Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Your Favorite Brainy

1. Shooter era - smarter than most, but otherwise no perrsonality extremes.

2. Crazy Brainy - he's INSANE

3. Early - mid Levitz Brainy - thoughtful scientist

4. Late Levitz Brainy - logical cold fish who doesn't connect well with others

5. TMK Brainy well, not so different from late Levitz

6. Reboot Brainy - Socially awkward child prodigy

7. WaK Brainy - Irrate schemer

8. Other


I like pretty much any of the Levitz versions, and though I have little good to say about the reboot I did like the child prodigy written by DnA. I'm otherwise loving the WaK Legion, but Brainiac 5 least of all.

8. Pre-Adventure "I'm sorry I'm descended from such an evil man!" Brainy!

I liked DnA's Brainy the most--naive, charming, slightly goofy but perceptive and capable of open strong affection. You don't want to call him just "Reboot Brainy," though, or you risk confusing him with Tom Peyer's "Incredible Jerk" Brainy.

After him, I found late Levitz and early TMK Brainy the most interesting and convincingly überintelligent.

WaK Brainy hasn't really connected with me yet...still feels like Vril Dox lite (though I loved Vril.) I need to see him in a mood other than "pissy" first.

ditto what SD said.. to a "T."

Probably the early-mid Levitz Brainy, but I've got a soft spot for all of 'em. From the supremely immature early reboot Brainy to the colder but wiser TMK Brainy... good stuff, good stuff.

You also left out the SW6 "Legionnaires" Brainy, whose personality was a bit more timid and polite than the average Querl.

I'm withholding judgement on WaK's scheming Brainy until we get more information on exactly what he's doing and why.

I liked the Brainy that created Computo. After that the Shooter era Brainy followed by the 2nd Levitz era Brainy.

I like TMK Brainy - supergenuis with a mullet!

My Favorite Brainy hasn't been written yet. I'd say DnA came closest, though - followed by TMK. Silicon Dream makes a good point that the TMK version was different from the pre-DNA reboot character. DnA made him both younger (maybe it was Coipel's & Batista's art) and more thoughtful. I thought he was the most real, and had the greatest potential to be a continuing, interesting character. A funny thing is that he didn't really invent much during the DnA era - some big things, like the Kwai-assisted threshold technology - but a far cry from the Adventure era stream of wacky machinery. They kept the focus on big thinking, not tinkering.

It's always been the emotional aspects of the character that have captured me - the misfit/outcast, the genius whose intelligence doesn't always serve him well, who struggles for some connection with the people around him. By the end of the DnA's tenure, he had established a collaborative-friendship with Lyle and appeared to get on well with the others, while not going so far as to be one of the guys drinking in the bar with the gang. We also saw some aspects of this in the Champagne story (with Wildfire) and in Simone's arc (with Tasmia lighting into him).

TMK's Brainy was also emotionally interesting and reflective. He was older and colder ... but not a totally cold fish; there were indications that he'd been less tightly wound in earlier times with his teammates. I think he could have gotten over Andromeda and achieved some balance. The Rond-Laurel-Brainy triangle was getting into Jo-Tinya-Imra territory (boring), although it had more variation (and a worse ending).

Re: the current version, so far - interesting, but not likeable. Potential.

Yeah, me too. I can't really say much about the new Brainiac but there's a lot of potential for being a helluva good trouble maker there.

I really liked the B-5 version during Legion-On-the-Run. He was somewhat bitter about his past mistakes and emotionally withdrawn but as brilliant as ever. That guy had to struggle to overcome the damage Glorith did and it gave him a "weakness", something he was lacking throughout most of his history. I actually liked the 'old man' Brainy.

Somewhere between (3) and (4) for me, but I'm thinking especially of "LSH" v3 n30, a notable showcase for him, and one of my favorite Levitz issues.

"Brainy's Lucky Day!" had him despairing with his head in his hands on the cover, while surrounded by blackness. A classic Lightle cover in its own right. The events of the day inside (by LaRocque) had him:

~ Apologizing to Jeckie/Sensor Girl. How often, to anyone, did he do that?
~ Tossing off to Brin, "The only thing I know about moopsball is how to spell it."
~ Responding with a Legion team to an electrical glitch at Niagara Falls Hydro.
~ Giving Nura a chance to shine by her creatively using his force-field belt.
~ Going out on the town with Dawny and Dirk at a nightclub, and at least getting amused by it.
~ Serendipitously finding Dr. Chaseer -- rowrrr! -- a bit later that night.
~ Not, er, occupying his own bed that night! How often did he do that?!
~ Breaking down in tears when he is told that Rond Vidar has died. He almost never did THAT.

