Plot summary: Brainiac arrives on Earth and Lex Luthor brokers an information exchange, but Superman quickly learns his fellow visitor from the stars is not to be trusted.

1. Notes and Trivia
2. Recap
3. Best Performance
4. Episode Ranking
5. Rogues Roundup

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 8 (S1.E8)

Original Air Date: November 2nd, 1996

Directed: Curt Geda (2)

Written: Rich Fogel (1)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (5)

Music: Michael McCuistion (2)

Alan Burnett changed Brainiac’s origin story for the show, so this episode is a bit of an homage to his traditional city/planet collection gimmick.

Superman’s Deep Space Suit was first seen in ‘Feeding Time’ next to the anti-Kryptonite suit.

Clark places the Kryptonian orb in what will later become The Fortress of Solitude.

Recap

Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen sneak otno a LexCorp site to document Luthor’s meeting with somebody “very important.” That somebody turns out to be freakin’ Brainiac, who welcomes Lex aboard his ship in exchange for data on Earth.

The Pentagon are deeply disturbed by this and tattle to Superman. Lex holds up under interrogation, claiming Brainiac will share remarkable technology with them.

Superman agrees to meet with Brainiac to vet the deal (remember he doesn’t know the truth!), and is immediately attacked by security robots as a ‘test’, which he passes.

Brainiac is impressed and shares a heavily abridged account of their mutual origin. Superman experiences visions of his father and home world. Brainiac offers more if he joins its expedition across the universe.

While sleeping on it, Kal experiences some flashes of the parts of Krypton’s downfall that Brainiac hid from him, so shares his concerns with Luthor ahead of a proposed direct link-up to the LexCorp mainframe.

Lex brushes it off as he has heavy weapons aimed at Brainiac’s ship should it betray them, but Superman returns to the memory centre and witnesses Brainiac’s destructive methods of data acquisition.

Sure enough Big B seizes control of LexCorp and shuts off control of the missiles. Superman confronts it and they brawl, severing the link-up… but also leaving the ship open to bombardment.

As the ship goes down Supes saves the memory orb containing Kryptonian data and safely escapes, leaving Brainiac to perish… but traces of Kryptonian code remain in the LexCorp servers.

Best Performance

A bit of a toss-up between the two villains, in classic BTAS fashion. Corey Burton’s role is more difficult, as he has to breath just a hint of emotion into Brainiac while keeping it cold overall. There needs to be a certain amount of staged warmth during the early deception, while never straying too far from Brainiac’s mechanical nature. Then Burton gets to do fun things like taunt Superman about Jor-El, who Brainiac clearly still holds a grudge against long after his death.

But Clancy Brown is simply too good, I’m afraid. He makes this powerless bald man feel like one of the most important people in the world, from his casual annoyance over an alien visitor being seconds late to a meeting, to his indifference when the government grill him about his deal with Brainiac. He bickers with Superman, he belittles his employees, and perhaps best of all he resigns himself to boredom once the whole thing is over, drawing attention to the ticking time bomb of Brainiac’s survival by not acknowledging it. Clever stuff. Plus all that anger he’s so good at.

“All of Metropolis is maniac… for Brainiac” is such a dumb line, but Lauren Tom delivers it exactly as requested and sells it well.

Episode Ranking

Yet another nice story that probably would have benefitted from being a two-parter given the magnitude of what is at stake.

Firstly, Brainiac is only humanity’s second ever alien contact, and the first where a UFO hovered in the atmosphere while deals are negotiated. Supes landed in the dead of night and only the Kents knew he existed for 20 years or so. Brainiac’s ship is comically large and while it is destroyed by missiles in the end, it clearly represents a huge military threat. A protracted battle demonstrating his power and the initial futility of the armed forces might have been a fun blowout at the end of the season. Lex may be Superman’s nemesis, but thus far Brainiac has been positioned as the looming ‘Final Boss’, and that warrants a grander send-off.

Secondly this is a colossally huge moment for Superman’s sense of identity as he not only meets his first fellow alien, but also experiences brief visions of his destroyed home. With more time I would have liked to have seen even more of these, as well as him unpacking his feelings about it all. A natural place to bring Lois in for more scenes! Heck, you could really sell the idea of Brainiac coming in peace if you have two parts to play with, ending the first with the reveal and devoting the entire second to Superman, Lex and the army teaming up to fight him.

These are just the reasons it isn’t in the top 2. It’s still a solid episode that grows their take on the mythos, and utilises that always effective dynamic with Lex as a third party with a more immediately dangerous villain, which works well in ‘Fun and Games’ and ‘The Way of All Flesh.’ The design work on the interior of Brainiac’s ship, his security measures and his various tech were all decent fun.

Tiny little detail, but I love the idea Clark chose an arctic cavern as the hiding spot for the Kryptonian orb not just because it’s remote and unlikely to be found by humanity, but also because he saw the ice caverns Jor-El worked in during the memory flashes. Cute!

1. Fun and Games
2. The Last Son of Krypton
3. Stolen Memories (NEW ENTRY)
4. The Way of All Flesh
5. A Little Piece of Home
6. Feeding Time

Rogues Roundup

Brainiac (Corey Burton) (third appearance)

My favourite thing about Brainiac is the juxtaposition between its cold mechanical programming and ruthlessness, and the more nuanced personality hidden underneath. It callously states that the various species it exterminated to obtain knowledge were just hurdles in the way of following its programming… but then gives a wry smile. Brainiac has also lied repeatedly since its debut, and while the opener frames this as a necessary deception because it would be illogical to share the truth with Krypton, it’s becoming clear Brainiac is just sneaky. It lets them tap into that unnerving lack of emotion that comes with robot-adjacent characters, while also being able to declare it a hypocrite at any time if it accuses fleshlings of being weak because they feel.

Speaking of being able to play in two lanes at once, Brainiac is at once really powerful and more expendable than the average villain. So it goes from firing lasers into Superman’s face and backhanding The Man of Steel like he’s nothing… to Supes caving its chest in thanks to the rules of censorship declaring robots to be fair game for rampant violence. Brainiac apparently perishes in the explosion of its ship when every villain so far has survived… but of course lives on as computer code. Its body is just a vessel; the AI is the actual character. So they really get to have their cake and eat it.

Finally, I got a real kick out of seeing Brainiac’s body pop open and contort as wires plug in here there and everywhere. You know, just in case you forgot it isn’t an organic being.

Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (fifth appearance)

While I don’t think he needs to be in every single episode, Lex is clearly a very different animal to The Joker, allowing them to deploy him more regularly as a chaotic third party alongside a villain Superman actually punches. We see plenty of that here as he made contact with Brainiac off-screen and is able to fend off a government inquiry to keep the ‘business deal’ with LexCorp.

That ability to smugly call his own shots and always get his way… only to inevitably see it all blow up in his face as he descends into an incandescent ball of rage has been satisfying literally every single time so far. He’s very smart! But he’s also dumb as a bag of rocks, because obviously the technologically advanced alien was going to seize control of his computer network and just turn off the missiles.

But I still think there’s another gear to hit so he can capture the top spot. Toyman had an incredibly strong gimmick that was executed to perfection.

1. Toyman
2. Lex Luthor (–)
3. Brainiac (↑)
4. Metallo
5. Parasite
6. Mercy Graves
7. Bruno Mannheim