Trepidation Ho!
The Titans Tower Monitor Room has a report from the San Diego ComicCon Legion Panel.
In general it sounds interesting enough. But one part really makes me pause:
"Brainiac 5 is the biggest departure from his comic book counterpart; Although descended from the evil Brainiac, Brainiac 5 is very much learning what it means to be a real boy. The creators likened him to Pinnoccio."
Um. What?
They're turning Querl Dox into Data?!?!
Hoo boy. The warm feelings I've had since the Wil Wheaton as Cosmic Boy announcement (inspired casting, that) are starting to get overtaken by a bit of dismay.
Maybe they'll pull it off, but this...well, I've got my doubts...
In general it sounds interesting enough. But one part really makes me pause:
"Brainiac 5 is the biggest departure from his comic book counterpart; Although descended from the evil Brainiac, Brainiac 5 is very much learning what it means to be a real boy. The creators likened him to Pinnoccio."
Um. What?
They're turning Querl Dox into Data?!?!
Hoo boy. The warm feelings I've had since the Wil Wheaton as Cosmic Boy announcement (inspired casting, that) are starting to get overtaken by a bit of dismay.
Maybe they'll pull it off, but this...well, I've got my doubts...
posted by kalinara @ 2:57 AM
14 Comments:
At July 25, 2006 3:39 AM,
Brandon Bragg said…
I got to see this panel and the preview they showed looked pretty damn good. The writers and producers all seem to know their Legion stuff and it's obvious they love the characters. I think the Brainiac decision was made soley for character variety. In all the promo stuff I've seen he's got some kind of weird Inspector Gadget thing going.
At July 25, 2006 3:41 AM,
kalinara said…
That's good to hear! I'll give it a shot!
Still...Inspector Gadget-ized Data!Brainy?
I don't know...
At July 25, 2006 7:58 AM,
Elayne said…
I wouldn't worry as long as Waid's still writing the book.
At July 25, 2006 8:21 AM,
Rich said…
Yeah, I saw the weird neck-thing going on with Brainy as well. Hmmm, well I never liked the Teen Titans cartoon so I don't expect much from this either.
These adaptations of older DC stories like the Judas Contract though...those I'm looking forward to!
At July 25, 2006 12:54 PM,
Zaratustra said…
Well, if he remained a superintelligent asshole, a lot of kids would gain new nicknames all of a sudden.
At July 25, 2006 1:39 PM,
kalinara said…
elayne: That's true! I would like the Legion cartoon to be fun too though. :-)
rich: I'm with you honestly. Teen Titans was cute but never did it for me.
I wonder how they will do Judas Contract...
Zaratustra: Heh, there is that, I guess.
At July 25, 2006 5:09 PM,
Anonymous said…
Making Brainy 5 a robot like his ancestor actually makes pretty good sense. I never did understand how an adopted son could "inherit" super-intelligence from his robot dad...
At July 25, 2006 5:48 PM,
Marc Burkhardt said…
Unlike a lot of comics fans, I thought Teen Titans was great. The manga humor kind of harkened back to the Bob Haney era for me, with some Wolfman gravitas thrown in every once in a while.
Plus, my 7 year old son worshipped the animated Robin. He liked the Krypto cartoon too
As far as the Legion toon goes, guess we'll see how it is when it comes out!
At July 25, 2006 6:27 PM,
kalinara said…
J. Kevin: Thought Coluans were essentially biological computers...
Oh well, I'm not complaining about the robot thing. I'm cool with the robot thing. The "Real Boy" thing is what throws me. What's wrong with being a robot that *likes* its superiority to humans?
Fortress: :-) True, maybe it'll be good in spite of it.
At July 25, 2006 7:56 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think there needs to be brief moratorium on characters inspired by Pinnochio, myself.
"Data" is what immediately popped into my head when I read that as well. It was an old trope when they did it on TNG!
"What's wrong with being a robot that *likes* its superiority to humans?"
Yeah, this is The Legion! I wonder if there's some resistance among the execs or whoever made this creative decision to suggestions that being anything other than human is jim-dandy--network 'toons do tend to get nit-picked for any hint of potential offense.
At July 25, 2006 8:50 PM,
Chris Sims said…
Someone on my blog once made the comment that the Teen Titans cartoon is a lot closer in tone to the Bob Haney/Nick Cardy stories (including an appearance by Ding Dong Daddy) than the Wolfman/Perez run from which it draws the actual cast.
Maybe the same'll hold true for the Legion cartoon, and we'll get a wacky-ass animed-up version of those weird-ass Otto Binder stories.
At July 26, 2006 12:28 AM,
Richard said…
Just to clear things up for J. Kevin...it was never that Brainiac 5 was supposed to have gained intelligence from Brainiac. The deal was that Brainiac took over Colu, and adopted a native boy to somehow make his rule seem legitimate. Not clear why he felt the need to do that -- surely ruling through fear of his city-shrinking ray would have been enough? -- but that was the story and we didn't ask those sorts of questions back then. Anyway, Brainiac renamed the adopted boy "Brainiac 2" so it would look more kosher. But Junior, being loyal to his own kind, worked out a way to expand his own mental capacity to defeat the conqueror. He then passed this gift onto his descendants, who called themselves Brainiac 3, 4, and 5. The descendants keeping the name would have been sort of a patriotic gesture, honoring not the conqueror but the boy who drove him out and freed the planet.
At July 26, 2006 7:02 AM,
kalinara said…
chawunky: I guess. It seems lame though...and a bit disturbing when I think about it. What's wrong with celebrating diversity?
chris: That's...hard to imagine.
rab: Thanks, I admit, I was fuzzy on the details too!
At July 27, 2006 4:41 AM,
Anonymous said…
yeah.. Data's real-boy shtick never really grabbed me. I liked TNG, and the Data-episodes had a certain charm. But it had to be done with finesse. Too much starry-eyed 'I-wanna-be-human!' stuff got saccherine real-quick.
I'm a bitchy snob, so I can't really comment on what makes LSH 'work' in general. What made it work for *me* was the idealism, the optimism and the interaction of all those different personalities. It was kind of like the junior UN, when it was done well. I never liked it much when they veered back too much towards their golly-gee Adventure Comics roots. I know the Superman fan contingent really digs that stuff, though. I'm probably not the target audience.
I just liked him better as a snarky, supercilious bitch. There are too many straightmen in the legion as it is.
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