History Behind DCUO: Oolong Island Alert, part 2

And lo, we continue!

Dr. Sivana
Sivana is one of the elders when it comes to villains in the DCU, and one with a stories history. The World's Wickedest Scientist has been clashing with Earth's Mightiest Mortal since Whiz Comics #2, cover date February 1940- and cover number #1, due to a misprint.

Like a great deal, if not most of golden Age DC characters, you can safely cut Sivana's history into two: Pre-Crisis and Post. Furthermore, you can divide Pre-Crisis into two eras in and of itself: Fawcett and DC Comics. We shall deal with those in order.

Dr. Sivana first appeared in Whiz Comics #2, March 1940. Note there wasn't a Whiz Comics #1, as that was probably taken up by a ashcan copy. In his first appearance, Sivana was essentially a stereotypical mad scientist extorting money using a "Radio Silencer". Seriously, it's hilarioius how stereotypical he is. His catchphrases included "Curses! Foiled again!", considered himself the Rightful Ruler of the Universe, caps included and kept a vault for his inventions that could be used for good, as seen in Marvel Family Adventures #50, August 1950. This included a machine, that he had invented by accident, that changed rocks into food. His labs were frequently decorated in what I can only call James Whales chic.

Sivana's main gimmick in the Golden Age was a bizarre connection to the planet Venus. As told in Whiz Comics #15, March 1941, Sivana was once one of Europe's best and brightest. Unfortunately for both him and the rest of the human race, he couldn't find anyone interested. So, he took his family and left for Venus. He stayed there until his four children (His two eldest, the good hearted Beuticia, Whiz Comics #3, April 1940 and Magnificus, Whiz Comics 15, March 1941, and his two youngest, who took after and looked like him, Georgia, Mary Marvel Comics #1, January 1946 and Thaddeus Jr., Captain Marvel Adventures #52, December 1945.) were grown. Together, they made the Sivana Family, a dark mirror of the Marvel Family six decades before the Black Marvel Family. Together, they fought against the Marvels until DC finally beat down Fawcett in 1953.

DC aquirred the rights to Captain Marvel almost immediately, but sat on them until 1973, when DC got the band back together and started a new Shazam! series. In this series, the first issue revealed that A: the Marvels lived on Earth-S (though it was likely supposed to be Earth-5, but hand lettering and all) and B: The Marvels and Sivanas had been in suspended animation for twenty years thanks to an invention of Sivana's called Suspendium. Due to the dual Crisis nature of Suspendium, I'll deal with that in its own section. In Shazam! #28, April 1977, Sivana used his "Reincarnation Machine" to bring back Black Adam. This might actually be one of his most important Pre-Crisis, since it helped bring Adam to the forefront and probably helped him get the major roles he's had since.

Post-Crisis, Sivana played a major role first in the abortive reboot in 1987's Shazam! The New Beginning OGN, where he was more or less the same mad scientist he had been up to this point, save for the fact that he was now Billy Batson's step uncle. Oh, and he also had Mr. Mind in a tequila bottle!

This reboot didn't stick very long at all. In fact, outside of the OGN, it didn't stick at all, unless you count the Action Comics Weekly stories. During Jerry Ordway's well received series, Sivana appeared once again as a mad scientist, albeit one that had been a businessman, and quite a successful one. Following the series end, Sivana appeared as a member of the Fatal Five in Judd Winick's Outsiders title. In the first week of 52, Sivana is forcibly removed from his lab by Intergang's beast men and becomes a regular in the Science Squad shenanigans later in the series. Issue 26 also reintroduced his entire family for the first time Post-Crisis.

Long story short, Sivana is one of the greats when it comes to comic book villains, and with good reason. He's one of the most pure villains and is quite fun if you're into kitsch, ironically or not.

Suspendium
Yet another of the items that make up the Science Squad experiments set in DCUO, Suspendium is actually kinda important compared to the rest of the Science Squad inventions, albeit tangently.

