History Characters / SupermanBrainiacCharacter

Created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino, Brainiac debuted in July 1958 as a green-skinned alien with advanced technology who attacked an Earth spaceship and possessed a private collection of shrunken, stolen cities, including the Kryptonian city of Kandor, which Superman stole back and took back to his Fortress of Solitude. Notably, in that story, Superman never actually managed to defeat the alien and was completely outmatched by his DeflectorShields and [[YouFightLikeACow tirade of insults]], and this was the ''[[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]]'' Superman, the same one who casually tugged chains of planets through space.

* BewareTheSkullBase: Evoked with Braniacs's preferred method of traveling the cosmos in a massive, skull-shaped starship that doubles as his base of operations. It's [[{{Faceship}} modeled after his face]] from his [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Age]] Skelebot9000 phase.

* DeflectorShields: Perhaps ''the'' IconicItem along with his shrinking ray associated with the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] Brainiac was his force field belt, which even Superman couldn't break through. Most later versions of him have also possessed these in one form or another.

* {{Expy}}: In his first appearance, and for much of UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} he was just Lex Luthor (back when Lex was a standard MadScientist) but with green skin. This changed in UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, when he became a skeletal robot (resembling the Franchise/{{Terminator}}) who aimed to now not just attain, but to ''be'' all the knowledge and strength in the universe.

* {{Faceship}}: Since UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, Brainiac's ship looks right like his SkeleBot9000 persona's skull.

* AGodAmI: In UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks and in ''JLA: Earth-2'' where his Antimatter Universe counterpart tried to become an "Nth Level Intellect". Defied in ''New Krypton'' when he states "Gods do not exist, Lex Luthor".

** [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] Brainiac finally met defeat when Superman disregarded his own ThouShaltNotKill rule, and hurled his ship into the path of the villain's own shrink ray.

* KillerRobot: In UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} and [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Age]] when he was a murderous android. UsefulNotes/{{The Modern Age|of Comic Books}} saw him possess numerous robotic bodies before it they were retconned into being probes under the control of the actual alien.

* MadScientist: Particularly during UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}, when he was essentially an alien Luthor. To this day he retains many elements of this as a builder of robots, spaceships, and his own cyborg body parts. He's also fond of vivisecting prisoners ForScience.

* MechanicalAbomination: His late UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks SkeleBot9000 form was created to invoke this trope, granting him power levels (and a general creepiness factor) far beyond what he'd ever had before.

* RoboticPsychopath: In UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks and UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks, though it was more emphasized in some stories than in others. He was also one for much of the Modern Age, before being retconned into being the alien behind the robots. Several adaptations, including ''Superman The Animated Series'' and ''Smallville'' would adapt the original, Post-Crisis version, making him fully robotic.

* SkeleBot9000: Brainiac became skeletal in UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|of Comic Books}}, and in some Elseworlds stories, after experiencing a rebirth and absorbing all the knowledge the universe had to offer. His probes in ''Brainiac'' and ''New Krypton'' reference this.

*** BarrierWarrior: In his early days, his most iconic artifact was his [[DeflectorShields Force Field Generator belt]] granting him NighInvulnerability. His robotic bodies in UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}, [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Age]], and [[UsefulNotes/TheModernAgeOfComicBooks Modern Age]] typically possessed some version of this, as does his Coluan self following the events of ''Brainiac''. In the latter arc, Superman bloodies his fists trying to punch them. It's an indication of how much he was identified with it that when his heroic descendant Brainiac 5 debuted in ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes,'' he was A) green, B) smart, and C) had an unbeatable force field belt.

* VillainousFriendship: A Type III with Luthor during UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} and [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Age]]. Luthor seemed to respect and like Brainiac, but Brainiac was only too willing to betray Luthor, stealing his body in ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow''.

[[Characters/SupermanCentralRoguesGallery Central Rogues Gallery]] ([[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Alexander "Lex" Luthor]], [[Characters/SupermanBizarro Bizarro]], '''Vril Dox/Brainiac''', [[Characters/SupermanCyborgSuperman Cyborg-Superman]], [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]], [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]], [[Characters/DCComicsLobo Lobo]], [[Characters/SupermanMisterMxyzptlk Mister Mxyzptlk]], [[Characters/DCComicsMongul Mongul]], [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryPhantomZone Phantom Zone Criminals]] [[[Characters/SupermanGeneralZod General Zod]]]) | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryAToL A-L]] | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryMToZ M-Z]] ([[Characters/SupermanSuperboyPrime Superboy-Prime]])\\

[[AC:Notable Pre-Crisis comics]]

* "Rebirth" (''Action Comics'' #544): Upgraded to cosmic-powered skeletal form

[[AC:Notable ComicBook/PostCrisis comics]]

[[AC:Notable Elseworld Appearences]]

** ''Action Comics #339:'' Supergirl attempts to attack Brainiac's ship but is incapacitated and nearly killed when she strikes its force field and it responds by repulsing her attack and blasting her. Brainiac then comments that he's looking for Superman, not Supergirl, and departs without bothering to confirm her death. She was basically a bug on his windshield. Later she attempts to capture him again, but is unable to breach his personal belt-generated force field, and he contemptuously shoots her with a kryptonite ray gun before leaving her for dead and walking away to find her cousin.

* ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague''

[[WMG:[[center:[-''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' '''[[Characters/{{Superman}} Main Character Index]]'''\\

* ''VideoGame/Injustice2'' as the BigBad, voiced by Creator/JeffreyCombs. He's also playable, [[spoiler:but his Arcade Mode ending reveals that the playable Brainiac is Brainiac 5.]]