All with savoir-faire and good humor, even while not dropping his own over-focus on the life of the mind ... he wouldn't be Brainy if he did. Still, ten different emotions in a day. I knew he had it in him!

That's the Querl I like.

Brainiac 5, Brainiac 5.

Not a character I've ever really professed much love for, but probably one of the top 3-- if not THE-- most important characters to the Legion mythos/dynamic in general. A character that, if you removed him from the dynamic, would make for much poorer stories.

Brainiac 5 is vital to the Legion in all its incarnations.

And I'm totally digging the current Nura-knocking, Rokk-blocking, goat-herding, smart-assed, trouble-making Brainy as much as any of 'em!

Although I could have lived without Monkey-Loving Brainy.

I think I like Levitz era Brainy the best (all Levitz eras), but I have a soft spot for him in all carnations. I've always liked to see him develop friendships with certain Legionanires, whether Superboy or post-boot Lyle, since his gradual move away from being a 'cold, calculating computer mind' to a more 'human' man has endeared him to me.

The scene Brainy mentions where he learns that Rond died, as well as the scene in V3 where he stops for a second and takes a moment in front of Lyle Norg's gravestone on Shanghalla to remember his friend are some of his best ever. To see him that emotional, which was not like him but totally in character, always invoked some emotion in me.

These moments also made him more understandable in TMK/Legion on the Run as well.

This one for me. I love this particular characterization of him. He's a cold, logical bastard - on the surface - but has something softer lurking below.

My favorite Brainy moments:

Telling Duo Damsel she was one of the bravest Legionnaires.

Jumping in to help the traumatized White Witch after her rescue from Mordru, even though he was already swamped, with no questions asked.

Pining away for Supergirl/Laurel in several scenes and eras.

Off on that mission with Dawnstar where she falls in love with some guy who just shot her full of arrows.

I guess it's when Brainy shows his softer side while interacting with the Legion chicks that I like him the most.

That was probably one of my top 10 favorite Legion moments, and definitely one of my top 3 Brainiac 5 moments. It was especially perfect coming just at that point in his characterization.

He was also pretty cuddly and warm with Duo Damsel in Superboy #200 when he tells her her twin is gone for good, though he could've put it a little more gently.

I loved the DnA Brainy best. The socially awkward boy genius, probably a bit lonely, but unwilling (or perhaps unable) to reach out to others. Closest to a friend he had was probably Lyle, who he didn't always treat nicely, but Lyle liked him anyways. I couldn't help but love this version of the social outcast, because for the first time I could actually feel for him.

Of course, his secret love for Lyle didn't hurt

4 and 5. Levitz Brainy wondering if he is going mad cause he think Sensor Girl is Supergirl...later the scheming Brainy trying to kill the Time Trapper...cold and distant. And the TMK Brainy as well.

And I do like this current Brainy.

My favorite Brainy moment was: "You want to shine a lamp on beings who can move faster than light?"

I still laugh every time I read that.

Cuddly - but then he tells her that she can look forward to being a devoted wife. I wish she'd slugged him right then and there.

What issue was that "shine a lamp" quote from?

I did find that to be a fairly chauvanistic Brainy. "You shouldn't care about losing the other half of your self, now that you've fulfilled every woman's dream of snagging a husband."

Who knew Cary Bates was such a caveman?

Ha ha

That's right up there with the "Mordru was defaeted by girls" line from Shadow Lass's intro story.

I agree, especially when pencilled by Coipel he was fantastic. Capable of sckepticism but at the same time intelligent enough (as any 12th level person should be) to understand when an antisocial attitude or voicing strong opinions could have been counterproductive (as with Shikari in Lost), and capable of showing affection, even if in his peculiar way. The current brainy looks more like Vril dox to me, but can be interesting enough. Also the brainy of late V3, with the conspiration team at the end of time was interesting.