Many super-intelligent heroes and villains have appeared in many comic realms. So, here’s one that actually works as a supercomputer. The first appearance of Brainiac occurred in Action Comics #242, created by Otto Binder and Al Pastino. Various timelines have different versions of his genesis story.
He has a level 12 intelligence, which puts him on par with anyone in the DC Universe, including Lex Luthor. The majority of his beginnings describe him as a being from the planet Colu, while subsequent changes depict him as a Kryptonian.
He aspires to know everything there is to know and can learn anything in the blink of an eye. He is considered Superman’s most technologically advanced antagonist. So, today, we will take a look at this supervillain’s brilliance.
Brainiac Origin: from Superman: The Animated Series
In the first episode of the show, Brainiac is introduced as the supercomputer of Krypton that had its sights planet-wide. While Jor-El conducted research into the seismic abnormalities of the earth, he came back to the lab. He converses with Brainiac, who immediately demands the data, which an annoyed Kal-El transmits to him. After coming back home, Kal-El deduces from his findings that Krypton is about to be destroyed. He presents his results to the council, but they ask for Brainiac’s confirmation, who tells the committee that Jor-El’s deductions are wrong and the planet is just experiencing a slight orbital shift.
Jor-El warns the board that their dependence on Brainiac might cost them dearly. Even after being refuted, Jor-El is suspicious and goes to check Brainiac operations, where Brainiac denies him access to files, saying there’s a transmission going on.
Jor-El then breaks into Brainiac’s central unit and learns that Brainiac has been uploading its data onto a website. It lied about the planet’s destruction, which only had a few hours before its destruction. Brainiac planned to escape before the destruction and decided his safety was more important. He was the most intelligent and central of Krypton’s knowledge, which was more important than the people.
It knew if it told the council the truth, it would have to calculate the escape route and felt it was a waste of time, and it wouldn’t have time to save Krypton’s history, which is thought to be more significant than the planet’s inhabitants. Jor-El attempts to destroy Brainiac, but it has already alerted the soldiers who interrupt Jor-El, and he has to run away to escape them. Before the destruction, Brainiac uploads its code to a satellite and escapes.
Brainiac makes its way to Earth under the pretense of an exchange of knowledge with LexCorp. It caught Superman’s attention when it was revealed to be another Kryptonian. But Superman soon figured out that Brainiac was going to do the same thing he had done to other planets, and that was to absorb all its knowledge and then destroy the earth. Superman destroyed Brainiac’s ship with the help of Lex Luthor.
While everyone thought Brainiac had been killed, it had actually downloaded its program on Lex Corp’s computers instead of information about alien worlds. One copy used the LexCorp automatons to construct a body. It lured Lex Luthor into the room and trapped him there as it could not finish itself.
Lex was forced to work on the body but stopped before finishing it as he knew he would be killed the moment he finished it. But the body was only partially left, and Brainiac managed to construct it and fired at Lex, but he didn’t die. Superman then came to the rescue and destroyed the copy by magnetizing it. The body was then kept in possession of LexCorp.
But it hadn’t ended yet. When LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises formed a partnership, another copy built a new body and used it to control Bruce Wayne using nanotech machines that entered his ears through an office phone. Superman and Robin finally figured out that Bruce was being held and sought to leave Earth using Wayne’s technology. Superman destroyed the ship and the copy.
Sometime in the future, Brainiac learns how to pass down its code biologically, which resulted in the creation of Brainiac 5. In 2979, Brainiac opposed the Legion of Superheroes and traveled to the past to kill a young Clark Kent before he ever became Superman. Although with the help of Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy, and Saturn Girl, Clark managed to defeat Brainiac and teleported it into the sun, which destroyed it.
Brainiac: Comic Origin
Brainiac made its first appearance in Action Comics #242 (July 1958). Usually depicted as a green humanoid from the planet of Colu, Brainiac was also known as Milton Fine or Brain InterActive Construct to Kryptonians. His original name was Vril Dox. He is one of the primary nemeses of Superman. In the comic issue, Clark Kent and Lois Lane are members of the crew of the Columbus, a new rocket being launched into space by the government.
While in space, the rocket suddenly comes across a flying saucer, which starts to shoot laser rays at the rocket. Using his x-ray vision, Superman notices Brainiac shooting the ray, who thinks Earth has sent the rocket to attack him. Clark decides to put on a spacesuit and leaves the missile to save the crew and the rocket, while Lois thinks Clark is probably too scared and decides to float back to Earth.
