Brainiac 5 questions

Was it ever confirmed that Brainiac 5 inherited his force field from Brainiac? As I recall, that force field was pretty strong. IIRC, in Brainiac's first appearance, Superman punched it as hard as he could and did zero damage.

Brainiac 5's primary super power was his super intelligence. Anything he created that helped him or other Legionnaires fight was more of less expected. In the short-lived Legion of Superheroes cartoon,he had a mech suit similar to Iron Man's armor that he would put on if he got caught in a fight. Has he ever created something like that in the comics?

Speaking of his force field belt, was it ever explained why he didn't make them available to other Legionnaires (I imagine the main reason was because no one thought about it). I imagine it could have been very useful to some of the team with less physical powers like Saturn Girl, Dream Girl and Princess Projectra.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Willis on June 6, 2022 at 7:00pm

Thanks, Luis. I'm sure I've never heard that explanation before.

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Permalink Reply by ClarkKent_DC on June 6, 2022 at 11:15pm

Luis Olavo de Moura Dantas said:

It was revealed early in Superman #167 (1964) that Brainiac 5 isn't a descendant of the original Brainiac, but of Brainiac 2 (later known as Vril Dox II), who was playing the role of Brainiac's son for a while in order to further Brainiac's goals.

A very short appearance, but it does state that Brainiac 2 and Brainiac 5 are related to each other, not to the original Brainiac.

Richard Willis said:

Thanks, Luis. I'm sure I've never heard that explanation before.

Superman #164 is the original origin story of Brainiac*, and it reveals that the robots who built Brainiac kidnapped a teenage kid to pose as his son. In his one-panel appearance, Brainiac II -- whose new name is indelibly marked onto his palm -- thinks to himself, "I won't be the son of an evil computer, even though he looks human! I'll run away, first chance ..." And in the first panel of the next page, Brainiac laments to his robot lords, "The boy who was to play my son ran away!" A caption gloats, "Yes, readers, now we know! Brainiac 5, of the Legion of Super-Heroes, who is a descendant of Brainiac II, is NOT descended from the first Brainiac at all!"

*Only in comics can you qualify "origin" with "original."