Supergirl #52

[hero_of_lallor]

Revelations in this issue
-Supergirl in dead in Brainy's timeline, presumably in line with her death in crisis in legion chronology.
-The Brainy/Supergirl storyline continues in the Annual in Autumn which I guess will be the 3rd telling of 'Supergirl's Three Super Girl-Friends'
-Why Una and Karate Kid don't recognise her in the Countdown tie-ins goes unexplained

Comments

[darkblade]

Well yes this does seem to suggest Brainiac 5 is straight the first page does very little to convince me the same of Kara.

[hero_of_lallor]

She has more chemistry with Thara Ak-Var if we are going there. Sadly for this Brainy his Lyle is already dead.

[bluejaybirdie]

But she and Thara don't have nearly as much chemistry as she and Cassie did. The girlgay, it was strong.

[tanetris]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoBisexuals

[darkblade]

I didn't say lesbian, I said not straight.

[tanetris]

...suggest Brainiac 5 is straight...

(also note the link is meant to be directed at the op too for the cut text you are responding to)

[darkblade]

oh well now I feel like an idiot...

[hero_of_lallor]

This Brainy has never been shown to be gay, its a joke about all the reboot Brainy/Lyle posts where he was obviously bi.

[cleome45]

My first thought, too. Despite not being a major-league Tropes fan. :D

[pyrotwilight]

That makes it sound so tragicky. Sure we'll likely never see her die but it sucks to know she will.

[saralakali]

Well as a Brainy/Supergirl shipper, I'm glad to see it. I also don't have a problem with Brainy being bi so everyone can have their OTPs.

[theanswer]

Una and Karate Kid don't recognize her because Brainiac 5 is the only member of Legion with Pre-Crisis memories.

[hero_of_lallor]

He hasn't as yet displayed knowing anything not in the new earth timeline unless he does mean her death in crisis. There was the part in LO3W when he remembered their meeting that none of the others did though however there wea no evidence that was to do with the multiverse.

[theanswer]

In Legion of 3 Worlds and JSA it is explained that these plans of Brianiac 5's were set in motion before the first Crisis. Then he explains that because of his intelligence level he has retained the memories of his pre-Crisis self and thus he remembers his relationship with Supergirl.

[hero_of_lallor]

But the crisis still happened in the DCU, Barry still died but Supergirl wasn't there. How do we know he isn't remembering those events?

[theanswer]

Because reality altering events do not effect his memory like everyone else.

[bluepard]

I really kind of like the idea of the Brainy who lost his Supergirl coming back in time and meeting Past Supergirl who goes into the future and introduces herself to Past-ish Brainy. Time Loop of Love!

But why didn't Supergirl remember Brainy when the first met? Mind wipe? Isn't this a different Supergirl? Isn't she likely to be predisposed against this Brainiac 5 after meeting the 3boot version?

Maybe I should read the actual comic. Or give up on continuity making sense.

(Brainy is obviously Can Kick My Ass-sexual.)

[hero_of_lallor]

She's already met the younger Brainy but we won't read it until the annual. Brainy says Saturn Girl mind wiped her but Kara is getting the memories back and he's trying to stop it. She treats this Brainy as a separate person.

[khaosworks]

Uh, should that be "a thousand years younger than me"?

I'm just sayin'.

[theanswer]

No, it's Supergirl's thoughts.

[khaosworks]

"It's Supergirl's thoughts"? So, basically, she can't do math.

[khaosworks]

Or maybe she's being metaphorical in referring to the visible age difference between herself and Brainiac 5. Okay, I could buy that. Still, it's a bit of a sloppy construction in the writing.

[lieut_kettch]

Well, this Brainy was definitely straight. It was 247-Brainy that was hot for Lyle.

I'm surprised that throughout this arc, Kara never mentions her time with the Legion-Prime.

[cleome45]

I dunno'. Original Recipe Brainy was pretttttttty damn sad when he visited Original Recipe Lyle's grave.

Subtext: Older than time itself.

[greenygal]

Do you remember which story that was? I was hunting through my back-issues trying to find it recently and couldn't (it's clearly been too long since I read through my Levitz).

Also original Brainy willed his forcefield belt to Lyle, which seems suggestive of a closer relationship than we ever saw them have on panel, especially since in his first appearance he gives Kara one as a symbol of his love. I don't ship preboot Brainy/Lyle much, because Brainy was very very clear about his feelings for Kara, but...subtext is subtext!

[cleome45]

I'd look it up for you, if my comics weren't sitting 3,000 miles from here. Right before the Sensor Girl revelation. He's mooning, and needing a haircut. The Fatal Five (???) attacks. That's all I remember.

I'm pretty much in the camp that it's okay to have more than one Love of Your Life, personally. I'm working harder at channeling this belief into more OT3s and multiships, uh... at least as regards fandom. IRL, I've neither the time or determination to pursue that kind of thing in the proper manner. :D

[greenygal]

Aha, #25. Thanks; I was looking in entirely the wrong place.

