Brainiac (comics)
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Brainiac is a fictional supervillain in the DC Comics universe, most often appearing as an opponent of Superman.
Pre-Crisis
First appearing in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), Brainiac was a bald, green-skinned humanoid who arrived on Earth and shrank various cities, including Metropolis, storing them in bottles with the intent of using them to restore Bryak, the planet he ruled. He was accompanied by a "space monkey" named Koko.
While fighting Brainiac, Superman discovered the villain had previously shrunk the Kryptonian city of Kandor. He was able to restore the Earth cities to full size, but the Kandorians sacrificed their restoration to help him. Superman stored the city in his Fortress of Solitude, vowing to return the natives to full size.
Brainiac 5
Brainiac's legacy was revealed in Action Comics #276, in a Legion of Super-Heroes back up story. This introduced the green-skinned, blond-haired teenager Querl Dox, or Brainiac 5, who believed himself to be Brainiac's 30th century descendant. Unlike his apparent ancestor, Brainiac 5 used his "twelfth level intellect" for good, and joined the Legion alongside Supergirl, with whom he fell in love. His home planet was given variously as Yod or Colu.In Superman #167 (February 1964) it was discovered that Brainiac was a machine, created by the "Computer Tyrants of Colu" as a spy. To increase the illusion that he was alive, he was given a "son", a young Coluan boy who was given the name Brainiac 2, but escaped. This was Brainiac 5's ancestor. It was later revealed that his name was Vril Dox, and that he went on to lead the revolt against the Computer Tyrants.
It was in this story that Brainiac first appeared with a distinctive gridwork of red diodes across his head, later explained as the "electric terminals of his sensory nerves". This would remain his appearance until Action Comics #544 (June 1983), in which he was forced to create a new body, a metallic skeleton with a green, honeycomb-patterned "braincase". He retained his appearance until the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Post-crisis
Vril Dox
In the Post-Crisis DC Universe, Brainiac's history was dramatically altered. Vril Dox was now a radical Coluan scientist who, having attempted to overthrow the Computer Tyrants, was sentenced to death. In his last moments, his consciousness was attracted to Earthly sideshow mentalist Milton Fine, who worked under the alias "Brainiac". Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered Fine had genuine psychic powers, which he frequently used on Superman. This version of Brainiac made his first appearance in Adventures of Superman #438 (March 1988).Brainiac was later captured by Lex Luthor, but used his powers to wrest control of LexCorp away from him. Under his mental domination, LexCorp scientists restored his Coluan form. The diodes in his head now increased and stabilized his mental powers, as well as allowing him direct access to computer banks. He continued to plague Superman, using a combination of mental powers and computer control. On one occasion he even returned to his pre-Crisis incarnation's city-shrinking tactics.
Invasion!
In the crossover story Invasion! it was revealed that, prior to its dispersion, the Computer Tyrants had allowed Vril Dox to clone a lab assistant. This was Vril Dox II, who would go on to form L.E.G.I.O.N., and (although he never uses the name) is the post-Crisis version of Brainiac 2.The Doomsday Wars
During his latest skirmish with Superman in Metropolis, Milton Fine's body was irreperrably damaged, leaving Brainiac with only a short time to live. In order to preserve his life, he concocted an elaborate scheme. He had an agent of his, a Coluan named Prin Vnok, use a time machine to travel to the most inhospitable time in existence, the End of Time itself. His goal was the rescue of Doomsday, who had been left there by Superman and Waverider to ensure that he would never be a threat again. Seconds before the forces of entropy destroyed Doomsday forever, he was taken to safety by Prin Vnok and returned to Colu.There, a terminally wounded Brainiac transferred his consciousness into Doomsday's body, temporarily becoming the most powerful being in the universe - a genius psychic mind inside an unstoppable, indestructible titan. However, Doomsday's own raging mind would eventually overwhelm even Brainiac's will, forcing him to find another host body. Although Brainiac attempted to clone a new Doomsday that he could fully inhabit, his efforts failed and he was forced to adopt a robotic body, dubbed Brainiac 2.5. He became briefly obsessed with gaining Superman's form.