Suspendium first appeared in the aforementioned Shazam! #1 back in the '70s, and as mentioned it was essentially a Macguffin to explain how Billy and the Marvel Family could be alive in the then contemporary year of 1973 and not have aged. Suspendium in its first appearance was a massive globe of some weird compound the pernicious Dr. Sivana and his corrupt kids had created that causes things incased in it to go into suspended animation. The Sivanas trick the Marvels into the Suspendium, only for Sivana Jr. to smack his father on the back in congratulations, only to knock him into the controls plunging the family's rocket into the globe as well. The globe orbited the sun, growing closer until, twenty years hence, it got close enough to the sun to melt the globe.

Pretty weird, eh? The part about it apparently being gelatinous is what gets me the most. But that's just how Captain Marvel stories rolled.

Post-Crisis, Supendium appeared in 52, being first hinted at in the first week, when Sivana is seen irradiating the World's Wickedest Worm, Mr. Mind, with the substance. As shown in the final issue of the series, the "artificial time" had caused the caterpillar to mature into a Hyperfly, a massive creature that eats time itself. Once again, the Suspendium played the role of the MacGuffin, this time in the creation of the new Multiverse that Mr. Mind created.

Ira Quimby
Ira Quimby first appeared in Mystery in Space #87, cover date November 1963. Quimby is a member of the surprisingly robust Hawkman Rogue's Gallery. Quimby first appeared in Mystery in Space #87, November 1963. In said appearance, Quimby is a schlub working for a gang who always comes up with dumb ideas, and is ridiculed for the contrast between his initials and reality. Case in point: Levitating a car to get it away from its escort. The gang rightfully ridicules the schlub, leaving him to go hang around the Midway City museum the gang is headquartered in.

As it so happens in so many of stories from this era, Quimby finds a stone that, when exposed to sunlight, radiates "brain-wave radiation" and increases his intelligence. Interesting side note: Unique for the time, the stone had been brought ot Earth by the museum's creator Adam Strange in the first story in the issue. While I hesistate to say the IQ story was a follow-up or sequel, it definitely lead from the Strange story. Anywho, IQ suddenly gets the idea to make a magnetic gun and associated jet shoes, which are amongst the Science Squad Collectibles in DCUO, to help with the heist.

IQ and the IQ Gang ultimately draw the ire of Midway City's most prominent heroes, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. By using fancy schmancy goggles to find traces of that strange "brain-wave radiation" that empowers IQ. The two come to blows with Quimby and ultimately destroy the rock that had irradiated him.

A few years later, in Hawkman #7, April 1965, Quimby finds that hey, he can now get smarter when exposed to sunlight! That, my friends, is Gardner Fox in the Silver Age. Quimby uses his new found superhuman abilities to pester Hawkman again. In the ensuing years, Quimby made sporadic appearances fighting everyone from the Justice League to Superman & the Metal Men.

In 52, IQ appeared as a prominent mad scientist on Oolong, and was the one to rally the Mad Scientists against Black Adam in Week 45. Following his surprisingly awesome turn in 52, he appeared in Giffen's Doom Patrol occasionally and was reduced to a jibbering wreck by Prometheus in Cry for Justice. Feel free to disregard that- Giffen sure did.

Doctor Death
Very few characters can come close to the age of this guy in the realm of comics. As most early superheroes fought mostly gangsters and other assorted, one shot criminals, Doctor Death's only elder villain in DCUO is the Ultra Humanite. And he only precedes him by a single month.

Doctor Death, in his original guise, first appeared in Detective Comics #29, cover date July 1939 and appeared again the following issue. This was the third Batman story ever, and Death was the closest thing you can point to to being a "first supervillain" Batman fought, being preceded by racketeers and jewel thieves. The character was likely created by Gardner Fox and Bob Kane, though there is some dispute about the writer. His post-Crisis guise, which is more important to Oolong Island, was created by Dylan Horrocks and Adrian Sibar and first appeared in Batgirl #42.

