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| As a result of the New 52 in 2011, the entire line of DC characters was relaunched, incorporating properties belonging to the company's imprints: Wildstorm, Milestone, and Vertigo. As such, elements of this character's history have been altered in some way from the previous incarnation. For a complete list of all versions of this character, see our disambiguation page. |
The Brain was a disembodied brain who leads the Brotherhood of Evil.
History
Origin
The Brain was once a scientist named Ernst from New England. He experimented a normal gorilla named Mallah to increase his intelligence. The two formed a lasting friendship and Mallah grew to love him. Ernst also treated him like his assistant and taught him what he knew. After an explosion in his lab, Ernst was badly burnt and Mallah had to separate his brain which he managed to keep alive. Brain grew distrustful and paranoid of humans after this.[6][7]
The two started attacking humans whom they held responsible for their plight. Without any other organ however, Brain could only perceive objects in a numerical fashion. They decided to attack a LexCorp facility in Metropolis in order to retrieve a cybernetic optic nerve that could allow him to see everything again. During a standoff with the Special Crimes Unit, Captain Maggie Sawyer tried to resolve that peacefully and stated she wanted to help. Mallah trusted her due to her not showing fear, despite Brain telling him to kill her and told how the two came to be the way they are and what they're after. Maggie agreed to help them in exchange for their surrender.[7]
He was also at one point an acquaintance of Faye Gunn, with whom he was in a romantic relationship for a long while.[8]
Villainous adventures
Mallah and Brain banded under Grodd in Central City after the Rot took over the world. Buddy Baker, Black Orchid, John Constantine and Beast Boy were paralyzed by the mental attack of Grodd but Steel remained unaffected.[9] Mallah shot Steel on Brain's orders, allowing the Gorillas to overpower him. Baker was however able to break free of Grodd's mind attack because of The Red and knocked him out. Frankenstein's army soon arrived to rescue the others and stabbed Brain with a sword.[10] The Parliament of Decay allowed Baker and Swamp Thing to follow Anton Arcane back in time and they were able to change the future.[11]
Brain and Mallah came into conflict with the Teen Titans when they went after Metatroll93, whose sites had been made fun of Brain. Brain told Mallah to let it go as it was unimportant, but the latter got emotional and stated that he didn't care about his desire to defend his honor. Brain had to agree to keep him happy and took control of the troll's mind at his lair with a cortical grapnel.[12]
Brain also took control of Wonder Girl and had her attack Red Robin as part of his experiment to prove that there's no good or evil and had Mallah follow them when they crash landed in the zoo, despite his unease in such environments. Bunker and Beast Boy freed Wonder Girl from his control, while Brain had to flee after being confronted by Power Girl and Raven.[13]
Brain brought every zoo visitor and animal under his control, but his plans were spoilt by Raven. After being attacked by Wonder Girl, his thrusters stopped working but he was saved by Mallah who grew sick of him not treating respectfully while attacking the Teen Titans who brought out the best in each other. Raven teleported them to Dread Azarath, but promised to bring them back before it drove them crazy.[13]
Brotherhood of Evil
Mallah and Brain became members of Brotherhood of Evil, but were treated as a joke due to their repeated failures. Eventually the Brotherhood wilted down to only them two and they struggled in recruiting any new members. Mallah developed a drug called Bliss which allowed Brain to use the brains of others to greatly increase his cognitive levels.[14] As the drug spread on the streets, Intergang started producing a knockoff but their business was shut down by Arsenal and Cheshire, who retrieved the missing sample of the real Bliss they were using. Cheshire also scratched Arsenal with a small dosage of it to knock him out.[15]
The usage of Bliss by the people allowed Brain to manipulate weather and elements as he saw fit, while incapacitating the Justice League.[16] As he progressively achieved a higher level of cognizance, he became detached from all emotional relationships and became fixated on morphing the world as he saw fit. Arsenal however had found his location due to being given the weak dosage by Cheshire earlier and took down his robots with the help of the other Titans.[14]
Brain ordered Mallah to deal with the Titans himself as he saw it as a small nuisance. Mallah was defeated and realized he had stopped caring for him. He agreed to help the Titans, telling them about their plan and warned that if he achieved 100% cognitive ability, he would transcend physical form. Brain achieved enough power to warp reality as he saw fit and Mallah bid him a final goodbye, which distracted him and brought him out to check what was going on. This allowed Arsenal to put a stop to him to his scheme.[14]
Retirement
Brain eventually retired from his villainous career and went to see Faye about the ad she posted for hiring a teacher, but she didn't trust him due to his past villainous association with the Brotherhood of Evil.[8][1] He expressed pessimism about the Generation Outlaws, but was encouraged by her to know them better.[17]
He was imprisoned along with Mallah by Joker in an old fair ground around the time Batman Who Laughs started infecting people. There they were subjected to torture and Joker left their care in the hands of Lex Luthor after giving him the knowledge to defeat Batman Who Laughs.[18]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Robot Body: Lacking a physical body of his own, the Brain is confined to a mechanical dome that protects his only remaining biological component.
