Plankton vs The Brain (SpongeBob Squarepants vs Animaniacs)

 

“Suffer the little creatures, for they may yet rise up and beat you senseless.”

Plankton, the microscopic menace of Bikini Bottom.

The Brain, the genius lab mouse seeking world domination.

A wise old short green man once said that “size matters not.” And for these two evil geniuses who seek to take over the world by any means necessary, that statement couldn’t hold any more weight… unlike their actual weights. While they may be small and unassuming, they make up for it with their intuitiveness and ambition, always seeking to achieve their goals no matter how many times their plans fail and blow up in their face. And so today, we’ll be discussing which of these tiny-yet-deadly villains can come out on top in a battle of wits. If you’re pondering what I’m pondering, let’s find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Begin…

Discussing these two is fairly simple. SpongeBob has a straightforward canon, with the main series, spinoffs, movies, comics and video games all generally considered canon as the series creators have implied that they consider pretty much everything the franchise has to offer to be so. Pinky & the Brain will also be analyzed with similar standards; the original Animaniacs cartoon, their spinoff series, comics, video games, and any appearances they make alongside the Looney Tunes and whatnot, as they quite blatantly share the same universe thanks to Tiny Toons and the many cameos the two series make with one another. However, other crossovers like Nicktoons Unite/Nickelodeon All Stars Brawl and DC will not be included, though abilities and equipment from them will be included if applicable.

Speaking of which, we will also be looking at nearly every notable invention these two have used regardless of whether it was broken or only used one time (it also had to have actually worked in some capacity), and we will be including any robots, allies and other support they have utilized throughout their tenure. Buckle up, and let’s get started.

Background

Plankton

“Hear me, Krabs! When I discover your formula for Krabby Patties, I'll run you out of business! I went to college!”

The ocean: a vast body of Earth that has been around practically since the beginning of time. It’s hard to say if we’ll ever truly uncover the entirety of what it holds under the surface, but perhaps one of its strangest mysteries lies within Bikini Bottom, a city of sentient sea creatures who live eerily similar to us surface dwellers. But safe to say, their lives are a bit more nautical and nonsensical, and among those who live wacky lives is the one-eyed evil genius himself, Sheldon J. Plankton.

Plankton was born into a family of country bumpkins, often feeling like an outcast due to being much smarter than any of his relatives. Wanting someone to share his love of all things science, he built himself a talking calculator, which would later be upgraded to become his computer wife, Karen. Still, Plankton did have one other friend in the form of Eugene H. Krabs, who in their youth came up with a plan to get out of poverty by selling burgers. However, this shared goal led to the two drifting apart due to their differing ideals, Plankton stubbornly sticking to his original burger recipe by selling Chum Burgers, while Mr. Krabs chose to go with a different recipe, his new creation becoming the single most popular burger the sea had ever seen: the Krabby Patty.

For years, Plankton resented Eugene and his success, to the point where he made it his life’s goal to steal Krabs’ secret formula for Krabby Patties, run him out of business and take over not just the sea, but the entire world. But thanks to that blasted fry cook and his general tendency to mess up again and again, it’s a lot easier said than done. Whether it’s tricking King Neptune to gain control of Bikini Bottom, getting the help of his backwater relatives, or deceiving the likes of SpongeBob and Squidward to get what he wants, Plankton is nothing if not headstrong, always looking for a new way to get one step ahead of his arch nemesis. Until he can find the one scheme to do so, he’ll continue to watch from across the street as Eugene continues to reap the benefits of their friendship all those years ago. But as seen time and time again, when he’s at his best and most diabolical, all of Bikini Bottom will know better than to underestimate the mastermind that is Plankton.

The Brain

"Project Brain, it was a success! I am a mind! A brain! I am… the BrainI"

ACME, a gigantic conglomeration that seems to house just about anything you could ever hope for; particularly crazy contraptions to catch a speedy avian. However, like 99% of all corporations, dark secrets lie beneath its squeaky clean surface, as one failed experiment would spawn two of the toon worlds’ zaniest and dastardly beings, one being a genius and the other being insane: Pinky and The Brain.

