A brain for the Brain. Truly lives up to his vicious namesake.
| “ | Captain Marvel: You're not taking my brain! Brain: S'il vous plait, capitan, do not struggle. Brain extraction is largely painless, but the benefits are enormous. Just look what it has done for me. |
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| ~ I'm pretty sure a more experienced professional neurosurgeon would confirm that neurosurgery while still awake is likely to be crucially painful. |
Back with another one from Young Justice. I'll make this quick, lately I've been on an series of emotional circumstances and lack of activity in my best interests, it's something I often struggle when the stress kicks in out of nowhere, and to refresh my mind over micromanagment in my works here and real-life stuff, I've decided to go for some candidates I haven't gotten around much in some works I am familiar with. And Young Justice is one of them that has someone I could discuss about or two more on the way.
Who here remembers the Brain, the diabolic mastermind in the body of, well, a literal mind who froze up most of the titans and their allies and hatched a black-hole generated plot that sees countless cities consumed? Well, years go by but we're about to have a second round with him as this version of the Brain specializes in animal cruelty taken to maximum effort, as well as being one of the Light's biggest contributors of their schemes. To begin today's topic, of course, it's only fair to get about discussing the Young Justice version of the Brain.
What's the Work?[]
Young Justice is the 2010 DC superhero animated series part of the DC Animated Media's family, created by Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman. The series is known from going from one production to another and often has titles to each respective season, hauling from Invasion, Outsiders, and Phantoms.
The story focuses on a young team of superhero trainees and sidekicks alike under the mentorship of the Justice League performing covert operations and taking on a mysterious, villainous group known as "The Light". As the series progress further, recent recruits would join in while they go on about their usual teen lives outside their group and at best, dealing with their issues and encounter far bigger threats than they could ever handle despite their state.
Who is He? What has He Done?[]
The Brain is one of the members of the Light and serves as their signature evil genius who contributed in their previous machinations, including having his own fair share. He also specializes in unethical experiments involving animals.
Depending on where he first joined the Light, the Brain started out as a human scientist who led a group of robotic troops and scientists, alongside an elderly woman named Delores Winters, where they started setting up a laboratory base in Bwunda two years ago. Their first experimentation involved neurosurgery procedures onto primates, already having operated on their first victim-turned-soon to be Brain's loyalist, Monsieur Mallah and had him turn against his own kind, which during the hunt against his former fellow apes, killed an albino gorilla named Tolifhar. The albino gorilla's corpse would eventually be used to transfer Winters' brain onto the body, thus giving birth to the Ultra-Humanite. Soon, the only human scientist remaining would eventually become the Brain himself after transferring his brain, literally, onto a mobile robotic drone.
All's Monke business until the Brain stepped in, and the countless procedures are far beyond cruel. Though Brain believed it was wise to take the primate offspring hostage later on, low-blow right there.
Upon naming their secret labs, "Gorilla City", out of simple mockery, the Brain continued building more caverns to make secret labs out of while capturing and experimenting on countless gorillas, granting them intelligence and sapience under incredibly unethical conditions where their pain prolonged. They were forced to wear inhibitor collars and at some point, they were injected with the Brain's own supply of Kobra-Venom, one of which he had concocted into a much strongly enhanced formula via reverse-engineering of his own to mutate the gorillas more painfully. Thus, causing the following gorillas to further grow and enlarge their physical strength, but also gave them the ability to make telepathic communication. It was then one of them, Gorilla Grodd, was born, followed by more pacifistic ones such as Solovar, Boka, and Primat being the most noted test subjects.
During his participation in the Light's schemes while being in the shadows with them overseeing results, they and Sportsmaster - one of their personal enforcers - were the suppliers behind Kobra's shipment operations to the Kobra-Venom in an attempt to perfect it to one-up the Justice League, only then would the Team infiltrate their base and thwart the shipments. When Sportsmaster was only able to recover a single vial, the Brain vouched on the idea of reverse-engineering the only ampoule of Kobra-Venom, as previously mentioned above using the gorillas as the test batch. Later on, the Brain would be in charge of assembling and collecting the necessary pieces needed from STAR Labs and Wayne Tech weaponry databases to attempting to acquire a gigantic superorganism we all know as Starro. For the meantime, the Brain had business elsewhere with callously tampering with mother nature and its inhabitance.
