There has never been a shortage of unique villains in DC Comics, and the one we have in store for you is unlike anything you have ever seen. This villain is a jar of brains. Yes, you read that correctly — there is no physical body, only a brain. The Brain is a long-time opponent of the Doom Patrol superhero team that appears frequently in DC comics. The Doom Patrol is a group of superheroes that gained their abilities as a result of horrific events and subsequently banded together.
The Brain also formed the nefarious Brotherhood of Evil, which has appeared as a prominent adversary group in the live-action television series Doom Patrol, commanded by the famed floating brain. This video will detail the events of his life as well as his criminal acts. Let us get this party started!
The most interesting comic book story arc featuring the Brain:
No one is born as simply a brain. Thus, you’re probably wondering how this bizarre character even came into existence. Well, to put it simply, the Brain was a genius scientist however, he lost his body in a terrible manner. Back when he had a physical body, he used to perform experiments on animals to see if they too possessed an intelligent mind capable of intelligent thoughts.
One of his most successful experiments was on a gorilla which he named Monsieur Mallah. He trained this gorilla for over a decade and helped it reach a spectacular level of intellectual ability. However, with immense success, comes bitter enemies. Brain’s colleague, a man called Niles Caulder, who goes on to become Chief, the leader of the superhero group Doom Patrol, gets jealous of his success and tries to destroy him by causing an explosion.
He succeeds and this explosion destroys the Brain’s body and the only thing that survives is, well, you guessed it, the brain. Monsieur Mallah then comes to the rescue and takes the brain away from Niles, puts it in a container with a computer network, and keeps it functioning as a sentient entity.
With this backstory in mind, we’ll take a look at one of The Brain’s most interesting comic book arcs which were featured in the 1990’s Doom Patrol comic, Volume 2, Issue 34. This is the comic book in which Brain seeks out a body to inhabit and admits his love for his right-hand man, Monsieur Mallah!
The comic opens with The Chief trying to fix Cliff Steele’s robotic body. He takes out the brain and gets to work on the body, making this the perfect chance for The Brain to come and make a play for the body. We watch as Cliff’s brain muses on what it is like to be a disembodied brain (note, it is definitely not a fun experience, lots of bizarre sensations, feelings of lost limbs, and so on) however, things go haywire when the robot body develops a consciousness of its own.
It no longer wants to share its body with a brain and attempts to kill Cliff’s brain. He further adds that he has put in command in his body by which if a brain was to be placed inside it and tried to take control, the body would self-destruct. He would rather not live than be enslaved by a brain of any kind.
In the meanwhile, The Brain makes his way to the Doom Patrol Headquarters with Mallah in tow as he reminisces about how he educated Mallah for over 10 years and turned him into the intelligent being he is now. He thinks about how he had originally decided to put his own brain into that of the gorilla’s body. However, he could not bring himself to do it because not only was he attached to Mallah, but also, Mallah’s brain was nothing short of a scientific marvel. Thus, they became partners and the founders of the Brotherhood of Evil.
They reach the headquarters and walk-in only to be attacked by the robot body. However, Mallah successfully overpowers it, straps it onto the operating table, and places Brain inside it. Both of them ignore the body’s warning of the automated weapons system that would self-destruct. A short while after, the Brain wakes up in his new body, rejuvenated and overjoyed.
In all his happiness and ecstasy, Brain admits then and there that he has feelings for Monsieur Mallah. He confesses that he is in love with the supremely intelligent gorilla and Mallah also admits that he feels the same way for Brain. They lean into a kiss and BAM! The weapons system activates and, the self-destruct command gets triggered, causing a massive explosion that presumably kills both Mallah and Brain, leaving a confused Cliff who is still a brain without a body in a vat. An explosive comic book appearance from the weird duo indeed.
The strange relationship between the Brain and Monsieur Mallah:
The strange relationship between The Brain and Monsieur Mallah is noteworthy. The Brain spent over a decade trying to enhance the level of intelligence of the gorilla and reached a point where the gorilla was intelligent enough to become his personal assistant. Brain named the gorilla and practically taught him all he knew.
After Brain’s accident which left him with no physical body, both of them left the facility and went off on their own, later forming The Brotherhood of Evil and becoming obsessed with defeating the Doom Patrol together. Monsieur Mallah remained Brain’s right-hand man till the end of his days in the comics however, some interesting ideas came to light.
Brain and Monsieur Mallah are some of the few openly gay characters in mainstream comics. Mallah had the Brain implanted in one of Robotman’s bodies in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run. The Brain admitted to Mallah that he was in love with him in his new body. Mallah expressed his feelings and the two kissed. As mentioned before, this touching moment ends up with both Brain and Monsieur Mallah dead. However, the duo often gets killed and then brought back without much explanation as to what happened.
The Brain and Monsieur Mallah appear among the villains dispatched to the planet Cygnus 4019 in the Salvation Run narrative. Mallah begs Gorilla Grodd to meet with him aside from the others when the Brain and Mallah arrive at Joker’s camp. Mallah suggests to Grodd that as fellow gorillas and natural kings of the jungle, they should band together and use their combined strength to rule the entire region.
Grodd mocks Mallah for comparing himself to “a proud child of Gorilla City” as an “absurd science experiment.” Mallah smacks Grodd in the face and labels him a beast, inciting Grodd to anger and attempt to murder him. Despite the fact that Mallah possesses a gun and shoots Grodd numerous times, Grodd retains the upper hand and is about to kill Mallah when Brian intervenes, begging for Mallah’s life.
