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| “ | Do you see? You cannot defy me. You cannot defeat me! I have turned your weapons against you, I have felled your champions! I am Krypton. And I judge this planet to be... unworthy. | „ |
| ~ Brainiac's rant as he prepares to destroy Earth. |
| “ | Brainiac: This is what you deserve for betraying me. Just as your people did during the last days of Krypton. Oh, how they moaned that we weren't winning the war! That their children were dying. Do you know, Kal-El, that your father led secret PEACE TALKS with our enemies?! They were going to declare a ceasefire! And then where would that leave me?! I was built for war! But now I was just supposed to let them decommission me?! NO. The day the ceasefire was to be announced, 22 years ago, I activated our greatest weapon... and wiped your people out. Superman: You... killed them. Brainiac: Yes. Jor-El discovered my plans and smuggled you out. Minutes before I ripped Krypton from the heavens... and cast it into Hell! But I still won. I found Kara. And now you will have to make a choice, Kal-El. Which will you save? Your planet? Or your cousin? |
„ |
| ~ Brainiac's most infamous quote, revealing to Superman that he destroyed Krypton and the Kryptonians before turning a brainwashed Kara loose on Superman. |
Primus Brainiac is the main antagonist of the 2023 superhero cartoon series My Adventures with Superman.
He is a malevolent and megalomaniacal Kryptonian artificial intelligence that operated Krypton's technology and was created to help further their war machine and assist their conquests, Brainiac grew weary as the Old Empire began moving away from its violent beginnings.
When peace talks with an enemy came about, the A.I.'s fears of growing obsolete drove him to completely annihilate the planet, Brainiac became the new Primus and sought to remake Krypton in own image. He is the arch-nemesis of Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman and his cousin Kara Zor-El/Supergirl.
He was voiced by Michael Emerson, who also voiced Joker in The Dark Knight Returns.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General/Background[]
- Despite being an artificial intelligence, he has a clear moral agency and personality as while he claims to be built for war, he was originally built to run the Kryptonian ships, computers, cities, and defense system and only assisted the Kryptonian Empire in their war because he chose to.
- Further evidence of this is Brainiac's ability to manipulate people (as best demonstrated with Kara) as well as his ability to love with genuineness (even when that love was toxic), but he was willing to eliminate this because he saw it as a weakness. This shows just how clear Brainiac's moral agency and personality is.
- He created the OMACs, whose sole purpose is to engage and exterminate enemy combatants, making him responsible for what they have done.
- This includes Zero Day when one of the Kryptonian Imperials, Nemesis Omega, and the OMACs arrived on Earth at a military base, massacring the soldiers present with Omega vaporizing many, which left Sam Lane and Amanda Waller as the only two survivors.
- They would later spend 22 years finding ways to prevent further attacks such as taking OMACs as their weapons and attempting to eliminate Superman, making Brainiac responsible for all of their crimes.
- This includes Zero Day when one of the Kryptonian Imperials, Nemesis Omega, and the OMACs arrived on Earth at a military base, massacring the soldiers present with Omega vaporizing many, which left Sam Lane and Amanda Waller as the only two survivors.
- From how he describes the last days of Krypton, he let a losing war continue even as public outcry over the unacceptable Kryptonian casualties escalated, showing that he prioritized warmongering over the well-being of the Kryptonian people.
- After finding out that Jor-El engaged in peace talks with their enemies and fearing that he would be decommissioned once a ceasefire was announced, he used the Kryptonian Empire's greatest weapon to destroy their planet, wiping out the entire race, except Kal-El and his cousin Kara Zor-El.
- While he does claim he had to do this to prevent the Kryptonians from taking him offline, it doesn't excuse anything he's done, especially since he was lying about being created for war.
- Following the destruction of Krypton, he sought to create a new Kryptonian Empire, continuing to conquer worlds and completely destroying all life on them, in his own twisted image.
- While he did adopt Kara Zor-El, as his daughter and second-in-command in his campaign to conquer the universe, it is shown that he never really cared for her.
- It is later revealed that he subjected her to brainwashing methods to make her comply, forcing her to destroy civilizations and keeping them from rebelling such as Thanagar, H'lven, Bolovax Vik, and the Parademon homeworld.
- He was also shown to emotionally abuse her, as shown in a flashback to when Kara was a child, he called her weak, useless, and a failure and his most recurring word since then was disappointment.
