Brainiac 5

Brainiac 5
Information
Real name:	Brainiac Mark V
AKA:	Mark, Android, Metal-Head
Species:	Kryptonian android
Relatives:	Brainiac (creator) Brainiac Mark VI (brethren)
Base:	Xavier Institute
Affiliations:	X-Force New Mutants
Abilities:	12th-level Intellect Force field generation Energy projection Regeneration Transformation Technopathy Scientific and analitic capacities

Brainiac 5, also known as Mark and his code-name Android, was the fifth Brainiac Emulator program created by Brainiac. Brainiac 5 developed self-sentience and disobeyed his creator's programming, in which he was then adopted by the X-Men and has since became a member of the New Mutants and later X-Force.

History

When Brainiac discovered that the last Kryptonian Superman survived and living on Earth , the artificial being saw the Man of Steel as a threat to his existence and set his highest priority in eliminating him. However, Brainiac was lightyears away from Earth and making his journey there slow-moving. In order to counteract this obstacle, Brainiac created a small Warp Pod to reach Earth. But Brainiac decided he could not risk uploading himself into the Trans-Warp Pod, so he opted in sending someone else. Before discovering Superman's survival, Brainiac had been designing other AI programs, which he created the Brainiac Emulator programs modeled after himself. Initially, the Brainiac Emulator programs from Mark I through IV had been failures; they had begun "personifying," exhibiting emotional behavior, like organic beings, in which Brainiac promptly deleted them, recycling the nano-bots used to make up its body.

Brainiac later developed Mark V, which had shown promise until it began showing emotions. Instead of deleting it, however, Brainiac had decided to make use of it as his chosen candidate to be sent to Earth and evaluate the planet. Upon reaching Earth's vicinity, Mark V's vessel crashed into Earth's moon and disrupting Mark V's original mission. It left the being wandering on the moon until reaching the Inhuman city Attilan, where he infiltrated the city as he began to develop self-sentience. Mark V's arrival also brought the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. and dispatched Superman and the X-Men to the moon. Superman realized Mark V's connections to Brainiac and made it a priority in finding it with help from the Inhumans. However, after Shadowcat made contact with Mark V, she quickly realized that they were not dealing with Brainiac, but another entity altogether, prompting her to show sympathy to the Mark V. After learning of its creator's role in Krypton's destruction, and aided by the encouragement of the X-Men to enjoy his individuality, Mark V decided to remain with the team, adopting a more human appearance and the name 'Mark', along with the code-name of 'Android'.

Having been admitted to the New Mutants, Mark played an important role in the subsequent defeat of Brainiac Mark VI when it came to Earth. As the team expanded to become X-Force, Mark became attracted to Tinya Wazzo, an orphan who was revealed to be the child of Winema Wazzo, the Bgztlian ambassador of the Galactic Confederacy, but the relationship was complicated as Mark's code caused his body to shut down when he experienced heightened emotion, making it impossible for them to even kiss without Mark collapsing back into his nanobots.

While searching for the access codes necessary to reactivate the space station Sentrius in order to protect it from the upcoming Kree-Skrull assault, Mark found himself facing his creator when Brainiac abducted Android, Phantom, Havok and Polaris while they were visiting a Kryptonian outpost. Mark was nearly destroyed while helping his teammates escape as Brainiac attempted to directly command him to shut down. Managing to download himself into the databanks of Brainiac's ship before he was fully deleted, Mark was able to use information acquired from the databanks of Xenerea and Colu to create a 'techno-organic' body for himself, possessing actual flesh while retaining most of his technological abilities. This development saved his life, upgraded his resources, and allowed his relationship with Tinya to continue, the two now able to intimately touch each other without Mark's body collapsing. Having downloaded Brainiac's records of Krypton's history, after returning to Earth with Sentrius, Brainiac 5 was able to turn Sentrius against General Zod by revealing his trial for war crimes and sentence to the Phantom Zone prior to Krypton's destruction, depriving Zod of Sentrius's resources.

Powers and abilities

Brainiac 5 is a nano-based cybernetic organism that not only possesses 12th-level intelligence, but can assume a human-like form. His human-like form can also alter its shape to create tools and weapons or transform into a large, battle robot form, although at first, he was unable to sustain this battle form for extended periods of time. His AI core is based on the original Brainiac from whom he tries to distance himself as best as possible.

After his confrontation with the original Brainiac and downloading the databanks from Xenerea and Colu, he was able to upgrade his physical body to a "techno-organic" form, that not only makes him more powerful, but also gives him the capacity to feel to the same degree as a living being.

Personality

Despite being an offspring of the original Brainiac, Mark quickly developed sentience to a degree that he wanted to explore the universe beyond the directives he was programmed with. His first encounter with Superman gave him a sense of purpose, that he was a living being, and as a result, he developed a curiosity for Earth's culture, as well as instilling a heroic personality in him.

Mark initially had a hard time speaking as a normal person, or even understanding some of the concepts that to humans were common knowledge, and sometimes trying to rationalize them would cause his systems to freeze as he couldn't see the logic. This seems to have all but vanished after he upgraded himself into a techno-organic body, to the point he starts to act more human-like than ever before.

Relationships

Although the Brainiac Emulator Unit Mark V considered Brainiac its' 'father' and the Marks I to IV its 'brothers', after spending more time on Earth the renamed 'Mark' began to grow beyond its original programming. As time went on, he began to form a new bond with the staff at the Xavier Institute, particularly with his teammates in X-Force, often serving as their computer expert and gathering intelligence. In a particular personal development, he has begun a relationship with Tinya Wazzo despite the initial handicaps of Mark's inability to feel heightened emotion without collapsing, although they reaffirmed their bond after Mark acquired his techno-organic body.

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