Currently located at a jungle in Northern India, he hoarded dozens of animals (alligators, elephants, vultures, tigers, wolves, and baboons) to use Kobra-Venom onto them and mutated their bodies, accompanied with strapping inhibitor collars (collars that forcibly repressed all movement and speech) onto them. The Brain would often allow Monsieur Mallah and the rest of the Kobra-Venom infected animals to kickstart a series of vicious incidents where they attacked nearby hunters, the latest being the Mayor of Gotham City, with several implications that several died during these attacks from the animals and Mallah who led them. Eventually, Batman sent the Team and Captain Marvel to investigate the cause until they were ambushed by the animals. Once Aqualad discovered breaking their collars off to free them, which worked on the two Kobra-Venom elephants, Captain Marvel found himself captured into a trap when he tried to help a collared Tiger later named Mr. Tawny.
Taken into Brain's lair, the Brain himself would prepare to vivisect his brain out of him in the most painful procedure possible just to get a glimpse of the Wisdom of Solomon. Unfortunately, at the time the Team infiltrate his lair to rescue Captain Marvel, Mr. Tawny tries to save the latter, only to be shocked heavily by an enraged Brain. Though as the Team managed to get it, the Brain sets up another immobile trap for them, only for Miss Martian to disclose the trap. Surrounded by the teens, the Brain pulls off making it look like he was about to go "beast mode" all over them by activating his "secret weapon", only to reveal he manipulated the lights to give enough time for him and Mallah to escape in mere seconds.
Big Brain move on answering all of the above, simply choosing one over the rest wouldn't satiate his curiosity.
A few days since their departure and confrontation, the Brain resumed his Kobra-Venom operations in Bwunda once more after his previous settlements there. This time, he's continuing where he left off with his previous experiment on vivisecting and experimenting on gorillas once again, now taking their infant apes hostage for Gorilla Grodd and his troopers to be given no other choice but to further pledged obedience, otherwise their infants' lives will forfeit, as in, mass animal infanticide. When the Young Justice arrived, the Brain had them set up with dealing against Gorilla Grodd and the rest of the gorilla troopers, where they are outmatched and forcibly put inhibitor collars around their necks, with only Miss Martian surviving the ordeal with Grodd, Solovar, and the rest requesting for her help. It was after she freed the captive infant apes, the Brain oversaw the rest of the Team hooked up in restraints and made clear intentions to vivisect their brains out or infect them with Kobra-Venom, before nonchalantly choosing all of the above.
Unfortunately, Robin was able to break himself free and cause a distraction which nearly jeopardized the original outcome of the plan Miss Martian and the apes originally strategized until all hell broke loose as the Team and the rebelling ape troopers go up against the Brain and his forces. Overwhelmed by the numbers, the Brain pulled off his lab's self-destruct sequence in an attempt to get rid of not just the young heroes, but also a majority of the gorilla troopers upon discovering their telepathic abilities in merely five minutes, which the teens and the gorillas managed to escape this time, only for the Brain and the Ultra-Humanite to make a quick getaway with their regular operations taken elsewhere but somewhat left in hiatus for now.
In one of the Light's latest machinations, the Brain's Kobra-Venom would later be used in mutating plants to become sentient creatures that attacked Metropolis, endangering the city's population, where the plant attacks were led by Count Vertigo and the Injustice League (also consisting of the infamous Joker controlling the plant creatures and his partnered associated, Ultra-Humanite), all being a test and a ruse to let the proxy group take fall for the Light's actions and strive away anything remotely connected back to their ongoing operations at hand. With Metropolis only being the beginning of the tested Kobra-Venom effects, the plant attacks soon followed to Gotham City, Paris, Taipei, and Star City, further endangering thousands to millions more as it goes, which the attack on Star City oversaw a plant creature endangering a school bus full of children and nearly destroying a drawbridge, another one tangling the Eiffel Tower with dozens of tourists inside, and another nearly blowing up a power plant in Taipei, which could've risked an explosion near the population.
