Ultron vs Brainiac: why Brainiac wins, but only barely

Ultron versus Brainiac is a fight between two of the most powerful robots in comics. Both are murderous AIs strong enough to take down entire superhero teams, ravage worlds and threaten the universe at large. When I set their powers, intelligence and robot armies against each other, I come out giving the win to Brainiac. It's close, though, and Ultron has a very real path to turning Brainiac's own technology against him.

Brainiac collects whole civilizations because he wants knowledge

Brainiac is much more than a smart supervillain who thinks he's better than everyone else. I think you can say he's one of the single most dangerous beings in the entire DC universe. He has an entire city full of Kryptonians trapped inside a bottle, and that's not even close to the most impressive thing in his collection. He has spent centuries traveling across the universe, stealing entire civilizations, shrinking their greatest cities down to miniature size and destroying whatever is left.

Unlike most villains who conquer planets because they want power or because they're insane, Brainiac does it because more than anything he wants knowledge. Specifically, knowledge that nobody else is allowed to have. He originally comes from the planet Colu, a world inhabited by some of the most intelligent beings in the universe, with Brainiac the smartest of them all. Depending on the version, he's anything from a rogue Coluan scientist to an artificial intelligence that can inhabit different bodies.

The basic idea stays the same. Brainiac possesses a 12th level intellect, making him one of the smartest beings in DC Comics, and he has dedicated his existence to collecting and controlling all the knowledge in the universe. That already sounds bad enough, but the way he goes about it makes it so much worse. He travels in an enormous skull shaped spaceship, sending out robot armies to invade planets and gather information. When he finds a civilization worth preserving, he shrinks one of its cities, trapping everyone inside, then often destroys the rest of the planet. He's done this to countless worlds, including Krypton, where he stole the city of Kandor before the planet's destruction.

Brainiac's technology and his own body can hurt Superman

Brainiac's technology is staggering. He has developed weapons capable of destroying entire planets, force fields that can take attacks from Kryptonians, and machines that can contain the energy of a living star. He has destroyed stars before, wiping out the surrounding worlds in the process. Even each of his robot drones is powerful enough to one shot Kryptonians and hurt Superman.

The scary thing is that he isn't some genius hiding behind robots and weapons. Brainiac is incredibly powerful himself. He has fought Superman directly multiple times, taking Superman's punches and saying they're nothing to him, all while injuring Superman with his own attacks and drawing blood. Superman isn't the only Kryptonian he's done that to. He has also overpowered General Zod, who is roughly on the same strength level as Superman, so this is a regular thing for Brainiac.

Psychic powers and body swapping make Brainiac hard to finish off

On top of matching some of DC's strongest heroes physically, Brainiac has had mental and psychic powers. While possessing the psychic Milton Fine, he showed off powerful telepathy and telekinesis. He defeated Maxima in a psychic battle, overwhelmed Orion and several New Gods with mental attacks, and even manipulated Superman's mind into believing he had lost his powers. Those psychic powers don't show up in every Brainiac body, but they show how dangerous he can become.

Even killing Brainiac doesn't necessarily mean you've defeated him. He can transfer his consciousness between bodies, which has let him survive things that should have destroyed him. He has taken over robots, taken over people, and even taken over Doomsday. At the end of the day, Brainiac isn't necessarily the strongest villain in DC, and he doesn't need to be. He has usually already studied his opponents, found their weaknesses and built advanced technology designed specifically to beat them. Once he's finished studying you, he doesn't have much reason to keep you alive.

Ultron's adamantium and vibranium bodies shrug off Thor and Hulk

Created by his father, Hank Pym, Ultron is a highly advanced artificial intelligence that grew disgusted with the imperfection of organic life and became even smarter than Pym himself. He went on to become one of the Avengers' greatest and most persistent threats, thanks to powerful technology, a nearly unparalleled intellect, and the fact that he can never truly be put down for good.

Ultron has upgraded his robotic body throughout the decades, and he has superhuman strength and durability. Most of his bodies have been made of adamantium, a metal tough enough that Thor can strike it with all his might and barely dent it. His toughest body was a vibranium and adamantium mixture, formed to mimic Captain America's shield. He can take attacks from Thor with no problem, take punches from the Hulk, survive planetary destruction, and take combined attacks from Kang's army, Silver Surfer, Quasar, Doctor Doom, Vision, Magneto, Hercules and many other heroes without being bothered.

He has been a team buster all the way back to Ultron 6, which beat Thor, Goliath and Iron Man. Ever since, he has regularly overpowered Thor, one shot Iron Man, and gotten the upper hand over the Sentry. To be quite honest, "Ultron at his best is able to treat all the Avengers like play things."

Ultron's blasts, encephalo ray and virus can take heroes out instantly

Ultron doesn't only overpower people physically. His blasters can one shot some of the most powerful heroes out there, like She-Hulk, Thor, Vision and Wonder Man, and he has done it in the past. Even when he doesn't one shot someone, his blasts are enough to have them screaming in pain. That includes the Hulk, who just a few issues earlier had taken a blast from Galactus, yet it was Ultron's blast that had him screaming.