Grodd reconsiders, but then picks up the Brain and beats Mallah to death with him, destroying the Brain’s outer hull and killing him in the process. Mallah says that he is dying happy before breathing his last breath, finding comfort in the fact that he and the Brain would now be able to be with each other forever. They continue to be a tight-knit villainous duo in the recent Doom Patrol HBO series.
The Brain in Doom Patrol TV series:
The Doom Patrol TV Series debuted in 2019 and has quickly become a DC fan favorite of all those that like this misfit group of superheroes. Doom Patrol is a group of scarred and downtrodden superheroes. They have all been through horrific tragedies that have given them their respective superhuman abilities while also scarring and disfiguring them for life.
The team has historically gotten together to explore some of the world’s strangest phenomena after discovering their mission through The Chief, the mad scientist who brought them all together. However, after The Chief unexpectedly vanishes, the reluctant heroes are summoned to action by Cyborg, who presents them with a mission they cannot refuse. Thus, they embark on one more journey.
Many fans say that the plot was so unique and unusual that it combined the dark humor and the eccentric superhero genres well. The fact that the writers did an outstanding job bringing together the storylines by connecting the past with the present, bending reality, time and space, and blending personalities was highly praised, making this a must-see for Doom Patrol fans.
However, wherever there are heroes, there are bound to be villains and thus, The Brain shows up along with the Brotherhood of Evil to pose challenges to this unlikely superhero squad. He has been quite prominent in the series. The egotistical Brain and his companion, the bright and spiteful gorilla Monsieur Mallah, were able to draw a time machine they witnessed in 1917 that traveled from 2021. They took it apart and rebuilt it as their own.
They then established the Brotherhood of Evil, a villainous organization dedicated to world dominance. The pair eventually became adversaries of mad scientist Niles Caulder, who intended to stop them at all costs. To thwart him, the Brotherhood teamed up with Nazi scientist Heinrich Von Fuchs, alien conqueror Garguax, and the crafty and deceitful shapeshifter Madame Rouge, who they sent in their time machine, all the way forward to 2021 to steal Caulder’s innovations.
Caulder later became the head of the Doom Patrol, a lesser-known superhero team that faced the Brotherhood on multiple occasions in the 1950s. The Doom Patrol finally vanquished the Brotherhood in 1957, causing the Brain and Mallah to retreat to Boca Raton, Florida, where they would stay for decades. The Brain’s nasty and arrogant attitude did not change over time, but he became more self-indulgent, yearning for a body and a life he thought he would never have.
Madame Rouge returned from the past in 2021, however she was not able to finish her original purpose due to her memory loss. When she regained it, she realized that she had been found by the now-deceased Caulder’s posterity, a group of people who had been lab rats in Caulder’s immortality studies and that they were attempting to murder her. She traveled to Boca Raton and sought the assistance of the Brain and Mallah. She infiltrated Caulder’s gang, in other words, Doom Patrol, and kidnapped Cliff Steele, a human brain in a mechanical body, for the Brain to put himself into.
Brain, however, betrayed Rouge and attempted to kill her after the Brain was transported into his new body safely. He left her to die in the forest along with Cliff’s brain in a jar. He then went out to enjoy his new body, totally oblivious that the rest of Caulder’s test subjects, were on their way to kill him and Mallah.
Rouge was not one to die easily and she returned with Cliff, whose brain was transferred inside of Rog, a large robot used by the Brotherhood that she had discovered in the wilderness, while the Brain was embracing his new body on a golf course. She used it to squash the Brain and ruin a large portion of his new body. He then retreated back to his vacation home with what was left of it.
Rita Farr, Rouge’s enemy and the elastic girl of Doom Patrol was waiting for him there. Mallah had abandoned him in order to avoid the Brain’s goal to conquer the world. After being defeated, the Brain attempted to negotiate with Rita, promising her retribution against Madame Rouge if she helped him rebuild his body, but a spiteful Rita chose to remove the top of his head and murder him by pouring boiling hot tea on his uncovered brain, bringing an end to his story.
Why is someone without a body so powerful?
The human body is wonderful and has many capabilities but what happens when there is no physical body and only the brain is left? Turns out that in this case, the brain itself is still plenty powerful. Does anyone remember the horrific Tumblr text post making the rounds that referred to human existence as “a sack of flesh and bones being directed by a brain”?
Well, remove that sack of flesh and bones and the brain knows all. The Brain was a man of genius intellect and thus, was always supremely brilliant. His main weapon was his mind and his ability to coordinate the various villains. There can be no plans without a mastermind and the Brain is the best at the game. His ability to think up machines that sustain his existence, to put things together, and chalk out plans and blueprints is unparalleled.
His body (whenever he gets one) is almost always a robot or some other non-human entity that his brain can be implanted into and when that happens, he gains the powers and abilities of his new body. However, there are some obvious weaknesses that come with a body-less existence. His main disadvantage of course is how vulnerable he is.
While the Brain’s container can keep him alive in his disembodied form, it has no self-movement or defense capabilities, making him useless in combat scenarios and confrontations. Additionally, as a result of The Brain’s reliance on technology, the Brain’s capacity to develop a machine capable of keeping him alive is also totally reliant on his intellect. He also entrusts his movement and safety to Mallah, making him entirely dependent on the gorilla for physical mobility.
This is the story of a man who was betrayed by his colleague out of jealousy and turned into a villain because he wanted revenge. Practically everything was taken from him, including his body and thus his identity. However, that did not stop him and he went on to start an evil group that was constantly at odds with Doom Patrol. His character is highly fascinating and a brain floating about in a cybernetic flask, talking about science, equations and evil masterplans is always cool to watch eh? What do you think about the Brain? Let us know in the comments section below!