It was only for awhile that the Team took care of the main source until they were taken captivity by the Injustice League, which later things went south as soon as they were freed by Robin and Miss Martian, followed by Aqualad using Doctor Fate's helmet as Plan B. Shortly once the Injustice League were arrested for their plant attacks, the Brain is seen with the rest of the Light observing the aftermath and Vandal crediting how the plant-creatures can be used as potential weapons in the future, even managing to trick the Justice League into thinking they've taken down the "Secret Society", as they further delved onto their operations' progress.
To find a sample of Starro's remains, the Brain requested Klarion the Witch Boy to begin casting a spell on Roanoke Island through the Ambre Jeune Perdu gemstone with the help of four other sorcerers to create mirror worlds that separated the adult and child populations into two worlds. Due to this, it would cause confusion and distress for the children who are put in harm's way through incoming mobile vehicles that nearly endangered them, including any child younger than an infant as best shown from Superboy saving a toddler, to where children around the globe lacked supervision from guardian adults or their parents. That also includes the worrying parents in the other mirror world where they started a riot on STAR labs out of concern for their missing children. Due to Captain Marvel switching from adult to Billy Batson, he was able to warn both the Justice League and the Team of the current situations.
As both leagues tried to respectively put a stop to the commotion caused by Klarion and his sorcerer allies, it proven inevitable for the Team to take on Klarion alone to where Zatanna made a risky decision to don Doctor Fate's helmet and become the latter to take on one of the Lords of Chaos. While being able to destroy the gem and revert both worlds into one once Klarion and his familiar escaped, Doctor Fate refused to be laid off of a perfect host second times a charm until Zatara pleaded to be his host instead for Zatanna to live her life, thus making a big sacrifice for his daughter's sake as he dons the helmet and becomes Doctor Fate. During the aftermath of the tragic incident, the Brain is seen with the rest of the Light, thanking Klarion for his efforts that gave the Riddler and Sportsmaster time to retrieve a sample of Starro. Which the Brain begins conducting and inventing the very Starro-Tech devices.
Ordering Sportsmaster to take in Professor Anthony Ivo, he had the professor aid the Brain and Klarion into conducting experimental procedures to create Starro-Tech and amplify its functions with magic, and after completing it, Artemis came close to apprehending the group until Klarion helped making their escape and vanish via ice sculptures. On the day of the Justice League's new additions to the team, the Starro-Tech's bio-circuit chips would soon begin activation that placed all members of the Justice League to be controlled under Vandal Savage's word after a Cadmus clone of Red Arrow attach several onto them, leading them to attack the Team for interfering and begin using them as his personal "pawns" at his disposal. Unfortunately, with the Team managing to create a reverse-engineered program of the bio-circuit chips, managed to free the Justice League from Vandal's control, which led to him and Klarion escaping with the following members absent; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl, since the last sixteen hours. Meanwhile, the Brain is last seen helping the rest acquiring the Cadmus project clones, including the original Speedy.
Years later, during Rimbor's trial against the Justice League's founding members upon attacking their planet and a number of certain events thanks to his and the Light's contrivances such as the Krolotean Invasion and the Reach's catastrophic machinations by Black Beetle's hand, the Brain is last seen following the Light within a caverns to meet with the Reach. Though under surprising circumstances, an ambush created by Aqualad sees both the Light and the Reach's true motives exposed to each other and possibly outside the summit, which the Team infiltrated the caverns to put a stop to both until the Brain summoned reinforcements to kill them, which even consists of other Team members in disguise. While it gave time for Vandal to escape, the Brain was still apprehended and dismantled of all arsenal by Impulse (the new Kid Flash) alongside his right-hand Mallah and the Ambassador of the Reach. We never saw good ol' Brainy again after this.