I'm pretty much in the camp that it's okay to have more than one Love of Your Life, personally.

See, I believe this; I'm just not convinced that Brainy does. And Lyle died well before Kara, so... Although I could probably buy it as them being friends and colleagues whose relationship occasionally got physical, rather than dating per se.

(In v4 I totally ship Brainy/Andromeda/Rond, but it'd have to be way AU and I'm pretty sure Brainy would still be the one having the hardest time with the whole concept.)

[cleome45]

Glad I could be of some (small) help.

Now I'm wondering if anyone ever stated that Colu had some official policy regarding monogamy.* Damned if I can remember...

I still like the idea of Brainy/Kara, but seriously-- trying to keep track right now of what did happen/will happen/is happening/once happened but has now sort of un-happened (or moved to another dimension) is seriously hurting my head. I shouldn't get mad at the characters, though. It's not their fault.

*Also, the contrarian in me remembers Original Recipe Brainy as written by Levitz as being pretty vehemently atheistic. Which makes me totally want to read Brainy/IK2 or Brainy/Dawnstar. ("Show up for the romantic angst. Stay for the planet-rending theological debates.") :p

[greenygal]

I don't think we've ever heard anything about Coluans, re: monogamy, because we hardly ever hear anything about Coluans as a society at all, and specifically not their views on sex and reproduction. Mainly we just get to judge by Brainy--who generally gets so intense about romance that whether his society is monogamous is hard to tell, because he himself is only interested in one person at a time--and Vril, who is even less representative and is usually focusing on other things.

They make my head hurt, too, especially since it's apparently now a retroactive ship where it's happened for one of them but not the other, and that's always hard to get a emotional grip on.

Hmm. I don't think Brainy/Dawnstar would work out for that very reason. She doesn't necessarily need to date a believer, unless Wildfire was devout and they just never mentioned, but someone who is actively opposed to the idea that there is a deity...that would be problematic, and I don't even think it would get to any kind of detailed debate. Brainy might want to try, but Dawny would be going, no, this is what I believe, and who are you to tell me I'm wrong. It would probably wind up needing to be a subject they didn't discuss if they wanted to stay together. (Also, needless to say, Dawny dating another Legionnaire, any other Legionnaire, would lead to explosions, but eventually Wildfire would get over it. Eventually.) Jacques I could see being more willing to agree to disgree, and while he's not especially the debating type, I could envision it as a recurrent source of friendly and occasionally not-so-friendly disagreement over their lives. I have trouble actually seeing Brainy with Levitz's Jacques, though--I think the frequent self-esteem issues would wear on him; Brainy usually goes for people who are as self-assured as he is. (Which is actually a point in preboot Lyle's favor.)

[cleome45]

BTW, does anyone besides me want to like this art more than they actually do?

Maybe it's the coloring. I dunno'... :/

[liara_shadowsong]

Yes. For me, it's the combination of the linework and the coloring/shading, I think. I like both of them, but not so much together. I think that gorgeous coloring needs thinner lines to accent it, and obvious outlining, no matter how pretty, needs less photorealistic-type coloring, more simple shapes for the shadows, and less sparkly-shiny effects for the hair. Y'know? ...Um, but don't take my word on that; I'm not the greatest artist around.

[cleome45]

That's pretty decent analysis, to me.

Now that I'm slightly better-rested, my reaction is similar: the color is too loud for the art. They just don't fit together all that well.

[liara_shadowsong]

Brainy is obviously bi, LOL. (Possibly Kara, too, it looks like. ;P) But he does have good chemistry with Kara in certain incarnations, and with Lyle in others (and other characters in still more versions... like that cartoon with Clark... but these are the most common ones, it seems). ...Though... time travel and alternate timelines gets confusing pretty fast, doesn't it? (And I want to like this art so badly... But even though I like the coloring and I like the linework, I do not like them very much together. Sad.)

[hero_of_lallor]

Someone has to fly his straight flag in front of the overwhelming slash pairing majority! :p

[grazzt]

Someone should post his classic first meeting with Supergirl. He's really so lovesick, he's practically not Brainy.

[greenygal]

...I can do that.

And I would argue that being lovesick is definitively Brainy. It's actually a reasonably consistent character trait across his incarnations, how intense he gets about whoever it is he's in love with in this continuity. (Postboot is a little more complicated than most, granted, but even then you've got his desperately unsubtle reactions to Andromeda.)

[grazzt]

Thanks.

Hmmm, when you put it that way, I can't help but agree. Still, there's something subtly different about him in that one story, I find. Maybe because it's played completely straight and not treated like Brainy's slightly crazy. Maybe because he's a bit more meek than usual.

Supergirl's other boyfriend in that story, Jerro the Merboy, treats her the same way, too.