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89-519: Brainiac is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics . The character was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino , and debuted in Action Comics #242 (July 10, 1958). He has since endured as one of Superman 's greatest enemies . The character's name is a portmanteau of the words brain and maniac . In his comic book appearances, Brainiac

178-405: A metahuman , which he frequently wielded against Superman. In 1990, Brainiac is able to take over the minds of several LexCorp staffers. He makes the scientists create a new version of the skull ship (saying he thought of the design "in a dream") and use advanced genetic science to grow a new body for himself, resembling Milton Fine's form but taller, more physically fit, and with the green skin of

267-483: A Coluan. He also has a new braincase helmet that resembles his Silver Age diodes. Now free of Fine's body and consciousness completely but still possessing the man's metahuman telepathic powers, Brainiac confronted Superman and then left Earth to plan another attack. Brainiac returned in the "Panic in the Sky" storyline after seizing control of the mobile planetary fortress Warworld and recruiting assistance from Maxima and

356-480: A byword for an extraordinary exploitable weakness, synonymous with " Achilles' heel ". An unpublished 1940 story titled " The K-Metal from Krypton ", written by Superman creator Jerry Siegel , featured a prototype of kryptonite. It is a mineral from the planet Krypton that drains Superman of his strength and gives superhuman powers to humans. This story was rejected because Superman reveals his identity to Lois Lane . The mineral kryptonite, not to be confused with

445-501: A dead body matching the Kryptonian's appearance is found in his abandoned tomb, leading some to wonder if the hero's return was a deception. It is revealed that Brainiac is no longer on New Genesis but revived and returned to Earth, leaving behind an illusion that he remained in a coma. While hidden, he created more delusions to turn the public against Superman and make the hero question his own sanity. The two battle and Superman taunts

534-457: A featured villain of the month. Brainiac's next appearance was mostly behind the scenes, when he tried to kill Lois Lane and Lana Lang , prompting Superman to give Lois and Lana superpowers. But the villain remained unseen except as a plot twist at the end of the story. Brainiac's next appearance was in "Superman's Return to Krypton" in Superman #141 (November 1960), in which the villain stole

623-711: 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 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

712-496: A large dose of concentrated yellow sun rays, successfully reviving him. 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

801-528: A monument to this when he returns to Colu later on. King Kull later enlisted Brainiac and Mister Atom of Earth-S to attack the city of Tomorrow and speed up the rotation enough for the people of Earth to fly into the air. They are defeated by Green Lantern of Earth-Two , Green Lantern of Earth-One , Flash of Earth-Two , Flash of Earth-One , Mercury of Earth-S, and Ibis the Invincible of Earth-S. At some indeterminate point in time, Brainiac fled into

890-554: 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. Supervillain A supervillain or supercriminal is a variant of the villainous stock character . It

979-601: 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, clones, 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

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1068-466: A renewed sense of purpose and dons a high-tech warsuit, while Brainiac is reimagined by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gil Kane and given a new appearance designed by Ed Hannigan . In a previous story, Brainiac had constructed a giant, computer-controlled planet to destroy Superman only to then be defeated and trapped in the planet's core. In Wolfman and Kane's story "Rebirth", published in Action Comics #544, Brainiac attempts to free himself by causing

1157-549: A robotic being, some stories would end him seemingly being destroyed, only for him to appear again in a repaired body or having transmitted his consciousness into a new form. Since he was essentially a living computer program that could be housed in different forms if "killed", Brainiac was sometimes referred to on comic book covers as "the villain who won't die!". In the 1980s, DC Comics attempted to re-define several aspects of Superman's stories to boost sagging sales. In Action Comics #544-546 (June–August 1983), Lex Luthor acquires

1246-427: A self-titled five-part story arc in Action Comics . In Action Comics #866 (August 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",

1335-479: A third eye on the back of his head, forcing him to wear various hats to hide it. Superman soon defeated Brainiac and sent him off into the distant past. This was 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), an infant Superman meets Brainiac, and it

1424-503: A twelfth-level one. He also implants a device to temporarily disable him or destroy him if necessary. The two join forces, but Brainiac later removes the device and blocks out Luthor's memory of his inner workings and the fact that he is a machine. This story becomes the first of many Brainiac/Luthor team-ups. Meanwhile, Vril Dox leads a revolt against the Computer Tyrants, eventually destroying them and freeing Colu. Brainiac sees

