The following contains spoilers for Absolute Superman #7, on sale now from DC
Throughout the Absolute Universe, one of the key factors has been to see what different spins that the writers can put on classic elements from the original mythos of these superheroes. As Jason Aaron explained to me:
So you’re trying to do something that distills what speaks to you from through all that. Like you can’t represent it all, and you’ve got to boil it down to what’s interesting, what’s exciting, what resonates about this character, and then just tell new stories that we haven’t seen a million times. And I think that’s definitely our mandate. It wasn’t about, «Let’s just go back and rewrite Action Comics #1. You know, let’s rewrite Detective Comics #27.» It’s a matter of us doing our own exciting, new versions of these characters. It’s not like we’re unaware of all the stories that have been published about them over the years. And we can use those stories and people’s expectations to kind of surprise them, and subvert those expectations whenever we can.
In this series, Aaron has already done a fascinatingly different take on the destruction of Krypton, and then he followed that up with a twisted version of the Kents taking in young Kal-El after his rocket crash landed in Smallville, and now, in Absolute Superman #7, Aaron’s take on Brainiac is decicedly unexpected, but in a really cool way.
Absolute Superman #7 is from writer Jason Aaron, artist Carmine Di Giandomenico, colorist Ulises Arreola, and letterer Becca Carey, and it provides us the origin of the Absolute Universe version of Brainiac, while also setting up some possible future problems for the Man of Steel in terms of a certain radioactive piece of Superman’s home planet that might be a major problem for our hero.
How is Brainiac introduced in the issue?
As we have seen in recent issues, one of the major forces in this Absolute Universe are the Omega Men, a group of revolutionaries who vow to take down Lazarus Corp. which we learned last issue is a corporation owened by Ra’s al-Ghul. We see some of the Omega Men in action in this issue, but they are all wiped out by Brainiac in a bloody, and tragic battle.
What is the hook about Brainiac?
Brainiac, as it turns out, is actually a clone of the original Brainiac, created by the original Brainiac to be in charge of disposing of waste. The «waste» in this sense was the bodies of all of the OTHER Brainiac clones that the original Brainiac uses and discards.
Over time, this Brainiac takes over as the new «head» Brainiac, and he discovers a way to hurt Superman.
