Vril Dox I (New Earth)

I will be everything there has ever been, Kryptonian. I will be evolved into perfection.

— Brainiac

Vril Dox, alias Brainiac, is a conqueror seeking technological domination.

History

Origin

Vril Dox was a brilliant Coluan scientist. At some point, he cloned himself to get a lab assistant; the clone would later be called Vril Dox II. He acquired a spaceship and went on a journey through space, acquiring knowledge and using his robotic drones to capture living organisms of various alien species. Along the way, he came to the planet Krypton some time during the lifetime of General Zod, and kidnapped the entire city of Kandor, miniaturizing it in his spaceship for preservation and study. He also created a remote scout unit, which was programmed to think it was the original Vril Dox.

Earth

The remote scout unit came to Earth as a cloud of nanotechnological robots, and took over the body of sideshow mentalist Milton Fine, who worked under the alias "Brainiac". Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered Fine had genuine psychic powers, which he frequently used on Superman.

Brainiac was later captured by Lex Luthor, but used his powers to wrest control of Lexcorp away from him. Under his mental domination, Lexcorp scientists recreated his Coluan form. The diodes in his head now increased and stabilized his mental powers, as well as allowing him direct access to computer banks. He continued to plague Superman, using a combination of mental powers and computer control. On one occasion, he began to shrink cities.

Following the loss of Milton Fine's body, Vril Dox would place his consciousness in a robot body he called Brainiac 2.5. He became briefly obsessed with gaining Superman's form.

Brainiac revealed he had placed a sleeper virus in Lexcorp's Y2K bug safeguards. This was intended to dramatically boost his abilities. Instead, it allowed Brainiac 13 to arrive from the 64th century. Brainiac 13 stole Brainiac's body and placed Brainiac's mind in the body of Lena Luthor. Brainiac 13 then converted Metropolis into a futuristic replica of itself; Lex Luthor traded his daughter, Lena Luthor, to Brainiac 13 in exchange for being given control of his B13 Technology. Brainiac 2.5 left with Brainiac 13.

During the Imperiex attack, Brainiac 13 and Brainiac 2.5 became involved. Although initially working against Imperiex with the heroes of Earth, they tried to double-cross them later on. However, this plan backfired; Brainiac 13 was sent back through time to die in the Big Bang and Brainiac 2.5 lost control of Lena Luthor. This copy of Brainiac is now considered dead.

Alliance with Brainiac 8

Later, a copy of Brainiac teamed up with a future descendant of the Brainiac line, Indigo aka Brainiac 8 sent to kill Donna Troy and ensure Colu's future. This version of Brainiac was trying to clone its body using a secret Lexcorp facility. He was killed by Starfire when she destroyed his ship with him in it.

The Nanotech copy

After the Infinte Crisis, a copy of Brainiac composed of nanoscale robots invaded a Waynetech robotics facility and tried to gain a new body—a prototype OMAC unit built with B13 Technology. Controlling Metallo and the Metal Men, he fought Superman and Batman for the OMAC, but was ultimately defeated.

Superman: Brainiac

 Main article: Superman: Brainiac

A drone unit came to earth and fought Superman, drawing blood for research by Brainiac. After Supergirl informed Superman of Brainiac's true nature, Superman tracked Brainiac down, intending to retrieve Kandor. Brainiac beat the Man of Steel down, though, and then headed his ship towards Earth. Supergirl fought his drones fiercely, but they managed to capture her and take her on boards. Then Brainiac shrunk Metropolis and fired a missile at the Sun, planning to blow the Sun up and take the rest of the Earth with it. Supergirl stopped his missile, while Superman broke free in his ship and carried him to the surface of the Earth, where he knocked him out. However, as Superman was distracted with saving Metropolis & Kandor, Brainiac attacked the Kent farm; Jonathan Kent died as a result.

New Krypton

Brainiac was captured by the United States government and turned over to Project 7734. Lex Luthor attempted to flee the Project with Brainiac, but Brainiac resisted, citing a plan that he had.

Last Stand of New Krypton

Brainiac and Luthor attacked New Krypton, the former looking to steal the city back again. The battle against Brainiac involved Superman, Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes, General Zod and his army and several thousands of Kryptonians. At the end, Brainiac 5 put a stop to his evil grand-grand-grandfather, and Vril Dox was taken to Colu and jailed.

Ultimate Fate

Around the time of Flashpoint, Brainiac surpassed the Source Wall and departed the boundaries of the Multiverse and linear time. At the conclusion of Flashpoint, Brainiac was technically transformed by the rewriting of the timeline into a new version of himself, for all intents and purposes. Paradoxically, the Brainiac of New Earth remained a distinct existence outside of time and reality, unto himself, until he bore witness to the secrets of the Multiverse. The expansion of his consciousness into the past and future timelines, both before the Crisis and beyond Flashpoint, had the effect of amalgamating the Brainiacs of these realities (including himself and his Prime Earth reincarnation) into an omnipotent being surpassing yet incorporating all of them. This "god-machine" Brainiac would go on to act as the driving force behind the events of Futures End and Convergence, before ultimately using his power to circumvent the first Crisis and retroactively preventing the collapse of the Pre-Crisis Multiverse.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

