Brain (comics)

Brain
Monsieur Mallah with the Brain, from the cover to Outsiders #37. Art by Daniel Acuña
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Doom Patrol #86 (May 1964)
Created by	Arnold Drake (writer) Bruno Premiani (artist)
In-story information
Team affiliations	Brotherhood of Evil Secret Society of Super Villains
Partnerships	Monsieur Mallah
Notable aliases	Ultimax
Abilities	Genius-level intellect Enhanced durability

The Brain is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as a frequent enemy of the Doom Patrol. He is a French mastermind and criminal genius.

Brain first appeared in Doom Patrol #86 and was created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani.

As a scientist, the man who would one day become known as the Brain performed experiments on animals to raise their intelligence. One of these was on a captured gorilla, raising its I.Q. to the genius-level of 178. He named the gorilla Monsieur Mallah and educated him for almost a decade before making him his personal assistant.

His colleague, Niles Caulder grew jealous of his work and arranged for the scientist to get caught in an explosion, which destroyed the scientist's body. Only the brain survived, which Caulder planned on putting into a robotic body.

Mallah rescued the scientist, taking his brain and transferring it to a computer network that kept it functioning (Caulder would later engineer another accident causing the racecar driver Cliff Steele to crash his car; Caulder then put Steele's brain in the artificial body originally meant for the scientist).

Now known simply as the Brain, the scientist and Mallah gathered together the criminal organization known as the Brotherhood of Evil in hopes of conquering the world and getting revenge on Caulder. Caulder, now known as the "Chief", through a series of other accidents that he was later shown to have manipulated, would form the superhero group known as the Doom Patrol (Caulder's involvement in the events which transformed the Doom Patrol, and the Brain, was retconned decades after the creation of the Doom Patrol and the Brain; originally the incidents were genuine accidents). Setting out to destroy the Chief's 'pets', the Brain, Mallah, and their Brotherhood became enemies of the Patrol. Their criminal activities would also pit them against the Teen Titans. One story saw the Brotherhood go against the newly-formed Justice League, with the Brain using a genetic splicer to take the Flash's legs, Green Lantern's ring- by taking the arm wearing it- Black Canary's vocal chords- and thus her sonic scream- and the Martian Manhunter's eyes. Despite using his stolen powers, the Brain was defeated during a confrontation with the League and the Doom Patrol- the League using cybernetic implants created by Niles Caulder to compensate for their lost powers- when Aquaman was thrown to the Brain and overpowered his control of the ring (Aquaman also noting that the Brain's overreliance on the ring meant that he overlooked use of the other abilities), allowing Aquaman to separate the Brain from his makeshift body and allow the League to undo what had been done.