Brainiac (comics)

Brainiac
Brainiac in Superman: Secret Files 2009 (October 2009). Art by Francis Manapul.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Action Comics #242 (July 1958)
Created by	Otto Binder (writer) Al Plastino (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Vril Dox
Species	Coluan
Place of origin	Colu
Team affiliations	Anti-Justice League
Partnerships	Lex Luthor
Notable aliases	Dr. Milton Fine, Pulsar Stargrave, The Terror of Kandor, Collector of Worlds
Abilities	Superhuman Intellect ("twelfth-level") Android/Cyborg bodies grant Superhuman Strength, Durability, Speed, Stamina and Longetivity. Technopathy Supergenius engineer and inventor Regenerative healing factor Energy projection Projection of super-strong and durable tendrils Flight Ability to take possession of other machines Ability to mimic Kryptonian superpowers Projection of force fields Utilizes advanced weaponry Vast telepathic powers (sometimes) Mind reading Mind control Telekinesis Matter manipulation Astral projection

Brainiac is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, usually as an adversary of Superman and as a frequent enemy of the Justice League.

Brainiac is typically depicted as an extraterrestrial cyborg or android. He is one of Superman's primary enemies, and is responsible for shrinking and stealing Kandor, the capital city of Superman's home planet Krypton. Due to multiple revisions of DC's continuity, several variations of Brainiac have appeared. Most incarnations of Brainiac depict him as a green-skinned being in humanoid form. He is bald, with a set of linked electrode-like objects (sometimes glowing) protruding from his skull.

At first glance, the character's name appears to be a portmanteau of the word brain and the initialism ENIAC, the name of an early computer; however this is a misconception as the name was originally a combination of the words brain and maniac.^[1] In 2009, Brainiac was ranked as IGN's 17th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.^[2]

Publication history

Brainiac first appeared in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), and was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino.^[3]

Fictional character biography

Silver Age

First appearing in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), Brainiac is 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 the then-unnamed planet he ruled. He is originally notable only for his having shrunk the bottle city of Kandor, for having a shrinking ray, and for using a force-shield.

In subsequent appearances in this early period, Brainiac is used mostly as a plot device rather than as a featured villain of the month. Brainiac's next appearance is mostly behind the scenes, when he tries to kill Lois Lane and Lana Lang, prompting Superman to give Lois and Lana super-powers. But the villain remains unseen except as a plot twist at the end of the story. Brainiac's next appearance in "Superman's Return to Krypton" in Superman #141 (November 1960) displays how the villain stole the bottle city of Kandor, which is ironically and tragically the only city on Krypton that believes Jor-El's warning of doom for the planet, and had already built a space-ark within the city to save the population. Brainiac's next present-day appearance is in Action Comics #275 (April 1961), which shows the villain planning to defeat Superman by exposing him to both Red and Green Kryptonite, giving Superman a third eye on the back of his head, forcing him to wear various hats to hide it. Superman soon defeats Brainiac and sends him off into the distant past. This is the first in-story appearance of Brainiac's iconic red diode/electrode-like objects atop his head, which had previously appeared on the cover of his first appearance in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), but were not shown in the actual story. In "Superboy" #106 (July 1963), Superman as a baby meets Brainiac and it is explained that Brainiac looks the same as he has a 200-year life span. It is revealed that he came from a planet called Bryak and after a voyage in space, he returns to find everybody dead from a plague. He intends to get people from other planets (in shrunken cities, and he has a growth ray) to repopulate Bryak, and he will rule them.

Brainiac's legacy was revealed in Action Comics #276 (May 1961), in a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up story. This story introduced a green-skinned, blond-haired teenager named Querl Dox, or Brainiac 5, who claimed to be Brainiac's 30th century descendant. Unlike his ancestor, Brainiac 5 used his "twelfth-level intellect" for the forces of good and joined the Legion alongside Supergirl, with whom he fell in love. His home planet was given variously as Bryak,^[4] Yod or Colu.

In Superman #167 (February 1964), it was retconned that Brainiac was a machine created by the Computer Tyrants of Colu as a spy for them to invade other worlds, for which he was given a non-computer appearance. Brainiac's distinctive gridwork of red diodes across his head are also explained. He was created with visible "electric terminals of his sensory 'nerves'" that he cannot function without. Luthor discovers that the Computers could have given him a twelfth-level intellect, but gave him a tenth-level, the same as them, so he would not try to dominate them. Luthor frees Brainiac from a prison on another world and increases his intelligence, however implants a timer that will make Brainiac black out so the computer doesn't betray him, as only Luthor can reset the timer and if Brainiac tries to tamper with it, one touch will cause an explosion. However Brainiac tricks Luthor by making a device that hypnotizes Luthor, who removes the timer and forgets Brainiac is a computer. Explaining the 1961 introduction of Brainiac's descendant Brainiac 5, his biological disguise included an adopted "son", a young Coluan boy who was given the name "Brainiac 2". In the same issue, the letter column contained a "special announcement" explaining that the change in the characterization of Brainiac was being made "in deference" to the "Brainiac Computer Kit", a toy computer created by Edmund Berkeley and based on the Geniac that predated the creation of the comic book character.^[5][6]

The boy, whose name was Vril Dox, went on to lead a revolt against the Computer Tyrants, eventually destroying them. Brainiac sees a monument to this when he returns to Colu.

30th century (Pre-Crisis)

At some indeterminate point in time, Brainiac fled into the 30th century. Developing the ability to absorb and manipulate massive amounts of stellar energy, he remade himself as "Pulsar Stargrave".^[7] He became a powerful enemy of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and once masqueraded as Brainiac 5's biological father.^[8] In current continuity, Brainiac's connection to Pulsar Stargrave remains an open question, one even Brainiac 5 has yet to resolve.^[9]

Bronze Age

In the 1980s, DC Comics attempted to re-define several aspects of its Superman series in order to boost sagging sales. At the same time as Lex Luthor acquired his green-and-purple battlesuit, Brainiac was re-envisioned (under the auspices of writer Marv Wolfman). In Action Comics #544 (June 1983), Brainiac had constructed a giant, artificial, computer-controlled planet and used it in his latest attempt to destroy Superman. His defeat at the hands of the Man of Steel left him trapped at the center of the planet, unable to escape. He was forced to make a nearby star explode in a nova in order to destroy the machine-world. It, however, also dissolved Brainiac's humanoid body into a stream of sentient molecules that, after a fantastic voyage through time & space, returned to the present and regestated as a living metal being. His new body (designed by Ed Hannigan) had the appearance of a skeleton of living metal with a grey (sometimes iridescent), honeycomb-patterned "braincase."^[10] He also created a starship to house his new body which was actually an extension of himself; the ship was shaped like his own skull, with metal tentacles dangling from it that he could manipulate at will. Brainiac retained this appearance until after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Silver/Bronze Age Brainiac met his end in the "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" story line that closed out Pre-Crisis Superman chronology. Lex Luthor found Brainiac's robotic head and was fused with it. Brainiac took control of Luthor's body and sought to destroy Superman once and for all, teaming up with the Legion of Super-Villains. Fighting Brainiac's control, Luthor begged a super-powered Lana Lang to kill him; she complied by breaking his neck. Though Luthor died, Brainiac was able to retain control of the body for a little while before rigor mortis set in and his brain was forced to leave it. "Propelled by sheer malice," the skull crawled a few inches before finally dying.

