Things which are awesome (part eight) - an unpopular fannish opinion.

[odditycollector]

 

Brainiac 4 is awesome.

No, no, hear me out. The reason you are rolling your eyes is because she was part of a bad, *messy* storyline that is probably better forgotten. But the character herself had all sorts of potential.

For one thing, she's a villain with a motivation I totally believe… well, at least once I'm willing to step away from a necessarily human perspective.

 
So you want to be a Brainiac. Here is what you need to know:

1. Objectively, you are better than everyone else.
2. The universe is a near perfect closed experimental system, made just for your convenience.
3. Purple will nicely set off that manic glint in your eyes.
4. A bit of family history wouldn't hurt.


Basically, they're smarter than just about everyone else, but tend to think like computer programs. This is both an advantage and a weakness, and it means that, once they've decided on a goal, there isn't much that will distract them from it. And cost rarely factors in.

(Witness Vril II's efforts to make the galaxy a better place, no matter how many *worlds* get in his way. Or, when everyone's favourite green legionnaire vanishes into his lab for a few weeks, you'd better just *hope* he's simply working on illicit time travel devices again…)



Anyway. From the fact that her father and her son were born about a thousand years apart, I'd guess Brainiac 4 is at least a few hundred years old. She's spent those centuries doing science-type stuff for the betterment of her homeworld, but one day she thinks that she's bored with her existence. There must be more to life, and possibly the answer is in these "emotions" she has so far had no reason to investigate personally.

(That she lacks for personal growth should surprise no one. You know you're doomed when the most emotionally stable one in the family is *Querl Dox*… who only tries to destroy the universe occasionally! And usually by accident!)

So she sets out to interact with the universe on an emotional level, diverting to this task the cold, calculative logic that has served her so well in life. She probably tries a few things known to stimulate emotional response, to no avail, and then decides to have a kid, in case she has some dormant maternal instinct.

And… nope!

That attempt a failure, she next does something which is apparently so unthinkable that a race of information-obsessed compulsives erase every mention of it – and her – from their planetary knowledge banks, presumably so that it *remains* unthinkable. I'm willing to entertain guesses on what it could have been, and also on the ultimate fate of any other people who were involved… and survived *her*.

Then she leaves the planet, going out to deal with the universe directly.

Now, when next we're going to pay attention, she's flouncing around in a dramatic purple cape, on the cusp of a successful endeavor to bring down the United Planets. (And presenting herself to outsiders via hologram of a male of her species. Cross dressing = = another fine Dox tradition.)

What a surprise, right? Twelfth level intelligence brings together intricate plot?

Yawn.

So she decides to sabotage her great plan and kill all her minions instead! That ought to be worth some emo points!



She isn't, you know, so long as you understand the premises she's working with. That's *why* she's scary.



Boom.



"That's it! I will become a mass murderer!"

"But first, I must reunite with the child I abandoned to institutionalism as an infant!"



But this Hallmark moment quickly grows tedious, so she decides to torture her long lost son to death instead. Mega-emo points! One might suggest this could be even more affecting had she spent a while bonding with him first, but then she would disintegrate them for questioning her logic, so I'll refrain. She seems to be having enough fun anyway.



She offers him a monologue summarizing the pertinent events in her life. Which is, if you think about it, rather a sweet gesture. She never explained herself to the underlings she crushed, after all. Sure, she'll still kill the kid painfully, but she won't let him die *ignorant*!

(Look, if you were a Coluan, you'd totally be going "Aww" right now.)



Green complexions go really well with manic glee, I feel.

And then she's taken down by a variable she hadn't accounted for, subdued and contained.



And never heard from again.

 

A long time ago, in the roughly present-day DCU, Vril Dox II promised the soul of one of his descendants to a demon. Therefore, many people have decided that the reason B4 is such an unpleasant personality is that the curse obviously fell onto her.

That is the most boring answer possible! She needs no further excuse to be evil. You could even argue she's not actually evil, if you like – doing evil is just an irrelevant product of her quest.

And later, after she's done documenting the cause and effect of emotions on her thought patterns, she'll probably find a new project to distract herself with. Stable trans-dimensional wormholes or the problem of Krypton or the meaning of life. (Or, if we're very unlucky, unpleasant diseases.) Brainiacs don't do aimless *well*.

I'm kinda sad the character was utterly wasted and then wiped from existence. She could have been such fun.

 

As a bonus:

After the above events, Brainy daydreams about his mom baking him a pie, while she wears something that looks suspiciously like one of the neural inhibitor chokers we're always seeing in X-men. Glad to see you've dealt with the trauma in a healthy manner, Brainy!



Mmmm. A pie!

 

Comments

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Is this from LEGION-with-dots, or what? Wow, mommy issues.

Brainy's psychiatrist is named Riker Ryk'rr and it makes me giggle.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Post-boot Legion-without-dots, actually.

Wow, mommy issues.
And this is *after* I left out Brainy's giant semi-textual Oedipus complex, due to not being relevant.

So, yes. Just a little.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Also, I was slow to get why that is funny.

*also giggles, belatedly, before turning in Trek cred*

[skalja.livejournal.com]

I hated the whole Dark Circle plot, but I loved the actual reunion between Brainiac 4 and Brainy. But then, I like it when my favorite characters get tortured and traumatized.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I like it when my favorite characters get tortured and traumatized.

*snort* From what I can tell, this seems to be a *requirement* among Brainy fans. (H/C! Now with less C!)

[brownbetty]

Well, you've totally convinced me.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Success!

[caia-comica.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thank you for reminding me of this storyline, without requiring me to actually reread it. Mmmm, Doxes.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Well, I took out all the bits that make sense, so.

Mmmm, Doxes.
I dunno. I think the universe would be happier if there was some sort of fundamental law of physics keeping there from ever being more than one in the same place at the same time. Bad Things Happen.