Brainiac (cartoon character)

Brainiac is a cartoon character created in 1958 by the American science fiction writer Otto Binder . The commercial exploitation rights for Brainiac are owned by the entertainment company Time Warner . Since the late 1950s, the character has been used regularly in comics in the program of the publisher DC-Comics , a subsidiary of Time Warner. In addition, Brainiac has found consistent use in cartoons, films, and computer games, as well as in some merchandising products (action figures, statues, etc.) based on these comics.

Figure description

The description of the character Brainiac already encounters initial difficulties in defining what Brainiac actually is. In the early Superman stories, Brainiac was defined as a green-skinned alien scientist and conqueror. Later he was alternately represented as a thinking computer program with its own personality, as a kind of organic robot and finally as a disembodied being that alternates between machines and organic creatures.

The Ur-Brainiac (Silver Age Version)

The first version of Brainiac was featured in Action Comics # 242, July 1958. In this issue, Brainiac appears as a bald, green-skinned, anthropomorphic alien who supposedly came from a planet called Bryak and travels to Earth in order to successively shrink several cities that he wants to keep in bottles from now on. A type of diode grid covering Brainiac's skull is characteristic of Brainiac's appearance. In the fight with Brainiac, Superman discovers that Brainiac's collection of miniaturized bottle cities includes Kandor, the former capital of his home planet Krypton. After his victory over Brainiac, Superman succeeds in giving the cities on earth that had been shrunk by Brainiac back to their real size. However, Kandor initially remains miniaturized. Superman brings the bottle city to his fortress of solitude and vows that he would not rest until he has found a way to help Kandor too, at some point, to his true greatness again. Until the early 1980s, many Superman stories describe attempts by the hero to enlarge Kandor again or his travels (in a shrunken state) into the city.

In Superman # 167 of February 1964 it is revealed that Brainiac is a machine (an android) disguised as an organic living being, which was created by the computer tyrants of the planet Colu - the planet Bryak is no longer mentioned here - in order to destroy other planets for later Spy on the Coluan conquest. According to this story, Brainiac was accompanied on his travels through space by a young Coluan named Vril Dox (Brainiac 2), who pretended to be his son to round off the disguise of the android. Brainiac 2 later renounced the plans of the Coluan tyrants and ran away from his "father". In later stories, Brainiac 2 is identified as the ancestor of Brainiac 5, one of the main characters in the Legion of Super-Heroes series ( Action Comics # 276).

Due to dwindling sales of the Superman comics, some elements of the Superman material were revised in the early 1980s in the hope of gaining some new readers by gradually "modernizing" the characters around Superman. The figure Brainiac was given a thorough overhaul by author Marv Wolfman on behalf of Julius Schwartz , editor-in-chief of the Superman division at DC . In Action Comics # 544 from June 1983, Brainiac tries to destroy Superman with the help of a giant artificial planet. After his defeat he is temporarily trapped in the core of the machine planet. To escape, Brainiac is forced to explode a nearby star, the nova of which destroys the artificial planet so that it can regain freedom and assume a new physical form. In the comics of the following three years, Brainiac finally appears in a new body, devised by the draftsman Ed Hannigan , which looks like a skeleton made of living metal. The head is a gray housing with a honeycomb-like surface structure. Furthermore, Brainiac creates a spaceship in this story that serves as a dwelling and refuge for his new body, but at the same time represents a kind of extension of his body that he can control just like this. Outwardly, the spaceship is an image of Brainiac's skeletal skull, from which protrude some metal tentacles, which he can also control by means of his will and use like tentacles. Wolfman also gave Brainiac a new dominant trait at the time, namely a paranoid paranoia that led him to believe that Superman (whom he now describes as a master programmer and "angel of death") was involved in a conspiracy whose aim was to turn him, Brainiac, to destroy and prevent from his goal of achieving perfection and dominion over the universe. At the end of this redefinition there is a new Brainiac: Instead of a green-skinned extraterrestrial scientist, Brainiac is now a cold-hearted, mechanically rational, nefarious machine whose consciousness strives to absorb the entire knowledge of the universe.

Post-Crisis Brainiac

Following the twelve-part miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1986, the Superman series was restarted in 1986/1987. Like all other old Superman villains, Brainiac was re-introduced to the series in 1988/1989 in a completely revised form. Vril Dox, in this new version, first featured in Adventures of Superman # 438 from March 1988, is a radical Coluan scientist who is sentenced to death after attempting to overthrow the computer tyrants of Colu. Immediately before his death, Dox's consciousness is drawn to the spirit of an earthly fortune teller named Milton Fine, who goes to fairs under the name Brainiac. Dox's spirit is then transported through the vastness of the universe from Colu to earth and there in Fine's head.

In order to be able to maintain his control over Fine, whose body he has now "occupied", Dox always needs new cerebral fluid, which he obtains by murdering people and removing the cranial fluid from them. Lex Luthor finally succeeds in bringing Fine / Dox under his control and keeping it hidden in the laboratories of his company LexCorp. However, thanks to his mental powers, Dox soon manages to turn the situation into the opposite and take control of LexCorp. Under Dox's mental dominance, some LexCorp scientists subject Fine's body to an operation, transforming it into an (approximate) copy of Dox's original Coluan appearance: Fine's head now has the well-known skull electrodes that were already in the Pre-Crisis / Silver Age -Brainiac marked optically. In contrast to this, however, this new Brainiac has a beard. As a result, he has some confrontations with Superman, whom he bothers with his mental powers (which make Superman schizophrenic for a short time) and with his control over computer technology. When he threatens to succumb to Superman, he flees into the vastness of space in a skull-like spaceship and remains lost for the time being ( Action Comics # 644-647).