Modern Age

In the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe, Brainiac's history was completely rewritten. The post-Crisis version of Brainiac was now a radical Coluan scientist called Vril Dox who, having attempted to overthrow the Computer Tyrants of Colu, was sentenced to death. In his last moments before disintegration, his consciousness was attracted light years away to Milton Fine, a human sideshow mentalist who worked under the alias "Brainiac".^[11] Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered that Fine had genuine psychic powers and thus a metahuman, which he frequently wielded against Superman.^[12]

Panic in the Sky

In the early 1990s, Brainiac returned in the "Panic in the Sky" storyline. He seized control of Warworld and manipulated Maxima into assisting him. Then he brainwashed Supergirl and the alien warrior Draaga before capturing Metron and setting off for Earth.^[13][14] Orion and Lightray of New Genesis attacked Warworld, but they were quickly taken down by Maxima and Supergirl. Brainiac sent the mental image of the New Gods captured to Superman in order to taunt him, and he also sent his "headship" (a green-hued variant of the pre-Crisis skull-like ship) to Earth in a punitive expedition.^[15]

These acts prompted Superman to go on the offense rather than wait for the inevitable invasion. He gathered a coalition of most of the world's superheroes and launched a preemptive strike at Warworld before it could arrive on Earth.^[15] A small, elite force was left behind for any scouting forces that would be sent ahead. Superman led the attack on Warworld, where Supergirl and Draaga managed to shrug off their brainwashing and rally to Superman (although Draaga was killed in the fighting).^[16][17] Brainiac briefly took control of some of Earth's heroes, but it was not enough to turn the tide.^[18] Maxima would shortly switch sides in the fighting too, perceiving Brainiac as the true villain at last. Flash, Maxima, and the Metal Men attacked him in his lair, where Maxima managed to lobotomize him (but was stopped short of killing him).^[19] His vegetative body was taken back to New Genesis for observation.^[20]

Dead again

Brainiac would next emerge about a year after the death and return of Superman. After a dead body appeared in Superman's tomb, prompting the world to wonder if the Superman who was flying around was the original or a fake,^[21] Superman began to track down all of his foes who might be capable of such a hoax.^[22] While Brainiac was initially eliminated as a suspect,^[23] he soon turned out to be the true culprit, creating the illusion even in his comatose state on New Genesis. He managed to revive himself there and returned to Earth in secret. While hidden, he created even more delusions, causing Superman to question his very sanity before realizing who was really at fault.^[24][25] Superman and Brainiac squared off in Metropolis, where Superman taunted the evil villain, claiming that at heart he was really just Milton Fine, a cheap entertainer. This caused some break in Brainiac's mind where Fine's personality reasserted himself, burying Brainiac's. Fine was then escorted off to a psychiatric facility.^[26]

The Doomsday Wars

During a later skirmish with Superman in Metropolis, Milton Fine's body was irreparably damaged, leaving Brainiac with only a short time to live. In order to preserve his life, he concocted an elaborate scheme by having an agent of his, a Coluan named Prin Vnok, use a time machine to travel to the End of Time itself and retrieve Doomsday, who had been left there by Superman and Waverider to ensure that he would never be a threat again, and use Doomsday as a new host body.^[27]

Seconds before the forces of entropy destroyed him forever, Doomsday was taken to safety by 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 Brainiac's will, and he reacted too quickly for Brainiac and Vnok to erase his mind using chemical or psionic treatments, forcing Brainiac to find another body. While still lodged in Doomsday's head, Brainiac decided to acquire a sample of human DNA that he could modify with Doomsday's DNA to create a new version of Doomsday that did not possess the creature's mind. Brainiac chose to use Pete Ross and Lana Lang's newborn baby, born eight weeks premature - and at that moment being transported by Superman to the best Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit in the country - as the template for his new body. He intercepted Superman during the trip to the hospital and stole the baby to hurt his long-time foe, correctly deducing that it was the child of someone close to Superman.^[27] Superman thwarted Brainiac's plot by driving him out of Doomsday's body with the use of a telepathy-blocking 'psi-blocker' that he had used in his last battle, forcing Brainiac out of Doomsday and leaving him with no other option but to adopt a recently designed robotic body, dubbed Brainiac 2.5, where he himself believed would be forever trapped as he could not abandon it.^[28]

Brainiac 13

At the turn of the millennium, Brainiac revealed that he had placed a sleeper virus in LexCorp's Y2K bug safeguards. This virus was intended to dramatically boost his abilities. However, the virus instead allowed his upgraded future self, Brainiac 13 (or "B-13"), to travel from the 64th century to the present day and take control of Brainiac 2.5's body.

Brainiac 13 then began transforming Metropolis into the 64th century version of the city, which he controlled, and also began upgrading Metallo into a giant-sized version of himself. Brainiac 13 then took control of several android superheroes, such as the Red Tornado and Hourman, and used them against Superman. The Metal Men's responsometers were able to protect them from his programming, and allowed them to help defeat Metallo.

During a fight with the Eradicator (who was attempting to 'hi-jack' the B13 virus and use it for its own ends), Superman discovered that Brainiac 13 could not cope with Kryptonian technology due to incompatibility issues. This gave Superman a plan to stop Brainiac's scheme. With the aid of the rebuilt Kelex, Superman tricked Luthor into connecting a Kryptonian battlesuit to one of Brainiac's power conduits. Kelex then reactivated the Red Tornado to help Superman break Brainiac 13 down into his respective nanobots and trap him in the suit.

Brainiac 13 was able to work with Brainiac 2.5—now transferred into the aged body of Lena Luthor—and prepared a tactic against Imperiex for the upcoming Imperiex War. They planned for Brainiac to absorb Imperiex's power and use it to reshape the universe in his image. Superman was able to destroy Brainiac and Imperiex by sending them through a temporal Boom tube where they were destroyed in the Big Bang.

After the death of Brainiac 13, Superman discovered that the version of Krypton he previously visited via the Phantom Zone was in fact a trap created by Brainiac 13. Having been defeated by Kryptonian technology, Brainiac 13 had traveled back in time to the real Krypton prior to its destruction. There, he stole the Eradicator matrix and Jor-El's diaries, and created a false Krypton based on Jor-El's favorite period in history.^[29]

Sometime later, Superman traveled into the future and battled Brainiac 12. He learned that everything Brainiac 13 did in the past was designed to ensure things reached the point where Brainiac 13 would be created. Brainiac 12's defeat before his upgrade apparently reversed the advances Brainiac 13 had made to Metropolis.^[30]

The Insiders

Around the time of the Graduation Day event, a future version of Brainiac, called Brainiac 6, used his "granddaughter", Brainiac 8 (also known as 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 6 and his allies, Lex Luthor, and a brainwashed Superboy, who had attacked the Teen Titans. In the ensuing battle, Indigo died and Superboy broke away from the brainwashing, while Luthor escaped. While his ship was destroyed, Brainiac's condition and whereabouts after the battle are unknown.^[31][32]

Silver Age Brainiac in the post-Crisis universe

Later stories revealed that elements of Brainiac's pre-Crisis history occurred in the post-Crisis character's history prior to his possession of Milton Fine and his first encounter with Superman. The citizens of Kandor recall that Brainiac stole their city from Krypton, and not the alien wizard Tolos.^[30]

History of the DC Universe mentions his defeat by the Omega Men, although not seen in Crisis on Infinite Earths itself, and noted a second Brainiac was created in a laboratory on Earth two years later. In the Silver Age: JLA one-shot, the Injustice League discovered numerous shrunken alien cities found in Brainiac's abandoned spaceship.

