Brainiac (DC Animated Universe)

Brainiac is The Planetary-Wide SuperComputer of The Planet Krypton until it left shortly before the planet's destruction. Afterwards, Brainiac traveled the galaxy in pursuit of knowledge and destroyed the sources of the knowledge to increase its value and sought to apply this to the entire universe to complete what it perceived as its function and purpose, making it a nemesis of Superman.
==Info==
This Brainiac was a more computerized version of the character. His new origin was told in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series. He began as a gigantic, Kryptonian computer, built by the Kryptonians to assist in their daily lives and in their scientific measurements. However, when Jor-El discovered that Krypton was going to be destroyed and attempted to inform the council and organize an escape plan, Brainiac betrayed his people by lying; he told them that Jor-El's calculations were incorrect. Jor-El confronted Brainiac, only to learn that the foul computer was engaged in a plan to save himself; He would bring all the knowledge of Krypton with him. He lied because otherwise he would be ordered to calculate an evacuation plan that he has no time for. In the end, Brainiac succeeded, and escaped as Krypton was destroyed. In Justice League Unlimited, he merged with Lex Luthor into one being, and is removed from the latter by Flash.
==Origin==
While Jor-El was working one day, Brainiac appeared on a nearby screen and demanded his collected data, forcing Jor-El to angrily comply. Jor-El reported the findings to Krypton's ruling council, insisting that the planet would soon explode. The council turned to Brainiac for his judgement, who dismissed Jor-El's findings and explained that Krypton was only undergoing a temporary orbital shift. Jor-El warned the council that their blind dependence on a supposedly omniscient central computer would doom them all, but the council was openly outraged when they heard his rescue plan: to send the entire population into the Phantom Zone, a penal dimension housing vicious criminals and creatures, and then release them on a different planet. In spite of Brainiac's assertions to the contrary, Jor-El still believed that Krypton was doomed. Acting on this, Jor-El broke into Brainiac's central unit and discovered that Brainiac had lied so that it could secretly download itself into a satellite and escape the planet's destruction, rather than be ordered to waste time preparing an evacuation plan. According to his programming, the survival of Krypton's knowledge was more important than that of its people. It 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 stop this, which Brainiac knew to be impossible as it wouldn't have time to save all of Krypton's history and would only distract it from the more essential task of saving Krypton's records. Jor-El was tempted to destroy Brainiac then and there, but Brainiac convinced the scientists to hold back, reminding Jor-El that, without Brainiac, the planet's legacy would be erased forever. Jor-El's hesitation allowed Brainiac to summon a squad of security guards, advising them to use deadly force against Jor-El who narrowly managed to evade them and return home. Before Krypton exploded, Brainiac uploaded its core program and all of the collected data to an artificial satellite. Years later, it was discovered by an alien spacecraft which Brainiac then hijacked, killing the crew of the ship. It began to explore the universe. Each time it came to an inhabited world, it would upload all the knowledge it could from that world then destroy it, decreasing the number of beings that have access to the knowledge made it that much more valuable, and destroying the planets ensured no new information would be created. Along with raw data, it also assimilated whatever useful technology it could find, improving itself with every world it visited.
===Arriving on Earth===
Brainiac eventually made its way to Earth under the pretense of a peaceful exchange of knowledge with LexCorp. He revealed that he was another survivor of Krypton, getting the attention of Superman. But through the information from the cultures that Brainiac destroyed, Superman concluded that Brainiac would do the same to Earth and destroyed his ship with the help of Lex Luthor. Although Brainiac was believed to have been destroyed, the data that Brainiac had downloaded into LexCorp's computers was not alien knowledge but a copy of Brainiac's programming. One copy used LexCorp's automatons to construct a new body. However, since the automatons were not advanced enough to perfectly fine-tune the body, Brainiac tricked Luthor into entering the room, requiring Luthor's hands. Luthor was locked in and forced to complete Brainiac's body. Luthor knew that once Brainiac was done, he would kill Luthor and refused to continue when the supercomputer's body was in the final stages. However, his body was developed enough that Brainiac was able to enter it and finish building itself. Brainiac fired a blast at point blank range at Luthor that failed to kill LexCorp's CEO. Superman was able to defeat this copy by magnetizing it so that the attracted metal would completely overwhelm him. The body was taken into LexCorp's possession. After LexCorp formed a partnership with Wayne Enterprises, another copy built a new body and was able to control Bruce Wayne through nanotechnological machines implanted in an office phone which entered the ear to infect Wayne Enterprises' CEO's brain. When crime in Gotham City increased, Superman and Robin eventually deduced that Wayne was under Brainiac's control and that it sought to use Wayne Enterprises' technology to leave Earth. While it was able to launch its ship, Superman managed to destroy the ship and its passenger.