Then there's his encephalo ray, one of his most famous and dangerous weapons. It puts its victims into a deathlike coma, which lets Ultron hypnotize them and input his own mental commands. That's essentially a one shot too, instantly taking heroes like Scarlet Witch or Vision out of the fight. He also has force fields that can instantly repel gods like Ares, sonic attacks, hemorrhaging gas, little bits of himself that consume organic matter and convert it into energy, and telepathic style technology that attacks a person's mind from the inside out or paralyzes an opponent.

Finally, there's the Ultron virus, which he has used for years to corrupt organic beings and convert them into technology under his control. He assimilated the Phalanx, then took over the entire Kree Empire, which spanned a literal galaxy, in about a couple of hours. It works fast, and it works on gods. Even Thor isn't immune, as it can instantly take over her body and turn her into another extension of Ultron.

The two are close to the same villain, but they operate differently

This is an interesting fight because they're the same kind of villain. Both are among the smartest, most technologically advanced robots out there. Both have conquered entire civilizations, fought the strongest heroes in their universes, and are almost impossible to kill permanently.

I guess the bigger difference is in how they operate. Ultron is a walking weapon of mass destruction, constantly upgrading himself and becoming more dangerous every time he comes back. Brainiac is more of a collector and a strategist, using tech powerful enough to shrink cities, imprison Kryptonians and destroy planets without ever setting foot on them.

Brainiac takes strength by a hair, Ultron takes durability

On physical strength, I'm giving the slight edge to Brainiac. Ultron can fight entire Avengers rosters alone or go one on one with Hulk, Thor or the Sentry. Brainiac, and even his drones, can do the same against the Justice League, Kryptonians and Superman. In one fight, Brainiac shrugged off a direct hit from Superman before knocking him around with his own punches, and later he caught Superman's fist and squeezed it hard enough to draw blood. Brainiac isn't necessarily stronger than every version of Ultron, but by and large I think I'd give Brainiac the slightest edge.

Durability is a different story, and I think Ultron has to take it. He keeps building bodies out of true adamantium, vibranium and other very tough indestructible metals, so Thor, Hulk and the Sentry punch him without leaving dents. All of them can destroy planets, and they do nothing to Ultron. He takes Thor's lightning like it's nothing, and the Human Torch's nova blast doesn't faze him. He easily took a combined attack from an army of heroes and villains assembled to defeat him, and they couldn't put a scratch on him.

Brainiac is tough too. He has survived Superman's attacks and can create force fields Superman struggles to get past. But there's a big difference between a body that's very tough and one built out of an indestructible metal. Ultron is going to be significantly harder to hurt in this fight.

Brainiac doesn't need to break Ultron's armor to beat him

That's the thing, though. Brainiac doesn't have to break through Ultron's armor to hurt him. This is someone who can shrink cities to the size of a bottle, break force fields powerful enough to trap Kryptonians, and has weapons capable of easily blowing apart stars.

The important point is that Brainiac doesn't necessarily need to kill Ultron to beat him. He could use his advanced tech to try to shut down Ultron's systems, or potentially shrink him down and trap him inside one of his containment fields. It is Ultron, so that might be easier said than done, but Brainiac has the tech to be a serious problem. I think that's Brainiac's biggest advantage here: the sheer number of ways he can attack Ultron.

Ultron's hacking could turn Brainiac's own ship against him

You can say the same thing for Ultron, and he has a great counterargument. While Brainiac might have some of the best tech in DC Comics, Ultron has a knack for taking over other people's tech and turning it against them. Look at Annihilation. The Phalanx are a civilization of techno organic beings whose whole thing is assimilating other life forms and technology, which sounds a bit like Brainiac. When Ultron's consciousness entered their network, instead of being assimilated, he took control, hijacking a civilization built to hijack machines and using it to conquer the Kree Empire.

That's potentially a huge problem for Brainiac. Say Ultron managed to infect Brainiac's mothership. All those weapons, force fields and drones, and suddenly Brainiac could find himself fighting his own technology. Ultron has done this before. He has taken over Iron Man's armors, infiltrated some of the most advanced computers in the universe, and transformed Titan into an enormous technological extension of himself. I think Ultron has the ability to counter Brainiac, and they can go toe to toe here. It's a question of who gets to whom first.

Brainiac isn't an ordinary computer either. He's a 12th level intellect who spent centuries collecting some of the most advanced technology in the universe. He has taken over other machines, infected robots like Metallo with computer viruses, and fought off hostile AI trying to seize his systems. Maybe that's why the Phalanx feat doesn't necessarily apply, because Ultron was already inside their network. That isn't the same as hacking Brainiac and his ship while Brainiac actively tries to stop him and hack Ultron back. That microcosm sums up the fight: they're nearly equally matched and almost perfectly suited to countering each other.

Brainiac wins because trading punches isn't how he fights

If this were a straight fight between their physical bodies, I'd probably give it to Ultron. He has the more durable adamantium or vibranium body, he's roughly as strong as Brainiac, and Brainiac would have a hard time destroying him.

But that's not how Brainiac fights. He isn't going to stand there trading punches with an indestructible robot when he has a spaceship full of advanced alien tech behind him. Brainiac has more ways to win without ever getting into a fistfight, chief among them putting Ultron inside a bottle city.

So ultimately I'm giving this one to Brainiac, and it's really close. Ultron has the durability edge, he's an incredibly dangerous hacker, and there's a very real possibility he could turn Brainiac's tech against him. But Brainiac is ultimately smarter and has access to many more weapons and abilities. "So, I think Brainiac wins this fight, but only barely."