Comics: Captain America.

Footage from the 1979 T.V movie.

The Marvel comics directory claims "Captain America rides a Harley-Davidson custom special motorcycle, custom built for him by young motorcycle mechanic Jonathan Coulson of Queens, New York. Coulson modified the bike for the Captain in repayment for the Avenger's help in reconciling the youth with his father. Captain America then took it to S.H.I.E.L.D., where it was further modified. While living in Brooklyn Heights, Captain America stored the motorcycle in a service garage operated by Richard Dumbrowski. Captain America now keeps his motorcycle in his van and takes it wherever he travels."

Panel from Captain America #318 "war on wheels"

Via: Cyberpunk Review

"Akira Club is an art book featuring cover art, sketches and outtakes from the paperback Akira collections. It’s a little pricey at thirty bucks when most the artwork is in black and white, and another set back is the format, which doesn’t match the Akira books. Though mostly presented in black and white, Otomo Katsuhiro’s artwork will blow your socks off. The artwork in Akira Club is incredibly detailed and the author’s commentaries and sketches really show you how much work has been put into the product. While penned many years ago, it doesn’t look a bit outdated. Akira is an epic piece of work at over 2000 pages and has won awards and prestige around the world. The animated movie based on the manga re-introduced the west to Japanese animation in the nineties. The quality of animation mirrors that of the manga and although large parts of the manga were cut from the movie, it still gets the story through to the viewer pretty well.

Background: The world of Akira is set after world war three and the destruction and rebuilding of Tokyo. Themes include transhumanism, corruption, low life and high tech and Akira comes across as incredibly cyberpunk, mostly focusing on the life of those on the ground in a super industrialized and militaristic Neo Tokyo. The artwork in Akira Club pretty much represents these themes in great detail. There’s a contrast between the giant, symmetrical skyscrapers which dominate the Neo Tokyo skyline and the life on the ground where there are a lot of organic and seemingly random shapes. There’s also a recurring theme of order put in chaos, like the front cover image; smooth motorcycle parts are jumbled together in a giant mess creating disarray where there once was a finely tuned machine, everything put together neatly.

A lot of the magazine covers show a destroyed Neo Tokyo behind mostly young people. The city being destroyed by a secret weapon created by the government, this gives a pretty strong image of the world being handed over to future generations ruined by our predecessors’ lust for more power through technological advances.


Section One: The first section collects several full colour paintings of magazine and book covers, T shirt designs and promotional posters, supplemented with preliminary sketches and short comments from the author; Otomo Katsuhiro.

Section Two: The second section is the biggest and focuses on the covers used for each chapter when Akira was serialized in Young Magazine. These weren’t included in the paperback collections because they’d break up the natural flow of the story, so having them collected here is kinda nice as the artwork is generally stunning. These do not include comments on the artwork but little musings on life by the author, which I personally found incredibly uninteresting.

It's all about the bike...

Section Three: The third section collects all sorts of odd artwork used in advertising and merchandise, there’s a lot of great art, but all in all it’s not as interesting as the last section of the book. Also included here are notes on the translation of Akira.

Section Four: The fourth section is probably the coolest out of the whole book, although I wish it were longer. Titled, “Unpublished Works,” it shows panels and scenes that were never included in the finalized Akira comic books, some pages include parts that were included in the serialized version of the comic, but were cut from the paperback collections.

The Bottom Line: Having “read” through the book, I feel a little let down; it’s like there’s something missing. The artwork, though awe-inspiring, is as noted mostly in black and white, and I feel there could have been more colour illustrations put in to compensate for the large number of cover illustrations from Young Magazine. The last part of the book could also have been a little longer. At two thousand pages, I’m sure there is more unpublished material than on display here. I’d like to see the parts excluded from the paperback collections in better detail, preferably in entirety, as I’m sure others are as well. I’ve only had access to the translated collections and would like to know what I’ve been missing out on."

The motorcycle in cinema-The Venus Wars.

Wiki:

"The Venus Wars (ヴイナス戦記 Vinasu Senki?) is a 1989 science fiction anime film. It is directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, co-written by Yuichi Sasamoto and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and stars Gorô Naya and Anna Alba. Loosely based on the manga by Yasuhiko (translated into English by Dark Horse Comics in the early 90s), The Venus Wars gained recognition in the United States when it aired in heavy rotation on the Sci-Fi Channel "Saturday Anime" movie block in the late 1990s. Makoto Kobayashi provided the mechanical design of the films "Monobikes"

Everybody loves a monobike

Story:
In the year 2003, a collision with the giant comet has transformed the surface of the planet Venus. In the year 2089, Venus has been colonized and divided into two continents, Ishtar and Aphrodia. Susan Sommers, a bubbly reporter from Earth, travels to Venus hoping to get a scoop on the military tensions that have arisen between the two nations. She arrives in the Aphrodian capital of Io shortly before the city is invaded by the forces of Ishtar, led by General Donner.



