Hank McCoy (Before the Fur)

Saw the Man of Steel teaser this weekend. And it’s getting me pretty stoked.

It got me thinking though. The villain I’ve always wanted to see in a Superman flick? Brainiac.

Of course Lex will be the big bad lurking in the background, but I’m ready to see somebody who can really tangle with Superman-physically-to hit the big screen. I think Brainiac could be perfect for this.

Kevin Smith already caught on to this notion a few years back and, apparently, there’s a script he wrote floating around out there, somewhere, that features Brainiac.

I guess the biggest problem with using this villain is sort of figuring out how to use him. DC is a little notorious for this, but I think Brainiac has had more re-writes than all of their characters combined! So here’s just a few elements that they COULD draw from if my favorite big-headed-robot made an appearance:

1. Kandor and shrinking cities

This would be really, REALLY whacked out but it would be interesting. Over the years, Brainiac's origin and the circumstances that led him to shrink an entire city of Kryptonians (actually preserving them from the tragedy that befalls Krypton) have changed. Sometimes Brainiac is just on some rampaging quest as a criminal to accumulate power this way, other times he’s been written as having a closer connection to Krypton and Superman’s father, Jor-El (I think that’s Bruce Timm style, which I’m a fan of, by the way).

Whatever the case a movie featuring Brainiac as the destroyer/preserver of entire worlds (a la shrinkage and containment) could actually be SCARY instead of silly if it was done well.


2. Free floating consciousness

Sometimes Brainiac has just sort of been a…mind. With his physical body eviscerated in the distant past, Brainiac’s consciousness floated through all of time and space and finally ‘inhabitated’ the body of a carnival circus performer: Milton Fine.

In this case, Brainiac is really all about the mental powers. He dominates other people and Fine is just the unfortunate conduit Brainiac steps through. This would make him really bizarre and ghost-like, specially if Fine just started sprouting out strange, alien nonsense one day.


3. A robot with a big-@$$ head

Probably the most memoriable version of Brianiac was the big silver, action-figure like robot that you always saw Superman batting around as a kid. Completely inhuman and emotionless, this version of Brainiac has Terminator written all over it.

He tends to spread like a virus into any surrounding technology, making him a pretty serious threat. And he comes replete with a huge, head-shaped spaceship to float around in. So Superman literally would have to tangle with Brainiac’s dome piece. I would dig the utter surrealness of this.


4. Time travel and evolution

Like I said, this is Terminator kind of stuff. But I always thought Brainiac 13 was scary. The idea that this guy is going to just keep evolving and getting stronger EVERY TIME Superman beats him. Eventually, he would concoct plans that even incorporate time travel into his plans to destroy Kal-El and dominate the world.

Both options would make for a pretty frickin’ awesome movie. How disturbing would it be if after a few rounds of beating Brainiac’s head in, Mark 13 steps out of a portal to give his younger ‘self’ tips on how to destroy the Man of Steel?

With a name like ‘Man of Steel’, I think they’d be crazy to not let Superman tangle with a robotic version of Brainiac in one form or another. Maybe not this movie, maybe not the next, but sooner or later, he’s bound to make an appearance. It’s all just a question of how they’ll do it, I’m thinking.