In his first appearance, Death, real name Karl Hellfern, decides to be evil and extort people using poison. That's pretty much his first appearance, to be honest. In his second appearance, he returned but had a greenish, skeletal face following his near-death at the hands of the more violent Golden Age Batman in his first appearance.

That was it 'till the 70s, when he was resurrected for a single story. And then that was it for another thirty years, when he was used in Batgirl. This Dr. Death has become the standard for future deceptions, and is a bald guy using an oxygen mask. Instead of just being a extortionist, he now sells his talents on the black market. He's appeared on Oolong Island and as one of the second Black Mask's Ministry of Science (Batman #692, cover date L. December 2009). A story in Streets of Gotham retconned him into being a Golden Age villain again, and one the JSA had saved Thomas Wayne from, or some such. Honestly, he's just sort of there, waiting for someone to do something especially nice with him, if they ever do.

Honestly, that's pretty much all there is to Dr. Death.

The Four Horsemen of Apokalypse
The Four Horseman are entities from the Dread Planet Apokalypse, home of the Dread Destroyer Darkseid! Unlike most aspects of the Fourth World, however, the Horseman were not created by Jack "the King of Comics" Kirby, but instead by Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid and first appeared in 52 Week 38, although Famine had prevoiusly appeared in week 26. He wasn't fully revealed as such until week 43.

In 52, rather than being the Biblical Horseman, the Four Horseman are ancient entities from the planet Apokalypse. Long before Darkseid was Uxas, let alone Darkseid, the Horseman ruled the wastes. The Horseman are figures in the Religion of Crime and are sorts of pre-Messiahs are help bring Hell to Earth to make way for Darkseid. Rather than being able to possess mortals like the New Gods can, only steel bodies can hold the Horseman. In addition, the Horseman were used to kill Black Adam's Black Marvel Family to get back at him for refusing Intergang and the Religion of Crime into his nation of Khandaq.

As in the Book of Revelation, there are four Horseman, each representing a horrible concept: Pestilence (Instead of Conquest, as in the Bible, but it's a common mistake.), War, Famine and Death. I'll deal with each Horseman in order.

Pestilence, AKA Lor, lord of the age of fevers, is portrayed as a desicated corpse rigged up to disease filled aerosol tanks. I reckon this is what Dr. Death was needed for. Pestilence was the horseman who actually killed Adam's bride, Isis.

War, aKA Rogga from the age of war, looks like a massive robot fiilled with missiles and guns. As he says, "I have the power of all the worlds soldiers and bombs and guns. Those are [his] gods." From what I remember, JG Jones designed him after the ED-209, which gets points from me.

Famine, AKA Yurrd the Unknown, first appeared in 52 week 26 and resembles a crocodile man, similar to the Crocodile Men from the Golden Age Captain Marvel stories. He was rescued from Sivana's home by the Black Marvels and became a sort of mascot for them. his appearances were quite cheesy and often revolved around his Scooby Doo-esque appetite. Things took a turn for a worse later, when the distrout Osiris reverted to human form and was promptly eaten by Yurrd, revealing A: that he was Famine and B: only the flesh of a Marvel could sate him.

Lastly, there was Death, AKA Azraeuz, Silent King of the Age of Death. His appearance is that of a stereotypical post-Baphomet demon with a goat skull, wielding a huge scythe.

The Four Horsemen were all killed by Adam, Death being the last survivor. They later returned and were contained by Veronica Cale, as outline before.

History Behind DCUO: Oolong Island Alert, part 1

Oolong Island
Once upon a time, in America, I mean, the Silver Age, comic books were not very politically correct. Like, at all. Among the worst offenders was perhaps the most inexplicable foe Wonder Woman ever locked hopefully metaphorical horns with: Egg Fu. We'll get too him in a bit.