Meanwhile, a brutal, Rollerball-esque racing game is being held in a local stadium. One team, the Killer Commandos, is led by hotshot Hiro Seno. The game is disrupted by the invasion and the team quickly evacuates. Hiro's teammate Will picks up Sue on the way and takes her to the garage where the rest of the team is lying low. The invasion of Io is completed in one day, and the politicians, police, and press submit to Ishtar's authority. The city is put under martial law and a curfew imposed. Many of Io's citizens, including Hiro's girlfriend Maggy, try to pretend that nothing has changed since the invasion, but Donner's iron grip on the city is too tight to ignore.


Hiro visits his teammate Jack, who's staying in his uncle's high rise apartment. However, the police see them as trespassers and lead an unprovoked assault against Hiro. He makes a daring escape from their custody, but not unscathed; his leg is pierced by a bullet and he barely makes it to Maggy's home before he collapses. She tends to his wounds, and Hiro shares a few secrets about his past. A photograph of Maggy's father's spurs memories of the farm where he was raised; Hiro reveals that many of the terra-forming farms funded by the Aphrodian government were frauds simply meant to secure land away from Ishtar. That their crops continually kept failing since the plants couldn't endure the constantly changing weather conditions of the planet (despite convincing claims from so-called government sources)! He bitterly notes on how only the politicians made any money out of this situation, that all governments are corrupt, and expresses his frustration and anger at the state of the world. His words trouble Maggy; so much so, that she bursts into tears and collapses into his arms in a crying fit! Hiro comforts her, leading to both sharing an embrace and a passionate kiss. The moment is ruined when her father returns from work; Hiro is ushered into a back room and overhears the ensuing conversation. Maggy's father is a bureaucrat, and he's pulling strings to have the two of them evacuated out of Io as he did with her brother and mother. Maggy is horrified at the thought of abandoning her friends and defiantly stands up for them against her livid father (who views them as just self-centred adrenaline junkies), before he furiously shouts her into silence as Hiro secretly storms out.
Meanwhile, Miranda of the Killer Commandos discovers that their manager, Gary, has been secretly smuggling arms into the city. Raiding his cache, she reveals her plan to demolish the Ishtar tanks that are parked in the old stadium. Gary says that the Commandos would be fools to try such a suicidal mission, but Hiro likes the idea and inspires his teammates. The Killer Commandos lead an assault against the tanks, but underestimate the strength of Ishtar's military. Jack and Gary are killed in the melee, and Hiro nearly shares their fate. At the last minute, however, the team is saved by the Aphrodian Freedom Force, which had also been planning to attack the stadium that night.



Sue and the Killer Commandos are forcibly recruited by Lt. Kurtz, who thinks that their skills as monobikers would be useful in his Bloodhound Squadron. Tensions run high among the Killer Commandos and the team is divided; Will and Sue think that it's important to fight for Aphrodia's freedom, but Hiro and Miranda want nothing to do with war. Will is called out on a mission and Sue begs him to take her along. He instead convinces her to wire her camera to his monobike so he can film their attack. But to Sue's horror, Will disappears in battle. Sue steals a buggy to search for him on the battlefield, only to stumble upon the terrible truth of his death.
Upset over Will's fate, Hiro and the Commandos demand to be freed from the Freedom Force's custody. Lt. Kurtz and Hiro quickly strike up an animosity, and Kurtz challenges Hiro to a race across a ravine in their monobikes. Despite having a ten second head start, Hiro is taken out by Kurtz. Nevertheless, Kurtz is impressed by Hiro's raw talent, and makes him a deal: he will release the Killer Commandos on the condition that Hiro joins the Bloodhound Squadron. Hiro grudgingly accepts his offer, and says goodbye to Miranda and his friends.

Back in Io, General Donner is visited by Sue, who requests an interview with him for the Independent Press on Earth. Once alone with him, Sue pulls a gun and threatens to kill him in order to avenge Will and all the other innocent people who have died in the war. She fails to release the safety however, and is quickly disarmed and arrested. Displaying his sadism Gerhard accosts Sue, snatches away her firearm, then discharges her pistol inches from the side of her head, before putting it to her skull and pulling the trigger, cruelly revealing he's used up all the bullets.


