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!)