Mia Kent

Mia Kent: 2013 - 2014
We only recently discovered the true origins of Mia Kent, It turns out that Mia was a creation of Brainiac following the Justice League’s destruction of Brainiac 8 (see “Indigo”). Originally, Mia was meant to be a being for short-term infiltration and used to get close to Superman’s family before switching protocols and betraying the entire family to her creator, but when Brainiac discovered that his “daughter”, Brainiac 8 had been rebuilt and made into a hero, Brainiac developed a new plan for the clone growing in a vat on this ship.

It turns out that Brainiac obtained DNA from Lois Lane and his probability matrix indicated that if Superman had procreated with a human female, she was the most likely candidate, and so he used Lois Lane’s DNA to stabilize the Kryptonian cloning procedure developed by Cadmus Labs for the creation of Conner Kent. He then used special cocktails mad from Red and Blue Kryptonite, in combination with virtual reality and telepathic memory insertion techniques, to “program” Mia with artificial memories and give her a solid comprehensive improvisation instinct to fill in the gaps; but due to her suppressed self-awareness of where she came from, Brainiac had to omit informing her of Superboy’s origins or risk having Mia’s mind buck the intricately deceptive false memories.

Once all this was prepared, Mia was teleported into downtown Metropolis using modified boom tube technology. On her own, Mia performed her part as well as Brainiac could have ever hoped. She had us all scratching our heads and investigating the possibility of time travel and doing parenting tests on Mia, meanwhile Clark took her into his home and the more she found out about the Kent family, the more her programmed mind was able to assimilate facts into her web of lies and become all the more convinced she was in-fact the daughter of Clark Kent and Lois Lane sent from the future. The lies became so elaborate that when Mia did find out about Conner’s own vat-grown origins, her programming remained intact.

Supergirl: 2014 - 2016
After Mia had become convinced in her own programming, her male genetic template (“father) Clark Kent thought it would be a good idea for her to join the Titans as the new Supergirl. Though Bruce and I had been against the Kents taking in Mia (who claimed her father had even given her the Kryptonian name “Cir-El”), we did support her joining the Titans as it gave us the perfect chance to have her studied through Damian (who was more than happy to be given a secret assignment). Much of what we learned about Mia was discovered through Damian’s investigation. He found ways to surreptiously investigate her reactions to Kryptonite, which were all as to be expected for a Half-Kryptonian of her apparent age, except for an elevated tolerance to the mind-altering effects of Red and Blue Kryptonite due to her overexposure to those during her programming at the hands of Brainiac. Damian also discovered that her heat vision emitted Red Sun radiation, which we now know was part of her original design to be used as a short-term assassin.

But what Bruce and I had perhaps overlooked was that family is relative concept. Though she may have been Clark and Lois’ daughter genetically, Mia’s true bond to the Kent family came later through love, acceptance, and survival together through toil and trouble. Seriously, Bruce has built himself a family of orphans, he should have realized that… but then again Bruce never was much of one to subscribe to such lovely-dovey stuff (you should see the birthday cards he has Alfred send out for him… yeesh… depressing).

Anyway! So even when Lois’ pregnancy (that looked to coincide with Mia’s supposedly upcoming date of birth) turned out to be a son and not a daughter, Clark refused to admit that Mia was not his daughter and when confronted with logic, Clark used Bruce to do some remodeling in his apartment, shoving Bruce through some drywall.

But, as much as Clark refused to admit it, we were on a collision course to discovering Mia’s true nature…

Supergirl: 2016 - Present
Apparently in the aftermath of discovering that Lois Lane’s pregnancy was not going to end in Mia’s own birth, Mia had an internal conflict with her programming. As her real memoires began losing their suppression, Mia did some soul-searching. She had psychics try to further probe her mind but to little results due to her programming’s designed safeguard against such intrusions. Left with little alternative, Mia sought out Brainiac as she all her fragmented memories pointed to her having a connection with him.

As someone who uses a computer system built on Kryptonian code, I know how much Kryptonians liked to vamp and apparently they coded their machines in the same way. Mia seems to have known this too and so when she contacted Brainiac using the device her false memories had told her were a “temporal transmitter” (actually a sophisticated Coluan radio), Mia took a page out of the Bat-Book and fitted her “temporal transmitter” with a recording device and GPS tracker. When Brainiac pulled Mia into a Boom Tube for a “booster shot” of her mental conditioning to offset her doubts concerning Lois’ pregnancy, the transmitter’s recorded every word of Brainiac’s ego-driven rantings. When Mia was returned to Earth with her mind newly affirmed in her lies than ever before, the Titans were waiting to have a listen to the transmitter’s recording as Mia had left Jessica Allen a note informing the team leader of her plan. After hearing enough of Brainiac’s intents for Mia, all the mental programming came apart and Mia was able to fill in the gaps of what little Brainiac did not detail.

Mia was retaliation. The Justice League had robbed Brainiac of his legacy by not only destroying Brainiac-8 but also turning her against Brainiac. So Brainiac would give Superman a daughter, let him become endeared to the girl, only to let her betray his trust and once her work was done, Brainiac would take her away from Superman… through the alien disease which Brainiac had introduced into her system from the beginning. Discovering that Mia wasn’t likely to survive adulthood, Clark swore that he would kill Brainiac… once and for all.

Links and References

 * Appearances of Cir-El
 * Character Gallery: Cir-El