Brainiac 13
At the turn of the millennium, Brainiac revealed he had placed a sleeper virus in LexCorp's Y2K bug safeguards. This was intended to dramatically boost his abilities. Instead it allowed his upgraded future self, Brainiac 13, to arrive from the 64th century. B-13 began transforming Metropolis into the 64th century version of the city, which, apparently, he controlled. When it became apparent he was to be defeated by the combined efforts of Luthor, Superman and his own past self (now possessing the body of Luthor's infant daughter Lena), he gave control of the city to Luthor in exchange for Lena/Brainiac 2.5, whom he forced to help him escape.
He returned to Earth during the Our Worlds At War crossover, in which Earth and its allies fought a multifront war against Brainiac 13 and Imperiex. Brainiac 13 claimed to be allying himself to Earth, but this proved to be part of a complex plan to regain control. His chief aide was "Leniac", a green-skinned teenager with "control discs" on her forehead, suggesting the diodes of earlier Brainiacs (and identical to the forehead discs of the "upgraded" Brainiac 5.1, in the Legion, and the Animated Series version of the original Brainiac).
At the end of the war Brainiac 13 and Imperiex were both sent back in time, becoming part of the Big Bang, and Brainiac 2.5 was expunged from Lena, who reverted to infancy, although the discs remained.
In the upcoming DC Minimates action-figure line, Brainiac 13 is packaged with Battle Damaged Superman.
Brainiac 12
In Superman #200 (Feb 2004), Superman travelled into the future and battled Brainiac 12, learning that everything Brainiac 13 had done in the past had been designed to ensure things reached the point where Brainiac 13 would be created. B-12's defeat before his upgrade apparently reversed the advances B-13 had made to Metropolis.Later stories have referenced Brainiac (not Tolos) taking Kandor from Krypton, suggesting that some of Brainiac's Pre-Crisis history is still in continuity; however, the exact details of this have not yet been explained.
Brainiac 8
Recently, Brainiac used his "granddaughter", Brainiac 8 (aka Indigo), to kill Donna Troy in order to ensure the fate of Colu. Indigo then infiltrated the Outsiders until she attacked the team, along with Brainiac and his allies, Lex Luthor and the brainwashed Kon-El, who had attacked the Teen Titans. In the ensuing battle, Indigo died and Kon-El broke the brainwashing. Luthor escaped from the battle. While his ship was destroyed, Brainiac's condition and whereabouts after the battle are unknown.
In this recent storyline, it was revealed that Brainiac was able to utilize Luthor's secret facilities to restore the majority of his organic body. Brainiac 8 chided him for this act of vanity, explaining that in her time all of Colu had abandoned organics. It is uncertain how this revelation can be reconciled with the continuity of the Legion of Superheroes.
Shortly after this storyline the Teen Titans broke into one of Luthor's labs in order to procure a serum to save a near-death Superboy. In this encounter they discovered many failed attempts in cloning a new body for Brainiac, and fought the so-called Brainiac Alpha, a murderous aborted clone.
Appearances in other media
Animation
The standard pre-Crisis version of the character - the green-skinned robot with skull-diodes - was seen on the Super Friends cartoon voiced by Ted Cassidy. He also appeared in a short episode, "Superclones" cloning Aquaman and El Dorado. The mechanical version appeared in later iterations of the series, when Darkseid was the primary antagonist. In a famous Cartoon Network parody, Brainiac pleads with Luthor for a "decent pair of pants", prompting Solomon Grundy to utter the now-famous reply, "Solomon Grundy want pants too!"Brainiac was also seen in episodes of the Filmation animated series The New Adventures of Superman. This was the green-skinned robot version as well, who was first seen using his shrinking ray to create a sort of "cosmic Noah's ark", by shrinking a male and female of each earth species to take back to his dying homeworld. He appeared in several episodes of this series which began in 1966.
