Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Brainiac-5 (Supergirl)

*A few Brainy-related spoilers.*

Here’s another data point to put in the “How Did I Not Realize It for So Long?” column. Not only have I, over the years, gravitated toward movies and shows with Big Neurodivergent Energy. But on any given show, BNE or not, if there’s a character who’s blatantly neurodivergent-coded, they’re likely to be my favorite. Back when I wrote up my Favorite Characters post on Brainy, I mentioned that I needed a bit of time to warm up to him after his arrival on Supergirl, but he quickly became one of my characters. While there are lots of characters to love on this show and plenty of them crowded my Favorite Characters tier, Brainy was and remains my favorite favorite. (Love you, Kara! And Alex! And J’onn, and Nia, and Lena, and….)

Brainy is another non-human character who’s pretty blatantly coded as autistic—not just an alien, but an A.I. as well. A techno-organic of Coluan heritage from 31^st century Earth, Brainy doesn’t fit in even a little bit when he comes back to Kara’s time. But as I’ve said, I don’t mind non-human neurodivergent representation if it’s done well. Whether Brainy’s traits come from autism, being an alien A.I. from the future, or the personality inhibitors he’s forced to wear since childhood, I just love watching him be himself onscreen.

The first thing Brainy will tell you about himself is that he’s a Twelfth Level Intellect. Absolute genius, and not shy about it. He’s a whiz at all things STEM, which certainly follows autistic stereotypes, but Brainy also applies his A.I. processing power to calculate probabilities about the world around him. He analyzes situations and runs through logical outcomes, wanting to find the correct course of action in any given scenario and be prepared for what’s about to happen. This can be used to impressive effect, such as when he deploys probability and physics to “fight” opponents, smoothly predicting their moves and calmly turning and ducking so that his foes hit each other instead of him. But when his logic fails him and he can’t understand what’s going on, things get very overwhelming for him.

Brainy has a really difficult time with his emotions. When some expresses surprise that an A.I. is crying, he’ll be the first to explain, “I’m not a robot. I’m techno-organic—I have feelings.” But that doesn’t mean he can easily identify or address his emotions. Rather, he calls them “intense and disruptive,” and they’re something else he can’t predict. At first, he tries to manage them by following Lena’s advice to keep his strong feelings hidden in “little boxes,” but that strategy is unsustainable. More than once in the series, Brainy has what you could classify as a meltdown, flooded with agitation and distress to the point that it can be difficult for him to verbalize.

Part of this is because of the personality inhibitors he wears for much of the show. Brainy’s dad made him wear them after he became frightened by an outburst Brainy had as a child. Basically, Brainy’s mom was evil and his dad worried that he was going to go down the same path. But as a result, Brainy’s full self is dampened and the range of his emotions is held back. Generally speaking, Brainy doesn’t mask his autistic traits, but you could consider his inhibitors a kind of forced masking. Due to his dad’s belief about the danger his true self posed, Brainy is afraid to remove the inhibitors—more than anything, he doesn’t want to become “a bad guy,” and he doesn’t know if he'll be able to control his emotions without them. And it is hard for him, especially when he’s scared for his friends, but he comes to learn that his emotions don’t make him evil. Even though they can still overwhelm him and “get in the way” when he’s trying to do something important, they’re just as much a part of him as his logic and intellect.

Besides that, we just have a laundry list of autistic-coded behaviors. Brainy doesn’t struggle with social cues—rather, he simply doesn’t notice that they exist. He’s bluntly honest and doesn’t hold back his opinions. He doesn’t always regulate the volume of his voice. When he goes in on something he’s all in—when he’s tired of not understanding his friends’ pop culture references, he sets about “mastering” the canon of classic movies, and when he and Nia start dating, he showers her with more affectionate gifts of food and love poetry (written in binary!) than she can handle. He brings some work from the DEO along to Thanksgiving dinner in case he gets bored, and he has multiple issues around food. When he infiltrates a group of fraternity bros as part of a DEO investigation, his attempt at mimicking their mannerisms and vernacular is 100% uncanny valley.

Maybe he’s an alien A.I. from the future whose traits look autistic to humans, or maybe he’s an autistic alien A.I. from the future. I don’t think it ultimately matters; I love him either way. And I love watching him navigate making the 21^st century his home as he finds friends who support him and understand him as best as they can.

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!

Relationship Spotlight: Brainiac-5 & Nia Nal (Supergirl)

Ah, Nia and Brainy, two great tastes that taste great together – in this case, two additions to Supergirl who’ve both brought a lot to the show on their own and who are quite delightful as a pair.  At the moment, they’re what I’m most curious about for season 5 (Brainy-Nia-related spoilers.)

