Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes 2.8 Message in a Bottle - Spoilers & Images

Description and images courtesy of the WB.

The Legion of Super Heroes offers its final new episode of 2007 this Saturday, December 1 with a huge adventure in the tiniest of lands.

In the episode entitled "Message in a Bottle," Superman and the Legion must venture into the legendary bottled city of Kandor in order to stop Imperiex, who seeks an advanced Kryptonian technology believed to be hidden inside.


Set to air December 1 at 11:00 a.m. ET/PT on Kids¹ WB! on The CW, "Message in a Bottle" is written by Joseph Kuhr and directed by Scott Jeralds and Brandon Vietti. Adam Wylie voices the Gatekeeper, while Kari Wahlgren stars as Shrinking Violet and Richard McGonagle lends his pipes to the Chancellor.


The Legion studies the tiny Kandor within its bottled confines.


Brainiac 5 searches for information about the past.


Imperiex and Validus launch their villainous plan.


A robotic Superman works inside Kandor.

I'm surprised but delighted at Vi returning in a speaking role already. She's fairing better than Tinya and obviously Imra this season.

Two comments: the cyborg Superman looks creepily like the Cyborg Superman villain from the comics.

Also, the writer's name, Joseph Kuhr, sounds like a pseudonym. Joe Kuhr=Joker?

More info and pics from this Saturday's episode.

Renowned voice actor Corey Burton reprises his celebrated role of Brainiac from "Superman: The Animated Series" in the Saturday, December 1 episode of "Legion of Super Heroes" entitled "Message in a Bottle."

Burton made his Brainiac debut in the S:TAS series premiere on September 6, 1996. More than 11 years later, Burton easily slipped back into the role.

"Brainiac is such a tasty character ­ so effortless, so wonderfully still and quiet. It really allows me to play great subtleties. The words perform themselves with a character like that."

Burton says the voice is a bit of a homage to famous voices from the annals of science fiction.

"It¹s just my basic mental image of a robotic intelligence, based partly on the Hal 9000 from 2001, and the detached narration from the original Outer Limits. The voice is very arresting in its quietness ­ that makes it that much more frightening."

To say the least, Burton was happy to reprise the role.

"I always thought Brainiac was the coolest character. He¹s completely detached from the violence ­ to him, it¹s just a consciousness. He doesn¹t breathe, he doesn¹t struggle ­ it¹s just the pure vibration of the words themselves that make his delivery so cold and emotionless."

In "Message in a Bottle," Superman and the Legion must venture into the legendary bottled city of Kandor in order to stop Imperiex, who seeks an advanced Kryptonian technology believed to be hidden inside. In order to help the Legion and clear his "family" name, Brainiac 5 must delve deep into his memory banks to access information from the original Brainiac.

Set to air December 1 at 11:00 a.m. ET/PT on Kids¹ WB! on The CW, "Message in a Bottle" is written by Joseph Kuhr and directed by Scott Jeralds and Brandon Vietti. Adam Wylie voices the Gatekeeper, while Kari Wahlgren stars as Shrinking Violet and Richard McGonagle lends his pipes to the Chancellor.

Attached you¹ll find a few images from the episode. There is no image of Brainiac included -- there may be one available on Friday.

Of the images, one important note: the image violet.jpg represents that in a tiny world that fits inside a bottle, Shrinking Violet would be a giant.

I can't wait 'til tomorrow.

That was an awesome Episode. but it was soo FUBAR what Brainy did at the end IMO, but expected!

It won't be on here in California for another 90ish minutes, but James Tucker had another interview posted today on CBR, over here.

"Message in a Bottle" is the last new episode of "Legion of Super-Heroes" in 2007, but Tucker gave CBR a glimpse of what is ahead in 2008:

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">"We are going to have the founding of the Legion, that's something to look forward to," said Tucker. "And we are going to have the first episode where Mordru appears. Dream Girl is coming up. And we have a really big season ender that I can't say anything about." </span></span> .

Looks to be an awesome last half of season 2!!!

Tucker also tells longtime fans to look closely at the backgrounds to the Fortress of Solitude. Sounds like there'll be some Easter Eggs.

Can't wait to watch this ep today!! LLL!!

Saw the episode today and I think that Brainac program has done something to Brainac 5. The look that Brainy has in the end, makes me wonder if in defeating Imperiex there are measures that he will have to take to make it a hollow victory and ensure his name in the 41st is not well thought of in the least.

I think you can see how of the Brainac influence already in Brainy with the light flash on Kal-El so he will forget the entire episode. The thing that flashed Kal-El to wipe his memory looked like one of the bots that Brainac uses for sentry duty.

I had the same thought over that look from Brainy at the end.