- Longevity
- Cybernetic Enhancement: His robot body usually has several weapons and gadgets attached.
- Psionic Shields[4]
- Mass Consciousness (Formerly): Through the mass production of a new designer drug called Bliss, the Brain had found a means of expanding his intellect beyond the superhuman norm by drawing on the remaining percentage space of the human brain that regularly goes unused. Through this, Brain could magnify his neural range and form a human cloud.[19]
- Hypergenius Intellect: Through the Human Cloud, the Brain's mind would expand, grow, and evolve a little bit at a time. Not only did this make him a little smarter the more he fed off of the increasing mental energies gathered, but he eventually learned to influence the universe and the forces of reality with his mind alone.[20]
- Weather Manipulation: By elevating his cognition levels, near achieving the stage one of the hypergenius state, Brain can easily manipulate global meteorological conditions.[20][19]
- Chronokinesis[21]
- Dimensional Manipulation[21]
- Reality Alteration[21]
- Technomorphing [19]
Abilities
- Gadgetry[4]
- Genius Level Intellect
- Leadership
- Mechanical Engineering: During World War II he created highly destructive war machines such as the Cyclone of Terror, the Flying Tank and the War Wheel.[2]
Weaknesses
- No Physical Body
- Vulnerability to Detachment: The more his mind and his power seemed to grow, the more distant and inhuman Brain became. As his knowledge grew beyond designated parameters, he slowly began shedding any emotional ties he had with the materialistic world.[21]
Paraphernalia
Weapons
- Cortical Grapnel[4]
Notes
- The Brain was created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, first appearing in Doom Patrol #86. However, in the Prime Earth continuity, The Brain first appeared as part of the New 52 DC Universe in Animal Man (Volume 2) #14 by Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh, and Timothy Green II.
Trivia
- Brain and his companion Monsieur Mallah are in a loving relationship.[3][19]
- According to Brain, Mallah feels jealous about anyone he was enamored with.[1]
Related
- 29 Appearances of Brain (Prime Earth)
- 9 Images featuring Brain (Prime Earth)
- 5 Quotations by or about Brain (Prime Earth)
- Character Gallery: Brain (Prime Earth)
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Red Hood: Outlaw #44
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Peacemaker Tries Hard! #5
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Young Monsters in Love #1
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Teen Titans (Volume 5) #21
- ↑ Peacemaker Tries Hard! #4
- ↑ Red Hood: Outlaw #43
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Young Monsters in Love #1
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Red Hood: Outlaw #43
- ↑ Animal Man (Volume 2) #14
- ↑ Animal Man (Volume 2) #15
- ↑ Animal Man (Volume 2) #18
- ↑ Teen Titans (Volume 5) #20
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Teen Titans (Volume 4) #21
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Titans Annual (Volume 3) #2
- ↑ Titans (Volume 3) #20
- ↑ Titans (Volume 3) #22
- ↑ Red Hood: Outlaw #45
- ↑ Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #2
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 Titans (Volume 3) #22
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Titans (Volume 3) #21
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Titans Annual (Volume 3) #1
  Doom Patrol Villain(s) |
 This character has been primarily an enemy of the Teen Titans, the Titans, or any of the other various Titans incarnations. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Titans Villains" category. |
 This character is or was primarily an enemy of Peacemaker. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Peacemaker Villains." |
 Brotherhood of Evil member |