* "The Super-Duel in Space" (''Action Comics'' #242): Debut of Brainiac as a character

* ''VideoGame/Injustice2'' as the BigBad, voiced by Creator/JefferyCombs. He's also playable, [[spoiler:but his Arcade Mode ending reveals that the playable Brainiac is Brainiac 5.]]

-->-- '''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}''', ''Comicbook/SupermanBrainiac'' (the story arc)

Brainiac is a prominent member of Franchise/{{Superman}}'s RoguesGallery and one of the most iconic villains in comic book history.

He received a major overhaul in 1983, turning him into a SkeleBot9000 with vastly greater abilities, [[note]]in a story oddly reminiscent of the origin of [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture V'Ger]][[/note]] but this version was wiped out by the ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths only a few years later. Later versions do usually retain a version of his skull-shaped spaceship introduced in this period, however. In comics, Skeletal Brainiac appears prominently in ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' and ''Comicbook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow;'' in other media, this version appears in the later seasons of ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' and was immortalized as an action figure for the popular Super Powers toyline.

* ''Comicbook/OurWorldsAtWar''
* ''Comicbook/SupermanBrainiac''
* ''Comicbook/NewKrypton''
* ''Comicbook/SupermanDoomed''

* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: In the Comicbook/{{New 52}}, he calls his bottled cities "Kan-Dor" and "Met-Trop-Ol-Is".
* ActuallyADoombot: Geoff Johns invoked this in an issue of ''Action Comics'' where every single appearance by Brainiac in the Post-Crisis DCU, prior to Johns' [[Comicbook/SupermanBrainiac Superman: Brainiac]] storyline was actually a "Brainiac probe" (or a clone).

** His ''[[Comicbook/{{Convergence}} Convergence]]'' incarnation sees him turned into something like this... and he realizes he ''[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor doesn't like it.]]''

* IHaveManyNames: In the Comicbook/{{New 52}}, each civilization that adopted him assigned him a different name.

* RetCanon: These days, as of the Comicbook/{{New 52}}, he's much like the ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' version, which is also what most other adaptations' Brainiacs are based on. Apparently he still got started on Colu, but he ''also'' was the Kryptonian AI, and exists in many places under many names (including Earth, as [[spoiler: the Internet]]).

*** BarrierWarrior: In his early days, his most iconic artifact was his [[DeflectorShields Force Field Generator belt]] granting him NighInvulnerability. His robotic bodies in UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}, [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Age]], and [[UsefulNotes/TheModernAgeOfComicBooks Modern Age]] typically possessed some version of this, as does his Coluan self following the events of ''Brainiac''. In the latter arc, Superman bloodies his fists trying to punch them. It's an indication of how much he was identified with it that when his heroic descendant Brainiac 5 debuted in ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes,'' he was A) green, B) smart, and C) had an unbeatable force field belt.

[[Characters/SupermanCentralRoguesGallery Central Rogues Gallery]] ([[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Alexander "Lex" Luthor]], [[Characters/SupermanBizarro Bizarro]], '''Vril Dox/Brainiac''', [[Characters/SupermanCyborgSuperman Cyborg-Superman]], [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]], [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]], ComicBook/{{Lobo}}, [[Characters/SupermanMisterMxyzptlk Mister Mxyzptlk]], [[Characters/DCComicsMongul Mongul]], [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryPhantomZone Phantom Zone Criminals]] [[[Characters/SupermanGeneralZod General Zod]]]) | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryAToL A-L]] | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryMToZ M-Z]] ([[Characters/SupermanSuperboyPrime Superboy-Prime]])\\

Fun fact: Brainiac is not, as you might think, named after a popular slang word for "intellectual." It's the other way around: that particular piece of slang actually started with ''him'', and the writers of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' are credited with coining it via a portmanteau of "brain" and "ENIAC", the first digital computer. So, yes, every time a bookish comic book fan gets mockingly called a "brainiac," his tormenters unknowingly pay tribute to DC Comics.

* ''Comicbook/{{Justice}}''

* ''ComicBook/{{Justice}}''

* ''ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsActionComics''

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Brainiac-Post_Retcon_279.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Brainiac circa 2005, ''Superman Vol 2, #219''. One of his [[DependingOnTheWriter dozens]] of different versions.]]

** ''ComicBook/TheNew52FuturesEnd'' claims that Brainiac is actually a lovecraftian entity beyond time and space who routinely sends probes to collect knowledge ([[ActuallyADoomBot incidentally explaining all of its various forms as just probes]]. Across all continuities). The status of this reveal within canon is debatable, however, [[OldShame since its not been used for any comic ever since]] but it still hasn't been explicitly retconned.

* DecompositeCharacter: The 2008 ''Brainiac'' story, via its FightingAShadow retcon, essentially turned the [[https://i.imgur.com/r9WSuHn.png different versions of Brainiac]] into different characters subservient to the one true Brainiac. The SkeleBot, pantless android, and Bryakian scientist-emperor were all autonomous probes he programmed,[[note]]Superman didn't even encounter these versions Post-Crisis on-screen, though this page would imply he did off-screen.[[/note]] while the consciousness (possibly multiple?) that possessed Milton Fine, Doomsday, Brainiac 2.5, and the Nanoswarm were nanites he also programmed and sent out. ''Rebirth'' continues this; the Green Lantern have trouble with a skele-bot calling itself "Brainiac 2.0", which resembles a larger and slightly-differently designed version of his standard MechaMooks. It states that it's an older model of Brainiac and that it's collecting worlds for the "Grand Collector", this being before the post-''Rebirth'' debut of Brainiac proper. When he shows up in ''No Justice'' we see that another one of these autonomous probes with its own ship resembles the ''Superman: The Animated Series'' version.