Brainiac's updated mechanical form

Brainiac later reappeared as a swarm of interlinked nanotechnological units. Its operation was to sabotage a Waynetech research facility accomplished by infecting Metallo with a computer virus and controlling him from orbit. Superman and Batman tracked Brainiac's signal to an orbital facility and attacked. Brainiac's nanoswarm body was destroyed, though he had infected the Metal Men during their previous encounter with Metallo. Brainiac proceeded to use them to acquire a prototype OMAC unit, which Bruce Wayne had developed through the use of Brainiac 13 nanotechnology. Superman and Batman destroyed the OMAC body with the aid of the Metal Men, after the Metal Men overcame Brainiac's control.^[33]

Return

Following revisions to Superman's continuity in "Infinite Crisis" and Action Comics #850, Brainiac reappeared in a self-titled five part story-arc in Action Comics. In Action Comics #866 (Aug. 2008), a Brainiac robot probe (resembling his skeleton-esque Pre-Crisis incarnation, and mistaken for the real Brainiac by Clark) arrives on Earth and battles Superman. After the probe is defeated, information about Superman's blood is sent to the original Brainiac. As Brainiac wakes up, his computer announces "Attempt #242 in progress", a reference to Brainiac's first appearance in Action Comics #242, and to the many encounters between Brainiac and Superman. In the following issue, Supergirl reveals to Superman that Brainiac shrunk the Kryptonian city of Kandor and placed it in a bottle, and that all previous incarnations of Brainiac that Superman has encountered, were just probes and nanite-controlled bodies. She notes that no one has ever actually seen Brainiac. Inspired by Supergirl's story, Superman attempts to find Brainiac and stop him. He heads to a world under attack by Brainiac just in time to be caught in a supernova as Brainiac destroys the system's star and the populated world along with. The supernova knocks Superman out, and he is caught and brought onto Brainiac's ship.

Superman escapes from his imprisonment and sees Brainiac emerging from his "bio-shell". This version of Brainiac resembles a much larger and more muscular version of the original, pre-Crisis Brainiac, and has motives similar to the Superman: The Animated Series incarnation of the character in that he travels the universe and steals the knowledge of various alien cultures, abducting and shrinking cities from each planet as samples, and then destroys the planet so that the value of the destroyed civilization's knowledge is increased. Superman attacks Brainiac, but Brainiac manages to overpower the Man of Steel before restraining him with the help of his ship's internal systems. Brainiac inserts the subdued Superman into a machine that allows him to read the Kryptonian's mind, with the intent of assimilating his brain. Brainiac's ship then travels to Earth and prepares to abduct the city of Metropolis.

Brainiac successfully steals Metropolis, and prepares to fire a missile that will destroy the sun and the Earth itself. Supergirl ends up captured along with the rest of Metropolis, but Superman breaks out of his restraints again and frees her. Supergirl stops the missile while Superman battles Brainiac. Brainiac appears to have the advantage in physical combat yet again, but Superman knocks Brainiac out of his ship and into a swamp, where Brainiac is overwhelmed by the microscopic organisms covering his body. Superman uses this distraction to defeat Brainiac. While Superman frees the cities of Metropolis and Kandor, the villain launches a missile to the Kent farm in an act of spite. The farm is destroyed, and Jonathan Kent suffers a fatal heart attack because of it.^[34] Brainiac is brought to a top-secret military base, where the imprisoned Lex Luthor is assigned to discover his secrets. Luthor eventually manages to use Brainiac's connection to his ship to kill the soldiers assigned to watch him. Brainiac manages to free himself from Luthor's control, forcing him on board the ship, and the two make their escape.^[35]

Following this Brainiac, now in possession of his ship again, unleashes his robot army against the newly created planet of New Krypton, and the Kryptonian citizens rise up to fight the drones. General Zod's army proves totally unable to fend them off, as the Brainiac's ship's force fields are seemingly invulnerable and his drones are equipped with red sun ray guns, allowing them to kill tens of thousands of Kryptonians. Superman, being the only one who knows how to penetrate his force fields (having learned the trick in the previous story arc), manages to enter Brainiac's ship. Supergirl leads the Kryptonians against the drones, but is attacked by an anti-Kryptonian Brainiac probe. Superboy, Mon-El, and the Legion of Super-Heroes join the fight and save Supergirl.

After this, Brainiac shrinks Kandor again and re-bottles it, including a miniature red sun to de-power all the Kryptonians inside. The Legion, Supergirl, Superboy, Zod, and Superman all make it on to Brainiac's ship, thanks to Brainiac 5 hacking his ancestor's force fields and allowing them entry. The Legion explains to Zod that, just as Krypton's city of Kandor is held in a bottle onboard Brainiac's ship, other planets' cities are also imprisoned, and, therefore, Zod cannot destroy Brainiac's ship until the cities can be rescued. Zod sends Supergirl off and then arrests the Legionnaires, branding them terrorists. Meanwhile, Superman is about to face off against Brainiac when he is knocked down by a Kryptonite energy blast fired by Lex Luthor and subsequently captured. Brainiac locks him in captivity with the intent to experiment on him, but Superman escapes and meets up with the rest of the superheroes and Zod on a separate section of the ship. Zod enters the scene and engages Brainiac in combat while Supergirl, Superboy, and the Legion recover the bottled cities on Brainiac's ship, including Kandor. Zod seems to be losing his fight with Brainiac, when suddenly Superman gets up and tackles Brainiac from behind. Before the battle between the two Kryptonians and the villain can continue, Brainiac's ship starts to destabilize and descend towards the planet. It is revealed that Lex Luthor sabotaged the ship and re-sized one of the cities while inside.

Luthor's intervention causes the ship to crash into New Krypton, destroying it while Supergirl and the Legion re-size Kandor. However the city that Luthor expanded is still growing, now putting Kandor at risk. As Brainiac 5 works on the problem, Supergirl is shocked to discover Superman impaled by pieces of Brainiac's ship as a result of the explosion. Superman appears to have been fatally stricken. Luthor, though reeling from the explosion, is pleased with all the destruction he has caused. Brainiac confronts Luthor in the ruins of the ship and is furious that Lex sabotaged his ship. Luthor mocks him and spits in his eye before Brainiac angrily snaps Luthor's neck, killing him.

Now deprived of his ship and technology, and after being seemingly de-powered by a Kryptonian weapon, Brainiac finds himself faced by an entire city of angry, solar-powered Kryptonians. Zod is eager for a final showdown with Brainiac, who calls Zod a coward for confronting Brainiac with his powers intact and an army of super-powered Kryptonians at his back. In response, Zod fires the red sun radiation from an Archer rifle at himself, to remove his powers and thus supposedly level the playing field as he prepares to take Brainiac down. Brainiac 5 gives Superman a transfusion of Conner's blood and exposes him to a very large dose of concentrated synthesized yellow sun rays. Using these techniques, Brainiac 5 is able to revive Superman.

Despite the loss of his powers, Zod is able to get the upper hand on the similarly-powerless Brainiac and force him to his knees. Zod is about to shoot Brainiac when Superman intervenes. This causes a heated argument between Superman and Zod. Zod commands his soldiers to restrain Kal-El so Zod can proceed with the execution of Brainiac. Brainiac 5, sensing that this is his moment of destiny, steps in and teleports himself and Brainiac off of New Krypton.

It is revealed that Lex used a Luthor robot, supplied by Toyman, to accomplish his mission on New Krypton, and that Brainiac killed the robot instead. Lex is very much alive and discussing with General Lane how his objective, to bring chaos to New Krypton, was achieved. Lex has been working as an agent of General Lane all along. The disarray that Lex caused provides Lane with a window of opportunity as he prepares for the impending war with New Krypton. Lex receives a Presidential pardon for his efforts. The story ends with Zod rallying his people as he declares war on the planet Earth. The story concludes in the next mini-series, Superman: War of the Supermen.

