New Futurama Movie - Beast with a Billion Backs

We rented Futurama's second movie, "Beast with a Billion Backs" tonight, and I can tell you after watching the first twelve minutes, I've already laughed more than I did during the whole "Bender's Big Score" movie, which was so bad I ended up watching the math lecture in the special features again and again instead of re-watching the movie.
An early satire of "Steamboat Willie" in "Beast..." was wonderful, and the special features were fun. In other news, the sneak peek at the next movie also looks pretty promising - a satire of LOTR.

Update: Well, sorry to say, it stopped being funny after the first twenty minutes. Then it devolved into an unfunny-tentacle-porn-religion plot thing. Which wasn't really good at all. But, at least the first twenty minutes were funny! Sigh. Futurama is apparently only good when kept to those original running times of a little over twenty minutes.

Links between Mythology and Comic Books: Discuss

Dear Readers,
I'm teaching a creative writing class next week, and one of the main topics is the connection between ancient mythologies (Biblical, Greek, Norse, Japanese...) and comic books, Manga, and graphic novels.
So, I've got some examples (Superman was inspired by stories of Sampson and Hercules, Wonder Woman and her mother, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, Miyazaki's Nausicca which was inspired by both the character Nausicaa in The Odyssey and the Japanese folk tale, "The Princess who Loved Insects...)
But I'd love to hear about more! Were the X-Men inspired by tales of demi-Gods? What about Batman and the tradition of the samurai? Tell me your favorite (or most obscure) mythology to comic book connections!

What's Your Dream Superheroine Movie?

So, the huge success of Sex and the City has made me optimistic about female comic book superhero movies, perhaps foolishly, given the terrible, terrible treatment given most female superheroines by Hollywood so far...do I need to mention names? Aeon Flux, Catwoman, Underworld, etc...Bad writing, bad budgets, it's like they were trying to sabotage these movies or something!
But the success must mean that girls are desperate to see movies about...gasp...girls! You know, with stars who are female. And stories that are interesting to females.
So, besides the Joss Whedon Wonder Woman movie, what would your dream superheroine movie be? Who would you cast? Who would write it?