[[image:Brainiac(STAS).jpg|frame|left| Brainiac from [[Superman: The Animated Series]]]] In [[Superman: The Animated Series]], Brainiac (voiced by Corey Burton, in the style of HAL 9000 and Vic Perrin's opening narration from The Outer Limits) was the supercomputer that ran most of the day-to-day operations on Krypton. It sensed the imminent destruction of the planet, but rather than warn others, it chose to save itself and the collected records of Krypton. In its mind, as long as the records of Krypton existed, the loss of the planet itself - and all its living inhabitants - was acceptable. It also knew that if word of Krypton's impending doom escaped, it would be forced to calculate a way to stop this, which Brainiac knew to be impossible and would only distract him from the more essential task of saving Krypton's records. Brainiac uploaded its core program and all of the collected data to an artificial satellite. Years later, it was discovered by an alien spacecraft, which Brainiac hijacks. After Brainiac had killed the crew of the ship, Brainiac began to explore the universe. Each time it came to an inhabited world, it would upload all the knowledge it could from that world, then destroy it - decreasing the number of beings that have access to the knowledge makes it that much more valuable and destroying the planets ensured no new information would be created. Along with raw data, it also assimilated whatever useful technology it could find, improving itself with every world it visited (resembling the methodology of the Borg of Star Trek). It eventually made its way to Earth, under the pretense of a peaceful exchange of knowledge with Lex Luthor. Superman discovered Brainiac's true intentions, and with the help of Lex Luthor defeated him. Brainiac was seemingly destroyed, but later episodes revealed that the data that Brainiac had downloaded into LexCorp's computers were not alien knowledge, but a copy of Brainiac's programming. In the process Superman found out that Brainiac had destroyed and collected data from countless other worlds. It tried several times to revive itself, first by capturing Luthor and forcing him to rebuild him, and another time by taking control of Bruce Wayne, prompting Superman to team up with Robin in order to find him.
Brainiac was also featured in the 2006 direct-to-video animated feature titled [[Superman: Brainiac Attacks]], where he was voiced by Lance Henriksen.
The movie, which writer Duane Capizzi admitted to be out of continuity with the DC Animated Universe despite using character/set designs and voice actors from [[Superman: The Animated Series]], began with Brainiac (in his STAS design) landing on Earth in a meteor. Brainiac went around absorbing information until Superman destroyed him with his Arctic breath. But Lex Luthor was able to save a piece of Brainiac and formed an alliance with the robot. Luthor gave Brainiac a new robot body, made from his satellite weapon. Brainiac was also equipped with a Kryptonite beam and the ability to track Superman by his DNA.Luthor and Brainiac's bargain revolved around Brainiac using this new body to destroy Superman, and afterwards Brainiac would allow himself to be defeated by Luthor and leave for another planet so that Luthor would appear as a hero. Brainiac betrayed Luthor after he believed Superman was destroyed, but in the end Superman returned to defeat Brainiac. This time Superman made sure that Brainiac was completely destroyed.
Expanded appearances in the Timm/Dini DCAU
In the animated series Justice League, Darkseid, the lord of Apokolips, struck a deal with the Justice League to save his planet when Brainiac arrived. When the League arrived to stop the attack (due to the pleads of Darkseid), many were taken hostage by the two villains. While Brainiac was attempting to deliver its mind into Superman, Darkseid betrayed him and hacked into its systems. After a battle between Brainiac (controlled by Darkseid) and the League, the ship in which they were battling exploded, seemingly killing both Brainiac and Darkseid.In the animated series Static Shock, Brainiac, now reduced to a piece of alien metal kept in stasis, escaped confinement following a power failure at JL H.Q. Virgil Hawkins, aka "Static", was tapped to help recharge the generators, along with Richie, also known as "Gear." The rogue bit of data that was Brainiac took over Gear's Backpack droid, and later turned Richie into a cyborg under his control. As Brainiac proceeded to use Richie's hands and technoskills to build a warship and to take over the League one by one with small implants inserted in the space where the skull joins the spinal column, Richie attempted to fight back and to tell to his friend the means by which to defeat the rogue program: Backpack's remote control had an off switch. Static eventually discovered it and was able to stop Brainiac's scheme at the source, ergo saving Earth. (The voice of Brainiac here sounds quite different, but it is still Corey Burton; the Static Shock producers decided to pitch Burton's voice significantly lower for their show.)
Justice League Unlimited -\"Brainthor\"/\"Luthoriac\"
During a previous encounter years before, Brainiac had delivered a nanorobotic probe carrying a portion of his consciousness into Lex Luthor. Brainiac began modifying Luthor's body and subtly controlling Luthor into committing actions that resulted in a major story arc that occurred in the first two seasons of the new Justice League Unlimited. Brainiac assimilated nanotechnology from the alien "Dark Heart" machine and technology derived from the Amazo android. On Luthor's urging, Brainiac and Luthor combined into a single entity with Brainiac's goals and approaches tempered by Luthor's ambition and cruelty, with the new purpose of destroying the universe, and then recreating a new one in their image. The traditional Brainiac skull-shaped starship and Brainiac controlling Lex Corp storyline were evident in the episode "Divided We Fall." This version of Brainiac was mostly grey and blue, and partially robotic. Luthor/Brainiac were defeated by the Flash.