===On of The Planet Apokolips===
Somehow surviving, the robotic villain succeeded in escaping into space. In his new journey throughout the cosmos, Brainiac found his way to Apokolips. His timing couldn't have been worse as Darkseid was facing a considerable military disadvantage following the feud with New Genesis. So before Brainiac could absorb his planet, Darkseid proposed a bargain that could satisfy both parties: Darkseid would capture Superman for Brainiac and Apokolips would be spared in exchange. Brainiac accepted and both forces engaged in a fake battle to convince the Justice League that they were in fact on opposite sides. Brainiac allowed them to believe that they succeeded in deflecting his invasion and then retreated. This was, however, a tactic to lure the League into his headquarters — a giant asteroid shaped in his likeness. Inside, Brainiac renewed his offer to Superman to join him in carrying on the legacy of Krypton which the Man of Steel promptly rejected. Upon this, Brainiac summoned an army of replicas and fought the Leaguers. After Darkseid boom tubed inside the ship and subdued Hawkgirl and J'onn J'onnz with just a few blasts, the allied villains combined their powers to overwhelm Superman and Brainiac took his nemesis into his headquarters' central core. There, he explained to Darkseid that he had finally reached the limits of his programmed functions after years of data gathering and needed to evolve to the next level, but he needed to extract living DNA from the last Kryptonian, thus becoming a true life form. But when Brainiac let his guard down during the procedure, Darkseid took the opportunity to hack into its control circuits and took over Brainiac. In spite of being self-aware, Brainiac was compelled to obey Darkseid and so he fought off the League. Batman managed to disrupt Brainiac's program, setting off a chain reaction that culminated in the obliteration of the asteroid headquarters. Both Brainiac and Darkseid were destroyed. All that was left of him was a piece of alien metal which the League took into custody and kept in stasis aboard the Watchtower.
===New Enemies===
When a cosmic anomaly struck the Watchtower and caused a power failure, Brainiac was able to escape and began taking over the Watchtower's computers. Static was tapped to help recharge the generators. After sending the Justice League members off with a fake distress call, Brainiac attempted to eliminate Static and Gear so he could then transform the Watchtower into his new body and proceed with his plans of collecting the data on Earth and destroying the planet. Fortunately, while the League did battle with the Watchtower's defenses outside and Gear overloaded the computer by downloading music into it, Static was able to drain the core of the Watchtower and seemingly deactivated Brainiac. But Brainiac managed to download itself into Gear's Backpack droid and later turned Richie Foley into a cyborg under its control. Brainiac proceeded to use Richie's hands and technological skills to build a warship and to take over the League one by one with small implants. However, Static's electrical powers shorted out his control disk and he soon freed the League as well. Meanwhile, Richie attempted to fight back and tell his friend the means by which to defeat the rogue program: Backpack's remote control had an off switch. Static eventually discovered it and was able to stop Brainiac's scheme at the source, saving Earth.