1513-455: A way normal humans cannot. Other traits may include megalomania and possession of considerable resources to further their aims. Many supervillains share some typical characteristics of real-world dictators , gangsters , mad scientists , trophy hunters , corrupt businesspeople , serial killers , and terrorists , often having an aspiration of world domination . The Joker , Lex Luthor , Doctor Doom , Magneto , Brainiac , Deathstroke ,

1602-639: A weapon called Pulsar Stargrave. What then occurs is an all-out battle for Colu between all three 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. 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

1691-457: 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 miniseries, Superman: War of the Supermen . Mon-El plants the many bottled cities that Brainiac has captured over the years on various planets across

1780-405: 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 it. 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

1869-801: Is Kandor , the capital of Superman's home planet Krypton , and Brainiac is even responsible for Krypton's destruction in some continuities. His attempts to do the same to Earth have brought him into repeated conflict with Superman. Though stories often end in Brainiac's apparent destruction, the character's artificial consciousness is resurrected in new physical forms, some robotic and others more organic-based in appearance. Brainiac has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in live-action by James Marsters in Smallville and Blake Ritson in Krypton . Corey Burton , John Noble , Jeffrey Combs , Jason Isaacs , and others have provided

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1958-568: Is a rim world found on the approach to the Magellanic Clouds . In Superman #167 (February 1964), it was retconned that Brainiac was a robot created by the Computer Tyrants of Colu to spy on and invade other worlds. Brainiac's distinctive forehead diodes are explained as "electric terminals of his sensory nerves" necessary for him to function. To explain the 1961 introduction of the villain's living descendant Brainiac 5,

2047-411: Is commonly depicted as a superintelligent android or cyborg from the planet Colu who is obsessed with collecting all knowledge in the known universe. He travels the galaxy and shrinks cities to bottle size for preservation on his skull-shaped spaceship before destroying their source planets, believing the knowledge he acquires to be most valuable if he alone possesses it. Among these shrunken cities

2136-427: 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

2225-424: Is explained that Brainiac looks the same due to his 200-year life span. In Superman #93, Brainiac regenerates himself. It is revealed that he came from a planet called Bryak and, after a voyage in space, he returned to find everybody dead from a plague. He intended to get people from other planets (in shrunken cities to be enlarged with his growth ray) to repopulate Bryak, where he would rule them. Brainiac's legacy

2314-573: 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 (the soon-to-be supervillain Metallo ) is suddenly possessed by the artificial intelligence. It demands Superman. The robots create havoc throughout Metropolis, but Superman soon realizes that they are really after him. Superman fights

2403-512: 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

2492-506: 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 the Toyman , to accomplish his mission on New Krypton, and that Brainiac killed the robot instead. Lex discusses 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

2581-402: Is never exposed to kryptonite. If kryptonite allowed Collyer to take vacations, that was a fringe benefit discovered later. More likely, kryptonite was introduced as a plot device for Superman to discover his origin. On the other hand, Hayde might have mistaken 1945's "The Meteor of Kryptonite" for 1943's "The Meteor from Krypton", as Superman was exposed in the former but not in the latter. In

2670-510: Is now trapped in this form. At the turn of the millennium , Brainiac 2.5 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

2759-557: Is overtly robotic with a skull-like face and a reflective, iridescent honeycomb -patterned "braincase." He also creates a starship shaped like his new skull and adorned by metal tendrils, often referred to by fans and comic creators as the "skull ship." The ship acts as an extension of Brainiac himself. Brainiac retains this robotic appearance until after the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries ends in 1986, rebooting DC Comics continuity. This incarnation of Brainiac meets his final end in

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2848-430: Is sometimes found in comic books and may possess superhuman abilities. A supervillain is the antithesis of a superhero . Supervillains are often used as foils to present a daunting challenge to a superhero. In instances where the supervillain does not have superhuman, mystical, or alien powers, the supervillain may possess a genius intellect or a skill set that allows them to draft complex schemes or commit crimes in

2937-705: 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 seemingly depowered by his ship's destruction, Brainiac finds himself faced by an entire city of angry, solar-powered Kryptonians. Zod