Mon-El plants the many bottled cities that Brainiac has captured over the years on various planets across the galaxy. These cities will one day become the United Planets by the 31st century, the same planets that will produce the members of the Legion of Super-heroes.

Brainiac 5 takes Brainiac to their homeworld of Colu where he hands him over to Vril Dox aka Brainiac 2. Vril Dox happily turns his "father" over to his people for his crimes. However Lyrl Dox aka Brainiac 3 releases his "grandfather" with a weapon called Pulsar Stargrave. What then occurs is an all out battle for Colu between all 3 present day Brainiacs. Vril Dox even calls in Lobo for help. Brainac breaks out of his prison and, after causing much damage on Colu, escapes with Pulsar Stargrave in tow for parts unknown.^[36]

The New 52

Brainiac's origin in The New 52 is revealed in Superman #23.2. Vril Dox was acknowledged as the greatest scientist on his homeworld, Yod-Colu, given his advances in force field technology and miniaturization. He developed an artificial intelligence, C.O.M.P.U.T.O., allowing him to discover the fifth dimension. Dox discovered the fifth dimension was in a state of war, and a group of its inhabitants, the Multitude, had entered their dimension and destroyed over a hundred planets. Realizing Yod-Colu was next in the Multitude's path, Dox tried to find a way to save his planet, even performing experiments on his son. The magistrates of Yod-Colu sentenced Dox to exile, but Dox used C.O.M.P.U.T.O. to take control of Yod-Colu's computer networks. Copying the planet's database, Dox constructed an army of robot servants called Terminauts and miniaturized the city his wife and son lived on and bottled it in a force field, while the rest of Yod-Colu was destroyed by the Multitude.

After the destruction of Yod-Colu, Dox constructed an army of starships and distributed his consciousness across a series of robots that would each travel the universe in order to preserve planets from the Multitude, becoming known as the Collector of Worlds. One of these robots attacked Krypton. Dox became fascinated by Jor-El, a Kryptonian scientist who actually saved his homeworld from the Multitude. Upon returning to Krypton, however, Brainiac discovered Krypton had been destroyed.^[37]

Referred to at first as 'The Collector of Worlds', Brainiac is first seen as the mysterious informant that supplies Lex Luthor information of Superman and his alien nature.^[38] Clark is having a dream of Krypton's final moments in which an artificial intelligence that controls the planet wakes up robots in an attempt to preserve the Kryptonian culture. Later, while Clark conducts an interview in a robotic factory, the same harvester robots appear.

John Corben (soon-to-be supervillain Metallo) is suddenly possessed by the artificial intelligence. It demands Superman.^[39] The robots create havoc throughout Metropolis but Superman soon realizes that they are really after him. Superman fights the possessed Corben with the help of John Henry Irons.

Although they managed to defeat him, the alien sentience had already miniaturized and bottled the city of Metropolis and took it to his ship in space.^[40] Superman travels to the ship to find many alien bottled cities, Kandor included. The alien identifies himself as a being from the planet Colu where he was known as C.O.M.P.U.T.O and on Krypton he was called Brainiac 1.0. He claims that without Superman and the ship that brought him to Earth, his Kryptonian collection is incomplete. The alien intelligence demands Superman make a choice: the intelligence will disable life support in both the Kandor and Metropolis bottles, and Superman must choose which city to save using indestructible Kryptonian armor found on the ship.

Superman decides on neither and wears the armor (which changes instantly into the current Superman costume design). Brainiac sends Metallo to attack Superman, but due to Superman reasoning with him over his feelings for Lois Lane, he breaks free of Brainiac's control and joins Superman in his attack. Superman then uses his rocket from Krypton that had also been miniaturized with Metropolis to attack Brainiac's mind, which the rocket was able to do since its primary mission was to protect Kal-El. In doing so, Metropolis was returned to Earth and Superman took possession of Brainiac's ship and made it his new super citadel.^[41]

Notably, the ship Clark was placed into as a child was described as having "Brainiac AI", leaving the identity of the Collector of Worlds in doubt.^[42] The Colony of the Collector of Worlds told Superman that its AI technology went by different names, beginning on Yod-Colu as C.O.M.P.U.T.O. On Noma, he was called Pneumenoid; on Bryak it was Mind2; on Krypton he was called Brainiac 1.0; and, finally on Earth, he is the Internet.^[43]

After this defeat, Brainiac retreated to deeper parts of the cosmos, and eventually came across the planet Tolerance, the setting of a bounty hunting glimmernet game show called The Hunted. Striking a deal with Lady Styx, overlord of the Tenebrian Dominion. he bottles a portion of the Sh'diki Borough of Tolerance, to add to his collection. He encounters Jediah Caul, a former member of the Green Lantern Corps, who combats and infects Brainiac's ship. Ultimately, Brainiac abandons his plans with the Sh'diki Borough and ejects Caul and the bottled city before leaving for parts unknown.^[44]

Back on Earth, during an investigation of 20 kidnapped people who developed metahuman powers after being kidnapped by Brainiac, one of these 20 infects Lois Lane, thereby giving Brainiac control over a close ally of Superman.^[45] Brainiac plots his return to Earth, using Lane to infiltrate Earth's defense systems to allow an easier path for his physical return.^[46] and even upgrading her body to contain his 12th level intelligence. His minion Cyborg-Superman (a reconstructed Zor-El, father of Supergirl)^[47] constructs a portal to allow Brainiac's command ship and "daughterships" to travel to Earth from throughout the galaxy.^[48]

Superman, whom Brainiac had conspired to 'infect' with the monster Doomsday in order to drive him away from Earth, uses his augmented power to attack Brainiac's gigantic mothership and break through to its core and, finally, Vril Dox himself. The Coluan appears still-humanoid, and explains his reasoning for stealing minds from throughout the universe: he has concluded that if he can 'unite' the minds of a certain critical amount of people, he will be able to change reality itself. His motivation for this appears a desire to right the wrongs he feels responsible for: the loss of his wife and child back on Colu. His plan is undone when Superman drags him, mothership and all, into a black hole. But then, Vril Dox is snatched away to safety, it seems, by a being who appears to be the true Brainiac: an immensely powerful entity from outside the universe itself.^[49]

This version of Brainiac, a composite of Brainiac from around the Multiverse, is revealed to be the pre-Flashpoint era Brainiac who, having found his way into the Source Wall and into the Multiverse, was thrown back in the timestream and mutated by the effects of "crisis" events such as Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and 52, creating a godlike being.^[50] He then uncovered the location of Vanishing Point from nearly killing New 52 Earth-0's Michelle Carter, from which he could roam the complete history of the Multiverse, collecting doomed cities from defunct timelines, alternative futures, and parallel worlds to add to his collection, in Convergence, leaving behind an agent, Telos, to rule a planet of the same name containing the cities. Brainiac's attempt to do this to a future timeline of Earth-0 was narrowly averted by the heroes in the story The New 52: Futures End; Brainiac was contained in a T-sphere, leaving Telos stranded without his master, prompting the events of Convergence in which the planets are bid to fight each other. When the events of Convergence nearly end in an irreversible destruction of the Multiverse, the time traveller Waverider, formerly the pre-Flashpoint Booster Gold, frees Brainiac, who reveals he is sick from his mutations and only wishes to return to normal, to being Brainiac of Colu. He sends most of the heroes home, and with help from Zero Hour Parallax and pre-Flashpoint Superman, averts the collapse of the Multiverse from Crisis on Infinite Earths, and is returned to the normal Brainiac. His actions also allows various parallel universes and alternate timelines to exist as the new Multiverse.^[51]

Powers and abilities

General

Brainiac's most consistent power (endemic to all versions) is his "12th-level intellect", allowing calculation abilities, enhanced memory and advanced understanding of mechanical engineering, bio-engineering, physics, and other theoretical and applied sciences, as well as extensive knowledge of various alien technologies. For comparison, the population of 20th century Earth as a whole constitutes a 6th-Level intelligence and the population of 31st century Earth as a whole is a 9th-Level intelligence. The character has created devices such as a force field belt capable of withstanding Superman's most powerful blows,^[3] and a shrinking ray capable of reducing cities.^[3] All versions of him are also technopathic.