Kurtz leads the Bloodhound Squadron in a surprise and intense strike on Io. Kurtz is disabled, but Hiro manages, through sheer luck and skill, to corner Donner's tank and destroy it by getting Gerhard to fire on him (raging that he shall not be beaten by children), with his shots missing Hiro and striking a runway that collapses ontop of (a screeching with frustration) Gerhard in his tank. With their leader dead, the Ishtar forces are quickly disbanded and Aphrodia is freed from their control. Kurtz and Hiro end their animosity and Kurtz gives Hiro his monobike as a sign of goodwill. While driving through the streets, Hiro encounters the recently released Sue, who's being evacuated to Earth. She thanks him for all of his help, and he tells her to come back and visit Venus again.

Following Sue's tip, Hiro makes the long trek to a refugee camp; there, he and Maggy are happily reunited (thanks to her siamese cat Andrew). Back on Earth, Sue has given a world exclusive on the Venus Wars. She plans to spend her vacation on Venus so she can rejoin her friends."

The Fenir-Close up.

A few weeks (months?) ago we did a post on the PS2 game hero Cloud's bike the Fenir from the Final Fantasy series and movie. Now we have more detailed pictures of the incredible Keita Amemiya designed bike created by computer artist Wen-JR and featured on moto.caradisiac. Enjoy!

Here's a rendering showing the bikes open "doors"-allowing access to our hero's rather large swords.

The motorcycle in cinema-Electra Glide in Blue.

Wiki:

"Electra Glide in Blue is a 1973 film starring Robert Blake as a motorcycle cop in Arizona and Billy Green Bush as his partner. The movie was filmed in Monument Valley, and was produced and directed by James William Guercio (who is best known as the producer of Chicago's first eleven albums). The film was loathed by critics when first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, but garnered a great deal of critical acclaim upon its nationwide release. Overall, it saw only limited commercial success.

Blake plays a motorcycle cop named John Wintergreen who patrols the rural Arizona highways with his partner, nicknamed "Zipper" (Billy Green Bush). Wintergreen is a rookie cop who resents being in traffic enforcement and wants to be transferred to homicide investigation. Wintergreen is laid-back but upright about enforcing the law, while Zipper is alternately lazy (preferring to read comic books in the shade) and hard-assed about busting hippies, even going so far as to plant evidence on a young man whose van they were searching.

At first his supervisors ignore his request for a transfer; however, he is informed of an apparent suicide by Crazy Willie (Elisha Cook, Jr.). Wintergreen believes the case is not a suicide, but is instead a murder; after a shouting match with the local coroner (Royal Dano), he meets Detective Harve Poole (Mitchell Ryan), who admires Wintergreen's savvy, and arranges for Wintergreen to be transferred to homicide to help with the case.
Wintergreen's initial joy at being promoted is short-lived, as his relationship with his fellow officers deteriorates. Wintergreen begins increasingly to identify with the hippies whom the other officers are endlessly harassing; in one scene he watches as Harve brutally interrogates the same hippies who had cheerfully lied to Wintergreen about not knowing a suspect by the name of Bob Zemko (Peter Cetera).

Workplace politics also cause him to be quickly demoted back to traffic enforcement; the final straw comes when Harve discovers that Wintergreen has been sleeping with Jolene (Jeannine Riley), Harve's girlfriend and waitress at the local bar. Harve is emasculated by Jolene in front of Wintergreen, his subordinate, when Jolene mocks Harve's sexual prowess (implying that Harve is impotent) and brags that Wintergreen can "go three times in one morning".
Wintergreen eventually realizes that Crazy Willie committed the murder; the victim was an old friend of his who had taken to selling amphetamines and hanging around with a younger crowd. Jealous, Willie murdered his friend and arranged it so it appeared to be a suicide. Wintergreen then informs Harve that he is "full of horseshit", as Harve was convinced Zemko had committed the murder and stolen money from the victim.

Wintergreen then discovers another terrible fact: Zipper's dream was to own his own motorcycle, and had stolen the dead man's drug money (initially blamed on Zemko) to pay for it. Zipper is intoxicated and begins firing his gun at Wintergreen, and actually hits a random passer-by. Horrified, Wintergreen shoots Zipper in self-defense, and Zipper dies in his arms.