3026-418: Is transporting to a Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit, the newborn child of Pete Ross and Lana Lang . Brainiac sees this as an opportunity for revenge, correctly concluding that Ross and Lang are close to him. Using a 'psi-blocker' device, Superman thwarts Brianiac's plans and the villain is forced to house his consciousness within a completely robotic body. Dubbing his new form Brainiac 2.5 , the villain fears he

3115-639: The Inspector Gadget animated series, Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers film series , or Dr. Blowhole from the animated TV series The Penguins of Madagascar . The overarching villain of Star Wars , Emperor Palpatine , leads the tyrannical Galactic Empire , and was inspired by real-world tyrannical leaders. Kryptonite#Forms, colors and effects Batman , Lex Luthor , Metallo , and Titano are four notable characters often presented as using kryptonite —

3204-530: The Eradicator (who was attempting to 'hijack' 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 13's scheme. With the aid of the rebuilt Kelex , Superman tricked Luthor into connecting a Kryptonian battlesuit to one of Brainiac 13's power conduits. Kelex then reactivated

3293-582: The Green Goblin , Loki , the Reverse-Flash , Black Manta , Ultron , Thanos , and Darkseid are some notable male comic book supervillains that have been adapted in film and television. Some notable female supervillains are Catwoman , Harley Quinn , Poison Ivy , Mystique , Hela , Viper , and the Cheetah . Just like superheroes, supervillains are sometimes members of groups, such as

3382-761: The Injustice League , the Sinister Six , the Legion of Doom , the Brotherhood of Mutants , the Suicide Squad , and the Masters of Evil . In the documentary A Study in Sherlock , writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss said they regarded Professor James Moriarty as a supervillain because he possesses genius-level intelligence and powers of observation and deduction, setting him above ordinary people to

3471-574: 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. Sometime later, Superman traveled into the future and battled Brainiac 12 . He learned that everything Brainiac 13 did in

3560-622: The " Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? " storyline that ended the Pre- Crisis Silver/Bronze Age Superman chronology. Lex Luthor finds Brainiac's robotic head unit, with barely any power left. He hopes to team up with the evil living program again, only to become an unwilling host body for Brainiac instead. Fighting Brainiac's control, Luthor begs a superpowered Lana Lang to kill him, who complies by breaking his neck. Luthor dies and Brainiac retains control of

3649-458: The 30th century. Developing the ability to absorb and manipulate stellar energy, he remade himself as " Pulsar Stargrave ". He became a powerful enemy of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and once masqueraded as Brainiac 5's biological father. In current continuity, Brainiac's connection to Pulsar Stargrave remains an open question, one even Brainiac 5 has yet to resolve. After Brainiac was revealed to be

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3738-470: 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

3827-558: The Amazons, Superman was able to destroy Brainiac 13 and Imperiex by sending them through a temporal Boom tube where they were annihilated in the Big Bang. Brainiac 13 had his body disintegrated and the remnants of his mind scattered across sixty trillion light years, finally killing the chronologically last known version of Brainiac. After the death of Brainiac 13, Superman discovered that the version of Krypton he previously visited via

3916-399: The Computer Tyrants of Colu, was sentenced to death. In his last moments before disintegration, his consciousness was attracted light years away to Milton Moses Fine , a human sideshow mentalist who worked under the alias "The Amazing Brainiac". Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered that Fine had genuine psychic powers and was thus

4005-405: 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

4094-578: 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, Dox discovered Krypton had been destroyed. 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. Clark

4183-582: 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. History of the DC Universe mentions his defeat by the Omega Men , although this is not seen in Crisis on Infinite Earths itself, and noted a second Brainiac was created in

4272-474: 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 . The Brainiacs successfully engineered Imperiex's defeat, allowing Brainiac 13 to absorb Imperiex's power and use it to overpower

4361-599: 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

4450-456: The alien warrior Draaga . Discovering a lost and confused Matrix (an artificial life form who at this time operates as Supergirl ), Brainiac brainwashes her into becoming his soldier. He clashes with the New Gods and then launches a pre-emptive strike on Earth. Rather than wait for an invasion, Superman gathers a large group of superheroes and allies, one team attacking Warworld directly while

4539-399: 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 which had also been miniaturized with Metropolis to attack Brainiac's mind, which the rocket

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4628-400: 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

4717-484: The body for a short time until rigor mortis sets in. "Propelled by sheer malice", Brainiac's head unit leaves Luthor's corpse and crawls a few inches before finally running out of power for good. In the Post- Crisis 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