Brainiac's advanced mental powers have shown him capable of possessing others, absorbing information from other beings, transferring his consciousness,^[52] creating and manipulating computer systems, replicating multiple versions of himself, and exerting powers to traverse or control space and time. Among organic beings, Brainiac views only his frequent partner Lex Luthor as a peer intellect. Brainiac is usually depicted with an incredibly high degree of superhuman strength and durability; the exact level varies, but usually hovers at around Superman's strength. Brainiac's exact abilities vary drastically throughout his various incarnations.

Pre-Crisis

Originally, Brainiac was a scientist with no superhuman abilities aside from his intellect. He fought Superman only via the use of his advanced technology. After he was retconned as an android, this changed and he gained the abilities that would stick to all subsequent incarnations: superhuman strength and durability, technopathy, and superhuman longevity. His technopathic abilities extend to control of his ship, with which he shares a symbiotic relationship. The android version of Brainiac was capable of taking control of other peoples' bodies and downloading his consciousness to spare robotic bodies in the event his original was destroyed. He could also discharge energy blasts from his hands and head.

Post-Crisis

John Byrne's re-imagining of the character possessed most of his previous abilities as well as telepathy and telekinesis. He was an alien consciousness who had possessed the body of a powerful human psychic and awakened his powers, further augmenting them with an implanted electrode head-piece. Paired with his physical attributes, his vast psychic powers allowed him to seriously challenge Superman, and defeat multiple members of the New Gods (including Orion) with a single psionic energy blast.^[53] After this organic body was destroyed, Brainiac's consciousness built and possessed various other robotic bodies and occasionally hijacked other organic bodies (such as Doomsday's). His abilities were dependent on the body he was inhabiting at the time.

It was later revealed that this version of Brainiac (like the previous ones) was merely a nanite-controlled probe of the real Brainiac, who was a living Coluan that had genetically and cybernetically enhanced himself. The true Brainiac lacked psychic powers, but still possessed superhuman physical attributes, intelligence, and technopathy. Like the Pre-Crisis Brainiac, he is mentally connected to his ship in such a way that he can be disabled for a short period if separated without warning. Initially, Brainiac had the weakness of being disabled by his mysophobia and sensory overload when dumped into Earth's atmosphere,^[54] though he doesn't seem to have this defect in his later battles on Earth such as when he defeated Superboy,^[55] suggesting that he fixed it. The true Brainiac is enormously physically powerful and even stronger than Superman, capable of overpowering the Kryptonian in a grapple and flooring him with a single punch, while referring to Superman's own blows as "nothing" by comparison,^[56] as well as catching one of Superman's punches and crushing his hand until it bled, forcing Superman to his knees.^[57] He heals from injuries at incredible speed. However being separated from his ship for prolonged periods causes him to physically deteriorate and become far less powerful, as Lex Luthor observed while studying his unconscious body over the course of several days. At one point Brainiac 5 warns that Superman would most likely die against Brainiac in a straight fight.^[58]

This Brainiac is an incredibly powerful physical fighter, but like his Pre-Crisis counterpart is most dangerous due to the advanced technology he wields, much of it of his own invention. These include his classic shrink ray and force fields, as well as other gadgets such as missiles capable of causing stars to go supernova.^[59] His force fields are so impregnable that a direct hit from an energy weapon that kills several fully powered Kryptonians as collateral damage did not leave so much as a single scratch on his ship.^[60] Brainiac also possesses an army of at least tens of thousands of humanoid robotic "probes". These probes are strong enough to draw blood from Superman^[61] and tough enough to survive some of his blows. During the New Krypton story arc, Brainiac upgraded his probes with red-sun ray guns for the purpose of fighting Kryptonians. When Brainiac orders these drones to attack New Krypton, they quickly kill over eleven thousand solar-powered Kryptonians.^[58]

He is a biological creature that has altered his body to acquire more knowledge to become "better." With his ship, vast knowledge, and powerful technology, Brainiac has captured thousands of cities and has assimilated and destroyed just as many civilizations, making him the worst mass murderer in the history of the Milky Way^[62] and one of the most feared beings in the known universe. He is considered one of the most powerful villains Superman has ever faced.

New 52

Brainiac in the New 52 seems to have kept most of the powers and equipment of his Post-Crisis incarnation (including his shrink ray, force fields, and robot army), with notable additions. Brainiac's ship has been massively upgraded in this incarnation; it is now larger than the entire Earth,^[63] and carries within it a massive invasion fleet of many types of smaller ships. By the Superman: Doomed story arc, Brainiac has used his twelfth-level intellect to become an enormously powerful psychic and telepath, augmented by the minds he's stolen and digitized from across the galaxy and capable of taking control of all seven billion minds on Earth at the same time. He also demonstrates considerable reality warping abilities; he claims that the combined psionic power of all the minds he has captured throughout the universe can allow him to change reality to his will, and plans to use this power to remake the universe in his image. However, this plan is prematurely ended when Superman battles him telepathically and crashes his ship into a black hole.

Convergence

Following the Doomed story arc, it is further revealed that the Post-Crisis Brainiac somehow escaped the multiverse itself and, mutated from the various crises, became a godly being. This version of Brainiac is nigh-omnipotent and omniscient, with the ability to warp universes and time travel. At the end of the Convergence story arc, Brainiac recreates the DC multiverse ^[64]

Other versions

The character has been depicted in various out-of-continuity stories. In the Amalgam Comics line, which was a joint venture between DC and Marvel Comics, readers are introduced to Galactiac, a combination of Brainiac and Marvel Comics antagonist Galactus. Brainiac also appears in Superman: Red Son,^[65] JLA: Shogun of Steel,^[66] and The Last Days of Krypton novel by author Kevin J. Anderson.^[67]

JLA: Earth-2

In the JLA: Earth 2 one-shot, the Justice League are drawn to the anti-matter universe to defeat the Crime Syndicate of America, their villainous anti-matter counterparts, with Brainiac apparently acting as the robotic servants of Ultraman. However, after the Syndicate travel to the League's universe, it is revealed that the true mastermind of the scheme was Brainiac, who is revealed to be an organic life form trapped in a tank acting as Ultraman's servant, having manipulated both teams into a position where they will be trapped in each other's worlds and thus unable to win, as the nature of each world means that 'good' and 'evil' will always win in each world. However, Brainiac is defeated when the League deliberately walk away so that the Syndicate can return in time to stop him.

