Brainiac (Superman Villain) - Framed Print - 16"H x 12"W

A 16"H x 12"W" framed print of Brainiac one of the Prime enemies of Superman

Brainiac is typically depicted as an extraterrestrial android. He is one of Superman's primary enemies, and is responsible for shrinking and stealing Kandor, the capital city of Superman's home planet Krypton. 

The character's name appears to be a portmanteau of the word brain and the initialism ENIAC, the name of an early computer.

He is originally notable only for his having shrunk the bottle city of Kandor, which is ironically and tragically the only city on Krypton that believes Jor-El's warning of doom for the planet, and had already built a space-ark within the city to save the population.

It is revealed that Brainiac came from a planet called Bryak and after a voyage in space, he returns to find everybody dead from a plague. He intends to get people from other planets (in shrunken cities, and he has a growth ray) to repopulate Bryak, and he will rule them.

Querl Dox, or Brainiac 5, who claimed to be Brainiac's 30th century descendant. Unlike his ancestor, Brainiac 5 used his "twelfth-level intellect" for the forces of good and joined the Legion alongside Supergirl, with whom he fell in love. His home planet was given variously as Bryak, Yod or Colu.

It was retconned that Brainiac was a machine created by the Computer Tyrants of Colu as a spy for them to invade other worlds, for which he was given a non-computer appearance. Brainiac's distinctive gridwork of red diodes across his head are also explained. He was created with visible "electric terminals of his sensory 'nerves'" that he cannot function without. Luthor discovers that the Computers could have given him a twelfth-level intellect, but gave him a tenth-level, the same as them, so he would not try to dominate them. Luthor frees Brainiac from a prison on another world and increases his intelligence, however implants a timer that will make Brainiac black out so the computer doesn't betray him, as only Luthor can reset the timer and if Brainiac tries to tamper with it, one touch will cause an explosion. However Brainiac tricks Luthor by making a device that hypnotizes Luthor, who removes the timer and forgets Brainiac is a computer.