Following Infinite Crisis, DC ran a fifty two issue maxi series called 52. I know, creative, right? Rather than having a central plot, the entire series was set up like a year in the life of various DC heroes, in real time. One ongoing plot at the beginning was that someone was kidnapping mad scientists. Over the years, DC has had a respectful number of mad scientists. Unlike other comppanies, such as Marvel, DC usually plays their mad scientists completely 100% straight. Folks like Thomas Oscar Morrow, Thaddeus Bodog Sivana and Anthony Ivo are firmly in the Cave Johnson School of Throwing Science At the Wall, ethics be damned.

Anywho, Will Magnus (Who I'll cover in more depth later)became the face of this story. For his first few appearances, he met with his former mentor and villainous friend Thomas Oscar Morrow (Whom we'll be covering in another update, along his windy creation.) to discuss life, the Universe and mad scientist kidnappings. Ultimately, Morrow ended up being kidnapped. Magnus ended up kidnapped himself a few issues later, in 52 Week 22. The following week Magnus arrived on the as of yet unnamed Oolong Island, which was introduced as, "..what you get when the world's maddest scientists are given an unlimited budget and encouraged to let their imaginations run wild on the finest mind expanding narcotics available to man!" Two weeks later, in week 25, we get the true purpose of Oolong: Create the Four Horseman of Apokalypse. More on them in a bit. Suffice to say, it was eventually revealed that Oolong was part of a conspiracy involving the Religion of Crime, headed by Intergang, to bring the Evil Gods of Apokalypse to Earth.

Oolong ended up being attacked by Black Adam following the destruction of first the Four Horsemen, then the nation of Bialya. Through the careful leadership of Ira Quimby, the Science Squad overcome the Black Marvel.

Following 52, Oolong Island is officially disconnected from the People's Republic of China and becomes its own independent nation inhabited by mad scientists. Veronica Cale (First appearance Wonder Woman v2 #196, November 2003) somehow becomes its president. Cale was created by Greg Rucka as an attempt at making a rule 63 Lex Luthor for Wonder woman's rogues gallery, and ended up being mostly ignored till 52, wherein she was one of the Science Squad's members and the only penitent one. She was a major part of the 52 Aftermath: Four Horseman miniseries, and ultimately was able to contain the Horsemen she had helped create using a special, Apokalyptian containment unit. And just as the collectible says, she did indeed eat it. That happened in 52A:FH #6, March 2008.

The independent nation appeared in both Four Horsemen and Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol. Interestingly, both were written by Keith Giffen, whom had done the layouts for 52. I guess Keith took a liking to it. In the latter, the island is home to its own resident superhero team: The Doom Patrol! I really the Doom Patrol a whole lot.Lots happened in that series, but none directly pertinent.

Oolong in DCUO is seemingly modeled after its Doom Patrol era, with the Science Squad still having free range with their experimentation and with Cale as its president. Frankly, this is pretty interesting. 52 is obviously the most important story with Oolong, as neither Four Horseman nor Giffen's Doom Patrol were especially well selling. Trust me, I know. Doom Patrol was at one point DC's lowest selling comic in the DCU- made me proud to be a reader of it.

Egg Fu
We also got the mastermind behind Oolong: Chang Tzu, originally called Chiang Tzu, better known as Egg Fu. Egg Fu has a bit of a... unique history. Whilst many DC characters were given reboots following Crisis on Infinite Earths, few are as dramatic as Egg Fu. And with good reason- Egg Fu was pretty darn racist when he first appeared.

In his original incarnation, he appeared in Wonder Woman Volume 1 #157, cover date October 1967 and was created by notable crazy man Robert "Bob" Khanigar, known for his somber war stories and crazygonuts superhero comics, and Ross Andru. This issue was a few years after China turned Red, when Vietnam was still grinding men and the Russian Bear was still menacingly casting its shadow across Europe. So he's definitely in the spirit of the times, albeit filtered through Khanigar Kraziness.

There were three more-or-less distinct Egg Fus in the Silver Age. The aforementoined Egg Fu, who appeared completely inexplicably in the aforementioned #157. During the issue, the astoundingly wrong headed racial caricature actually managed to kill Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor by first turning Steve into a human bomb then blowing him and Wondy up with a missile. Then Wondy's mother resurrected them with an atomic structure reassembly beam. You know, like the Amazons had back then. The following issue Wondy defeated Egg Fu.