Shortly afterwards, Wintergreen loses his own life in an ending reminiscent of the end of Easy Rider. On the road again, he encounters the van of the hippie that he and Zipper had interrogated earlier in the film; the hippie is now accompanied in the van by a friend. Wintergreen pulls the van over when he notices that it is without a front bumper, but when he recognizes the driver and remembers the trouble he and Zipper caused him, Wintergreen pardons the hippies and sends them on their way. Almost immediately after the van drives off, Wintergreen discovers that he is still holding the driver's license, and rides after them in an attempt to return it. However, the hippies interpret it as an arrest attempt (they are apparently carrying drugs in the van), and before Wintergreen is able to return the driver's license, the accompanying hippie leans out the van's back window and shoots Wintergreen with a shotgun. The hippies make their escape, and Wintergreen dies on the desert road, his motorcycle lying some meters ahead of him.

Cloud Strife and his bikes.

The original concept drawing of Cloud on his bike by the brilliant Yoshitaka Amano

Cloud Strife (クラウド・ストライフ Kuraudo Sutoraifu?) is the protagonist of Square's (now known as Square Enix) role-playing game Final Fantasy VII and several of its sequels and spin-offs. His appearance is marked by spiky blonde hair, vivid greenish-blue eyes. His first bike of a desperate choice was the "Hardy Daytona". (The Daytona was displayed at Shinra building and Cloud stole it to escape The Shinra Electric Power Company....

Must be helmet hair-Cloud with Hardy Daytona

In the CGI movie Final Fanatsy Advent Children, Cloud after countless conflicts retires and established the Strife Delivery Service, with the aid of friend Tifa Lockhart-and a new bike (Designed byTakayuki Takeya) called Fenrir.

In with the new: The Fenur

The DVD release of Advent Children sold over 420,000 copies in Japan (or by people who imported from Japan) in its first week, which was 93% of all published copies at the time.

The holy Trinity.

Wiki:

Trinity is the main female fictional character in The Matrix universe, played by actress Carrie-Anne Moss in the films The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, Enter The Matrix, and The Matrix Revolutions and in the film segments of The Matrix: Path of Neo-The character's name is derived from the name given to the triune Godhead in Christianity.


Trinity was the first officer on the Nebuchadnezzar, a Zion hovercraft commanded by Morpheus. Her "birth" name as a human living inside the Matrix is unknown. However, she only briefly and vaguely refers to her previous job as an accountant during the first Matrix movie. While inside the Matrix, Trinity had made herself as a local legend in the illusory hacking community of humans living in the Matrix for hacking into the Internal Revenue Service database. Based on Neo's recollection on first meeting Trinity, as well as information from "A Detective Story", an animated short film from The Animatrix, most people make the mistake of assuming someone of Trinity's reputation as being a man.

Flashy wallpaper from starwallpapers

In real life, Carrie-Anne had to overcome her fear of riding for the second Matrix Film –The Matrix Reloaded. Practicing for months on smaller bikes before dominating the bigger, more aggressive Ducati. The more serious and dangerous riding was performed well known Stuntwoman Debbie Evans.

A must for your desktop (or shrine) Trinity on her Ducati statue from Hot movie props

With the release of the final Matrix film Ducati produced a limited edition Ducati 998. A literal copy of Trinitys green bike in the film- but only allowed pretty women in black latex jumpers to buy them....

The motorcycle in cinema-Timerider.

Wiki:

"When Swann goes miles off course he stumbles across a time travel experiment that utilizes two "cannons" that fire temporal energy to send each other back in time. Swann gets sent back to 1877 but rides off before the time cannons can return him to the future. Unsure of what has happened to him, Swann rides across the wild west in a red motorcycle riding suit and a red dirt bike, scaring local Mexicans who think he is the devil.


Swann meets a beautiful woman, Claire Cygne, and sleeps with her, but she is later kidnapped by a ruthless criminal, Porter Reese (portrayed by Peter Coyote) and his gang of rapists, thieves, and murderers. They also manage to capture Lyle Swann's dirt bike, leading to a series of hijinx, while Swann gets help from a posse trying to capture or kill the gang of criminals.
In a final showdown, Reese and Swann face each other atop a plateau. Just as a helicopter sent by the builders of the time machine shows up to take Swann home, his dirt bike falls off the side of the plateau, distracting Reese. He gets mangled by the copter's tail rotor, leaving only a pair of bloody boots behind¹. Just as the helicopter pulls away, Claire snatches from Swann's neck a pendant handed down from his great-grandfather... and he realizes that he is his own great-grandfather."

Bit of trivia: The writer of the film's screenplay and soundtrack was Michael Nesmith, who was formerly a member of band The Monkees. He appears briefly as one of the Baja 1000 officials in the beginning of the film.

You can buy the Timerider DVD through Aerostich.