Artist Christopher Jones Breaks Down Designing Brainiac For “Young Justice” Comic

[Young Justice Series Producer and comic writer Greg Weisman] had asked for a Brainiac that wasn’t as robotic-looking as the Gil Kane design from the late 1980s, preferring to get back to the look of a green alien with cybernetic implants. He just wanted an alien that looked more alien than a bald green guy – still humanoid but clearly not human.

My first pass at a design was more lean and lanky in an effort to emphasize the more intellectual nature of the character. I wanted to preserve the circular lights/nodes on the bald green head from the Silver Age version of the character, while referencing the animation designs from the DCAU (Superman, Justice League) and from Legion of Superheroes. I also wanted to reference the color scheme of the Silver Age Brainiac, while going more menacing and cyberpunk and less like an outer spece tennis ensemble. The one other design homage in the original version was the feet, which were a reference to the really uniquely-shaped feet of that 1980s robotic design. I respected Greg wanting to get away from that, but as I was quite fond of it, I wanted to reference it if I could.

This design was submitted and Greg loved the head but wanted the body to be beefier, as we were going to see Brainiac get into fist-fights with some heavy-hitter heroes. While I thought a Brainiac of this design trading blows with Superman at 8 feet tall would be plenty impressive, I was happy to take another stab at the design.

Since Greg was happy with the head, I largely left that alone although I made it slightly more square and aggressive-looking to suit the new body. I bulked up the shoulders, the arms, and the upper torso and generally tried to give Brainiac more “muscular” proportions, while trying to keep his body shapes streamlined and angular. I also redesigned the waist and hips to be more clearly a mechanical endo-skeleton, and not armor worn by a humanoid. I designed transparency into the shoulders for the same reason.

This version was approved is close to what is seen in the final comic. The only significant change is that I went back to the more rounded gauntlet shapes from the first version, and some minor surface detail.