Heinous Standards[]
Young Justice doesn't shoo away the fact that they have plenty of catastrophic threats, followed by mass murderers, torturers with a majority of them being scientists performing under unethical practices, and metahuman traffickers who sold and tortured children. We shouldn't even be surprised by the amount at this point, especially since the Ocean-Master, one of my approved candidates, had the unique niche of starting a civil-race war to wipe out all Non-Atlantean life and his cruel touches of attempted kills against pregnant women, children, and babies, but who else then to torture his own pregnant sister-in-law just to get hold of her power.
The Brain, on his own turf, has his fair share of heinousness and stands out for several reasons I could point out. You see, as the local scientist of the Light and one of their most brilliant-minded technicians, the Brain is resourceful on being just a jar with a living brain attached to communication with several experimental equipment and laboratories at hand, as well as a private army of enslaved sapient animals he solely experimented on, while not having much on authorial leadership like Vandal Savage or a powerful being like Klarion in the Light. What the Brain does in resources alone, he makes up for being more than sticking to his role where he goes beyond being a cog in the Light's fruition of machinations and schemes.
He truly lives up to being the "Brains" for the Light's schemes besides Vandal and Luthor. Their first previous operations would've made it this far without his help.
He is held culpable for several of the Light's machinations where he played a crucial role in how it came to be. For starters, the Brain contributed to reverse-engineering Kobra-Venom for the Light's own uses (especially his own) against the Justice League by amplifying it to be ten times efficient but twenty times worse when it comes to the effect, the mutation process isn't so pretty when it oversees the test subjects' soft tissue being exposed when enlarged in an utmost painful procedure. He also contributes to the global Kobra-Venom plant creature attacks that oversaw endangering five cities; Metropolis, Gotham, Star City, Paris, and Taipei by endorsing the Injustice League to use his serum to mutate the plants while being the one behind Klarion's scheme of separating the adult and child populations into two separate mirror worlds. Because of these two incidents, the Brain's Kobra-Venom would be approved utmost sufficiently vital to Vandal's plans and the Light's operations as a whole, while thanks to dispatching Klarion's adult-child global separation, Brain was able to acquire a piece of Starro to build Starro-Tech, which are used as brainwashing devices to use against the Justice League.
Thanks to his efforts that greatly contribute to the Light's schemes, the Brain is just as guilty with his enhanced Kobra-Venom being the source of the Injustice League's plant-creature attacks that endangered millions on five cities total; some of which escalated to putting a bus full of children in harm's way, nearly causing a nuclear power plant explosion, and tourists tangled to near-death inside the Eiffel Tower, including the adult-child separation by Klarion that left millions of children unsupervised with potential harm coming right at them and the parents left worrying over their children's whereabouts that stirred a riot in STAR Labs, soon leading to Zatanna being forced to wear Doctor Fate's helmet and Zatara sacrificing himself to become Fate's donned host. He's even indirectly but equally responsible for the Justice League being put under trial by the Rimbor and causing them to attack their planet thanks to his Starro-Tech under Vandal's command, thus setting off the events with Black Beetle and the Reach's actions against Earth and the metahuman child abductions by other alien races.
As far as it concerns with Vandal being the mastermind behind every outcome of the Light's machination and calling the shots while plotting the next move, chances of this during their first operations would've been made possible if it wasn't without the Brain's assistance to those odds. Meaning the Brain's contributions are given more weight and hold partial importance than simply being behind the scenes or merely following orders since he is the one who improved the Kobra-Venom formula, the inventor of Starro-Tech, and improvising two of the biggest incidents the Light had caused on a global-scale, and again, both put countless children in harm's way. All of which the following above were of his own volition and suggestions.