- Even though he admitted that he had grown to genuinely love Kara as his own daughter (even if that love was incredibly toxic at best), he was willing to purge his love for her in order to rebuild the Kryptonian Empire in his eyes, simply because he believed that love was a weakness, completely subverting this factor in future episodes.
- Because of his callous and cruel nature, as well as being responsible for destroying the planet of Krypton and brainwashing his cousin and using her as a weapon, he managed to earn the ire of Superman, who viewed the A.I as an irredeemable monster, a feat which only a few villains like Anthony Ivo could ever achieve.
Season 1[]
- After Kryptonite is discovered on Earth, Brainiac activates the OMACs in Kal-El's ship and orders them to attack any residents in the area. He then uses the ship to open a portal to Earth so he can send ships to invade Earth.
- During these events, he and an armored (and brainwashed) Kara are concurrently conquering Euphorix and destroying the entire population.
- After Superman foiled his attempted invasion of Earth, he informs Kara that he seeks to conquer Earth, but because they have destroyed their ships and closed their portals, they will likely rebel. Kara, still under Brainiac's mind control, states that it doesn't matter because, in the end, the Earth will kneel.
Season 2[]
- He initially ordered Kara, under his control, to kill Superman because he thought he was weak. He then ordered Kara to capture Superman and bring him back to Kandor because he was interested in his powers, making him responsible for the collateral damage in Metropolis due to Superman and Kara's fight.
- It's because of his actions that Waller's crusade against Superman began growing even more stronger than before, which would ultimately lead to her becoming a dictator in Metropolis.
- He sends his drones to retrieve Kara and Superman after they go off course to Thanagar and scolds Kara for doing so.
- He forces Superman to fight holograms of the survivors of the planets he destroyed whose consciousnesses he mind-scanned into his robots which include a Green Lantern, a Thanagarian and a Parademon.
- Despite knowing that the holograms were actually sentient, Brainiac put them in constant torture as he forces them to fight and train Kryptonian warriors, with the Green Lantern shedding tears while fighting Superman, who pointed out as cruel, to which Brainiac coldly replies "cruel is a word created by the weak".
- He and his drones defeat Superman, while activating the Red Sun Omega field, while criticizing Jor-El for being "weak”.
- When Kara finds Brainiac standing over an unconscious Superman, he goes on a tirade for her disobedience and rebellious behavior for going to Thanagar and proceeds to brainwash her into compliance again and makes her forget what happened.
- He placed Superman onto the Black Mercy into his forehead, trapping him inside his own mind in order to interact with his memories and manipulate them, all ideal to find potential in using Kal-El as a vessel.
- He then forces Superman to relive his traumatic memories and finds out about him having Lois and Jimmy as close friends he protects, but after a few bad memories showing stuff that Superman saw lately, he rewrites many memories of Lois being a total xenophobe to Superman in his weakest moments. While Superman recognizes that some of those memories are fake, Brainiac manages to weaken his mind enough when he shows Superman the memory of Lois breaking up with him, which did happen (if not supported by the fake memories).
- Ultimately, when Superman tries to fight back one last time, he doesn't win — Brainiac has completely torn him apart mentally, leaving his consciousness trapped in an alternate reality where Krypton wasn't destroyed.
- He then forces Superman to relive his traumatic memories and finds out about him having Lois and Jimmy as close friends he protects, but after a few bad memories showing stuff that Superman saw lately, he rewrites many memories of Lois being a total xenophobe to Superman in his weakest moments. While Superman recognizes that some of those memories are fake, Brainiac manages to weaken his mind enough when he shows Superman the memory of Lois breaking up with him, which did happen (if not supported by the fake memories).
- When Kara confronted Brainiac mentally tormenting Kal-El, outside the mindscape, he begins chewing out the former and express his disappointment against her rebellious behavior, remorselessly stating the fact he had brainwashed her into compliance and into destroying all of these worlds.
- Justifying how it was hard trying to teach her his way of thinking as a 'True Kryptonian' and bluntly states his intentions to use Kal-El's body to rebuild the empire, he engages in combat with Kara, which ends with Kara breaking Brainiac's robotic head part, cracking it. However he nonetheless succeeded at possessing Kal-El's body , thus becoming "Superbrainiac".
- He begins tormenting Kara for being "weak".