Once he is out of sight, Clark becomes Superman and tries to ram into Brainiac’s ship but bounces off the force field surrounding the ship. He tries every tactic, but nothing works, although he manages to push the Earth rocket away from harm’s way. Superman then surveys and listens to Brainiac’s conversations with his pet Koko using his super hearing and finds out Brainiac’s plans. Using hyper-force, Brainiac plans to steal Earth’s most significant cities and trap them in glass bottles as miniature models and then take them back to his planet, whose population perished because of a plague.
The first city he targets is Paris; he proceeds to steal Rome, New York, and more. He then decides to recharge the hyper batteries with the help of cosmic ray powers on a nearby planetoid. Superman decides that this is his chance to defeat Brainiac outside the force field of his ship.
Superman attacks Brainiac with his heat vision, but a super force field protects Brainiac. Superman then hurls big chunks of rock at the alien, but nothing is fruitful. The pieces keep getting bigger, but they do not even budge, Brainiac. Superman then runs away, admitting defeat as Lois witnesses this. Clark and Lois talk after she comes back from the rocket. As Clark enquires about the events, Metropolis gets turned into a miniature city and locked in a bottle. This is Superman’s opportunity to defeat Brainiac from inside the ship.
He changes into his costume, flies out of the bottle, and tries to figure out how to reverse the hyper force effects and return the cities to earth. Brainiac almost discovers the tiny Superman but mistakes him for a fly and orders Koko to swat him. To save himself from being squashed, Superman flies into an open bottle. To his surprise, he realizes it is a city from Krypton before Doom destroys it.
Unfortunately for Superman, the city has an environment precisely like Krypton, so his powers don’t work there anymore. He meets a scientist named Kimda, who reveals that he used to be Jor-El’s roommate and the city was Kandor, Krypton’s capital. Superman shares his own story with Kimda and explains what is happening with Brainiac. Kimda tells Superman about how he has been using his telescope to figure out how to reverse the effects of Brainiac’s hyper-forces, and he has the answer. But Superman’s problem now is that he is trapped in the bottle with his powers not working anymore.
With time on their hands, Kimda shows Superman around the city, how they have their artificial sun, mini rockets they use to fly around, a one-of-a-kind mole that eats metal, and more. Superman finally thinks of a plan and uses the rocket and the mole to help him escape. He rams the missile into the corkscrew, and the mole eats through it, allowing Superman to escape.
He quickly reverses the cities’ effects, returning them to their original state while Brainiac had entered into suspended animation for a century. Transporting the cities drains the cosmic powers of the ship, and there is only one chance left, but Superman is left in a dilemma as he can either use it on himself or use it on the city of Kandor.
He decides to sacrifice himself, but before he can press the button, Kamid rams a rocket into the switch and makes Superman bigger again, stating that Earth needs its superhero. Superman then leaves the ship and takes the bottle with the city of Kandor along with him, keeping it in the Fortress of Solitude till he can figure out how to turn it back to normal. And all this happened while Brainiac slept away in suspension, and Superman easily defeated him without even getting into a fight.
Brainiac attacks Apokolips
A fleet of Steppenwolf’s ships comes under attack, and he contacts Apokolips via a hologram to update Darkseid on the situation. Desaad notes that they might be coming under attack from New Genesis. Darkseid thanks Steppenwolf and asks him to fight on, but Steppenwolf’s image gets cut off with a scream. Orion takes his place and tells Darkseid a present is arriving at his site via boom tube with the Highfather’s compliments. Steppenwolf’s ship crashes and causes an explosion, destroying war machines and Darkseid’s palace. As Darkseid comes out of the rubble, the Highfather contacts him and threatens to destroy Apokolips if the treaty is broken again.
During reconstruction, Desaad criticizes Darkseid and gets killed as punishment. However, a ship arrives in the sky, and Darkseid realizes “it’s death.”