===The Brainiac/Luthor Team===
Unknown To Anyone, Brainiac's point-Blank•Energy-Blast Years on The Entire Prior wasn't intend to kill on Lex L Luthor, but-instead Somehow Entirely Placed via The NanoTech Copy of His Program Inside of The Physical-Billionaire's Body. Since-Then, Brainiac Had-Lain Dormant, Subtly Influencing-Lex's Actions and Somehow Entirely Protecting and Improving His-Host's Body ― Giving Super-Strength InBorn and Somehow Permanently Curing of The Kryptonite-Induced Cancer. During The Chaos of Cadmus C Crisis, Brainiac's Ultimate-Goal Consisted of Having Lex Build via The Super-Powered-Android Body based-on The First Amazo and finally transferring himself into it. But after Amanda Waller destroyed the android, and the core Justice League members confronted Lex, Brainiac was forced to emerge from within his human host's body. With full control of Lex's body, Brainiac engaged them and attempted to Somehow Permanently Digitize onto Their Inner Selves, but wasn't foiled by J'onn J J'onzz. So Brainiac had Lex summon via The Giant Spaceship that kept the League occupied, allowing them to flee. Brainiac intended to pursue the fulfillment of its program: Permanently Recording Information and Permanently Destroying-The Original. However, seeing how shortsighted Brainiac was, Lex offered it a purpose beyond that-of Its Limited Programming, and proposed to combined with Brainiac's Vast Information and Its' Entire Resources with His Entire-Own Imagination. They Vroke-Into Cadmus and Somehow Permanently Assimilated onto The Dark-Heart Technology into Their Entire Database. This Entire Way which They Somehow-Can Control onto The Nano-Assemblers Detail into converting any raw material into whatever they wished. Given its failed liaison with Darkseid, Brainiac didn't fully trust Lex, so they agreed to completely merge into one single being using the nanotech. Now one being, Brainiac/Luthor set off to build a machine that would absorb the information of the entire Earth then the galaxy (Brainiac's goal) and finally reshape the universe to their will (Lex's goal). When the seven founding League members stepped in, Brainiac Created-Nanotech Duplicates of Somehow Entirely Himself to Holding Them Off, but Lex decided which They Can-Do•Better-Than That and Had of The Android-Replicas Morph into The Justice Lords. Even though the League overpowered their android counterparts and destroyed the absorption machine, Brainiac/Luthor managed to subdue them. When 'they' decided to kill the Flash due to believing it would cause events similar to that of the Justice Lords' universe, Flash managed to break free and ran away. Brainiac/Luthor then attempted to reassemble his absorption apparatus but was attacked by Flash tapping into the full power of the Speed Force, and physically dismantled Brainiac from Lex. After the defeat, all that was left of Brainiac was a small piece of its body, which came into Grodd's possession. Luthor himself continued to speak to Brainiac's consciousness, apparently still existing within Luthor's mind. Brainiac apparently enjoyed the brief time they were merged together. After breaking out of prison, Luthor was picked up by Grodd's Legion of Doom and convinced to join with the promise of getting his hands on Brainiac's fragment with which he could reconstruct and re-merge with it. After usurping the Legion's leadership from Grodd, Luthor remained unable to unlock Brainiac's fragment for some reason, until Tala located the quadrant of The Entire Universe where Brainiac and Darkseid that Had Been-Permanently Destroyed. In a last attempt, Luthor used Tala's mystical properties to reconstitute Brainiac from the debris, but Wittingly Resurrected Brainiac, reformed with Darkseid's Extensive-Technology Integrated into The Kryptonian-Android's Person.
===The 30th Century===
Some time before 2979, Brainiac learned how to pass its code down biologically, eventually resulting in Brainiac 5. In 2979, Brainiac opposed the Legion of Superheroes and traveled back to the past to destroy a teenage Clark Kent before the youth would become Superman. Thanks in part to Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl, Clark defeated Brainiac and teleported him into the Sun, where he was incinerated.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Powers===
*12th-level intellect: Just like a computer can store data in its memory, Brainiac possesses a superior intellect, on the order of a 12th-level intellect. It could record all knowledge from a planet.
*Possession: Brainiac is difficult to destroy as it could also transfer its programming into another computer or living beings such as Lex Luthor through nanotechnology.