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

In Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, set in a world where heroes have been publically 'retired' for years as Lex Luthor took over and blackmailed assorted heroes into acting as his discreet 'servants', Brainiac is working with Luthor to keep the city of Kandor contained, the two destroying one Kryptonian family each time Superman defies them. He is eventually destroyed by Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, who claims to be surrendering to him only to allow the Atom to break the bottle from inside and allow the Kryptonians within to access their powers, decimating Brainiac with their heat vision.^[68]

Bizarro Brainiac

Bizarro #1 created this doppelganger of Brainiac to live on Bizarro World. Since Brainiac shrank the city of Kandor, his Bizarro counterpart felt compelled to do the opposite, and expanded a city in Antarctica, creating Big City.^[69]

Flashpoint

In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Brainiac is the ruler of 31st century Earth, and has captured Kid Flash, whom he then placed in stasis, but Hot Pursuit managed to rescue the young speedster.^[70] Escaping from Brainiac's base, Kid Flash and Hot Pursuit formulate a plan to return to the 21st century. Kid Flash then allows himself to be recaptured by Brainiac and put into stasis. Kid Flash uses his super-speed in the virtual reality access port to shut down the security program and Hot Pursuit then blasts Brainiac from behind. While they used his orb energy to return to the past, Brainiac impaled Hot Pursuit and attacked Kid Flash. Hot Pursuit breaks the orb energy projector to allow Kid Flash's super-speed to return. Kid Flash then returns to the 21st century, promising to rescue Hot Pursuit from Brainiac.^[71]

Justice League/Power Rangers

Brainiac is one of the villains in the Justice League/Power Rangers crossover, when the Power Rangers and Lord Zedd accidentally travel to the DC Universe through a teleportation accident, with the Rangers arriving in Gotham City^[72] while Zedd finds himself in one of the trapped cities on Brainiac's ship. Escaping from the bottle, Zedd proposes an alliance with Brainiac in exchange for providing Brainiac with a city from his Earth, Zedd releasing a wave of monsters across the world to distract the Justice League.^[73] Using the distraction of Zedd's monsters, Brainiac dispatches his drones to take control of the Rangers' zords, stealing their powers and fleeing back to their world, forcing the Rangers and the Justice League to 'borrow' the Hadron Collider to create a temporary dimensional transporter that will allow them all to get back to the Rangers' world.^[74] Back in the Rangers' world, Brainiac nearly takes control of Cyborg, but Billy Cranston is able to regain his powers in time to take Cyborg down^[75] so that Batman can reboot him. Brainiac has captured Alpha 5, officially to question him as the only other example of independent artificial sentience he has ever met, but Alpha rejects the idea that the two are similar, arguing that Brainiac's actions show a selfishness and an inability to grow where true sentience relies on making oneself open to working with others. After regaining their powers, the Rangers are able to rescue Alpha and force Brainiac into retreat.^[76]

Adventures of Supergirl

In the Adventures of Supergirl comic, which takes place in the universe of the Supergirl, a very different version of Vril Dox appears as a recurring villain. In this series he is a greedy, green-skinned alien hacker from the planet Yod who was hired by an as-yet unknown individual to frame Supergirl's ally Winn Schott for funding and aiding terrorism. When Supergirl accesses Winn's computer, he presents himself falsely as an A.I. system called V.R.I.L., and pretends to be a creation of Schott's. He figures out Supergirl's real identity and plans to expose her, then he electrocutes her ally James Olsen from through Winn's computer. Eventually, Vril is tracked down by Supergirl with the aid of Winn and an expert hacker he knew, and Supergirl easily defeated him, after which he was arrested.^[77]

In other media

Television

Live-action

• Brainac appears in the fifth season of Smallville, played by James Marsters. He takes the name of Milton Fine, posing as a professor at (fictional) Central Kansas A&M University. Brainiac is mostly referred to by his assumed name, although Jor-El refers to him as the Brain InterActive Construct. The Smallville interpretation of Brainiac is similar to the DC animated universe version; that of a self-aware computer in humanoid form with a Kryptonian origin, but is portrayed as a shape-shifting AI created by Dax-Ur (who abandoned the project) and completed by Jor-El but corrupted by Zod. Additional portrayals behind this iteration have also been done by John Schneider (Jonathan Kent in season 5), John Glover (Lionel Luthor in season 7), Laura Vandervoort (Kara Zor-El in season 7) and Allison Mack (Chloe Sullivan in season 8).
• Brainiac will appear in Krypton.^[78]

Animation

• Brainiac made his first television appearance in the episodes of the Filmation animated series The New Adventures of Superman. In this series, Brainiac was from the planet Mega whose entire population had perished in a series of atomic wars with the exception of one survivor, Professor Hecla. Hecla created Brainiac and sent him to Earth to use 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 repopulate Mega. Brainiac appeared in several episodes of this series which began in 1966.
• Brainiac would resurface as a member of the Legion of Doom in Challenge of the Super Friends cartoon voiced by Ted Cassidy.
  • Brainiac also appeared in a Super Friends short episode "Superclones". He ended up making of clones of Aquaman and El Dorado. He was voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross, who took over for the late Cassidy in 1980.
  • The mechanical version of Brainiac appeared in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show in the episodes "The Wrath of Brainiac" and "The Village of Lost Souls" again voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross. In "The Wrath of Brainiac", Brainiac reveals that he shed his earlier appearance when he worked alongside Darkseid.
  • Brainiac next appeared in The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians episode called "Brain Child" once again voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross.
• Brainiac appears in the DC Animated Universe, voiced primarily by Corey Burton.
  

  Brainiac as depicted in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League.
  • In Superman: The Animated Series, Brainiac is first depicted as the supercomputer that runs most of the day-to-day operations on the planet Krypton. He heeds Jor-El's warning about Krypton's imminent destruction. But rather than validate Jor-El's claims, he dismisses them as false while secretly working to save himself. As he contains Krypton's collective knowledge, Brainiac reasons that should he inform the government, they would put him to work to stop the inevitable and ultimately doom both parties. Brainiac survives Krypton's destruction after downloading his programming into a satellite and creating an android body for himself. He then travelled to other planets and assimilated their information before destroying them, claiming that the fewer beings who possess the knowledge, the more precious it becomes. In "Stolen Memories", Brainiac makes his way to Earth under the pretense of a peaceful exchange of knowledge with Lex Luthor. Superman, however, discovers Brainiac's true intentions to betray Luthor and destroy Earth, and eventually seemingly kills Brainiac by destroying his ship. In "Ghost in the Machine", it is revealed that Brainiac downloaded his programming into LexCorp's computers during his last encounter with Superman. He then forces Luthor to build him a new android body. When Superman arrives to save Luthor, Brainiac is ultimately defeated when the Man of Steel magnetises his body so that the attracted metal would overwhelm him. In "Knight Time", Brainiac used nanites to control Bruce Wayne, having Bruce use Wayne Enterprises' technology to construct a ship that can leave Earth. However, Brainiac's plan was once again foiled after Superman destroyed both Brainiac and his ship. In "New Kids in Town", a futuristic era version of Brainiac traveled back to the past from the year 2979 to kill a teenage version of Clark Kent before the youth's future. But due to the efforts of Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl, Clark defeated Brainiac and teleported him into the Sun, incinerating the supercomputer.
  • Brainiac returns in the Justice League animated series. In the episode "Twilight", he and Darkseid harass Superman. He first appears attacking after Apokolips had suffered a major defeat by New Genesis, prompting Darkseid to head to ask the Justice League for help. The story was a ruse, however, one intended to lure the League, Superman in particular, to Brainiac's headquarters. Brainiac's full plan was to extract Superman's DNA so that he could create a mighty organic body for himself, however, Darkseid betrayed Brainiac. During the subsequent battle, Batman's attempts lead to both the artificial intelligence and the lord of Apokolips being destroyed.
  • Brainiac also appears in Static Shock. In the crossover episode "A League of Their Own", Brainiac is reduced to a single circuit board kept in stasis but escaped confinement following a power failure at the Justice League's Watchtower. Static and Gear had been recruited by the League to help recharge the Watchtower's generators. During that time, Brainiac slowly began gaining control of the Watchtower. He sent the League a fake distress call to lure them away, then attempted to dispose of Static and Gear before turning the Watchtower into his new body. The two teen superheroes discovered his plan and alerted the League to return. Brainiac had managed to download his mind into Gear's Backpack, taking control of Richie Foley (voiced by Jason Marsden) to once more recreate his body and his mission. Static and the Justice League were able to fry Brainiac's hardware temporarily, allowing Richie to be freed and for Brainiac's base to self-destruct. Brainiac's voice here sounds quite different; the producers of Static Shock decided to pitch Corey Burton's voice significantly lower for their show.^[79]
    