Egg Fu returned a few issues later in #166, cover date November 1966. This one was pretty much the same and was called Egg Fu the Fifth. Nothing much to note here, moving on...

The third-ish Egg Fu appeared in Metal Men #20, cover date June/July 1966. I guess that means he techincally came before the Fifth. Anywho, this one was a silly Dr. No ripoff called Dr. Yes. It's actually somewhat interesting that the Metal Men came to blows with an Egg Fu, considering their role in 52, where...

Egg Fu returned! After a mythology gag in John Byrne's Wonder woman run, Egg Fu returned in 52 week 25, Will Magnus meets the mysterious benefactor of Oolong Island, Chung Tzu. His old name is referenced at one point as one of his "nine thousand and nine unmentionable names" and is something he's a tad touchy about- the guard who alledgedly referred to him as Egg Fu is disintegrated. As the story moves on, we find out that A: Egg Fu is actually an Apokalyptian machine, similar to the easter egg from John Byrne's run and B: Is working for China, who is somehow involved in the whole Apokalyps situation.

Egg Fu's downfall ultimately comes from Will Magnus, who had been secretely recreating the Metal Men. In 52 week 49, Magnus takes a particle wave beam gun- the same one that is part of the Science Squad Experiments collection- Will Magnus destroys Egg Fu, leaving behind a yolk in the spider chair.

Little is actually explained about Egg Fu, truth be told. We know he's an Apokalyptian "flesh machine" and is capable of regenerating himself from a yolk left behind when he was destroyed. Following 52, he shows up in a Checkmate and Outsiders crossover still on Oolong Island, but isn't seen in Doom Patrol.

All told, it tickles me to no end to see that friggin' Egg Fu is in DCUO! Kudos to the development team.

Will Magnus and the Metal Men (But mostly Magnus)
Will Magnus and the Metal Men occupy that strange place as perpetual guest stars, destined to never hold a book long but show up every once in a while in other books. People like 'em. Just not enough to buy their book. Speaking of, buy Duncan Rouleu's Metal Men mini. It's great.

The Men were created as last minute filler by none other than Bob Khanigar and Ross Andru in Showcase #37, cover date March-April 1962. As introduced, the team were roobts made of elements and brought to life by "Responsometer" technology. Originally, they were wholesale robots. This has wavered once, in a four issue Metal Men miniseries that started in October 1993. In said mini, they were various people associated with Magnus who were killed and had their conscience transferred in a lab accident. I believe this is probably where player characters becoming Metal Men in the Oolong Island alert comes from.

Throughout the sixites, the Metal Men were destroyed and rebuilt in each story- it was sort of a gimmick of theirs. In fact, they were destroyed at the end of their first story, which wasn't intended to have followups! As sales fell throughout the decade, the writers tried something rather drastic. They had Doc Magnus go crazy, to be blunt. He was kidnapped and brainwashed by some foreign dictator. He ended up making a Plutonium Man, similar in concept to his Metal Men but malevolent. This story was referenced in 52. Rather than have the original explanation, Magnus was retconned to suffer from Bipolar Disorder, and was medicated for it. I'll explain it as I explained it to a friend of mine: When he's off his meds, he does science. Off his meds, he has no regard for ethics and makes science for the sake of science. The results are often things like the Plutonium Man. This has some basis pre-Crisis as well- in Metal Men v1 45, 1976, he was told to take medication to help with his shattered psyche. This ought to more than explain Magnus in the tech wing- "This is one of my bad days. Maybe I can finally get some work done."

The Plutonium Man wasn't the last time there were evil Metal Men, either. While most were Metal Men like Aluminum or Sodum, from Metal Men #3, there were emtotionless copies of the actual Metal Men in 52 Week 22. There is pretty good basis for the Metal Men enemies in Oolong Island, as they were made by evil scientists and were used to kidnap Magnus, as alluded to earlier in this article.

