Warning: contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #900
Marvel’s Spider-Man just faced an upgraded version of one of his most obscure villains that looks a lot like one of Superman‘s legendary foes, Brainiac. The Living Brain is, as the name suggests, a living, thinking machine that has a green-tinted robotic body, a penchant for “collecting” people, a spaceship, and an obsession for the titular superhero.
The Living Brain made its debut in one of the earliest Webhead stories, Amazing Spider-Man #8 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Created by Dr. Petty as a science experiment, it went on a rampage and was shut down by Spider-Man. A few years later, Dr. Petty’s son, Steve, rebuilt the thinking machine, giving it a robotic body who went on to have a life of his own as a member of the Sinister Six first, and then as Peter Parker’s assistant at Horizon Labs and at Parker Industries. Now, Marvel has given the character a retconned backstory and a new look that makes him (or it) eerily similar to DC Comics’ Brainiac.
In Amazing Spider-Man #900 by Zeb Wells, Ed McGuinness, Marcio Menyz, Dijjo Lima, and Erick Arciniega, the Ultra Living Brain kidnaps Spider-Man and his closest friends after re-purposing an old Super Adaptoid robot with the powers of the Sinister Six. This version of the villain reveals that, after being created by Steve Petty, he absorbed every available data stream on Earth, including the brains of his creator and other people. Lacking a purpose, the Ultra Living Brain founds one in the robotic body of his predecessor, an obsession for finding out the answer to the question of “Who is Spider-Man?”
The Ultra Living Brain looks exactly like some old versions of Brainiac, a bald humanoid machine with green skin. However, the similarities do not stop there. Superman’s famous villain is also an ultra-intelligent creature, the fusion of Coluan scientist Vril Dox and the super-computer he created, just like the Ultra Living Brain absorbed his own creator, Dr. Petty. Brainiac is famous for kidnapping entire cities to put them in his “collection” on his spaceship, which includes the Kryptonian city of Kandor. The Ultra Living Brain follows a similar modus operandi, albeit on a much smaller scale: he kidnaps Spider-Man’s worst villains and his best friends, and keeps them prisoners on his spaceship, to “collect” data from them. Finally, just like the Ultra Living Brain is obsessed with Spider-Man, Brainiac develops an obsession with Superman when he learns there was one surviving Kryptonian who is not part of his collection.
While Spider-Man is considered by many to be Marvel’s Superman, his gallery of villains is very different from the Man of Steel’s. Peter Parker’s foes are usually much more grounded, and include crime lords and street thugs, while Superman mostly deals with planetary or cosmic threats. However, the new Ultra Living Brain and Brainiac share many similarities. Be it a coincidence or an homage from Marvel’s creators to an iconic DC character, Spider-Man just got his own version of one of Superman‘s greatest villains.
