Brainiac (character)

Brainiac (Vril Dox) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino, Brainiac first appeared in Action Comics #242 (1958), and has since endured as one of Superman's greatest enemies.

Brainiac is commonly depicted as a superintelligent android or cyborg from the planet Colu who is obsessed with collecting all knowledge in the known universe. He travels the galaxy and shrinks cities to bottle size for preservation on his skull-shaped spaceship before destroying their source planets, believing the knowledge he acquires to be most valuable if he alone possesses it. Among these shrunken cities is Kandor, the capital of Superman's home planet Krypton, and Brainiac is even responsible for Krypton's destruction in some continuities. Regarded as one of the most dangerous threats in the DC Universe, Brainiac has come into repeated conflict with Superman and the Justice League. Although stories often end in Brainiac's apparent destruction, the character's artificial consciousness is resurrected in new physical forms, some robotic and others more organic-based in appearance.

The character has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in live-action by James Marsters in Smallville and Blake Ritson in Krypton, and is set to appear in the DC Universe (DCU) film Man of Tomorrow (2027), portrayed by Lars Eidinger. Corey Burton, John Noble, Jeffrey Combs, Michael Emerson, and others have provided Brainiac's voice in animation and video games. The character's name, a portmanteau of the words brain and maniac, is believed by etymologists to be the inspiration for the informal noun brainiac, which entered common use in the 1970s.