Relationship Spotlight: Brainiac-5 & Kara Zor-El (Supergirl)

This blog has seen many a Relationship Spotlight featuring Supergirl characters, plenty that involve either Kara or Brainy. But while they don’t get as much traction as, say Kara-Alex, Brainy/Nia, Kara-Lena, or Alex-Brainy, I always enjoy the small glimpses we get of Kara and Brainy’s friendship (a few Kara- and Brainy-related spoilers.)

Brainy’s debut appearance on the show comes at an important moment for Kara, and his first episode finds him helping her on a deeply-personal level. Her first major clash with Reign leaves her in a coma, and Brainy uses some 31^st-century technology to allow his artificial intelligence to interface with Kara’s subconscious. He then enters her “mind palace” and helps guide her toward figuring out how to escape it and regain consciousness. Since Brainy comes from the future, where Supergirl is a legend, he’s a big fanboy, but he also demonstrates a deft hand in helping Kara work through her issues so she can wake up.

That’s a pretty heavy way to meet, but after that, as Kara and Brainy’s friendship develops more in the background of the show (as evidenced by the fact that most of the stills I found of these two together were from Brainy's debut episode,) it generally takes on a much lighter vibe. The first time they cross one another’s paths outside Kara’s mind palace, she notices that Brainy is shorter in real life and Brainy admits he created the illusion of being taller to engender her trust. From there, Kara is friendly and welcoming, particularly once Brainy finds himself unable to return to his own time and has to adjust to life in 21^st-century National City. Kara is scandalized by movie references Brainy doesn’t know (“We never showed you Star Wars? Not a single Star War?”) but later expresses full support of his “mastery” of classic cinema (“Would you work to discuss auteur theory and the works of Ed Wood?”), and she’s always willing to run interference for him when he acts weird in front of someone who doesn’t know he’s an alien A.I. from the future.

When these two have cause to team up on a mission, it’s often a lot of fun. Their “covert” trip to Collinwood with Nia is a blast, from them bickering over how to keep a low profile to Brainy clumsily biting his tongue to keep from revealing Kara’s secret identity to Nia. I also love Brainy designing Kara’s new suit in season 5. Not only does he give her pants (her thrilled reaction to this is adorable,) he also creates a Black-Panther-necklace-style delivery system, this nano-device thing that causes the suit to activate when Kara whips her glasses off.

After that first meeting, they haven’t had as many serious moments together as either gets with other characters, but whenever they do, they bring it. Brainy’s ongoing loyalty to Kara is a nice thread – I like seeing how affected he is when she suffers a serious Kryptonite attack – and she’s there for him in understated ways. I feel like season 5 features even less of them together than usual, but when Brainy’s doppelgängers show up after Crisis, there’s a really lovely scene of her listening to and supporting him as he explains why he started wearing personality inhibitors and how he’s afraid to be fully himself. But then, in classic Brainy-Kara fashion, they mix laughter in with the heart – half a second after he asserts that he needs to handle his unstable, destructive doppelgänger on his own, Brainy adds, “You should come too,” with Kara already nodding vigorously at his heels. Ah, bless.

I understand that, in the comics, Brainiac-5 has been one of Supergirl’s most major love interests, a relationship that’s been depicted in certain animated properties. I’ve really just heard about it, haven’t seen much of it for myself, but I’ll admit, the idea kind of fascinates me. I doubt it would ever happen on Supergirl, for numerous reasons. 1) With the final season coming, the show really hasn’t done any work to set up Kara and Brainy romantically, 2) my guess is the plan is for Brainy and Nia to get back together, and most importantly, 3) I don’t see any real scenario in which Kara dates one of her close friend’s exes. But just as characters themselves, I can see how they’d be a weird match and yet totally work. They get, support, and accept one another and are surprisingly compatible in an odd way. Luckily for all of us, that’s a dynamic that works great as friendship as well. Here’s hoping the show’s last season gives us a few more great moments from these two!