First of all, Nia and Brainy have a wonderfully badass meet-cute.  They happen to be in the same pizza place when Brainy’s image inducer (which disguises him as a human) is hacked, briefly exposing his natural Coluan form.  The guys at the pizza place freak out to be in the presence of an alien, and Nia steps in to stop the altercation from turning violent and to lay some serious “shame on you” on the people trying to hurt Brainy.  Given that Brainy’s just experienced people that he’d been friendly with turning on him the instant they realized he wasn’t human, meeting a complete stranger who defends him knowing full well he’s an alien has to be a good feeling – I know Brainy likes to claim that, as an AI, feelings factor little into his reasoning, but we all know that’s not super true.

Since Brainy basically screams “I’m an alien AI from the future” with every fiber of his being, it’s probably good that Nia knows off the bat that he isn’t human (his friends’ attempt to “cover” for him in front of Nia during their early interactions are laughable.)  She isn’t as forthcoming about her own half human/half Naltorian heritage, but Brainy has knowledge she doesn’t and has already figured out that secret.  Being, again, from the future, Brainy knows all about Nia’s famous descendent, a hero who has the same powers that Nia is just starting to manifest.  As Nia gets evasive with Kara and co., not wanting anyone to know that she has prophetic dreams, Brainy recognizes the signs.  He brings Supergirl and Nia together, knowing that Nia needs help/training and that her dreams could in turn help team Supergirl.

This is what leads to Nia and Brainy being more than passing acquaintances who are always surprised, pleased, and kind of awkward whenever they run into each other.  With Brainy’s 31^st-century knowledge, he’s well-positioned to help with Nia’s training, helping her learn how to take agency within her dreams, start to understand what she’s seeing, and use her powers in varied ways.  But even as it brings them closer together, this new dimension to their relationship can also cause friction between them.  Once Nia begins coming to terms with powers, she’s eager to learn as much as she can as fast as she can.  Brainy, though, is wary of doing anything to mess with the timeline, and so he uses what he knows from the 31^st century without telling her about it, trying to control what she knows and when.  Needless to say, this doesn’t go over well.  (I should point out that this doesn’t really feel like an instance of a man keeping secrets from a woman or trying to limit her power out of a paternalistic wish to “protect” her.  Rather, it all stems from Brainy’s concern about the timeline and his AI tendency to not really think about how humans might respond to his actions.)

From their first episode together, it’s clear that the show was at least dancing around a romantic connection between these two.  And boy, do they dance!  Again with Brainy and his whole “not understanding human nuances” thing, Nia spends a not-inconsiderable part of the season basically low-key flirting with a motherboard.  After their initial meeting, she tells him her name and coyly suggests he “find” her, wanting to create a little sense of mystery around herself and give him a puzzle to solve in chasing her.  Brainy, for his part, completes his task (figuring out who she is, where she lives, and an inadvertently-stalkery-sounding list of other factoids) and calls it good – after all, she told him to find her, not call her or otherwise meet up with her again.  A lot of their more romant-ish moments are like that, Nia implying and Brainy missing it, even as he very gradually starts recognizing that he has feelings for her.  When they do finally kiss for the first time, Brainy immediately decides that any relationship borne in the throes of upheaval (they kiss at an intense, chaotic moment in the middle of an adventure) is doomed to fail and ends things before they begin.

Yeah, I side-eyed that scene so hard.  Artificial/forced obstacles between couples are ceaselessly annoying, and as someone who likes Nia and Brainy’s awkward-but-endearing energy together, I wanted more than two minutes of them as a thing before they were arbitrarily pulled apart.  Come on, Brainy – silly AI!  Luckily, though, the season four finale rights the ship on these two in a big way.  Seeing Nia in danger cuts through Brainy’s cold/calculating “aligned” mind and brings back our favorite techno-organic with a declaration of love?  Okay, yeah, I’ll forgive a lot of past mistakes for something like that.

When we next see Brainy and Nia, they’re casually together, and I can’t wait to see what they’re going to be like in season 5.  I know they’re both supporting characters, but I hope we get some good plots with their relationship.  Brainy dating is bound to be gold, I love that Nia being trans hasn’t factored into their interactions at all, and I can’t help but wonder whether Brainy’s more overtly-alien behavior in public will cause Nia (who was raised on Earth and easily “passes” for a full human) some harassment by association.  Whatever we get of these two, I’m ready to thoroughly enjoy it!