Brainiac versus Big Daddy. Who would win?

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So Corey Burton reprising his Brainiac chracter on a recent Legion of Super-Heroes was kind of laughable.

He had like 3 lines.

3 lines!!!

He's A-list voice acting talent so I'd love to know how much one gets paid for 3 lines?

I mean, the C-listers who they had to have do Transformers this past summer barely had 10 lines among them all. It really never mattered who did any of the voices other than Optimus and even then I didn't really give a shit. (I'd love some more Neil Kaplan in Transformers.)

I burst out laughing the other day when I read this post at Tformers about Darius McCary reprising Jazz or some such thing.

He add oh so much to that awesomely written film character. I think he said something about "nice planet bitches" and then something right before he died.

Yes. Very important to have just the right actor for that!

What's even funnier about that post is the succeeding comments that ensue about it.

I can't even imagine what actual forum boards are like.

Anyway, I was talking about Brainiac here wasn't it?

So I've been a fan of Brainiac since the 1983 revamp as the metallic robot skeleton with the huge skull ship.

2007-12-06-brainiac-skel.jpg

The Silver Age planet shrinking pink and white wearing human-looking bot's time had come.It was one of the best revamps ever, turning him from the green-skinned Coluan creation into an emotionless robot that viewed himself almost in religious terms with Superman as his prophecized destroyer.

Plus... let's face it... his skeletal revamp appearance by the great Gil Kane kicked major ass!

2007-12-06-brainiac-90s.jpgUnfortunately, it only lasted a few years.

The Superman reboot of 1986 wiped the awesome Brainiac from continuity and gave up a really lame new one that never quite did much of anything. Hell, he started out as an Alan Moore-looking circus mentalist possessed by a living Coluan named Brainiac and it kind of all went down hill through the 90s. This modern incarnation has always been pretty lame.

And then, like they've done so many times before, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm created a version of Brainiac closer to his original self, but even more different by tying him into Krypton in Superman: The Animated Series.

2007-12-06-BrainiacSTAS.jpg

And this is where Corey Burton comes in.

Burton provided the most phenomenal cold and cruel emotionless voice for this new Brainiac.

For me, the voice has completely become the character!

This new version of Brainiac was fantastic! Super-mega-balls fantastic!

They thankfully brought him back in Justice League Unlimited and paired in with Clancy Brown's most excellent Lex Luthor in one of the best Brainiac-Luthor team-ups ever!

Anyway, where was I going with this?

Oh. Yeah.

So for Legion of Super-Heroes they've changed the character yet again. He's not tied to Krypton anymore. He's back to being the shinker of the city Kandor, and he's Brainiac 1.0, essentially an earlier model of the Legion's boy-robot Brainiac 5.

It works with the cartoon's continuity and definitely is easier to explain Brainiac 5's existence than the original real Brainiac 5's history.

More on Brainiac here on Wikipedia. Brainiac 5 here.

Yes. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis made everything so much clearer. *gag*

8 Comments

At the very least, they're getting Grant Morrison to write Final Crisis. Which means there's hope it'll make no sense in a thought provoking manner, much like Seven Soldiers. (I'm not quite sure how he reconciles his perception of the Fourth World with the events of Infinite Crisis and Death of the New Gods.)

Anyway, I find it really funny that the comments on tformers are accusing Bay of being crafty.

Grant Morrison just has to purge his craziness every once in a while if wants to write anything good anymore. I read every issue of Sea Guy. Stupid, stupid me.

The new Justice League Unlimited series was just ridiculously good. Sharp writing lead to very fast character development that actually felt like the DCU in most cases. I lent both seasons to my brother so his sons could watch it because they loved watching the Superfriends show, and now I can't go more than a couple of days without getting a phone call telling me his new reasons why this is the best cartoon he's ever seen.

If you have it on DVD, watch the credits after every episode. They have more guest star actors than any show I've ever seen or heard of, including a large chunk of the Firefly cast.

Anybody see the sneak preview for "New Frontier" on the Superman Doomsday DVD? If it's half as good as the book, it's really gunna be something to look forward to.

JLU gets big ups for having an episode dedicated to Scott Free. That is all.

Here's my favorite quote from that link:

"The thing that upset me about his first appearance in the movie is that the voice that he used just wasn't right for the character. IRL, he has a voice that is similar to Scatman Crothers (G1 Jazz)."

If that doesn't scream anal-retentive disgruntled fanboy I don't know what does.

Nala:

I know you used to read comics and I'm not sure if you know about the latest 2 issues of Action Comics where Superman travels to the future where the sun is now red and the Legion has aged some. It's definitely worth looking into. I'm loving what Geoff Johns & Richard Donner (when he's on the title) are doing w/ Action.

As far as Brainiac goes nothing beats Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.

Hey!!!! I left a comment on that thread...

Well, at tfans, where we had a discussion about that thread. Hmmm, that's even more pathetic, isn't it?

Wow! I just read the Brainiac 5 entry that you linked to, and I had no idea that there was that much back story to that character. I've always loved the Justice League shows but there is no way I could ever follow all of that! The discrepencies and melodramas that are in the TF universes are extensive enough! However, I am really glad you posted that since I then went and checked it out---very educational!

All that caught my attention in the threaded link was some jackhole's use of GeeWun. What a lovingly retarded insult this has become. Almost like calling someone a liberal.

jeremy lee: Ain't that the truth. Or 'conservative'. I wasn't aware these were perjoratives until I came to the us.

nala: Bruce Timm should be allowed to run DCs direction for a while, I swear. I know he has it somewhat easier in the sense of having a blank canvas to work with, but I can't recall him putting a foot wrong yet. (Plus, he gave the world Harley.)

As for McCrary, he was pretty freakin' awesome in Committed. Plus, it might be worth bringing him back because (without going all ACLU here) do we really want the first and only good guy to get whacked in movie #1 to be the African-American derivation?

BTW: Don't forget, nach, the dramatic and touching portrayal of Brainiac as featured in WB hit and number one teen drama, SMALLVILLE.

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This page contains a single entry by Nala published on December 6, 2007 6:45 AM.

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