After the defeat, all that was left of Brainiac was a small piece of its body, which came into the possession of Gorilla Grodd. Luthor himself continued to speak to Brainiac's consciousness, apparently still existing within his own mind. Urged to escape prison by Brainiac, Luthor was picked up by Grodd's Legion of Doom and convinced to join by the promise of getting his hands on the Brainiac fragment, with which he could reconstruct and re-merge with him. Eventually usurping leadership of the Legion from Grodd, Luthor remained unable to unlock the Brainiac fragment for some reason, and instead used it to locate the quadrant of the universe where Brainiac and Darkseid had been destroyed. Using a combination of technology and magic, Luthor intended to reintegrate the surviving pieces into a new version of the android only to wind up resurrecting Darkseid himself, reformed with extensive Brainiac technology integrated into his person, allowing this dark lord to destroy the Legion's headquarters/craft and return to Apokolips. Luthor and the surviving Legion members returned to Earth and allied with the Justice League to stop Apokolips's attack on Earth, and Luthor claimed to no longer be able to hear Brainiac inside his head - although when Luthor was then transported to the Source Wall and recovered the Anti-Life Equation, it was claimed that only a "12th level intellect" could accomplish this, and the only individual with this IQ is Brainiac. Ultimately, however, it was never explicitly revealed if Brainiac had ever truly existed within Luthor's mind, or if Luthor was partially insane.
In the year 2979, as it is revealed in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "New Kids In Town", Brainiac still lives and has made enemies of the Legion of Superheroes. During that time, it learned how to pass its code down biologically and created Brainiac 5. It traveled back to the past to destroy a teenage Clark Kent before he would become Superman. Thanks in part to Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl, Clark has defeated Brainiac and was teleported into the Sun, where it incinerated, destroying what may be the last remnant of Brainiac. Even so, when Supergirl, along with John Stewart and Green Arrow was pulled to the 30th to help the Legion and she decides to stay there, her returning companions apparently have an awkward conversation explaining why she has taken Brainiac 5 for a lover and why that is not a problem.
Television
In the fifth season of Smallville, Brainiac is a semi-regular character, played by James Marsters. He appeared in the episodes "Arrival", "Aqua", "Thirst", "Splinter", "Solitude", "Hypnotic", "Oracle", and "Vessel." In all of these episodes, he is only referred to as "Milton Fine." So far, the name "Brainiac" has not been used on-screen, although Jor-El did refer to Fine as the Brain InterActive Construct, or "BrainIAC", in the episode "Vessel." The name was widely utilized in [press releases], [news], and [interviews]. Smallville's interpretation of Brainiac as an artificial intelligence from Krypton is similar to the one used in [[Superman: The Animated Series]], Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited.
In the episode "Arrival", Brainiac is seen taking human form from a liquid metal that oozes from the black spaceship which arrived in the previous season's finale. In the episode "Aqua", Brainiac appears as Milton Fine, a professor of world history at Central Kansas A&M University. He hires Clark as his research assistant, stating that he intends to write a book exposing Lex's misdeeds. In the episode "Thirst", when confronted by one of Lex's bodyguards, Fine exhibits the ability to transform his fingers or hands into spike-like weapons (much in the same manner as the T-1000 from [[Terminator 2: Judgment Day]]), stabbing and killing Lex's bodyguard.
In the episode "Splinter", when Clark is pricked by a piece of Silver Kryptonite and begins having paranoid delusions about his friends and family, Fine comes to his aid and removes the Silver Kryptonite shard from Clark's system, but not before revealing himself as another Kryptonian. At the end of the episode, Fine tells Clark that he shouldn't put much trust into his lesser human friends and family. It is then revealed that the Silver Kryptonite was artificially created from Fine's liquid metal body.