Back at the Watchtower, an alarm sounds, bringing the Justice League together to investigate. Batman notices an energy signature appearing in the tower, which Superman recognizes as a boom tube. As Darkseid arrives, Superman immediately attacks him. Diana and J’onn hold him back so that he does not destroy the tower. Darkseid then tells the League that Apokolips is under attack by Brainiac, and he needs their help. To everyone’s shock, Superman refuses. But Darkseid tells them that Brainiac will not stop with Apokolips. The League is already aware of Brainiac’s goals of annihilating planets after consuming all the information. Batman manages to convince Superman, even though Superman is still suspicious of Darkseid’s motives.
Kalibak attacks Brainiac’s ship, but the shields are too powerful for them to destroy. Superman, Hawkgirl, and J’onn arrive to help, but even they can’t get through the shields. Meanwhile, Batman and Wonder Woman go to New Genesis to enlist Orion’s help in defeating Brainiac. Superman challenges Brainiac to come out and fight him. Brainiac opens his shield slightly to blast Superman, but he manages to withstand it and pry the shield open.
Darkseid then uses this to fire a powerful weapon at Brainiac, which injures him. The ship guards get destroyed, and Kalibak’s army kills the device, trying to download Apokolip’s information. Brainiac escapes, and the Justice league pursues him in the Javelin into an asteroid belt. Unfortunately, they realize too late that it is a trap and that the asteroid is built with technology and happens to be shaped in Brainiac’s image.
Inside the asteroid, Superman realizes they have lost control of the Javelin and land on a platform, where they exit the plane. They step on a hover platform, and it takes them to brainiac. There they find him sitting on a throne. Brainiac offers Superman a chance to join him and “carry out the legacy of Krypton.”
Superman refuses him yet again, and at this moment, Brainiac attacks the League members, who can destroy his body. But even though the body was damaged, he was programmed into the asteroid, and thus, his voice echoed from the speakers. Soon after, the doors in the throne room open, and a large group of robots attack Superman, J’onn, and Hawkgirl.
As the heroes fight the robots, Darkseid arrives to make a surprise-attacks on them. After the members are defeated, he tells Brainiac that he held up his end of the bargain and delivered Superman to Brainiac’s hands. Darkseid had made a deal with Brainiac that in exchange for handing him Superman, Apokolips would be spared from destruction.
Upon asking, Brainiac reveals he needed Superman because he had reached the end of his evolution, and to evolve further, he needed the DNA of the last Kryptonian. However, while Brainiac was distracted getting Superman’s DNA, Darkseid double-crossed him, placed the Mother Box on Brainiac’s central unit, and got Brainiac under his control. He then instructs Brainiac to assimilate New Genesis.
Hawkgirl and J’onn wake up in the throne room and realize Superman is missing. They begin to search for him. Orion carries Batman and Wonder Woman in a protective field, and his Mother Box indicates Darkseid is here, so they enter Brainiac’s asteroid. Hawkgirl and J’onn finally arrive in the central unit, where Darkseid orders Brainiac to attack them. Brainiac is entirely aware of what is happening, but he cannot disobey Darkseid’s orders. They almost lose, but Batman and Wonder Woman arrive with Orion.
Batman then tries to stop Brainiac, and he smashes the console, which releases Superman and deactivates the drones and robots, and prevents the destruction of New Genesis. This also triggers a system failure prompting the destruction of the asteroid. The Justice League flee on the Javelin but soon realize that Superman is not with them. Batman then tells the rest to leave and goes looking for Superman.
As Darkseid and Orion fight each other, Superman arrives to defeat Darkseid. He destroys Orion’s Mother Box, which Darkseid was about to use to escape. Superman overpowers Darkseid, but Batman comes before Superman can finish him and stops him from doing something he will regret later. Batman activates a boom tube, takes Superman with him, and pulls Orion in. Darkseid still mocks Superman for not being able to finish him off, and then the asteroid explodes. Batman states that there was no chance that Darkseid or Brainiac had survived the explosion, although Superman remains skeptical.
Various story arcs of Brainiac
Crisis on Infinite Earth
Brainiac and Lex Luthor team up during the events of “Crisis On Infinite Earths” and gather all the supervillains from the 5 Earths. They planned for the super-villains to ambush the heroes once they were weak from battle with the villains, but they got abandoned. Psimon betrays the two and kills Brainiac, although he does not know that Brainiac also had his copy as a part of Psimon’s ship, and he blows his head off after reforming. The Legion of Superheroes seeks their aid against Anti-Monitor, and Lex and Brainiac agree to help them. Brainiac admits that he is not powerful enough to defeat Anti-Monitor, but suggests they enlist the help of Darkseid, who agrees and supports the heroes in defeating the Anti-Monitor.