    Brainiac combined with Lex Luthor as seen in Justice League Unlimited.
  • Brainiac also appears in Justice League Unlimited. The android is briefly seen in the animated adaptation of "For The Man Who Has Everything" as a household robot (voiced by Mike Farrell). The season one finale revealed a major plot twist where a nanotech piece of Brainiac had been integrated with Lex Luthor, subtly influencing Luthor's decisions, curing his host's Kryptonite cancer and giving superhuman strength. He intended to put his mind into Luthor's duplicate of A.M.A.Z.O. made from Cadmus nanotechnology, revealing himself only after being thwarted by Amanda Waller and the seven founding Justice League members. Brainiac tries to digitize the League, but the Martian Manhunter escapes and stops this. As the two escape, Brainiac's goal to record all knowledge in the universe and destroy all of creation is undermined by Luthor, pointing out his lack of imagination. Lex offers to show him a purpose beyond the mere fulfillment of his programming, to remake the universe to their preferences. Using alien nanotechnology, Brainiac turns into an exosuit that merges with Luthor; the fused character's appearance (also voiced by Clancy Brown) is inspired by the Silver Age Brainiac. He also creates duplicates modeled after the Justice Lords to distract the League. Though he defeats the League, the two are taken down when the Flash then taps into the Speed Force and purges Brainiac from Luthor's body, leaving nothing left. However, the final season reveals Brainiac's consciousness survives and is able to communicate with Luthor as a sort of multiple personality disorder; it is never made clear if the hallucination is actually Brainiac or merely a figment of Lex's imagination. Obsessed with regaining their lost "godhood", Luthor joins the Secret Society in order to obtain a piece of Brainiac in Gorilla Grodd's possession, subsequently usurping Grodd's place as the Secret Society's leader, and even sacrifices various Secret Society supervillains during an internal showdown all to bring Brainiac's fragment back online. Returning to the task of resurrecting Brainiac, Luthor hooks Tala up to a machine to gather Brainiac's essence from the remains of Brainiac's ship with Darkseid, killing Tala in the process but ends up reviving Darkseid fused with Brainiac technology, and Brainiac's presence is removed from Luthor's mind.
• Brainiac 1.0 appears in the second season of Legion of Super Heroes, voiced again by Corey Burton. Brainiac 5 is a descendant of him who is an unwanted robot on his home planet. In the second-season episode "Message in a Bottle", Brainiac 5 reveals the past atrocities caused by his predecessor, one such atrocity being the shrinking and abduction of the Kryptonian city of Kandor, which would cause a chain of events leading to the demise of Krypton. In the two part finale of the series "Dark Victory", Brainiac 1.0's programming takes control of Brainiac 5. He turns against his team, kills Imperiex enough to deprive Superman's clone Kell-El of his revenge, and has a grand plan to bring order to the universe. To do this, he uses forbidden technology that transforms matter, living beings, and entire worlds into digital information to be stored inside himself. With help from Superman and Kell-El merged inside his mind, he is ultimately destroyed by Brainiac 5, but in the end he survives and starts rebuilding himself as Brainiac 6. While the Legion of Super-Heroes television series does not share the same continuity as the DC animated universe, this version of Brainiac is also voiced by Corey Burton and shares the same musical leitmotif from his DCAU appearances.
• Brainiac is featured in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by Richard McGonagle. Brainiac's earliest outfit (albeit with slight modification) as a Coluan is seen in the episode "The Siege of Starro" Pt. 2 as a trophy in the spaceship of the Faceless Hunter (the minion/herald of Starro). In "Battle of the Superheroes!", Brainiac shows up at the end of the episode following Lex Luthor's defeat plotting to shrink Metropolis in order to repopulate his destroyed planet causing Batman and Superman to spring into action.
• Brainiac makes a cameo appearance in the Teen Titans Go! animated series. In the episode "Laundry Day", Cyborg heads to his room to get a new body while the current one is in the wash; Brainiac's body is one of the choices, but Cyborg dismisses it, saying that its "too brainy".
• Brainiac appears in Justice League Action, voiced by John de Lancie.^[80] This version is shown to have a wider top part of his head. In "Plastic Man Saves The World", Brainiac attempted to take Metropolis to add to his collection, adapting his drones to the Justice League's attacks. However, he failed to consider Plastic Man being able to sneak aboard his ship multiple times and destroy his ship before it could fire its shrinking ray. After the ray was destroyed, Brainiac updated his data banks to make Plastic Man a higher-level threat to him, and swore vengeance. In "Battle for the Bottled City", Brainiac returned in a hover tank, roving around the Fortress of Solitude to regain the bottled city of Kandor. As Superman traveled inside the bottled city, Atom and Cyborg were left to protect the Fortress, which Brainiac easily infiltrates. He incapacitated Cyborg and seemingly kills the Atom, but Atom revealed that he merely shrank and commandeered one of the Superman robots. Though Brainiac defeated the Atom, their battle uncorked the bottle of Kandor, allowing Superman (still small-sized) to beat up Brainiac and defeat him once again.

Film

Live-action

• During the early development of Superman III, Ilya Salkind wrote a script in that Brainiac was featured as the main antagonist.^[81] However, when Leslie Newman and David Newman rewrote the script, Brainiac was cut from the film. Late actor Richard Pryor was considered for the role.^[82]
• Brainiac was considered as a villain in the scrapped Superman Reborn and Superman Lives film projects. Most notably, the villain was featured with Doomsday in Kevin Smith's version of the script, which was later discarded by director Tim Burton. Burton's own script included Brainiac's intellect bonding with Lex Luthor, as would later happen in Justice League Unlimited (and which had previously been seen in the comic book story Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?)^[83]
• In 2007, film director Bryan Singer reported that he wanted to use Brainiac, along with Bizarro, as an antagonist in the cancelled Superman: The Man of Steel, the planned sequel of Superman Returns.^[84] However, the project was finally scrapped by Warner Bros.
• Brainiac has been suggested as "definitely down the road" as a villain in the DC Extended Universe and future Man of Steel sequels by director Zack Snyder.^[85]

