a little silly, especially considering it was, indeed, the fifth episode of the series. I wouldn't consider it an extra.

It should be noted that this DVD came packaged with a Storm Hawks: The Escape comic book written by Asaph Fipke (the creator of the series) with art by Andy Poon. At six pages, this mini-comic seems like something you'd find in the Sunday comics section of a newspaper. Usually when a DVD comes with a bonus comic book, it's placed inside the DVD case where the inside booklet would normally go. Here, however, it's glued to the back of the case and you have to carefully peel it off the case and then remove the drops of glue from the comic's back cover. The old comic book collector in me bristled at this.

Final Thoughts:

Storm Hawks is an amusing kids show seen on the Cartoon Network. It has some nice moments of humor and it's action-packed to keep one's attention. Watching all five episodes on this disc in a row, though, gets repetitive. I'll go with a Recommended on this one even though I have two major complaints. There's a lack of significant extras, for one thing. And, considering the trend to release series in season sets, why is Sony releasing this show piecemeal on separate DVD titles?

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