Now that James Gunn has announced that Brainiac is the villain for the next Superman movie, there is a good chance for fans to start exploring DC Comics to learn more about him. Of course, anyone who has been a DC fan for long knows how important a character Brainiac is in Superman lore. He is an alien who has done some despicable things in his life, such as stealing cities from planets, and in at least one storyline, destroys the planet after he does so to ensure he has its only history. He is also an extremely powerful villain, and in Superman: Man of Tomorrow, Superman has to team up with his deadly enemy, Lex Luthor, to have a chance against the alien invader.
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Going back to the start of his time in DC Comics, here are the best stories to read to get to know Brainiac better.
7) Action Comics #242 (first appearance)
The DC Comics story that started it all, Brainiac made his first-ever appearance in the pages of Action Comics #242 in 1958. The most interesting thing to note is that Brainiac had the city of Kandor shrunken in glass ever since his first appearance in comics, and that has always been part of his lore. This was a period where DC was trying to tell more sci-fi stories, and it came up with the idea to bring in Brainiac to show how deadly the beings in the universe are. This story ended with Superman returning with the bottle city of Kandor, and it began his long battle with Brainiac.
6) Action Comics #528-530
Brainiac was back in Action Comics in 1982 for what is known as the Metamorphosis Arc. This actually started in Action Comics #514. However, the Brainiac story really took off in Action Comics #528, with Brainiac being reborn and Superman reprogrammed the alien to be a force of good. While this isn’t as important when it comes to Brainiac becoming a villain, it does hint at future things, like Brainiac really wanting to be a planet destroyer. It is also one of the best Brainiac storylines and offers an interesting look at how the alien had changed since his more goofy actions in the Silver Age DC Comics.
5) “Panic in the Sky” (1992)
The Brainiac Trilogy is the storyline that began the Panic in the Sky storyline. This saw Lex Luthor help Brainiac gain a new body after he had taken on the identity of the human Milton Fine. This was part of what his appearance in Smallville was based on as well. When Luthor helps him get a new body, it is green-skinned, muscular, and with metallic devices attached to his skull and back. This leads to him becoming a monster villain, and one that the entire DC Universe had to fight to stop, helping him graduate from a Superman villain into what became a universal threat.
4) Superman: Identity Crisis
After the Panic in the Sky story arc ended, it wasn’t long before Superman’s own Identity Crisis story arc began, which is not the same as the Identity Crisis comic book crossover series. Instead, in this Superman Identity Crisis arc, Brainiac escapes from the New Genesis prison and becomes a dangerous escaped convict on the run. It is never as serious and deadly as Panic in the Sky. Still, it does have some fun comic book tropes, like Brianiac using illusions and body seapping to mess with Superman, and making the Man of Steel believe he actually killed people to mess with his mind. In the end, this was a pure Brainiac story.
3) Brainiac (2008)
In 2008. Geoff Johns changed everything we knew about Brainiac. In this storyline, it was revealed that every Brainiac from the past was not the real Brainiac, but was instead clones, possessions, and other anomalies. Brainiac had been sleeping the entire time, and when he awoke here, he came for Superman and was the most powerful he had ever been. This was the basis for the DCAU animated movie, Superman Unbound, and it remains the most iconic version of Brainiac ever put onto the screen. It also connects Brainiac more directly with Supergirl and ends with the death of Jonathan Kent, making Brainiac one of Superman’s deadliest villains.
2) Convergence
Convergence also changed a lot about Brainiac, and it made him more evil than ever before. While the previous versions of Brainiac were all about shrinking and collecting cities over his time in comics, it turns out he was doing so much worse. In this storyline, it reveals that Brainiac had collected so many cities that he didn’t need anymore, so he allowed them to fight for their own survival. It also showed that he would destroy the worlds from which he collected the cities, so he was the only one with knowledge of their histories. This Brainiac was so powerful that it took heroes from all over the universe to join together to beat him and save these cities.
1) Absolute Superman
The most recent version of Brainiac that fans can catch up on in DC Comics is from the Elseworlds Absolute Superman universe. This introduced what is likely the most sadistic version of Superman ever, a drone from an alien civilization called the Brainiac Collective. He was a vicious killer who had no regard for any life, and he was more of a cybernetic creature than the alien from his past appearances. If anything, this is the scariest version of Brainiac ever made, and one that is nightmare fuel, although still a brilliant creation that could help play into whatever James Gunn has planned for the DC villain.
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