Animation

• Brainiac appears in the 2006 direct-to-video animated feature Superman: Brainiac Attacks voiced by Lance Henriksen. The movie begins with Brainiac landing on Earth in a meteor. Brainiac goes around absorbing information until Superman destroys him with his super-breath. However, Lex Luthor is able to save a piece of Brainiac and forms an alliance with the Kryptonian robot. Luthor gives Brainiac a new body, made from his satellite weapon. Brainiac is also equipped with a kryptonite beam and the ability to track Superman by his Kryptonian DNA. Luthor and Brainiac's bargain revolves around Brainiac using his 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. However, Brainiac betrayed Luthor after he believed Superman was destroyed, but in the end, Superman returned to defeat Brainiac after a lengthy battle. This time, Superman made sure that this copy of Brainiac was completely destroyed.
• Brainiac appears in the animated film Superman: Unbound, based on the story arc Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Brainiac is voiced by John Noble.^[86]
• Brainiac makes a cameo appearance in the animated film Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, with Troy Baker reprising his role.
• Brainiac appears in Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash, voiced by Phil LaMarr. This version miniaturizes, bottles and collects entire planets, rather than cities. He plans to do so to Earth in order to complete his collection. He uses a weapon to scatter Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern throughout time to support his plans. Although Batman and Flash succeed in sending their fellow Justice Leaguers to the present and Cyborg and Supergirl manage to slow down Brainiac's forces, Brainiac succeeds in shrinking and bottling Earth. However, the League use a massive mech to release Earth and restore it to its normal size. Feeling he has no purpose, Brainiac sets himself to self-destruct. Due to the large blast radius, Batman convinces Brainiac to collect coins to avoid Brainiac from detonating. Brainiac is then arrested and put in prison.^[87]
• Brainiac appears as the final villain in DC Super Hero Girls: Intergalactic Games. He appears as the mastermind behind Lena Luthor. After she fails to kill the heroes, Brainiac leave her to drown and use the robots, including Platinum, one of the Metal Men she used to build himself a giant body with all weapons needed to counter the heroes' powers. His robotic body is destroyed with the combined efforts of the heroes through Platinum, who sacrifices herself to destroy him. However at the end, he is still alive and takes off to places unknown.

Video games

• Brainiac served as the final boss in the Superman arcade game published by Taito Corporation in 1988.
• Brainiac was a boss in the 1992 Sunsoft game Superman.
• In Superman 64, Brainiac from the DCAU appears not only as a level boss, but also as a playable character in multiplayer. However, when the player faces Brainiac in the game's final level, Brainiac simply stands in place unless the player attempts to use heat vision on him.
• Superman was forced to stop Brainiac and save the world after Brainiac kidnapped Lois Lane in the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis video game Superman: Man of Steel.
• In the Xbox video game Superman: Man of Steel, Brainiac 13 is the game's final boss. Players must compete against B13 drones throughout the game, before facing the android on the final level.
• Brainiac was featured in the concept art in the console versions and as a main boss in the Nintendo DS version of Superman Returns, looking vastly different from other incarnations.
• Brainiac is a featured in the video game Justice League Heroes voiced by Peter Jessop. In the game, Brainiac first invaded S.T.A.R. Labs and ordered a huge legion of robots to seal off the area. Batman and Superman head for S.T.A.R. Labs, destroy Brainiac's robots, and battle Brainiac. Later the League infiltrates his underground fortress on earth and engages Brainiac in combat. Brainiac, defeated, is later resurrected/possessed by the villain Darkseid.
• Corey Burton reprises his role as Brainiac in DC Universe Online. Here, Brainiac returns to Earth and both super heroes and other villains of the DC universe appeal to a truce to combat Brainiac. He is also (indirectly) the source of the player characters' powers, as a future version of Lex Luthor used his technology to create "exobytes", highly advanced nanorobots with the ability to infuse an organic host with superpowers. Brainiac also appears to be able to create Avatars and Sub-Avatars from the digitized information on superhuman powers, enormous robots that use technological, meta or magical abilities.
• In the video game Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure, Brainiac is the secret leader of the villains and the main antagonist. With the help of the Scribblenauts' Doppelgänger, he wants to use the Starites and Lily's globe to summon and merge with the other 51 Brainiacs and become a "perfect" being. He unites with other DC Comics villains to obtain the Starites, each failing to do so. When the Justice League arrives, he hacks Cyborg and uses Lex Luthor, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Cheetah, Professor Zoom, Ocean Master and the Sinestro Corps to fight their respective nemisises, again, each failing. When the Justice League reach Brainiac, he steals Lily's globe, adds the last Starite, teleports the Justice League away and puts his plan into ′action. After betraying Doppelganger, Brainiac and his clones begin to merge. Maxwell manages to summon alternate versions of the Justice League to defeat him and retrieve the globe.

Injustice series

• Brainiac makes a cameo appearance in the IOS/Android versions of Injustice: Gods Among Us as a support card.
• Brainiac appears as the central antagonist in Injustice 2, voiced by Jeffrey Combs.^[88][89] He arrives on Earth to collect the cities which puts him in conflict with the Insurgency and the Regime. If the player completes Story Mode as Superman, the Man of Steel kills Brainiac and becomes one with his ship. If the player completes Story Mode as Batman, he is taken into custody while the Dark Knight find a way to restore the shrunken cities back to normal. In Brainiac's ending, the version that defeated Brainiac turned out to be his descendant. The other characters' endings will either have Brainiac killed or handed over to the authorities.

Lego series

• Brainiac makes an appearance in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, voiced by Troy Baker. He is seen briefly in the final scene of the main story watching Earth from an orbiting spaceship, and after witnessing Green Lantern shoot a green beam summoning others to the planet, Brainiac mutters "I Have Located It". Brainiac is also a boss fight and unlockable character, found in Gotham Park.
• Brainiac appears in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, now voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. He summons representatives of all known Lantern Corps (such as Sinestro, Atrocitus, Star Sapphire, and Hal Jordan) in order to claim their energies, which will power a crystal that will shrink Earth. According to him, he has lost his appetite for simple cities and plans to claim entire worlds. The Justice League and the Legion of Doom defeat him on his ship, but the villain escapes as his ship crashes in Gotham. Brainiac returns once Earth is returned to normal size, mind-controlling a giant-sized Superman, but is eventually defeated and shrunk himself, placed next to Lex Luthor and The Joker in Arkham Asylum. However, Luthor inadvertently breaks the bottle holding him, freeing him once again, after which Brainiac, as shown with a clenched fist, prepares to vengenfully beat them both up.
• Dee Bradley Baker reprises his role for a brief cameo in Lego Dimensions. Brainiac is summoned to Middle-Earth by The Riddler to battle the heroes with mind-controlled Orcs.

Web series

Brainiac appears in the second episode of Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles (a companion to Justice League: Gods and Monsters), voiced by Tara Strong. This version is depicted as contingency plan set by Doctor Sivana to take down Superman. Brainiac is shown to have lost control over his immeasurable psychic powers, creating an energy dome around himself in Metropolis. The effects are shown to take down attack helicopters and send cars flying. As stated by his creator, only a small nuclear warhead could stop him, or Superman. Superman shows up and penetrates the dome seeing Brainiac for who he is: a crying, blue skinned child with three diodes on his head, missing his left arm. Despite his attempts to reason with him and talk Brainiac into controlling his powers, Superman reluctantly kills Brainiac with his heat vision to put him out of his misery much to his regret.

Books

• Brainiac appears in The Last Days of Krypton, a novel by Kevin J. Anderson.^[67] This version of Brainiac is known as the Brain InterActive Construct, later renamed Brainiac by Commissioner Zod. Brainiac had admired the beauty and architecture of Kandor, and wanted to preserve the city from destruction should disaster strike Krypton as it did on his home planet of Colu. Zod permitted Brainiac's taking of Kandor, stating that Brainiac could have the city, as the rest of Krypton belonged to him. Brainiac's ship fired three lasers that pummeled the surrounding crust around Kandor and literally upheaved the city from Krypton's surface. A force field was then erected around the city which contracted, shrinking the city and its inhabitants. Brainiac departed without causing further destruction or seizing other Kryptonian cities.
• Brainiac (referred to again as "The Collector of Worlds") is introduced in Issue 20 of the Young Justice comic series, based off the show.^[90]

References

External links

• Brainiac on DC Database, an external wiki, a DC Comics wiki
• Brainiac on the DC Animated Universe Wiki, an external wiki