Brain was initially just a simple field mouse, living a quiet, quaint life in the countryside with his parents. One day, however, he would be stolen from them by ACME Labs scientists and used as a lab rat among many others. The young mouse would be put through inhumane and cruel experiments, traumatizing him deeply and instilling a burning hatred for humankind and its culture. However, even at this young age, Brain was shown to be much brighter than the average mouse, his hyperintelligence only growing upon having his genes spliced, gaining sentience. Eventually, after joining forces with a fellow lab mouse in captivity, Brain found a new goal in life; to use his newfound expertise in all things science and engineering to take over the world; whether it’s proving his mousey worth to humanity, fueling his own ego, or gaining back the control that he lost as a child.

Brain and his insane assistant Pinky have spent years trying to figure out the perfect plan to rule the planet. From attempting to subjugate the public, to outright wiping out human life so that only they rule, Brain’s plans are certainly ambitious if-not maniacal. However, 9… okay, 10 times out of 10, their plans often fall through due to an oversight not forethought by Brain, like Pinky’s wild unpredictability or a slight kink in his inventions. But quite admirably, Brain does not let his failures get the best of him, as he simply dusts himself off and begins to make plans for the next night to try again. Still despite his evil ways, he isn’t entirely cruel; Brain does still genuinely care about Pinky, outright abandoning a foolproof plan to make Pinky happy and risking his life for him on multiple occasions.

Regardless of his repeated failures or vulnerabilities, the Brain has shown that he isn’t one to mess with when he’s at his most focused and formidable, often coming scarily close to getting what he wants. But until he can find the one plan that can do so, the Brain will do the same thing he and Pinky do every night; try and take over the world!

Skill & Experience

Plankton

Despite constantly being thwarted time and again by the likes of SpongeBob and friends, Plankton is among the most intelligent and brilliant minds in all of the sea. He’s built countless inventions all throughout his life, from building a sentient calculator when he was a young boy, to successfully creating a freeze ray in college, Plankton’s expertise in all things engineering, chemistry and mathematics is nearly unparalleled in Bikini Bottom, the only one comparable being the likes of Sandy Cheeks, and even she was impressed by his work. He can create pretty much anything sets his mind to, often spontaneously and sometimes in just under a day.

Even though Plankton almost always fails in his schemes, there have been some notable instances where he nearly succeeded and got everything he wanted, like when he enslaved the entirety of Bikini Bottom under his own dictatorship, and has managed to nearly run Krabs out of business on multiple occasions. In an alternate timeline, Plankton was even able to create a successful cookie business, with Krabs as a subordinate no less.

As for his other talents, Plankton is a fairly good schemer as well. He was able to use Krabs’ greediness against him to convince a jury that he had seriously injured himself in the Krusty Krab, organized a city-wide sled race to steal the formula under their noses, and has constantly tricked SpongeBob into helping out with his schemes, like convincing him to clear the beach to build a Mega Bucket, attempting to hypnotize him to tell him the secret formula, and starting a band with him to figure out said formula. And in spite of his small size, Plankton has actually shown he can keep up with the larger fish in Bikini Bottom, namely when he learned self defense from Sandy. He’s also trained in the art of Kelp-Kwan-Foo by a group of sentient Kelp, further showing that he can handle fisticuffs when he needs to.

The Brain

Just as the theme song says, Brain is a genius. After being put through ACME’s gene splicer, he gained full sentience and became extremely intelligent, potentially even more so than any human alive at the time. Brain would end up absorbing all the knowledge he could from the ACME’s computer database, and regularly studied many different fields of science while trying to figure out a plan for world domination. Physics, chemistry, astrology, biology, engineering, the list truly goes on as to what Brain has a knack for, almost always understanding what needs to go into his plans to succeed. His knowledge also extends to fields of study outside of science, as he frequently quotes from all sorts of historical figures, writers and philosophers. The Brain’s also been around for a lot longer than you may think, having adventures not just in the modern day, but as early back as 1800s London during the Victorian era.