• Enhanced Intellect: Brainiac is generally believed to be the most intelligent being in the DC Universe, possessing a twelfth-level intellect that surpasses even Lex Luthor. He is capable of storing and processing trillions of minds worth of information in his data banks and Coluan brain and possesses superhuman calculation abilities, enhanced memory, and advanced understanding of mechanical engineering, bio-engineering, physics and other theoretical and applied sciences. He has been shown as being capable of feats such as shrinking entire planets, creating impenetrable force fields, absorbing information from other beings, transferring his consciousness, time travel, and even creating an army of ten thousand similarly powered probes who are each able to rival and even kill Kryptonians. His vast intellect and cyborg body also makes him immune to mind control.
• Mental Powers
  • Technology Manipulation: Brainiac is able to inhabit and control almost any technological device with little issue, allowing him to become more dangerous.
  • Energy Projection: He once blasted Superman with red sun radiation
  • Telepathy: In the form of Milton Fine, Brainiac has shown the ability to read and control the minds of most beings with little difficulty.
  • Telekinesis
  • Possession: Brainiac has been shown to use his mental and telepathic powers to take possession of the bodies of other beings, even being able to take over Doomsday.
  • Replication: Brainiac has been shown as able to create multiple versions of himself.
• Cybernetic Physiology: While situated on his ship, Brainiac has shown physical capability rivaling those of a Kryptonian strengthened by yellow sunlight. It is soon made apparent that he does not need to occupy his vessel to be strong and resilient enough to battle physically as well as mentally.
  • Superhuman Strength: Brainiac is frequently shown to possess incredible levels of strength that allow him to even overpower Superman while on his skull ship. It is later revealed that he does not require his ship to utilize his strength, but is typically no real threat to Superman after which.
  • Superhuman Durability: Brainiac possesses an extraordinary level of durability to the point that he is able to withstand devastating blows from Superman without showing any signs of damage or pain. He even said that Superman's punches do nothing to him.
  • Superhuman Speed: Brainiac is fast enough to catch a punch thrown by Superman. This, on its own, stands as a superhuman feat.
  • Self-Sustenance: As a machine, Brainiac does not require food, water, sleep or oxygen to survive.
  • Immortality: Brainiac's mechanical body means that he is immune to aging. His exact age has never been specified but he was alive long before Krypton's destruction, making him several thousand years old at the least.
  • Regeneration: Brainiac is able to heal from most injuries with little issue and has been shown to be able to restore himself to his original state if even a single line of his code exists.

Abilities

• Genius Level Intellect: Due to a mutagenetic anomaly in his biology, Vril Dox the first possessed the rare capacity for above super genius acumen. He was initially considered a 12th level intellect by the standard Coluan mental evaluation. Due to considerable biomechanical augmentation, his intellect is now far in afield's to the collective 8th level Intellect of the whole of Colu.
  • Computer Operation
  • Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Able to fight Superman on equal levels
  • Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Mechanical Aptitude
• Intimidation: Due to his immense power and utter ruthlessness, Brainiac is feared throughout the universe, with other beings such as General Zod and Mongul being unwilling to face him or risk being in his way. Kara remarks that children growing up on Krypton were raised to be frightened of Brainiac in a similar way to how children on earth are taught about monsters like the boogeyman.
• Cybernetic Enhancement: Brainiac spent eons reformatting his body with various mechanical upgrades which served to bolster both his genius mind and resilient body. Giving him physical abilities to match his virtually peerless brilliance.

Weaknesses

• Sensory Overload: Brainiac has been defeated in the past by Superman forcing him onto Earth's atmosphere where he was overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of human society that his abilities enabled him to experience and the germs and microbes that he is not used to and was repulsed by.
• Technological Reliability: Brainiac has sometimes been portrayed as being linked mentally to his ship and separating him from it without warning can disable him and separating him from it for prolonged periods drains him of much of his strength and causes his body to deteriorate.
• Obsession: Brainiac possesses an absolute need for control and power in any situation and is often shown becoming extremely volatile and distressed in situations where he isn't, often resulting in him making mistakes that end up seriously damaging his plans.
• Apathy: Brainiac possesses no empathy or compassion for any other sentient being and almost exclusively works alone in his schemes, aided only by machines and people whose wills he has reprogrammed to serve him. He is completely unable to understand love, friendship or any other positive emotion and so makes no effort to form bonds with others. On the rare occasions where he cooperates with others beings who aren't under his mind control, he rules them through fear and will almost certainly betray them at a later date without any hesitancy or remorse. This always backfires in two ways as Superman always has a group of friends willing to fight by his side against him, and powerful people he has callously betrayed, such as Lex Luthor, have worked against him in revenge.
  

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Brainiac Probe
• B13 Technology

Transportation

• Brainiac's Skull Ship

Notes

• Superman speculates that Brainiac had some direct hand in the destruction of Krypton.
• The changes to Post-Crisis New Earth continuity by Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis seem to have made some parts of Brainiac's Pre-Crisis history with Superman canonical once again, if Post-Crisis flashbacks to Silver Age/Bronze Age versions of Brainiac within the the context of Superman's historic rogues' gallery are any indication.

Related

• 140 Appearances of Vril Dox I (New Earth)
• 24 Images featuring Vril Dox I (New Earth)
• 8 Quotations by or about Vril Dox I (New Earth)
• Character Gallery: Vril Dox I (New Earth)

External Links

• Brainiac at the DC Animated Universe Wiki
• DC Comics Encyclopedia

Footnotes

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