In the miniseries Invasion! A new version of Vril Dox II (Brainiac 2) is also presented from the same year: This is now a clone Dox ', which he created during his time on Colu in order to have an equal laboratory assistant at his disposal. As in the pre-crisis version, Vril Dox II breaks away from his mentor and, as the hero of the LEGION series, goes his own "fairer" path as the head of an intergalactic police organization.

In the 1992 storyline Panic in the Sky , Brainiac takes possession of the "Warworld", a planet-sized alien war station, and attacks the earth with it, supported by the alien warrior Maxima and a number of superheroes (including Supergirl and Draaga) who he brought under his mental control. To forestall the invasion, Superman, supported by a number of other superheroes, leads a counterattack on the Warworld. There he can free Draaga and Supergirl from Brainiac's control. Maxima also finally changes sides when she realizes the true character of Brainiac, who she previously thought was a hero. With combined forces they manage to defeat Brainiac - Draaga is killed in the process. Maxima finally makes the defeated Brainiac harmless by lobotomizing him . Brainiac's vegetative body is finally handed over to the New Gods , the powerful inhabitants of the planet New Genesis, for guarding .

In 1994, Brainiac returns in the storyline Dead Again . Following the storyline about Superman's death and resurrection from 1993, a Superman corpse suddenly appears in the grave in which Superman was temporarily buried from his death until his resurrection. This begs the question of whether the "resurrected" Superman is really the real Superman who has come back to life, or whether he is a con who pretends to be Superman while the real Superman is still dead is. Superman is then subjected to an excruciating marathon of attrition as more and more supposed evidence emerges (including a DNA test that identifies the Superman corpse as the original) that he is a fraud - so that in the end he himself doubts its authenticity. After Superman has finally checked all of his enemies who could be the masterminds of such a game of confusion, Brainiac reveals himself to be the originator of the plot that he steered from the safe disguise of his coma on New Genesis. In a duel with Brainiac, Superman can finally overcome this by mocking that he, Brainiac, is really none other than the "cheap entertainer" Milton Fine. Brainiac's mind shattered in an ominous way at this provocation, with the result that Fine's personality prevailed against Dox's consciousness and buried it: Fine, who now seems to be completely freed from Dox's influence, is soon transferred into the care of a psychiatric institution . Dox's mind seems completely destroyed.

In the four-part story "Identity Crisis" from 1996, Dox's consciousness, believed to have been destroyed, returns and again takes control of Fine's body, which is still in psychiatry. Once again, Brainiac tries to overcome Superman through an intricate intrigue: He transfers his own consciousness into Superman's body, Superman's consciousness into the body of a mentally ill boy (a fellow patient in Fine's psychiatry) who thinks he is Superman, and the consciousness of the boy into Fine's body . Together, Superman and the boy finally succeed in outwitting Brainiac, reversing the exchange of consciousness and returning every spirit to its own body: Brainiac is once again put into a state of catatonia by only apathetically reciting binary codes.

Finally, Milton Fine's body is irrevocably destroyed in a renewed fight with Superman. Dox / Brainiac is now looking for a new host: with the help of his henchman Prin Vnok, he “fishes” the monster Doomsday, which Superman once “discarded” (in the hope of protecting the universe from the indomitable monster) at the end of time, from the time stream and uses it as a new shell. Despite this powerful new body, he is defeated again against Superman ( Superman: The Doomsday Wars ).

Adaptations

Brainiac has found use in a long line of Superman adaptations in media other than the comic book. The novelist Kevin J. Anderson made Brainiac the main villain in his superman novel The Last Days of Krypton .

He was used sequentially as a villain in the animated series Superman (by Filmation), The Super Friends, and Challenge of the Super Friends throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s . The American voice actors were Ted Cassidy and Stanley Ralph Ross . In the television series Smallville , Brainiac was played by the actor James Marsters .

As an animated character, Brainiac has appeared as a villain in a number of computer and video games. For the first time in 1992 in the game Superman from the workshop of the game producer Sunsoft. A few years later, Brainiac was incorporated into the game Superman 64 . This was followed by Superman: Man of Steel for the Sega Master System and the Sega Genesis console and the game of the same name (but not identical) Superman: Man of Steel for the Xbox console. The latter involved Brainiac 13 as the main villain. Brainiac also appears as the main villain in Justice League Heroes .

In the free online game DC-Universe-Online, Brainiac raids the earth after Lex Luthor has killed Superman with a trick and he is the last to stand. Lex Luthor travels back in time and asks the superheroes for help to ally with him against Brainiac and his overwhelming robotic forces. Brainiac is gradually kidnapping people and buildings on earth. As a player, you take on the role of a new superhero or super villain who was able to free himself from Brainiac's captivity.

In Injustice 2, the successor to Injustice: Gods Among Us, Brainiac is the main opponent during the story. In order to defeat him, the heroes of parallel earth known from the first part have to team up.

Brainiac as a reference brand in pop culture

The band The Dukes of Stratosphear released a song entitled "Brainiac's Daughter" on their album Psonic Psunspot in 1987. The band Royal recorded a cover version of the song for their album Sound of Superman in 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In the course of the game the player has to deal with different B13 drones before he meets Brainiac 13 in the last level.