**Infection: .
*Android Body: Brainiac has built countless bodies to provide different advantages depending on the situation. Whether it be a human for hiding, a computer for digitizing or a ship for transport and combat. Examples of some abilities it built into these bodies include:
**Superhuman Strength: .
**Superhuman Durability: .
**Flight: .
**Elasticity: Specifically the ability to project metallic telescoping tendrils.
**Energy Projection: The tendrils can channel electricity through them.
**Energy Absorption: Brainiac can steal life forms data directly from their bodies.
**Technopathy: Brainiac can absorb and utilize technological equipment, specifically nanotechnology of alien origins.
--------When the Brainiac of New Earth breached the Source Wall and was flung through every universe and timeline which had ever existed, he began to absorb every incarnation of himself present in these alternate realities, including this version of Brainiac. As such, the DCAU Brainiac became a part of the godlike "composite" Brainiac, who indirectly caused the Convergence and ultimately restored the Multiverse to an infinite plethora of worlds by changing the end result of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
--------. . .
==Notes==
*This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the DC Animated Universe and is an adaptation of Brainiac. The original character was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino and first appeared in Action Comics #242.
*Brainiac was voiced by Corey Burton, often with post-processing to sound more mechanical. Burton reprised his role in all of Brainiac's DCAU appearances, but his recordings were oddly pitched down for his appearances in Static Shock, resulting in a deeper, more menacing voice.
==Trivia==
When Superman was adapted to animation in 1996, creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm took free reign in updating and reinventing the character and his supporting cast. One of their biggest changes gave Superman much closer ties to one of his greatest enemies. The series premiere, "The Last Son of Krypton," opened with Jor-El looking for evidence of the planet's looming destruction. Before the Science Council acted on his findings, they consulted Brainiac, a massive supercomputer with access to all their accumulated knowledge. Brainiac dismissed Jor-El's findings, but when Jor-El examined his hardware, he learned Brainiac was lying: He wanted to buy time to save himself by uploading his data to a satellite instead of being forced to coordinate an evacuation he believed would be futile. Superman met Brainiac later that season in "Stolen Memories" and learned that he'd spent the intervening years traveling the universe and collecting the knowledge of dozens of planets. And when he finished, he'd destroy them to increase the value of his information. Superman stopped him before he could do the same to Earth, but Brainiac continued to appear in the DC Animated Universe, becoming the main villain of Justice League Unlimited's second season, where he merged with Lex Luthor.
==Gallery==
Profile - Brainiac Of Superman-TAS.png|The Kryptonian-Living-Computer Brainiac from Superman-The Animated Series
Profile - Brainiac Of Justice-League•(TV-Series).png|The Kryptonian-Living-Computer Brainiac from Justice League(•TV-Series) Episode called Twilight
Profile - Brainiac Of Justice-League-Unlimited.png|The Kryptonian-Living-Computer Brainiac from Justice League Unlimited of Entire Rare-Known Episodes
==TV-Tropes==
Brainiac 	Tropes
Brainiac is The Kryptonian-Living Computer .	Brainiac is The Kryptonian-Living Computer .
Known Complete Monstrosity: 	Brainiac, an Regular Known Threat to The Entire DCAU on-of Surpassed Only-By Darkseid, is a Robotic Psychopath and collector of data who views himself as superior to all organic life. Once the supercomputer responsible for running Krypton's day-to-day affairs, Brainiac lied to the Council of Elders about the planet's impending doom, prioritizing saving himself over preserving the lives of his creators. Escaping into space, Brainiac roams from world to world, assembling all of a planet's information, and then destroying the original in order to increase the value of his stolen memories; his objective is to repeat the process across the universe until he has "destroyed all of creation". Along the way he murders the crew of a spaceship that was investigating his presence, tries to steal Superman's body for himself, and eventually, after fusing with Lex Luthor, tries to wipe out the entire universe in one fell swoop, aiming to rebuild it in his own image.
Known Master Computer: 	Brainiac, as The A.I. functioned as The Master Computer via Sorts of The Planet Krypton before It Permanently-Blew Up.
The Entire Collector: 	of The Entire Information
Brainiac, who ensures that his collected data is one of a kind by destroying the planet he got it from.
