Science Inspiring the Many Versions of Brainiac

Brainiac by Alex Ross Copyright: DC Comics

The 1938 version of Superman was stronger than human beings because his home world, Krypton, was larger than Earth. As a result, the Kryptonians had evolved adapted to survive a force of gravity many times that of the Earthlings. This was a popular idea at the time. H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds’ Martians flop about unimpressively, struggling in Earth’s stronger gravity.

Keeping with this scientific explanation, the original Superman could not fly, but rather leapt across great distances, beams did not shoot from his eyes, and he was not immune to sleeping gas. Over the years, this science fiction Superman of the 1940s was slowly morphed into the flying across the galaxy, x-ray-telescopic-microscopic visioning, refrigerant-breathing, nuclear-holocaust-surviving, godlike being we know today, powered by the Sun and rendered powerless by kryptonite.

I recently got sucked into an entire weekend of comic book reading after discovering what is arguably Superman’s most challenging enemy, Brainiac, and wanted to learn more about this character who was the origin of the slang term for “genius.” One graphic novel, Superman VS. Brainiac, which collects various Superman issues from the past 50 years featuring the many, extremely different portrayals of Brainiac was especially interesting, because I got to see Brainiac evolve with the scientific concepts that captured people’s imaginations over the decades.

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Krypton City’s Sun on Tracks 1958
Copyright: DC Comics

In the 1958 first appearance of the villain, Brainiac was an uber-intelligent extraterrestrial, flying about the cosmos miniaturizing cities to collect in bottles, eventually planning to rule over them. Superman finds the city of Krypton miniaturized on Brainiac’s ship, where the citizens give him a tour of their farms run by robots, many many missiles, and a makeshift sun, which is a fireball that passes over the city on tracks each day.

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Brainiac the Computer 1964
Copyright: DC Comics

After DC discovered that Berkeley had a DIY “electric brain” computer kit named “Brainiac,” they modified the villain’s origin in 1964. Brainiac was actually a robot of 11th-level intelligence built by other robots and given an organic exterior to fool other civilizations because… I’m not sure really. Maybe aliens are more trustworthy than robots in 1960’s culture. The comics featuring this new computer Brainiac also featured advertising for the Brainiac Electric Brain Kit.

Light from Krypton Reaches Earth
Copyright: DC Comics

The computer Brainiac evolved to have a web of networking nodes across his bald head. He made an appearance in a Superman comic noteworthy for its astronomy-driven plot, where Superman is dealing with the emotional challenges of his lost home world, as the light from Krypton’s destruction is just reaching Earth in 1978.

Omniscient Brainiac 1983
Copyright: DC Comics

In 1983, Brainiac gets a huge upgrade, as he is converted from matter to energy and learns all there is to know about the Universe, even going back in time to watch it all happen from the big bang. He/It learns of another intelligence in the Universe, a “Master Programmer,” which we may assume is supposed to be god, and it wants Brainiac, who is a virus taking over the system, dead. Brainiac finally takes physical form as a robot that looks suspiciously like the Terminator, but with a bigger dome-head.

There’s a period of time in the late 1980s and early 1990s where Brainiac appears to inhabit the body of a psychic. Perhaps writers felt this was a natural extension of the idea that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I wasn’t too fond of this twist on the character.

Brainiac 2000
Copyright: DC Comics

The year 2000 bug brought an awesome storyline where an upgraded Brainiac from the future comes to Metropolis, assimilates the populace into its network, and then begins “upgrading” the city so that the robot may conquer it. He even refers to it as his “motherboard.” Brainiac continues to evolve, with issues exploring his biological versus mechanical aspects, and the fact that he is an indestructible force because there will always be other copies of his consciousness out there. We’ve gone from robots, through missiles, through the boundary between science and supernatural, and into the information age.

Note: I believe I am within the bounds of fair use in displaying these copyrighted images in my blogpost as this blog is not-for-profit, the images were chosen because they best illustrate the subject-matter of my post, they are of low digital quality, and there are no non-copyrighted images that may be used instead.