While we are talking about Magnus, I should explain something else related to him, but not especially to Oolong Island...

Veridium
Veridium appears as an adjetive on a handful of items in DCUO. This is one of the many fictional items in the DCU, although it did get some bizarre exposure in the Dragon Age: Origins videogame. Veridium first appeared in Metal Men v2 #4, from January 1994. In said issue, Doc Magnus is killed and transfers his conscience to a blank Metal Man robot made of an alien metal. Veridium has the special property of being able to store and channel heat and energy. I'm not sure the element has been used especially much since this, although Magnus' brother David became another Veridium in Metal Men v3 8.

As you can probably tell, Magnus didn't stay Veridium. In 52 week 22, it was retconned that that, along with the human origin for the Metal Men, had been a hallucination of Magnus', brought on by severe depression.

History Behind DCUO: Brainiac

Few characters in the DC universe have the sort of fame- or infamy- that Vrill Dox of the planet Colu does. For good reasons- he stands as one of Superman's most dangerous rogues, let alone the majority of DC characters. He also has one of the most convoluted histories of anyone this side of Hawkman.

Brainiac was created by acclaimed science fiction and comics writer Otto Binder and longtime Superman artist Al Plastino in Action Comics #242, cover date July 1958. This is a rather important issue for the Man of Steel for a number of reasons. First, it introduced one of his most prominant adversaries and the first mainstay from the Silver Age. Secondly, it introduced the Bottled City of Kandor. But now we're getting ahead of ourself, aren't we?

In #242, Brainiac is introduced as a green skinned, pink pantsed alien from the planet Colu. Brainiac, in one of those lovely high concept ideas commmon to science fiction before the bug of realism bit it, quite literally steals cities. He does this by shrinking them and fitting them into tiny glass bottles, complete with inexplicable artificial suns and tubes for oxygen. Among the bottled cities was Kandor, a city saved from Krypton prior to its destruction. Superman ends up defeating Brainiac, but not without the Kandorians sacrificing their chance at being embiggened once again.

Now, there are a handfull of things that are important about this story we have to deal with before going on. Most notably, it introduced Kandor, which will likely be covered in greater detail in a later piece. Suffice to say, Kandor is important to the overall narrative of Superman for being the first major piece of Krypton to survive the planet's destruction. Prior to this, there had been survivors of Krypton, such the villainous- and male- Mala and his brothers U-Ban and Kizo. But Kandor was the first step in making Superman not the last son of Krypton he had been, but the Silver Age Superman, who was but one of many survivors of Krypton.

Brainiac himself is rather interesting for one reason too. Well, I'm sure you've heard of at least one adaption where he is machine. In the DC Animated Universe, in DCUO, seemingly in the DCnU, Brainiac has been a machine. So how does that fit in with the original, Coluan alien? Simple: One of the earliest retcons. And what a reason for it!

You see, whilst the term Brainiac has entered the popular lexicon because of the Superman villain, it did indeed exist separately in the 1950s, as the name of a home computer kit made by Edmund Berkely. Following Brainiac's first appearance, DC was apparently contacted about the kit's name. Rather than fight it or anything, DC agreed to simply plug the kit in the letters pages of their comics when Brainiac appeared. In this issue he also recieved the familiar diode knit pattern on his head. More on this in a bit- it eventually became

Brainiac appeared as an antagonist on and off for the next few decades, receiving a major upgrade in June, 1983 in Action #544 at the hands of the OG Crisis architect Marv Wolfman. This story also introduced Lex Luthor's power armor, complete with vintage Simon chest piece. In this story, Brainiac creates an entire planet out of metal and computers in yet another attempt to destroy Superman. This ends up backfiring, as he gets trapped in the center of the planet. Brainiac causes a star to go supernova to get out and has to recreate his form. In his new form he forgoes any pretense of an organic form and just goes straight up Terminator. His new form, designed by Ed Hannigan, was a metal skeleton with a honeycomb pattern on the skull. In addition, he also got a massive skull shaped spaceship. The skull ship and general skeletal theme is echoed thorughout DCUO, from the design of the probes to Brainiac's face. Note his distinct lack of a nose.

