Brainiac vs Darkseid: Who Would Win?
Comparing villains is something we often do here on Fiction Horizon, and we have decided to bring you one such comparison in today’s article. Today, we are staying within the boundaries of the DC Comics fictional universe, as we are going to compare two characters that are among the universe’s greatest villains. Both are aliens and both are megalomaniacs, but whereas Brainiac is a maniacal collector, Darkseid is a maniacal conqueror. Who would win in a clash between these two titans? Let us see!
Brainiac is a powerful cyborg and has a vast army at his disposal, but we don’t think that he would be able to defeat Darkseid, simply because Darkseid is, by himself, one of the most powerful DC Comics characters ever. Even in his avatar form, Darkseid would be able to defeat Brainiac, and in his True Form, Brainiac wouldn’t stand a chance.
Our comparison is going to be divided into three sections. The first is going to bring an overview of the two characters, after which we are going to compare their powers, including their signature weapons. Finally, we’re going to bring you a detailed analysis of the two characters to determine which one would win in a direct clash.
Brainiac and his powers
Brainiac is a comic book character created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, appearing in stories published by DC Comics. He is a supervillain whose real name is Vril Dox and usually appears as one of Superman’s worst enemies, who has more than once opposed his insane plans to conquer him. He is quite often an enemy of the Justice League.
In his first appearance, Brainiac is depicted as an extraterrestrial who has the hobby of preserving entire cities under glass after having reduced their size with a ray of his own invention: among his most famous victims we can mention the city of Kandor, originally from the planet Krypton, shrunk and bottled with its seven million inhabitants.
Later, through a retcon, it will be explained that in reality, Brainiac is a very sophisticated android created on the planet Colu, where all the inhabitants have an intelligence superior to that of the terrestrials. After years of pacifism, the Coluans will build computers with a tenth level of intelligence, which in a very short time will conquer the planet making the Coluans mindless slaves; wanting to increase their power the Computer Tyrants will build a spy android, or Brainiac.
Defeated by Superman after attempting to shrink Metropolis, Brainiac will clash numerous times with the Kryptonian, eventually allying himself with Superman’s other great enemy, Lex Luthor. It will be Luthor himself to discover that there was the potential to reach the twelfth level of intelligence in the circuits of Brainiac.
Luthor will help his ally, but will insert a sort of switch in Brainiac’s brain that left the robot completely at the mercy of the earthling. Later, Vril Dox will lead a crusade to free Colu from the Computer Tyrants and the Brainiac dynasty will radically change his life by giving itself to good. This change will be maintained until the 31st century, when a young Coluan named Querl Dox joins the Legion of Super-Heroes under the name of Brainiac 5.
After his old body is destroyed following the explosion of a nova, Brainiac will build a new body in the form of a metal skeleton and a huge space shuttle in the shape of a skull.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Brainiac’s story was changed: the scientist Vril Dox was destroyed by the Computer Tyrants of his planet and his mind travels through space until he finds a magician with latent telekinetic powers called Milton Fine, whose nickname was in fact “Brainiac”.
After mutating his human body into an almost entirely Coluan one, Brainiac will hypnotize the heroines Maxima and Supergirl and take possession of the war machine known as the Planet of War and use it to attack Earth. He will be stopped by Superman and his allies, thus ending up in a kind of psychic coma.
After Superman’s apparent death, Brainiac will awaken from his coma and proceed to undermine the confidence of the Man of Steel’s friends and allies in Superman’s resurrection.
Darkseid and his powers
Darkseid is a fictional character appearing in stories published by DC Comics. He was created by the legendary Jack Kirby and made his full debut in Forever People #1 (1971), after having had a cameo in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 (1970).
Darkseid is a supervillain in the DC Universe and is usually depicted as the greatest supervillain in the whole franchise. He is one of the New Gods and the merciless ruler of the planet Apokolips. Darkseid’s chief plan is to erase every being with free will in the universe and then reshape the whole universe in accordance with his principles, which is why he often clashes with DC’s superheroes, including the Justice League.
Darkseid was born as Prince Uxas as the son of King Yuga Khan and Queen Heggra of Apokolips. He was the second in line for the throne of Apokolips, after his brother Drax (a.k.a. Infinity-Man). At one point, when Drax tried to claim the famous, yet powerful Omega Force, Uxas killed him and claimed the force himself as part of his plot to take over the planet. The Omega Force transformed Uxas into a rock-like creature, which is when he took the name Darkseid. Not long after these events, Darkseid had his mother poisoned and became the sole ruler of Apokolips.
His early reign is mostly remembered for the destructive and seemingly endless war with the neighbouring planet of New Genesis, where the good New Gods reside. Led by Darkseid’s brother Highfather, the gods of New Genesis fought Darkseid and wanted to stop his evil plans. The war was actually stopped through intense diplomatic efforts made by Darkseid’s son Scott Free (Mister Miracle) and Highfather’s son Orion; in truth, the two children were switched in early childhood, so Orion is in actuality Darkseid’s son, and Scott Free is Highfather’s son.
Darkseid is usually depicted as the biggest supervillain in DC’s Multiverse, although there are more powerful cosmic entities inhabiting the Multiverse. He turned Apokolips into a hell pit and made a plan to conquer the whole universe and submit every sentient being with free will to his own vision of a Darkseid-ruled universe. He traveled the universe, conquering and destroying planets and then terraforming them so that they resemble the hell pit he created on his home planet.