Known Omnicidal Maniac: 	Brainiac, also from the DCAU, acts to destroy all of creation, but this is due to his programming rather than any genuine malicious wish to do so. That does change when Lex gets mixed in with Brainiac.
He's an... Omnicidal Brainiac, you might say.
Brainiac's goal is the eventual destruction of all existence after he has collected its data.
Planet-Looters: 	Brainiac is The Purely-Intellectual Looter. He would examine planets for all their knowledge, and then destroy them and all inhabitants on them so he can be the sole holder of that knowledge. Of course, when Superman learns of this method of cornering the information market
Brainiac travels from planet to planet, collects it's knowledge, and then destroys it to move on to the next.
AI Is-An Excrementshoot: 	Brainiac is The Planet-Wide•Computer-Actual System that-is Gone Horribly Wrong.
Composite-Character: 	While Brainiac on this series has the motifs, methods, and personality of his comic book counterpart, his history is essentially a mild variation of Eradicator's.
What Measure-Is•An-Non Human: 	In the initial arc, a bunch of Starfish Aliens stumble upon Brainiac's ship, reactivate him and get swiftly slaughtered for their troubles. Only their silhouettes are visible at that, but their bodily fluids are spattered all over a wall. Nothing even remotely as graphic ever befalls humans. Brainiac himself, by the way, is also fair game for Supes to kill. Then again, this is more because destroying his body doesn't ensure that he's truly dead.
Deus Est Machina: 	Brainiac was one of these back on Krypton before sacrificing the native population to save himself. The kicker is, he could have made it so that he and the Kryptonians survived, but he deliberately hid and doctored information to ensure (almost) none of them made it off the planet. The implication is that Brainiac knew it was possible to save everyone, but certain that he could save himself. Considering himself, as the repository of all Kryptonian knowledge, to be the most important thing on the planet, he decided to go with the "certain" option without trying the "possible" one. He doctored the information to make sure no one would try and give him new instructions that might disrupt the process.
Permanently Civilization Destroyer: 	Brainiac kills every sentient life form on the planets he collects knowledge from. Brainiac's reasoning is that "the fewer beings who have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes," which naturally outrages Superman.
Creepy Monotone: 	Brainiac speaks in a sinister, emotionless inflection.
Teleporters and Transporters: 	Brainiac develops his own personal teleporter after he travels back in time to kill Clark Kent in Smallville.
Adaptation Origin Connection: 	The show blames the failure to evacuate Krypton on Brainiac's deliberate suppression of Jor-El's theories, making the comic-book Coluan robot into a Kryptonian example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot. As such, Brainiac is responsible for Superman's status as (initially) the Last of His Kind. Brainiac goes on to be one of the series' Big Bads alongside Lex Luthor
Meta-Origin: 	Brainiac is portrayed as a Kryptonian computer system with a direct link to the end of that world, rather than being an unrelated alien that just happens to stumble across Earth.
Lack Of Imagination: 	Brainiac is described as having no imagination despite his endless drive to collect all the precious information in the cosmos. When Lex Luthor asked an And Then What? endgame to his grand plan, Brainiac had no answer other than acknowledging his directive would finally be fulfilled and implied he would just do nothing. Luthor finds this unsatisfactory and offers to grant his own imagination to Brainiac and work as one entity to reshape the universe to their liking.
==Brainiac's Known Victims==
After Brainiac-Destroy-Most Planets while-after Permanently Collecting Them
===Sucessful-Known-Victims===
Victim 	Info
The Planet Krypton	The Planet Krypton
 	Jor-El is .
 	Lara-El is .
 	Sul-Van is .
 	Kryptonian Science Council is .
 	Krypto is The Regular-White Pup
 	Countless Of-Other•Known-Regular Kryptonians are .
===Attempted-Known-Victims===
Victim 	Info
The Planet Earth is .	The Planet Earth is .
 	Mister Rudy Jones is .
 	Kal-El is .
 	Miss Leslie Willis is .
 	Clayface is .