4806-401: The bottle city of Kandor, the only city on Krypton that believes Jor-El's warning of doom for the planet, and which had already built a space ark within the city to save the population. Brainiac's next present-day appearance was in Action Comics #275 (April 1961), which showed the villain planning to defeat Superman by exposing him to red-green kryptonite , which he had created, giving Superman

4895-559: The change in the characterization of Brainiac was "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. In this same story, Lex Luthor discovers the Computer Tyrants could have given their robot villain a twelfth-level intellect but only gave him a tenth-level, the same as them, so he would not dominate them. Luthor frees Brainiac from imprisonment and increases his intellect to

4984-487: The character's voice in animation and video games. The first Brainiac/Kandor comic book story in Action Comics #242 (July 1958) was based on a story arc in the Superman comic strip from April through August 1958. In the comic strip story, Superman's foe was named Romado, who traveled the cosmos with a white alien monkey named Koko, shrinking major cities and keeping them in glass jars. The strip's Kryptonian bottled city

5073-548: 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. 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

5162-470: The combined heroes and villains of the universe while simultaneously devastating both Earth and Apokolips. Brainiac 13 planned to use the power he stole from Imperiex to conquer the universe and reshape it in his image, and is made so powerful by the absorption that none of the heroes, not even Superman, can hope to damage him. However, with help from Lex's temporal displacement technology and Darkseid's Boom Tube technology boosted by magic supplied by Tempest and

5251-604: 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. Later stories revealed that elements of Brainiac's Pre- Crisis history occurred in

5340-465: 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

5429-480: The first carrying the substance as a last-ditch method to stop his ally (often at Superman's urging to take such precautions) if he is subject to mind control or otherwise compromised, the next two using the mineral to ward off Superman or incorporating it into weapons, and the fourth being able to project rays of kryptonite radiation from his eyes after being altered by simultaneous exposure to kryptonite and uranium . Due to Superman's popularity, kryptonite has become

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5518-477: 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, a.k.a. Brainiac 2. Vril Dox happily turns his "father" over to his people for his crimes. However Lyrl Dox, a.k.a. Brainiac 3, releases his "grandfather" with

5607-414: The intent of using them to restore the then-unnamed planet he ruled. He was originally notable only for having shrunk the bottle city of Kandor with his shrinking ray and for using a force field. In his initial story, he also traveled with a white alien monkey named Koko; the monkey also appears in a 1960 Superman story retelling the story of Kandor's disappearance ( Superman #141 (November 1960)). Koko

5696-421: 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

5785-478: The monster that seemingly killed Superman before, and uses him as a new host body. Now a cunning psychic with a super-strong, near-indestructible body, Brainiac attacks the Justice League. But Doomsday's own raging mind fights back and Brainiac realizes he still needs a suitable host. Hoping to create a clone Doomsday form by manipulating human DNA, Brainiac attempts to steal a prematurely born baby Superman

5874-447: The nearby star, Epsilon 4, to go nova and utilize its energy. Instead, his body is converted into energy; his living program, his consciousness, experiences a strange journey before returning to his technology, where a new body is created for him over the next few months. As Brainiac recollects, during his journey he saw a great hand reach out from a void, ensnaring him briefly before releasing him. He also remembers seeing Superman's face at

5963-418: 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 sunray 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

6052-520: 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

6141-402: The other remains on Earth to counter further attacks. Through duplicates of his braincase, Brainiac briefly takes control of some of Earth's heroes, but ultimately he fails. Supergirl and the other heroes are freed from mental control and the villain is rendered catatonic. His vegetative body is taken back to New Genesis for observation. A year after the seeming death and then return of Superman,

6230-461: 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. 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 to ensure

6319-421: 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 to preserve planets from

6408-834: The point where only he can pose a credible threat to Sherlock Holmes . Fu Manchu is an archetypal evil criminal genius and mad scientist created by English author Sax Rohmer in 1913. The Fu Manchu moustache became integral to stereotypical cinematic and television depictions of Chinese villains. Between 1965 and 1969 Christopher Lee played Fu Manchu five times in film, and in 1973 the character first appeared in Marvel Comics . The James Bond arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld (whose scenes often show him sitting on an armchair stroking his cat, his face unseen) has influenced supervillain tropes in popular cinema, including parodies like Dr. Claw and M.A.D. Cat from