BTW, were all the snort-haters happy that Violet only snorted once in the whole episode?

I think that Violet's one-snort was enough.

When i saw the Robot Superman i thought "holy crap" it's the Cyborg-Superman.

Loved the cameos and Robot Superman.

Are we going to do a countdown to Brainy-goes-crazy-and/or-evil storyline? I hope it'll include Evil COMPUTO.

Nice dynamic between Supes and Brainy-kun.

In Brain Drain, Superman realizes that Brainy is hiding information from him. This time, Superman calls Brainy out on it. To see these two lashing out at each other (Brainy basically calling Superman a failure and Superman accusing Brainy of wanting to finish what Brainiac 1.0 had started) as a result of their frustration and hurt feelings was good characterization albeit heartbreaking. Of course, they do regret saying such things. At the end, Brainy pulls a “Men in Black” on Superman and all is forgotten. Normally, I hate episodes in any show that use the infamous “reset button” tactics but it works here! It leaves you wondering who’s really pulling the strings. Did Brainy erase Superman’s memory because of the reasons he gave to the others or was it actually Brainiac 1.0 who did it to gain a tactical advantage over Superman? Either one seems to fit.


I also loved the Brainy/Vi parts. Looking at this episode and Chained Lightning, I noticed that he smiles a lot when he’s around her. Guess Brainy sees Vi as a kindred spirit of sorts.

I loved seeing the distant descendants of Krypto and Streaky. Not to mention Violet beating up Validus!

Yes, a marvelous episode. I liked Violet hitting her head when she grew to "giant" size in Kandor.

Yay Krypto & Streaky!!!!!!

My one flaw in the episode. I figured out the turning the Kandorian sun yellow without consulting Brainac version 1.0. So why couldn't Brainy? Still, the question now is has Brainy been corrupted.

Clips from the show are up.

And wouldn't that have been Whizzy?

I see why Yuri said in an interview at the beginning of the season that he would voice 3 Supermen this year. He was also the voice of the Superman robot. Pretty cool!

I liked how Violet could grow in Kandor (makes sense since they are all microscopic), and like everyone else, I also figure Brainy has been infected with a B.1 virus. That'll come into play later.

Can't wait to see what they have on tap for the rest of the season in 2008!! We're going to get a Legion origin story!!!

I thought this episode was awesome! Quite possibly the best of the series!

My only nitpick was giant Vi fighting Validus.

Well, you might've figured out that that's would should be done, but did you figure out how to do it?

That's what my brother and I were thinking, when we saw this. Though my main flaw with the episode is... <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> the restoration of Krypton. I'll grant that after 1000 years the radiation may have subsided due to atomic decay... but how does a device that creates crystal provide an atmosphere? </span></span>

1,000 years is a pretty short half-life for Krypton to no longer be radioactive. That was my problem with the episode.

I thought of the turning the sun yellow bit earlier, too, but I attribute that to my having read a lot more Superman comics than Brainiac Five has.

It's a short half-life, but not implausibly short - provided it decays directly into something non-radioactive, rather than running through a chain of other radioactive elements first.

Comic book physics explains it all. No problem. I mean, it should have taken days or (more likely) years to gather together all the pieces of (what should have been ) an asteroid belt to recreate a planet. So I can live with a couple of other implausibilities too, like continents, atmosphere and oceans. I only hope there's enough biodiversity available to the Kandorians to repopulate the world with flora and fauna.

..that's all I got to say about that...

Vi as a giant was a really cute gimmick. (I found out my wife is becoming a Shrinking Violet fan - how fun)

Time travel conundrums make my head hurt.

Brainiac 1.0 Sweet. "Malicious code" -heh- is this the source of B5's once a decade attempt to destroy the Universe? I always suspected Querl was bi-polar, what with Supergirl robots, the murder of Ann Ryd and the occasional Omega doomsday construct, and we may have just seen the reason for it all...but...will they use the 1.0 virus (or whatever) to make 5 go manic in the remainder of season two or save it for later?

Great fun episode. Now I have to carefully watch through the Fortress scene to look for those Easter Eggs...I think the large squarish robot with the number 20 is from the 1940's Superman 'toon Superman vs the Mechanical Monsters, there's the helix for the Phantom Zone..and yeah, the robot looks alarmingly like Hank Kenshaw the Cyborg Superman.

I just love this cartoon.

Krypto and Whizzy made me snort Violet-style with laughter. The whole episode was good fun but that made it for me.

It was a great episode with a really original plot, one of the best of the season, if not *the* best. Everything worked just perfectly. We should have such stories in the Legion mag! Krypto and Whizzy were a great touch too.
My only "gripe": Why didn't Violet utter one little SNORT?