Brainiac

Legion of Doom Team Member



Brainiac is an android from outer space. He is one of Superman's worst foes. He was (and may still be) a member of the Legion of Doom. He originally appeared as a male humanoid, a Coluan with green skin. He was equipped with highly advanced artificial constructs and cybernetic components. The most obvious of which, was his mental computer input nodes that encircled his head.



History
The brilliant professor Heckla, from the planet Mega (known to natives as Colu) created Brainiac. He programmed Brainiac to gather specimens from Earth and other places to repopulate Mega, which had nearly been wiped out of its' life during terrible atomic wars. News of such wars had reached Krypton, and it was believed that everyone on the planet had perished.

But Heckla had survived and built Brainiac, and as Brainiac travels through space, searching for species to populate the barren Colu, he locates Krypton, and steals the city of Kandor by shrinking it and placing it in a bottle.

Not long after arriving on Earth, he joined a short-lived, team of villains, called A.P.E.

Brainiac also possesses the technology to generate an Ultra ForceShield to protect him from harm. Not even Superman can break through it.

By the late '60s or so, Colu was repopulated, and Brainiac returned to his home planet. He found a way to pass on his robotic code biologically, and he thereby created a clone of himself; his "son" Vril Dox, to use as an aid for his scientific research. Presumably Heckla had died by now.

Continuity from Hanna Barbera’s Super Friends (1973-1985)


He has super intelligence that he uses to scheme up plans to destroy the Justice League of America. He also possesses a proton shrinker, which is a ray gun that shrinks objects. Years ago, sometime before the destruction of Krypton, he used this shrinking technology to shrink the Kryptonian city of Kandor. He then placed the shrunken city and its' inhabitants into a bottle. He had apparently intended to take it to the planet Mega to repopulate it, but sometime many years later, Superman found the shrunken city (apparently stored on his ship, and he took it to his Fortress of Solitude where it still is to this day.

Sometime later he joined the Legion of Doom and battled with the Superfriends.

In 1984, Brainiac upgraded himself, which not only altered his physical appearance, but it also increased his intelligence. After his upgrade, Brainiac was completely composed of "living metal" in a robotic form. His head, torso, arms and legs could be reconfigured into any necessary form as needed including elongation or switching, as well as directly melding into wafer-thin electronic forms.

Brainiac's base of operations, and mode of transportation is now a skull shaped spacecraft.

Later that year, he built robots of Superman and Wonder Woman but they needed to be powered by Darkseid's omega beams so he enlisted Darkseid to help him. He then succesfully captured the Superfriends with the robots but Darksied wanted Wonder Woman, but Brainiac wouldn't allow it so Darkseid attacked him. During the battle the Superfriends escaped and he was captured while Darkseid escaped.

Brainiac would return a few months later and take over a small mining town called Buzzard's Roost, by hypnotizing everybody there. He planned on using them to help repair his ship but in the end he was defeated by the Superfriends.

About a year later, he successfully kidnapped Cyborg and telepathically placed his mind into a giant robot. Superman and Firestorm soon arrive at Brainiac's ship, stop him and free Cyborg. However, Brainiac was able to escape.

Android body
Although Brainiac is an android with no known biological components, when he was first built by Heckla, he had the appearance of any other Coluan. He was a green skinned humanoid. But by the '80s, Brainiac stripped himself of this appearance, making him look even more robotic.

But nevertheless, overtime, Brainiac somehow must have added biological components to himself, as he was able to create offspring, presumably by inseminating a female. Brainiac 5 is a descendant of Brainiac from the 30th century.

Powers and Abilities

 * Superhuman Intellect
 * Superhuman Strength: Due to his artificial body, he possessed superhuman strength and endurance. His later Robotic form had far more strength and endurance than his biological-simulation body.

As Revealed in The New Adventures of Superman (1966-1969)

 * Generate Ultra ForceShield
 * '''Invisibility



Weapons

 * Proton shrinker

Transportation

 * Brainiac's ship
 * Brainiac's Skull Ship, circa 1984 / 1985

Appearances in Other Media
Coming Soon!