You’re reading The Complete Infinite Crisis, a Comprehensive and Encyclopedic look through the universe-changing superhero event published by DC from 2005 to 2006. Shelfdust are proud to provide a complete overview of the story, and everything that happens in it. The overview was going great until we got a bit confused about some of the things which were going on – so we’ve had to call in some experts to help out.

When we last left off, we were pretty caught up with everything that’s been going on. Batman had a satellite, and it got hacked and that upset Superman. Oh! Actually, that raises a good question – who was it that hacked Batman’s Brother Eye satellite? I bet The Hollywood Reporter’s Graeme McMillan will be able to shed some light on this!

Graeme! Everybody keeps telling me about this satellite which Bruce Wayne created called Brother Eye. I know why he created it, but who hacked it and why?

Graeme McMillan: Well, let’s start off with an awkward, slightly nonsensical fact: Bruce Wayne didn’t create Brother Eye. Even though Brother Eye called him “Creator” all the time. I mean, Bruce Wayne did create Brother Eye when Infinite Crisis was coming out, but that was later retconned away in the somewhat forgettable Countdown to Final Crisis series, where it was revealed that Brother Eye had actually been created by a scientist called Buddy Blank, who worked on creating artificial intelligence for a Waynetech subsidiary called Pseudo-People, Inc., because… oh, I don’t know, someone involved in that series apparently wanted Jack Kirby to roll over in his grave.

(For those who don’t know: Buddy Blank was OMAC in the original 1970s series, having been transformed by Brother Eye while working in a company called Pseudo People, Inc. Except that version of the company wasn’t anything to do with Bruce Wayne or creepy satellites, and that Buddy was a loser who definitely wasn’t an expert in artificial intelligence.)

Anyway. As to who hacked Brother Eye, that’s more complicated an answer than it first appears. Really, the first answer is another question: Which time? Brother Eye — technically, Brother I, as in “mark I,” because why not — was actually hacked twice before the events of Infinite Crisis; firstly, by Maxwell Lord as part of his larger mission to wipe out all superhuman life on Earth, because he wanted all Batman’s records on superheroes that were stored on there — Max is the one who added the OMACs to the whole thing, using technology retrofitted from Brainiac-13 from an old, turn of the century Superman storyline.

Then, afterwards, unbeknownst to Max, Brother I is hacked again by Alexander Luthor, who gave Brother I “life” and taught it to think for itself, mostly so he could reprogram the OMACs for himself and have an army of nanotechnology sleeper agents to use in trying to take over the world and recreate the multiverse for whatever reason he wanted to do that again.

(These hacks are revealed in Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1 and Infinite Crisis #4, respectively.)

And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait, if the Countdown to Final Crisis retcon is right, and Brother Eye was created as an artificial intelligence, then what does it mean that Alexander Luthor gave the satellite ‘life’?” then, join the club. It doesn’t really make that much sense, so let’s just join everyone else and pretend that Countdown to Final Crisis never actually happened; it’s easier that way.

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Whoa whoa whoa Graeme, I’m cutting you off after one answer. We can’t leave it there! What is Countdown to Final Crisis?! What is Countdown to Infinite Crisis? This raises so many questions – but fortunately, I know just who to ask about them next week!

 

Graeme McMillan is a writer for the Hollywood Reporter, Wired and Playboy, as well as being one half of the Wait, What? podcast. He can be found on twitter here.