6497-406: 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. 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

6586-488: The query, neither confirming or denying his responsibility, though he does heavily imply it ("In fifty-seven minutes, my solar aggressor will reach your sun. It will flare up, and the Earth will be incinerated. Just like Krypton."). Superman still believes Brainiac had a part in Krypton's destruction after the end of this story arc. Following this, Brainiac, now in possession of his ship again, unleashes his robot army against

6675-416: The radio serial, Krypton is located in the same solar system as Earth, in the same orbit, but on the opposite side of the Sun . This provided an easy explanation for how kryptonite found its way to Earth. In the comics' Silver Age , which places Krypton in a distant solar system, much of the kryptonite that came to Earth was transported by the same "space warp" that baby Kal-El's rocket traversed. Kryptonite

6764-495: The real element krypton , was first officially introduced in the radio serial The Adventures of Superman , in the story "The Meteor from Krypton", broadcast in June 1943. An apocryphal story claims that kryptonite was introduced to give Superman's voice actor Bud Collyer time off. This tale was recounted by Julius Schwartz in his memoir. However, the historian Michael J. Hayde disputes this: in "The Meteor From Krypton", Superman

6853-535: The same time. Reborn in a new body, the villain believes he has seen the Master Programmer, the divine force behind the universe's creation, and that this entity created Superman as an "angel of death" to destroy Brainiac. More determined than ever to kill and study Superman, Brainiac now has a colder, more merciless, and robot-like personality than before (he claims he is without emotions, yet shows signs of hatred and fear in regards to Superman). His new body

6942-432: The ship, and the two make their escape. Notably, upon learning of Brainiac's modus operandi of destroying planets by destabilizing nearby stars when he is done collecting cities and knowledge from said planets, Superman openly speculates that Brainiac destroyed Krypton, which was destroyed when its sun went nova soon after Brainiac abducted Kandor and Argo. He also asks the alien what he did to Krypton's sun. Brainiac ignores

7031-417: The story reveals the Computer Tyrants provided the villain with an assistant, a young Coluan boy named Vril Dox tasked with masquerading as his "son" so others would believe Brainiac to be a trustworthy organic alien scientist with a family rather than a deadly robot. The young boy Vril Dox was designated " Brainiac 2 ". In the same issue, the letter column contained a "special announcement" explaining that

7120-692: 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

7209-460: The villain by insisting he is just Milton Fine, a cheap entertainer. Fine's personality seemingly emerges and shuts down the Brainiac persona. Fine was then escorted off to a psychiatric facility. During a later skirmish with Superman, Fine's body is irreparably damaged, leaving Brainiac with only a short time to live. With help from a new Coluan assistant named Prin Vnok, Brainiac retrieves Doomsday ,

7298-496: 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. 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. 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

7387-473: 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

7476-527: Was called Pneumenoid; on Bryak it was Mind2; on Krypton he was called Brainiac 1.0; and, finally on Earth, he is the Internet. 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

7565-715: 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. Following revisions to Superman's continuity in Infinite Crisis and Action Comics #850, Brainiac reappeared in

7654-548: Was incorporated into the comic mythos with Superman #61 (November 1949). Editor Dorothy Woolfolk stated in an interview with Florida Today in August 1993 that she felt Superman's invulnerability was "boring". Long said to be an element in the Golden , Silver, and Bronze Age comics, Kryptonite became a compound post- Crisis as revealed in Action Comics #591. Various forms of the fictional material have been created over

7743-403: Was named Dur-El-Va. This cross-continuity conflict was not unprecedented; in 1958 and '59, editor Mort Weisinger used the comic strip to prototype a number of concepts that he planned to introduce in the book, including Bizarro and Red Kryptonite . Brainiac is a bald, green-skinned humanoid who arrives on Earth and shrinks various cities, including Metropolis , storing them in bottles with

7832-411: Was quickly dropped from Brainiac's stories, but a version of the character has made sporadic appearances as the villain's pet in the series Justice and the 2008 storyline "Brainiac" in Action Comics . The villain's descendant Brainiac 5 also had a pet named Koko for several stories in the 1990s. In subsequent appearances in this early period, Brainiac was used mostly as a plot device rather than as

7921-440: Was revealed in Action Comics #276 (May 1961), in a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up story. This story introduced 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, Yod, Yod-Colu, or simply Colu. 20th century Colu

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