Villainous Origin - *Spoilers*

I'm not too familiar with the mythos behind Brainiac, but how does he form out of kryptonian ooze? Am I mistaken thinking he's a computer?

[Killerbee]

Best thing is to do a google search for Brainiac. Braniac is a collector of universal knowledge. He happens to know all there is to know about Krypton. In the comic books and the old cartoons he was not Kryptonian. Superman TAS made him out to be a program from Krypton, who was responsible for Krypton's ultimate destruction. I don't think he ever took the form of Kryptonian black ooze before in the comics or cartoons. That is Smallvilles twist/take on his Earthly orgin. Anyway, do a google search, because you'll find a lot more info on Brainiac out there on the net.

And welcome to the Planet!

[Franchise Player]

Braniac's origin(s) are more convoluted than Hawkman's.

[murp27]

From Superman Homepage (and strictly relating to the comics) :

Brainiac (Vril Dox) was once a scientist on the planet Colu. Because of his genius, Dox was allowed to serve the planet's computerized tyrants. Attempting to overthrow the tyrants and rule Colu himself, Dox had invented a teleporter. Discovering his plan, the tyrants used the teleporter on Dox, apparently killing him. But Dox's mind survived and eventually came to Earth when it was found by the Amazing Brainiac (Milton Fine) a circus mentalist with latent mental powers. Dox fought to control Fine's body and while doing so found that combining his and Fine's mental powers allowed for amazing feats that caused several psychic battles with Superman. Fine's identity was almost destroyed by Dox who now completely controls the body and has great mental powers, partly due to an implant supplied by Lex Luthor. Brainiac's body and mental powers became even stronger after Luthor tried to control him in a psionics lab, where Brainiac instead managed to control Luthor and other LexCorp employees, and had his body modified. After fighting Superman, Brainiac flew into space, later returning to Earth with Warworld to battle Superman and a team of superheroes. Metron took away the defeated Brainiac. After Superman's return from near death, Brainiac escaped New Genesis and showed increased mental powers by making people think a body remained in Superman's tomb, in an effort to drive Superman insane. Afterwards, Brainiac was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to save Fine's personality. When Brainiac found out a 15 year old patient (Chas Cassidy) believed he was Superman, Brainiac reasserted control of Fine's body and managed to transfer his and Cassidy's minds into Superman's body, and transfer Superman's mind into Cassidy's body. Brainiac managed to use a device to take over the minds of everyone in Metropolis, before Cassidy and Superman stopped him. Brainiac appeared again to battle Superman briefly (Superman: The Doomsday Wars mini-series 1999), and it was believed that he was destroyed in the encounter. The remains of his body were retrieved by a Coluan scientist, Prin Vnok, who transferred Brainiac's consciousness into Doomsday's body, retrieved from the end of time. He defeated the Justice League and took Pete Ross and Lana Lang's newborn son to grow into a more controllable Doomsday body. During a battle with Superman, his mind was ejected from Doomsday, allowing the monster to go on a rampage before being imprisoned by Superman and the JLA. Brainiac transferred his mind into a permanent robotic body (known as Brainiac 2.5), and escaped to an unknown location. New Year's Eve 2000 saw the return of Brainiac 2.5 who, in an attempt to upgrade his new robotic body, found himself unable to control the download of a future version of himself known as Brainiac 13. Brainiac 2.5 transfered his conciousness into Lena Luthor while Brainiac 13 brought about the complete upgrade of Metropolis to a futuristic hi-tech city. Brainiac 13 was finally trapped by Superman's use of Kryptonian technology, but not before B13 convinced Lex Luthor to sacrifice his daughter as an avenue of escape in return for the "keys" to the new Metropolis (Superman Y2K [4 part storyline]).

Brainiac 13 returned as a surprise villain at the exact time of the defeat of Imperiex. In command of a new War World, Brainiac 13 planned to syphon the world-destroying power of Imperiex for himself (SUP #173). However he was thwarted when Superman, pulled together a plan with Steel, Luthor, Darkseid and others, to push Warworld, B13 and Imperiex through a boom-tube to the beginning of time (ACT #782).

First Appearance: AOS #438 (July 1988)
First Appearance (with his Coluan body): ACT #649 (Jan. 1990)
First Appearance (as Brainiac 13): Superman Y2K (March 2000)

There's more here from wikipedia, which splits it up into pre-crisis, post crisis, and other mediums.

[adamtrek]

So, basically, Braniac has done so much that Smallville will do whatever they darn well please with his character.

As long as he's smarter than Lex Luthor. That'll be fun to see.

[Firefly]

I hope they keep Brainiac for a good part of the season. Keeping a villian on the show(besides Lex) is what the show has always needed.

[SuperHulk]

Originally Posted by adamtrek

So, basically, Braniac has done so much that Smallville will do whatever they darn well please with his character.

As long as he's smarter than Lex Luthor. That'll be fun to see.

you've seen the character for all of 3 seconds, how bout we see how it plays out, k?

[The Mat of Steel]

Here's a peice of an interveiw done with "Spike" that was reposted on KryptonSite. It looks like they nailed the origin better than the comics or cartoon ever did.

About his character of Brainiac:

"I play a being that was created as a computer system on Krypton. A man named General Zod wanted to take over Krypton's ruling council, reprogrammed me and tried to have me take over the planet, but in doing so, destroyed Krypton. Except I arrived and came to Earth and find the most beautiful planet, almost better than Krypton, really. Except that there are these horrible creatures called humans who are killing all of the other animals, and destroying all of the forests and killing the atmosphere. You can tell scientifically this species has about 100 years maximum to live, so why don't we just kill them off now and take this beautiful planet? Kryptonians think in long terms. This will be a beautiful planet for millions of years. So I'm trying to convince Clark [Kent\ and seduce him into stopping thinking like a monkey. I'm trying to get him to step up and be more than he thinks he is."

On why working on Smallville was appealing to him:

"Because Al Gough is a cool dude. He's got a good mind, he's very easy to understand. He takes a lot of different information and synthesizes it in his opinions. I like him a lot. And he's taking a myth that we think we know really well, and he's not turning it on its head, but he's turning it on its side. How do you get from this little farmboy to the savior of the world? And how does Clark, more importantly, go from being a boy to being a man?"

On a side note, screen caps from the next episode have Lionel burning the Kryptonese character for Zod repeatedly on the wall of his psycho cell.

[JcDc]

not reading that again

[The Sage]

I wouldn't say they nailed it better, but that they took elements from comics, movies, and cartoons. Interesting.

[triplet]

I love what they did with Brainiac in Smallville...

James Marsters is awesome.

Originally Posted by Firefly

I hope they keep Brainiac for a good part of the season. Keeping a villian on the show(besides Lex) is what the show has always needed.

I think Marsters is supposed to be on for 10 episodes but they're trying to fit in him in more this season since he's doing so great...

But I think Hulk said on another forum he has other comittments elsewhere (doing a show in London - I believe) and his sked will be hard to work around but the more eps he's in the better, IMO.

He's awesome.

[The Sage]

He's truly been the highlight of the season.