Doomsday Wars
During “Doomsday War,” Superman destroys Brainiac’s body. With his remaining power and fragments, Brainiac travels back in time to the event of Superman capturing Doomsday. Brainiac then claims Doomsday’s body as his new host. However, it is difficult as Doomsday keeps trying to override Brainiac’s control. Brainiac then tries to clone Doomsday’s body to create an obedient host body using human DNA. Superman, as usual, comes and saves the day by foiling Brainiac’s plans and uses a “psi-blocker” to force Brainiac out of Doomsday’s body.
Brainiac
Geoff Johns resurrects Brainiac in a story arc in Action Comics entitled “Brainiac.” Brainiac sends a probe to Earth, and Superman destroys it, but the probe completes its goal of obtaining a sample of Superman’s DNA. Supergirl later informs Superman that Brainiac had minimized the city of Kandor. Superman goes to investigate Brainiac but ends up being captured.
Imprisoned on the skull ship, Superman witnesses a more immense and more physically imposing Brainiac emerge from a cocoon in his new form. Brainiac then tries to steal the metropolis and prepares a missile to destroy the Sun and the Earth. Supergirl manages to stop the rocket as Superman engages Brainiac in battle. During the fight, Brainiac is knocked out of the ship and into a swamp, where his body is covered by microscopic organisms, which is his weakness as he cannot fight bacteria and disease outside the sterile environment of his ship. Superman uses this to defeat Brainiac.
While Superman restores the cities of Metropolis and Kandor, Brainiac launches a missile at Kent’s farm, which causes its destruction and severely injures Jonathan Kent, triggering a fatal heart attack. During his imprisonment, Brainiac meets his old friend Lex Luthor and the two escape the facility using Brainiac’s skull ship.
The Black Ring
During the events of “The Black Ring,” Lex Luthor’s consort, the Lois Lane robot, had been secretly manipulated by Brainiac. He had driven her to introduce nanites into Lex’s bloodstream. Brainiac used the robot and the nanites to work Lex into performing experiments on the black spheres that he wished for. Unknown to Brainiac, Lex had already caught onto his scheme and planned to beat Brainiac. Brainiac attacks Lex in space while he is experimenting, but as Lex is already aware, he countered, and a fight ensues, where Lex breaks Brainiac’s neck and is forced to retreat to fix himself.
Flashpoint
Kid Flash Bart Allen is kidnapped and brought to the year 3011, one thousand years after Flashpoint, where brainiac rules over the Earth for five centuries. He has everyone on Earth placed into pods in which they experience virtual reality. This version of Brainiac was different from his previous incarnations and was more on the robotic side. Also, he claims that Brainiac 5 does not exist in the 31st century.
rainiac also captured Patty Spivot claiming that they were “time anomalies,” He wanted to study them to learn the secrets of time and space. Bart and Patty escape and formulate a plan to defeat Brainiac. Bart lets Brainiac catch him, and when he is placed in virtual reality, he taps into the speed force and moves so fast that the VR machine can’t keep up with him and gets fried. Just when Patty finds the speed force power cell, Brainiac impales her using extendible arm claws, but in her last action, Patty releases the speed force power cell and allows Bart to escape the future.
No Justice
Brainiac fights the Justice League of America and sends out his forces to fight the Suicide Squad, Teen Titans, and The Titans. After telepathically explaining to Superman why he came to Earth, he can ally with the Justice League. It turns out that Brainiac was capturing several heroes and villains to help him fight the Omega Titans. The Omega Titan arrived in Colu to destroy it and was the main reason behind Brainiac’s actions.
However, Brainiac gets assaulted, and his head is crushed by psychics employed by Amanda Waller to rescue the people captured in Brainiac’s ship and steal all the information in Brainiac’s mind. The heroes and villains get trapped on Colu with the Omega Titan posing a significant threat.
Interesting facts you didn’t know about Brainiac
Brainiac is one of Superman’s most formidable foes, next to Lex Luthor. But his origins are all over the place. Sometimes he’s a green alien, occasionally a supercomputer on Krypton; some stories even suggest he created himself into existence. While Brainiac is an essential character in the Superman universe, with an origin story all over the place and in different timelines, there are some fascinating facts. We’ve got them right here for you.