This redesign has proved far more versatile than the two years it existed in comics would suggest- it was in Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers, was made into a Super Powers action figure and in general has proved incredibly resiliant. Heck, in the past five years there have been two action figures made of it alone- one in DC Superheroes and another in DC Direct's Crisis on Infinite Earths series.

In addition, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank used it as the basis for one of the most important influences on DCUO's Brainiac. In the first issue of their five issue Braniac arc, which ran from Action 866 to 870, Superman encounters what is seemingly the metal body design. It turns out that this is a probe, a drone. In fact, this arc revealed that Superman had never directly fought Brainiac post-Crisis. (I won't innumerate the various faux Brainiacs Superman had fought, because of the sheer number of them and because they have little to no sway on DCUO. They will likely be mentioned later though.) This interpretation of Brainiac reintroduced the bottling aspect and it is here that DCUO's visuals for the bottling likely comes from. No longer was it just shrinking it and sticking it in a bottle- forcefields are erected, drone forces decimate populations, and in the end, Brainiac destroys the planet to make his information more valuable. It was no longer simply about collection- though organic, Braniac now had an outright obsession with information and how valuable it was.

The drones in DCUO are direct references to the drones from Geoff's arc and the original skullship. The tank like enemies, which include the Brainiac Overseer from the tutorial, are essentially the skullship with legs. In addition, the probe aspect, with Brainiac being able to control robot bodies with his consciencious is almost directly from Geoff's run, although it has its basis in Byrne's early Superman run, with the disembodied consciousness of Vrill Dox possessing carny psychic Milton Fine. From what I understand, the probe aspect is used in one of the Fortress of Solitude raids, though I'm not quite high enough combat rating wise to do those yet.

One of the last things about Brainiac that influences his DCUO character is his role in the DCAU. Forgoing the convolution of the Coluan/robot/Milton Fine/whatev from the comics of the time, Bruce Timm opted instead for a more elegant Brainiac. In the DACU, Brainiac originates on Krypton, as the AI that ran the supercomputer systems that controlled day to day activiities on Krypton. When the planet began its descent into destruction, Brainiac covered up this from the Science Council so as to better save himself. Jor-El, Superman's father, eventually finds out Brainiac's treachery, but not before it is too late to do anything. Brainiac takes to the stars, creating an android body for himself. This body has a distinct, triangular pattern of diodes on its forehead, an obvious refernece to the neural web the Silver Age Brainiac wore. This simple and elegant symbol became an emblem of sort for Brainiac, much in in the same way the S shield did for Superman, or the Batsignal for Batman.

Suprisingly, this didn't make its way into continuity with Vrill Dox, but instead his 30th century descendent, Querel Dox, alias Brainiac 5. In Legion of Super-Heroes #104, May 1998, Brainiac 5 adopts a design resembling it to show his "upgrade" to Brainiac 5.1. More stirctly, the three-boot Brainy adopts it in Legion of Super-Heroes #37 (February 2008). Brainiac himself has it in Action #866.

The symbol is in almost all of the humanoid Brianiac drones, be it intentional or not. Mostly around the chest. It's an amusing detail and quite impressive they managed to put it in!

(Note: Due to the internet blackout of sites like Wiki, images will be edited in later. Sorry 'bout that!)

History of DCUO Project!

A few years ago, a YouTube user named CrappyCaptureDevice started a Youtube series where he delved into the history of Super Smash Brothers characters. I've been a pretty big fan of his for several years now, even offering assistance on a few things when he came to a forum I post on. For awhile, I've wanted to do a similar history project for something comic related, either DCUO or Brave and the Bold.

I've decided to start a similar, albeit non-video, history project about DC Universe Online. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has played much of DCUO that the game is chock full of easter eggs, mythology gags and just outright references to the 72 years of DC history. So, without adieu, let's start, shall we?