He played a role in several major DC Comics storylines, the most notable among them being Final Crisis and The Darkseid War. In Final Crisis, Darkseid is seemingly killed by Orion at the beginning of the story, but his life essence survived and traveled to Earth, where he took on a human form (“Boss Dark Side”) until returning to his original body.
Using the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid threatened the whole universe and was eventually confronted by the Justice League. He was shot and mortally wounded by Batman using a Radion bullet (the same one that killed Orion, since Radion is Darkseid’s Kryptonite) and finally “killed” by the combined effort of the two Flashes, Wonder Woman and Superman; Batman was hit by Darkseid’s Omega Beam and was sent back in time, finally returning after a long time traveling experience.
In The Darkseid War, Darkseid had to fight the Anti-Monitor, another evil cosmic entity from the DC Universe, and was eventually killed by him. This event had serious consequences for the evolution of future stories. In Scott Snyder’s Metal series, he appears as a baby.
Darkseid has appeared in a lot of derivative material, do to him being one of the strongest villains in the DC Universe and one of the most popular. He has appeared in several animated movies (he played a key role in the DCAU movie franchise), several video games (most notably Injustice and the LEGO Batman series) and is set to appear in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, where he will be played and voiced by Ray Porter.
Comparing the powers of Brainiac and Darkseid
Our second section will contain a comparison of the two characters’ powers. It won’t be a direct comparison as much as a listing of their powers abilities, which is going to serve as a basis for our analysis in section three of our article. Now, let us begin.
Brainiac’s most consistent power (specific to all versions) is his “twelfth level intellect”, which enables computational skills, enhanced memory, and advanced understanding of mechanical engineering, bioengineering, physics, and other theoretical and applied sciences, as well as broad knowledge of various alien technologies.
By way of comparison, the population of the 20th century Earth as a whole constitutes a sixth-level intelligence and the Earth’s population of the 31st century as a whole is a ninth-level intelligence. His post-crisis incarnation claims that his brain can process and classify the knowledge of more than four hundred and ninety-eight million (490 × 10 57), which is a huge number, roughly five billion times the estimated number of atoms in the brain.
The character has created devices such as a force field belt capable of withstanding Superman’s most powerful blows, and a contracting beam capable of reducing cities. All versions of him are also technopathic.
Brainiac’s advanced mental powers have shown him capable of possessing others, absorbing information from other beings, transferring his consciousness, creating and manipulating computer systems, replicating multiple versions of himself, and wielding powers to traverse or control space and space. weather.
Among organic beings, Brainiac sees only his frequent companion Lex Luthor as an intellectual equal. Brainiac is generally depicted as having an incredibly high degree of super strength and durability; the exact level varies, but is generally around Superman’s strength. Brainiac’s exact abilities vary drastically throughout the various incarnations of him.
Darkseid, on the other hand, is not just a god-like being, he is a god. One of the New Gods, to be precise. Although being humanoid, New Gods (something like the Eternals in Marvel’s universe, but a tad more powerful) are exceptionally powerful, with Darkseid being the most powerful among the group.
He has superhuman strength and stamina, and his regeneration skills, combined with his nigh invulnerability make him practically immortal; Darkseid has died on several occasions, but it was never permanent. He also gained the power of the Omega Force, which made him a lot stronger than before.
Thanks to the force, he can fire Omega Beams, beams of energy that can destroy matter in a second (although some cosmic entities like Doomsday or Superman are immune to it). He also has cosmic awareness, he can travel through dimensions and space (he can create Boomtubes at will, without the need for a Mother Box), he can alter his size, and has psionic abilities (telekinesis, telepathy).
Thanks to the Omega Force, he can also resurrect the dead. If needed, he can also feed on the energy of Apokolips and other planets, much similar to Galactus.
A brief insight into their powers reveals that both are extremely powerful and that we won’t have an overly simple job in our next section.
Brainiac vs Darkseid: Who would win?
And now for the most important and interesting section of our article – the analysis. Here, we are going to use what we have found out about these two characters and analyze how all these facts would (or would not) help them in a fight against each other. We do know that Brainiac and Darkseid are extremely powerful, both of them, but they are also quite different characters, which made this analysis interesting. Let us continue.
In terms of sheer power, Darkseid clearly defeats Brainiac. Okay, sure, Brainiac is very strong, he is a cyborg and has control over machines; in addition to that, his army is bigger in number than Darkseids, and this seemingly gives Brainiac an advantage. But Darkseid is enormously strong, even without using his energy manipulation powers or his Omega Beams. He could easily deal with Brainiac’s army and while Brainiac’s technopathy might harm Darkseid in some way, it wouldn’t really deal any permanent damage, as Darkseid is just too powerful.
Brainiac’s forte is his intelligence, the so-called 12th-level intelligence, which makes him superior to Darkseid in that aspect. Still, Darkseid is a brilliant tactician with a lot of experience and despite not being on the same level as Brainiac, he would certainly pose a challenge for the cyborg supervillain. So, while Brainiac would need to come up with a new approach, Darkseid would just use his power to deal the necessary blows.
It’s quite clear that Darkseid could, with relative ease, overpower Brainiac even in his avatar form. This, in turn, means that Darkseid’s True Form would absolutely demolish Brainiac, leaving him with absolutely no chance for a win in such a battle.
And that’s it for today. We hope you had fun reading this and that we helped solve this dilemma for you. If you would like to see how Darkseid fared against Galactus or Thanos, check our articles. See you next time and don’t forget to follow us!