Brainiac has a Great-great-great-great-Grandson, and no, he is not a villain. Brainiac descendant was Brainiac 5, a part of the Legion of Superheroes, and unlike his villainous ancestors, he wanted to atone for their crimes.
When DC first introduced Brainiac, they had no clue that the name was already taken. Edmund Berkley had created a Brain-Imitating Almost-Automatic Computer and complained to DC that he had a claim to the title. DC’s solution to this was giving Brainiac a different origin story. In Superman #167, they revealed that Brainiac was a computer, too, created by overlords of Colu. The issue included a footnote mentioning the Brainiac computer, which satisfied Berkley.
Brainiac and Lex Luthor are best friends. They often collude together to make Superman’s life miserable. In Superman #167, Lex teamed up with Brainiac when he realized he would never be able to beat Superman on his own. After this, they teamed up several times. They merged as equals during a plot in Justice League Unlimited.
Brainiac’s looks have gone through innumerable changes throughout the years. He was revealed to be a bald green alien when he debuted, although the cover showed him with red knobs on his head. The knobs don’t show up inside the comic until Action Comics #275. In 1983, Brainiac’s disintegrated body was assembled by a computer, and this body had a more metallic look. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Brainiac’s face was changed again to human, although it was soon reverted to his previous bald green head and redhead knobs.
Adventures of Superman #438 introduced us to Milton Fine, a carnival mind reader known as “the Amazing Brainiac.” Suddenly he started manifesting telekinetic abilities and claimed to be possessed by an alien. Although psychiatrists had assured Superman that the man was just insane, it turned out he was kept. Vril Dox was a Coluan who served the computer tyrants and planned to overthrow them. But he was executed, and his men survived, making contact with Milton and possessing his body. Brainiac has possessed many bodies throughout various timelines.
Smallville, the TV series, made Brainiac be a Kryptonian computer that General Zod used to destroy Krypton. He lived on Earth under the name of Prof. Milton Fine. Superman almost killed him, but the Legion of Superheroes turned him into Brainiac Five.
In comic issues set in the future, the writers turned Brainiac into Stargrave, who had been caught in a supernova visiting their timeline. A single punch from Superboy defeated him, so he is not much of a supervillain.
In the 21st century, Brainiac’s future self-Brainiac 13, traveled back in time and took over his past self to bring forth the events that would lead to his creation. He also transformed Metropolis into its 64th-century version. Although Superman stopped Brainiac 13 from taking over Metropolis, the city remained the same and was now a futuristic city of tomorrow.
In the “New 52”, Brainiac was called the Collector of Worlds. He bottled cities from various planets to save them from the destruction he saw coming. When he arrived on Earth, Lex Luthor advised him to bottle the city of Metropolis and believed being bottled along the city would save him from the incoming danger. Superman arrived on the Collector’s ship and recognized one of the cities from his dreams. Brainiac then revealed to him that both Superman and the city of Kandor came from Krypton. This was the first time Superman had learned of his past in this timeline.
Superman #159 tells an imaginary story where Earth explodes, and Lois Lane is sent to Krypton to become a superhero. So, when Brainiac shows up, Lois defeats him in the blink of an eye. We all know Lois Lane makes a badass superhero.
As we know, Brainiac is super intelligent; with the word ‘brain’ in his name, it would be a shame if he wasn’t. He has a 12th-level effector brain, which is 6 times more than a human.
How powerful is Brainiac
Brainiac is super intelligent, but his abilities don’t end there. He also has a variety of capacities. Due to his level of intelligence, he could learn anything new at the speed of light. Brainiac has had many reincarnations, so his abilities vary from version to version.
He is known to have Technopathy, which can control technology with one’s mind. He has also been known to possess telekinetic abilities. He possesses super-strength, which can even knock at General Zod. One of his main pieces of equipment is the force field belt he always wears. The force field is so strong that even Superman can’t get through it. He also has a shrink ray to shrink cities and bottle them up.
Brainiac has always been quite the formidable foe for Superman. Even after being destroyed so many times, the man always manages to come back. His intelligence has been serving him well throughout various timelines, and even though he might have had many background stories, one thing he can always count on is his big beefy brain. Now all that remains is to hope we can get another excellent rendition of this supervillain, and hopefully, it will be a movie.