Vril Dox I (New Earth)

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

— Brainiac

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

History

Origin

Vril Dox I 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 abducted the entire city of Kandor, miniaturizing it, bottling it and placing it in his spaceship for preservation and study. He also created a remote scout unit, which was programmed to think that 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 Moses Fine, who worked under the alias "The Amazing Brainiac". Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered that 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.

Panic in the Sky

 Main article: Panic in the Sky

After escaping from Braniac II who tried to kill him, Brainiac ended up taking over the planet Almerac and then Warworld. Seeking revenge on Superman he started using his powers to manipulate various powerful heroes and villains, such as Supergirl, Maxima, Draaga and many more to invade Earth. Thanks to the collective effort of most Earth's heroes led by Superman, Brainiac was defeated and his brain was lobotomized by Maxima herself, Metron offered to imprison Brainiac where he could do no harm, in New Genesis, Superman reluctantly agreed.

Brainiac would place his consciousness into the body of Doomsday, who he would use to defeat and capture the Justice League, until Superman expelled Brainiac's consciousness from controlling Doomsday which forced him to control a robot body that he called Brainiac 2.5. He became briefly obsessed with gaining Superman's form.

Brainiac revealed that 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 of Lex Luthor's daughter, Lena Luthor. Brainiac 13 then converted Metropolis into a futuristic replica of itself; Luthor then traded Lena 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 2.5 and Brainiac 13 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 robot copy of Brainiac is now considered to be dead.

Alliance with Brainiac 8

Later, a copy of Brainiac teamed up with a future descendant of the Brainiac line, Indigo a.k.a. Brainiac 8, who had been 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 Infinite 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. Supergirl then informed Superman of Brainiac's true nature, that he had merely been fighting probes and experiments of Brainiac, while the real Brainiac had been sleeping in his bio-shell for over three centuries. Superman then tracked the real Brainiac down, intending to retrieve Kandor from him. Brainiac beat the Man of Steel down, though, and then steered his ship towards Earth. Supergirl fought his drones fiercely, but they managed to capture her and take her on board. Then Brainiac shrunk Metropolis and fired a missile at the Sun, planning to blow the Sun up and take the rest of Earth with it. Supergirl stopped his missile, while Superman broke free in his ship and carried him to the surface of Earth, where he knocked him out. However, as Superman was distracted with saving Metropolis and 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 great-great-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 both 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 practical 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 universe, possessing a 12th-level intellect and having an infinite amount of data.
• Mental Powers
  • Technology Manipulation: Brainiac is able to inhabit and control almost any technological device.
  • Energy Projection
  • Telepathy: In the form of Milton Fine, Brainiac could read and control the minds of most beings.
  • Telekinesis
  • Possession: Brainiac can use his mental and telepathic powers to take possession of the bodies of other beings, even being able to take over Doomsday.
  • Replication
• Cybernetic Physiology
  • Superhuman Strength
  • Superhuman Durability
  • Superhuman Speed
  • Self-Sustenance
  • Immortality
  • Regeneration

Abilities

• Genius Level Intellect
  • Computer Operation
  • Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Brainiac's style of fighting is a rather basic form of brawling, relying primarily on his great strength. In the few instances where he does battle his foes hand-to-hand, he often relies on simple punches and kicks or sometimes simply overpowering his enemy. He does, however, occasionally does display a high level of skill in combat, seen in his fights with General Zod.
  • Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Mechanical Aptitude

Weaknesses

• Sensory Overload: Brainiac has been defeated in the past by Superman forcing him into Earth's environment, where he was so overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of human society that his abilities enabled him to experience all of the germs and microbes that he was not used to and was repulsed by.
• Technological Reliability
• Obsession: Brainiac has an absolute need for power and control in any situation and is often shown becoming extremely volatile and distressed in situations where he is not, often resulting in him making mistakes that end up 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 that he has programmed to serve him. He is completely unable to understand love, friendship or any other positive emotion and makes no effort to get close to others.
  

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: Crisis in Time! 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.
• When the Brainiac of Prime Earth ventured across time and space to recruit all of his past, future, and alternate selves in order to create the Brainiac Queen, the Brainiac of New Earth was among the variants that were recruited and became part of one hive-mind, sharing a collective intelligence with every other Brainiac.

Related

• 160 Appearances of Vril Dox I (New Earth)
• 30 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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