Even with or without it, the Brain still has his own vile niche when it comes to being specialized in animal cruelty. As far as tie-in comics shows, the Brain's niche involved carrying out callous experimentation and painful procedures onto dozens to hundreds of animals, most of them being primate gorillas, for the sake of later enslaving them into becoming his personal army. The procedures of how these callous practices of experimentation were carried out are done under extremely painful and harsh conditions. The animals started off explicitly gaining sapience first, then they are forced to wear inhibitor collars where they are forcibly immobile of physical movement or speech, as well as being shocked, unless told to, having their brains vivisected or painfully done through neurosurgery, and being forcibly infected with Kobra-Venom that painfully mutated, enlarged and strengthened them after getting their sapience. It wasn't just gorillas alone, even different animals like elephants were given much more mutations to their appearances that are just worsens the already exposed skin tissue stated above earlier.
His specialty in animal cruelty eventually extends to much personally cruel touches to his niche. He had the albino gorilla Tolifhar killed and used his corpse for his partner Delores to make a vivisected brain exchange, henceforth creating Ultra-Humanite, holding the gorilla troopers' infant offspring hostage with the threat of killing several of them should they disobey him, and trying to have all of the gorilla troopers and the Team killed via self-destructing his own lab. There's also the depraved attempt of vivisecting Captain Marvel's brain for his intelligence for study, as well as doing the same attempt on all five original members of the Team but more on having them cloned through the Cadmus project or infect them with Kobra-Venom, if not, all three at once. Just to mind y'all, the Team (including Captain Marvel who counts as a child) are both adolescent teens who are being subjected to these intended procedures.
Granted, when it comes to technical harm up against children or experimental torture on his own turf, there's still Frederick DeLamb and Granny Goodness coming onto the podium due to whatever torturous things they did to metahuman children in their trafficking operations. Despite this, I think the Brain's niche of animal cruelty, infant primate hostage taking, creating the Ultra-Humanite via using a dead gorilla's corpse, and personal contributions to the Light's first few machinations - most notably the Kobra-Venom stuff and Starro-Tech - are quite immensely big enough for him to stand out on his own right, especially with his experimental procedures being awfully cruel. Not to mention he's partially the second baddie to go after infants, even if they're animals, after the Ocean-Master. So to conclude, he sticks out for, to reiterate, being one of the "Brains" that greatly furthered the Light's first operations.
Mitigating Factors[]
I'll be short with this one because I doubt he joined the Light for anything out of altruism compared to Vandal Savage's motives of wanting what is best for humanity through evolution and make them rulers of the cosmos. If anything, he's just like Klarion or Orm the Ocean-Master being an utmost infamous example of how questionable several members of the Light could be. The Brain most likely joined under self-preservation as long as he continued his unethical practices against nature and its animal kingdom, because so far nothing from his actions, especially his unpleasant mistreatment against the gorillas, don't exactly scream anything well-intentioned when he mainly did so out of blatant cruelty. Hell, there's a reason he named his laboratories "Gorilla City" for one reason; to mock the very victims he experimented for fun.
His partnership with Monsieur Mallah and the Ultra-Humanite are bluntly nonexistent. Unlike the usual portrayal of the relationship of his right-hand in the comics, the Brain only sees Mallah as another pawn at his disposal and frequently blamed him for "spoiling" him over the idea that all gorillas he experimented will turn out to have the same result of sapience and obedience as how Mallah does it, keeping him around his side due to his keen awareness and strength. Even his history with Ultra-Humanite is no better, other than simply to assume their past partnership as humans were under mutual interests, he wasn't above having her apprehended alongside the rest of the Injustice League to further progress the Light's operations.
Sure, the Brain speaks in a frankly polite demeanor but not even that sounds remotely genuine, just that of a soft-spoken sadist. With nothing else left to discuss, the Brain is a vicious man, well, "brain" of science when it comes to unethical practices against mother nature and its animal kingdom
Final Verdict[]
Simply going with an solid yes for the Brain. Every organization may have great minds, but even these great minds pragmatically need and collaborate with an even greater mind above all to complete the equation.