Brain (comics)

Superherobox|

caption= Monsieur Mallah with the Brain, from the cover to "Outsiders" #37.
Art by Daniel Acuña
character_name=Brain
real_name=Unknown
publisher=DC Comics
debut="Doom Patrol" # 86
(May 1964)
creators=Arnold Drake
Bruno Premiani
alliances=Brotherhood of Evil Secret Society of Super Villains
aliases=
powers=genius-level intellect, Enhanced durability|

The Brain is a DC Comics supervillain and frequent enemy of the Doom Patrol. He is a French mastermind and criminal genius.Citation | last = Jimenez | first = Phil | author-link = Phil Jimenez | contribution = Brain | editor-last = Dougall | editor-first = Alastair | title = The DC Comics Encyclopedia | pages = 60 | publisher = Dorling Kindersley | place = London | year = 2008 | ISBN = 0-7566-4119-5]

Fictional character biography

As a scientist, the man who would one day become known as the Brain performed experiments on animals to raise their intelligence. One of these was on a captured gorilla, raising its I.Q. to the genius-level of 178. He named the gorilla Monsieur Mallah and educated him for almost a decade before making him his personal assistant.

His colleague, Niles Caulder grew jealous of his work and arranged for the scientist to get caught in an explosion, which destroyed the scientist's body. Only the brain survived, and Caulder planned on putting his brain in a robot body.

Mallah rescued the scientist, taking his brain and transferring it to a computer network that kept it functioning (Caulder would later engineer another accident, causing the racecar driver Robotman to crash his car; Caulder then put Steele's brain in the body originally meant for the scientist).Now known simply as the Brain, the scientist and Mallah gathered together the criminal organization known as the Brotherhood of Evil in hopes of conquering the world and getting revenge on Caulder. Caulder, now known as the "Chief", through a series of other accidents that he manipulated, would form the superhero group known as the Doom Patrol. Setting out to destroy the Chief's 'pets', the Brain, Mallah, and their Brotherhood became enemies of the Patrol. Their criminal activities would also pit them against the Teen Titans.

During Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run, Mallah had the Brain placed in Robotman's new body (Robotman's brain had been removed from it earlier, due to it malfunctioning). In his new body, the Brain, in a bizarre moment, suddenly confessed to Mallah he was in love with him. When Mallah revealed he felt the same way, the two kissed. However, Robotman's body had developed sentience and vowed never to be enslaved by a brain again; when Mallah placed his lover in the body, he triggered a self-destruct mechanism, which exploded as they kissed.

The two would later resurface (the Brain back to floating in a jar). It is uncertain if the two somehow survived the explosion, or that they were brought back to life by some alteration of reality (in "Zero Hour", the world was destroyed and recreated with subtle differences, and in "Infinite Crisis", Superboy-Prime's pounding on the walls of reality created ripples which corrected reality and caused history to repeat itself for several characters).

One Year Later

Recently, the Brotherhood have been raiding genetic research facilities; their plan being to unlock the secrets of cloning in order to create a new body for the Brain, so he and Monsieur Mallah "can finally live happily ever after." The Brain was ultimately able to clone a new body for himself, but after a short while it began to break down, so he had Mallah rip off his head so he could put his Brain back into another jar.

The Brain and Mallah have since been exiled to a prison planet, as seen in "Salvation Run" #3. In "Salvation Run" #4 The Brain and Monsiuer Mallah are beaten to death by Gorilla Grodd, who used the Brain's own jar to bludgeon Mallah. Brain's brain was last seen being eaten by a "Lion-Lizard."

Powers and abilities

The Brain has a genius level IQ and occasionally uses a robot body to give him mobility.

In other media

In the "Teen Titans" animated series, the Brain is the main antagonist during the fifth season and is described as "intellect personified and evil incarnate". Considered the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil he, like his comic counterpart, is a brain preserved in a robotic jar. It is Brain who leads the Brotherhood in their attempt to destroy the Titans and their allies. He speaks in a computerized voice similar to Stephen Hawking. The Brain seems to do very little during the series, and acts behind the scenes coordinating the villain attacks. When he appears in his secret base, he is frequently seen playing chess with Mallah and comparing it to the game of wits he considers himself to be playing against Robin. In the rare instances where he himself fights, he appears to possess limited telekinetic and telepathic abilities. He is otherwise defenseless and an easy target several times in the series, not even able to defend against a slap on the back from Beast Boy.

As a result of his defenselessness from a physical standpoint, he relies almost "entirely" on his evil subordinates to carry out his plans. With himself providing the strategy and intelligence, this reliance proves mostly justified in the episode "Calling All Titans." In this episode, the Brain uses a stolen Teen Titans communicator (Hotspot's, to be precise) to track down and capture every honorary Teen Titan by sending villains to capture them. In "most" cases, the Brain is able to provide exactly the evil opponent (or more than one opponent) needed to capture any hero (e.g. overpowering the hero Speedy with the villain Cheshire who can block all of Speedy's arrows with her superior reflexes, and sending the shape-shifting Madame Rouge to capture the physical fighter Robin). However, the Brain's over-reliance on his subordinates also proves, eventually, to be his undoing due to several key mistakes belying his usual intelligence. He sends the Kardiak monster to capture Beast Boy, but Beast Boy wins the fight. He sends both Adonis and Atlas to overpower Pantha, but Pantha defeats them both. He sends Johnny Rancid and Cinderblock to capture Mas y Menos, but the two villains only manage to capture Menos, and Mas escapes. He sends Private H.I.V.E. and Fang to take down Jericho, but Jericho is victorious. He sends See-More and Warp to capture Herald, but Herald successfully fights off both of them. The Brain seems unable to adapt to any possible holes in his plan, and this flaw costs him dearly in the very next episode, as the remaining heroes (plus Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven, who while not victorious in their respective ambushes still managed to escape capture) infiltrate his base to free the captured heroes.

He met his end in "Titans Together" when Beast Boy threw him into his own freezing machine. The "skull jar" that housed his brain could detach from the rest of his body. While escaping he activated his body which is a fusion device to blow up his base so he could escape (saying that sometimes the best strategy is to "clear the field"). But he was caught and his bomb was sent into outer space. Beast Boy froze him with Professor Chang's device (and made a joke about "brain freeze").

His appearance is very similar to a Dalek, major antagonists in the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who", and indeed the producers of "Teen Titans" mentioned the British show in interviews about Season Five. He is voiced by Glenn Shadix. Like Mallah, his sexuality was not mentioned due to the targeted kid audience.

Brain made an appearance in issue #29 and a cameo in the "Teen Titans Go!" comic book series.

References