In the following episode, "Solitude", when Martha is infected with a Kryptonian virus, Clark, believing Jor-El is responsible, turns to Fine for help. Fine misleadingly tells Clark that Jor-El was a ruthless dictator who ruled Krypton and tortured anyone who spoke out against him with the same disease Martha is now afflicted with; this was all to the end of manipulating Clark into helping him. At the episode's climax, Fine tells Clark that the only way to cure Martha is to destroy the Fortress of Solitude. Upon arriving at the Fortress with Clark, Fine tricks Clark into opening a portal to the Phantom Zone and subdues Clark with a piece of Green Kryptonite, revealing that he is in fact a Kryptonian artificial intelligence that desires to free General Zod, who was the actual dictator who destroyed Krypton. Fine is nearly successful in freeing Zod, but Clark, with Chloe's help, regains his strength and closes the Phantom Zone portal. After a brief but intense battle with Clark, Fine is impaled on the Fortress' crystal console, but then disappears; at the same time, so does his spaceship.
However, Fine's story did not end there. As revealed in the episode "Hypnotic", Fine and his ship reappears in Honduras, and it is revealed that he has been collecting deadly diseases to create a single virus. In the episode, it is also revealed that Fine is not limited to only one body, as not only one but four more separate manifestations of Fine emerge from the black ship; they all run off to their individual destinations to collect more viruses. Lex tracks down Fine, but is unaware of Fine's true alien nature, instead believing him to be an agent working for the State Department. Fine tricks Lex into an alliance after giving him evidence of an upcoming alien invasion, but this is part of a new plot to free General Zod.
In the episode "Oracle", a manifestation of Fine poses as Clark's recently deceased father, Jonathan Kent, in an attempt to trick Clark into killing Lionel Luthor, but fails as he is destroyed by Lionel, who temporarily possesses a strange power that causes Fine to vanish. In the same episode, LuthorCorp creates a vaccine for Fine's deadly virus, but it is revealed that it actually makes the person it's injected into a potential vessel for Kryptonian consciousness. Fine injects Lex with the vaccine, and Lex soon begins developing superpowers like Clark's.
In the following episode, "Vessel", Fine abducts Lex and prepares him to become the vessel for General Zod. When Clark refuses to help him free Zod from his prison, Fine unleashes a computer virus that quickly infiltrates every computer system on Earth, causing widespread chaos. Later, when Clark is about to stab Lex with a Kryptonian dagger, Fine appears to urge Clark on, but is instead stabbed with the dagger. However, this opens a portal that allows General Zod to possess Lex's body; in this event, Fine disappears, and his final fate, at the moment, remains unknown.
On a humorous note, while posing as a professor, Fine posed the often-repeated question and answer to the class, "Where is the most powerful computer in the universe?", followed by several taps on his own temple, making the subtle joke that his artificial intelligence is more powerful than their natural intelligence.
Superman III
Brainiac was to appear in Superman III,and was to appear as Gus Gorman's character in disguise. That would explain the super-computer plot. Most likely, Brainiac would have some contribution to Superman's reprogramming(his dark side). This idea was scrapped.Superman Reborn
Brainiac was considered as a villain in Tim Burton's eventually-cancelled project Superman Reborn (also known as Superman Lives).[[Citing sources citation needed]]Cultural references
- The band Dukes of Stratosphear, an alter ego for XTC, released a song called "Brainiac's Daughter" on their 1987 album Psonic Psunspot. The lyrics include references to the bottled city of Kandor and the Daily Planet. Songwriter Andy Partridge has said of the song: "Right, well Brainiac is the character in the Superman comics, the evil genius with the green skin and the sort of lightbulb screwed in his head. He was like a Martian Lex Luthor and I thought he'd be a wonderful psychedelic subject to write about, and his potential daughter: I don't think he had one but if he had she would have been, well, colourful, mauve and purple.” This reference eventually came full circle when Alex Ross and Mark Waid created a background character named Brainiac's Daughter in "Kingdom Come," a 1996 limited series. The band Royal recorded a cover version of the song for the 2006 compilation album Sound of Superman, released by Rhino Records in conjunction with the opening of the movie Superman Returns.
External links
- [Alan Kistler's Profile On: Brainiac!] - Comic book historian Alan Kistler of www.MonitorDuty.com explores the entire history of this Superman villain all the way up to the present day, with in-depth discussions of how and why parts of the character's history were changed and how he's been interpreted in other media.
- [Supermanica: Brainiac] Supermanica entry on the Pre-Crisis Brainiac
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