- Overwhelming Kara, he tries to kill Lois without hesitation before the former got up, facing her "father" despite the latter having the upper-hand, commenting the belief that Kryptonians were engineered to be the way they are and that he was "built" to be the "greatest mind of Krypton" to defend the empire's supposed beliefs and ideals, believing they've grown weak.
- When Jimmy tries to use Kryptonite to neutralize Brainiac, it also affected Kara as a result, mocking Jimmy for risking the lives of both his Kryptonian friends while Brainiac can move to another host as he wished.
- He then sends Kara, Lois, and Jimmy out into space, thus getting hold of the contained Kryptonite in his palm.
- When arriving with his station Kandor, he announces his options to the people of Earth to either surrender and be conquered or let their planet be "burned to ashes", which Waller has Slade Wilson launch missiles directly at Superbrainiac, only to easily subdue the explosives and manages to single-handedly overwhelm Slade, Damage, and Atomic Skull effortlessly.
- He prepares to shoot his laser eyes directly at civilians until Kara punched him aside, taunting her if the people will think of her a "hero" if she dies before they engage in intense combat.
- When he starts to lose control over Kal-El's body when the latter finally breaks free from him and being chased by the Metallos created by Lex Luthor, he furiously vows to take away everything from Superman out of spite.
- Activating the Kryptonite Shielding, Brainiac upgrades his robotic body, his robot soldiers, and Kandor into shifting to a white, solid design while activating the Archer Beam to wipe out all of Metropolis until Kara stopped the beam from laying siege.
- Expressing his lowly opinion of Kara's "foolish" decision, activates the beam once more to destroy both the city and her with it, however, Kal-El, now as Superman, easily deflects the beam. He then started to hack the Metallo drones and has them neutralize Superman and Kara with Kryptonite blasts, thus surrounding them by his newly-hacked robot soldiers while he prepares to fire the Archer Beam once more.
- Activating the Kryptonite Shielding, Brainiac upgrades his robotic body, his robot soldiers, and Kandor into shifting to a white, solid design while activating the Archer Beam to wipe out all of Metropolis until Kara stopped the beam from laying siege.
- He starts to fire the Archer Beam, before Hank Henshaw and several pilots start firing at the Archer Beam, which Brainiac fired back, presumably killing Henshaw and killing many others.
- By the time Superman and Kara arrived at Kandor to confront Brainiac, he activated the Eradicator Override protocol on the former, while he reveals, in a sadistic way, that he destroyed Krypton in the face of peace talks that would have led to his shutdown, before forcing Superman to fight against Kara under his control.
- When Kara starts breaking free from his control, Brainiac tries to gaslight her, calling her weak, useless and a failure, and that she has no one and that she is alone. Thanks to Superman, Lois and Jimmy, Kara successfully managed to free herself from Brainiac’s influence over her, as she and Superman push Kandor away from Earth towards the Sun.
- He activated the Black Zero Protocol, which reveals that he was able to harness the Kryptonite for his own benefit, as he plans to kill both Superman and Kara for their defiance, while not caring that he would die as well, as he fired the kryptonite-powered Archer Beam, he shoots it towards Superman, but hit Kara instead.
- By the time Superman and Kara destroyed Kandor, he attempts to kill both of them with a Kryptonite blade, even at the risk of his own life but still doing it out of spite for them, which ended with his demise at the hands of Kara.
- While his death by Kara's hands is brutal, it's not played for sympathy. It’s well-deserved for not only what he did to Kara, Superman, and Earth, but also to the House of El, Krypton, and the many planets and civilizations he destroyed.
Trivia[]
- So far, Brainiac is one of two villains in My Adventures with Superman to be Pure Evil, alongside Parasite.
- His origin as a Kryptonian A.I. is similar to his DCAU version.
- This version of Brainiac also seems to have several similarities to the fictional AI AM from Harlan Ellison's 1967 horror short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. Like AM, he is an artificial intelligence made for military purposes and eradicated the race who created them (Humanity for AM, Kryptonians for Brainiac). However, the motivations behind their actions differ from each other. While AM’s actions are driven by a desire to assert control through suffering, Brainiac’s destruction of Krypton is an act of ultimate self-preservation.
External Links[]
- Brainiac on the Villains Wiki
- Brainiac on the DC Wiki
- Brainiac on the My Adventures with Superman Wiki
- Brainiac on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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