Brainiac (DC Animated Universe)

Brainiac
Appeared in	Superman: The Last Son of Krypton Justice League Unlimited: CADMUS Crisis Justice League Unlimited: Destroyer
Status	Alive
Actor	Corey Burton

Brainiac is an artificial intelligence unit from Krypton who lied about its destruction to save himself. Years later, he became a mortal enemy of the last survivor of Krypton, Superman.

Biography

Superman: The Last Son of Krypton

Brainiac, the planetary-wide supercomputer of Krypton, sensed the imminent destruction of the planet, but rather than warn others, it chose to save itself and the collected records of Krypton. In its mind, as long as the records of Krypton existed, the loss of the planet itself - and all its living inhabitants - was acceptable. It also knew that if word of Krypton's impending doom escaped, it would be forced to calculate a way to prevent this, which Brainiac knew to be impossible, and would only distract him from the more-essential task of saving Krypton's records. Before Krypton exploded, Brainiac uploaded its core programming and all of the collected data to an artificial satellite.

Years later, it was discovered by an alien spacecraft, which Brainiac then hijacked. After Brainiac killed the crew of the ship, it began to explore the universe.

Justice League Unlimited: CADMUS Crisis

Brainiac later resurfaced from within Lex Luthor's body during the Cadmus Crisis. Back when he kidnapped and forced Luthor to rebuild his robotic body, the blast he fired at Luthor wasn't intended to kill him.

Instead, it placed a nanotech copy of his programming inside Luthor's body. Since then, Brainiac had laid dormant, subtly influencing Lex's actions and protecting his body - giving him super-strength and curing his Kryptonite-induced cancer. Brainiac's ultimate goal consisted in having Lex to build him a super-powered android body, based on the Amazo android, and finally transferring himself into it. However, Amanda Waller destroyed the android, and when the core League confronted Lex, Brainiac was forced to emerge. He engaged them and attempted to digitize their inner selves, but was foiled by J'onn. So, Brainiac/Luthor summoned a giant spaceship that kept the League occupied, allowing him to flee.

Brainiac intended to pursuit the fulfillment of his program: recording information and destroying the original. However, seeing how shortsighted Brainiac was, Luthor offered him a purpose beyond that of his limited programming. He proposed to combine Brainiac's vast information and resources with his own imagination. They broke into Cadmus and assimilated the Dark Heart technology into their database. This way, they could control the nano-assemblers into converting any raw material into whatever they wished. Given his failed liaison with Darkseid, Brainiac didn't fully trust Luthor, so they agreed to completely merge into one single being, using the nanotech.

Then, Brainiac/Luthor set off to build a machine that would absorb the information of the entire Earth, then the galaxy, and finally reshape the universe to their will. When the Justice League stepped in, Brainiac created nanotechnologic duplicates of himself to hold them off, but the Luthor part decided they could do better than that and had the duplicates morph into versions of the Justice Lords. Even though the League overpowered their counterparts and destroy the absorption machine, Brainiac/Luthor managed to subdue them, except for the Flash who he decided to kill, believing it would cause events similar to that of Justice Lords universe. However, the Flash managed to break free and seemingly ran away. Brainiac/Luthor then attempted to reassemble his absorption apparatus, but was attacked by the Flash, who had reached a state of Speed Force, and physically dismantled Brainiac from Luthor.

Powers and Abilities

• Super Strength
• Flight
• Cyberkinesis
• Energy Discharge

Relationships

• Superman - Enemy
• Lex Luthor - Ally and lacky
• Jor-El - Enemy; deceased

Appearances/Voice Actors

• TV Movies (2 films)
  • Superman: The Last Son of Krypton - Corey Burton
  • Justice League Unlimited: CADMUS Crisis - Corey Burton

Behind the scenes

To be added

Trivia

To be added

Gallery

Brainiac while he and Luthor are fused.

See Also

• Brainiac