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Thread: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-04, 09:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
I have watched The Brain in DC cartoons and man this guy is so weak. As smart as he is, he just a brain in a jar. He barely even have any powerful weapons. He's just an unworthy villain in my opinion. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that.
Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2019-09-04 at 09:02 PM.
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2019-09-05, 10:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
I don't know about that. DC villains needing to hire muscle because they can't physically go toe to toe with a superhero isn't exactly uncommon. Plus, being smart goes a long way to making someone an effective villain. The Brain is just an extreme version of that. That said, looking at animated stuff where The Brain was a major antagonist I never personally felt cheated or thought that "Wow, that episode was awful! What a lame villain!"
That includes Teen Titans Go as well. Which if you want to see a more physically imposing version of the character, The Brain often has crazy robot bodies that he built himself in Teen Titans Go. He's a lot goofier though, but what else is new.
Also, I thought this thread was going to be about a cartoon mouse that wants to take over the world. I'm a little disappointed.
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2019-09-05, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
power levels in DC are frankly so stupidly high that intellectual villains are often more dangerous, not less, because they use plans that cant just be punched into submission.
Personally I do find him somewhat lackluster because theres always a bit of a nagging "and then what?" lurking behind his plans. Even if he takes over the world, what is he going to do with it? Most of the benefits that would come from that extra kind of power require a body (sensory pleasures and so on), to say nothing of the fact that managing a planetary government is a lot of work. But that's entirely independent of his status as an intellectual villain, and when he's just after a personal revenge or anything like that, I think he works fine.“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2019-09-05, 11:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
He has the undying love of a sapient gorilla and is usually at the head of a large, well organised, para-military organisation. I'd say he has the muscle side of things covered. Besides when he is at his best he doesn't NEED to fight.
Plus his normal foes are The Doom Patrol, who are dysfunctional enough to limit how much fighting he needs to do anyway.GNU Terry Pratchett
My DMing advice.
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2019-09-05, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Last edited by Fyraltari; 2019-09-05 at 12:51 PM.
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2019-09-05, 12:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
I can see your point. But if you go look at the 5th season of the original teen titans cartoon, you can see how dangerous he can be. Yes, he needs muscle to implement his plan and survive (his final take down once it's down to just him illustrates it perfectly) But, up until that point he very nearly took down an organization of super-heroes that spanned the globe.
The way he manipulates (and then removes from the board) the Titans and all the other heroes, in pretty scary to watch. So long as the writers treat him as brilliantly intelligent, you can get some of the most amazing villainy out of a "weak" character like the brain vs a "strong" character who dominates with brute force. The plots that seem to do the most lasting damage to heroes, aren't necessarily the ones that break bones, but the ones that defeat/wound their psyches. Not to mention a well thought out plan can do more damage simply by succeeding for a longer time.
So it will come down to the writers. If they treat the Brain as a serious villain, he will be, and he will be a worthy and strong challenge. If they treat him as "mad", then he will be no better and probably worse than your standard strongman villain. Lord help us if they go the dysfunctional/comic relief route. Because that would bring the heroes down to that level too (even if they defeat him).I’ve known people who play chess like this. They can’t think their way to a checkmate, so they spend their time trying to clear the board of the little pieces. This eventually reduces the game to a simplicity they can grasp, and they’re happy. The perfect war is a fool’s mate.
-Miles Naismith Vorkosigan
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2019-09-05, 01:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
Is it a good or bad thing that when I seen "The Brain" I think of a little white mouse with a companion named Pinky?
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2019-09-05, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
Depends. Do you understand the joke in "One is a genius, the other's insane"?
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2019-09-05, 04:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
GNU Terry Pratchett
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2019-09-05, 04:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
Moreover, he didn't consider that the heroes would understand his plan well enough to avoid falling for it, and in fairness most of them did. Even then, the heroes that avoided The Brain's scheme formed a barely functional team lead by Beast Boy, so things actually looked pretty good for him.
I will admit that as far as onscreen gravitas... yeah, there's a reason why the villain most people remember from the show was Slade. Even though it could easily be argued that The Brain was a more effective villain.
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2019-09-05, 04:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-05, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-05, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-05, 06:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-05, 08:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2019-09-05, 09:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
...I don't know of any villain in DC canon that has done that. Bane? Nope. Darkseid? No way. The Joker? Nuh-uh. I could go on, but you get the point.
Yeah, the above examples have succeeded in killing some people, even killing some heroes. Though every hero they've encountered? That's a tall order.
Besides, in superhero fiction major characters, heroes or villains, getting killed just doesn't happen often as a convention of the genre.
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2019-09-05, 10:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-05, 10:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-06, 12:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
Sort of... and even then, it wasn't long-term. The heroes eventually took him down.
That's one of the problems with Superhero fiction; the villains can't win, or the status quo is gone. And likely a lot of the local real estate is, too.
And I like the Brain just fine as a villain; he's a thinky sort of villain, but so are the best versions of Lex Luthor, Mr. Freeze, Professor Zoom, Cheetah, R'as Al Ghul, Darkseid, heck, even Captain Cold or the Joker. The villain doesn't need physical prowess to be a threat if they're smart.
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2019-09-06, 12:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-06, 12:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-06, 03:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
If there is one thing I have come to realise with mainstream media, particularly Superhero and Anime, is that "will they win" is never the question that makes things interesting. After all if it was the few times villains won would not be notable upsets, they would be the 50/50 bet. What makes for interesting fights if the Why and the How and sometimes the What, not the And So. To go back to Teen Titans, we know The Brotherhood of Evil aren't going to win, what makes that finale great is seeing how our heroes (and in particular the hero with a personal connection to the villain) manage to out-manoeuvre and out-think the villains. My only real complaint about the entire finale is that the base Beastboy takes people to regroup at should have been an old Doom Patrol facility, thus both connecting it back into the season premier and also explaining why we had never heard of it and why the Brain hadn't thought to plan for it.
GNU Terry Pratchett
My DMing advice.
Hong Kong
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2019-09-06, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-06, 04:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
I liked the young justice version. Had some Frankenstein going on^^
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2019-09-09, 03:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
That was the first thing I thought of.
The second was this:
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2019-09-09, 08:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
I was going to mention this. It really showed what the villain can do when he basically incapacitated every major hero in the series.
His required secondary power? Not having an over-the-top name like "Deathstroke the Terminator".
A simple, enigmatic name. Ron Perlman. An expressionless mask with personality to match. That's a power trinity right there.
...And setting up plans with stretch goals so that the heroes can never interrupt the main objective really helps.
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2019-09-10, 09:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
Last edited by Man on Fire; 2019-09-10 at 09:17 AM.
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2019-09-10, 01:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
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2019-09-10, 01:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
His name is Slade Wilson. And there is the pun on Slade/Slayed.
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2019-09-10, 01:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Brain Is A Very Weak Villain
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”