The Brain is also quite creative when it comes to his different plans and inventions, often utilizing manipulation rather than brute force. He was able to convince people that he was a fellow human and not just a mouse in a robot suit (and even then they don’t seem to mind it if they do realize he’s just a mouse), and has convinced people to try his “products” through persuasion and an understanding of the human psyche. He was even able to use his knowledge of quantum mechanics, chaos theory and thermodynamics to manipulate a lottery drawing into giving him the exact numbers to win. Still, Brain has often considered using more forceful tactics for world domination, like causing a worldwide blackout, shrinking everyone’s hats to trap them within, and disrupting the world’s tectonic plates, all to cause global chaos and rule with an iron fist. 

But Brain isn’t all… well, brains. He’s shown to be knowledgeable in a variety of different fields, like sword fighting, archery, horseback riding, lock picking, sumo wrestling, surfing, bowling, hacking and even sorcery. He’s also come paw-to-paw with other supervillains trying to take his spotlight, like his arch-rival Snowball, the evil cat Precious, his own artificial creation-turned mousey rival Julia, and the weather-controlling Dr. Doppler. It just goes to show the lengths that Brain will go to in order to take over the world.

Equipment

Plankton

The Chum Bucket

Plankton’s main base of operations, the Chum Bucket is far more than a simple restaurant that sells gross food. It houses Plankton’s laboratory, where he makes a majority of his inventions and conducts experiments. Plankton has also been capable of using the restaurant for recreational use, like making the fist into a submarine for delivering chum or even fighting off other sentient hands, and transforming the Chum Bucket into a battle station with tank treads. Some of the inventions and tools built into the Chum Bucket include:

• A DNA reader that can tell Plankton the genetic makeup of whatever he puts into it. Apparently he himself is made up of 99% hot gas.

• A Transmogrifier that rewrites reality and switches the life of its user with the target of their choosing

• Various telescopes that allow Plankton to spy on the Krusty Krab

• Infrared Security Attack Lasers, which fire off lasers when Plankton activates it, though its name implies it can be set off as a security measure.

• A listening device that allows Plankton to… well, listen in on anything close by.

• Large, retractable arms that can be controlled by Plankton.

• A Projector 3000 that can simulate a romantic dinner with Karen.

• A Digitizer that can turn anything into raw data and injected into Karen’s digital world.

• An Enlargotron that can increase the size of anything it shoots.

• Large death lasers that make the Bikini Bottom denizens run, including SpongeBob

• The Leg-Yanker 5 Zillion, a device that can painfully stretch out Plankton’s legs to make him taller

Chum

Chum is the signature ingredient in all of Plankton's menu items. In real life, chum is made out of chopped fish and used by fishermen as bait, which is likely why 99% of Bikini Bottom’s residents are disgusted by just the thought of eating it. Doing so causes the consumer to become severely ill and even poisons them, the food being stated to be so multiple times as well as containing countless strains of parasitical bacteria. Some people even lose their limbs from eating them. Plankton also once developed a special variant of chum known as Salsa Imbecilus, which makes anyone who gets exposed to it extraordinarily dumb. Despite its repulsive qualities, it did see some good use when it was used to cure the townsfolk from the Secret Patty, which turned everyone into hulking Krabby Patty monsters.

Disguises

A staple for any cartoon villain, Plankton has used disguises to sneak right under Krabs’ nose and steal the formula. This ranges from costumes of innocent civilians like his own grandmother, to inanimate objects like condiments, money and flecks of skin.

Explosives

Befitting of a villain trying to break into a surprisingly well-armed restaurant, Plankton keeps around a multitude of explosives to blow up anything in his way. These include sticks of dynamite, grenades, bombs and missiles. Plankton was even able to create an explosive out of soap and chum while in prison.

Laser Guns

When Plankton needs to handle a situation directly, he’s shown using a few different ray guns, most of them being quite similar to one another.

Water Helmet

Because sea creatures need water to breathe, whenever their adventures take them on dry land, they’re often seen wearing a helmet with water, kind of like a space helmet for an astronaut.

Mind Control Device

Plankton’s very first evil scheme we see in the series and among his many mind controlling inventions, this device was used to take control of SpongeBob’s brain and force him to take a Krabby Patty to his laboratory. It would’ve even been a success, SpongeBob only being able to hold off its effects for a short time.

Backpacks

Plankton has been shown wearing various backpacks, all with a variety of different features. Some have claws that let him carry heavy objects, some are jetpacks, and some are propeller packs.

Pocket Watch

Disguising himself as a psychiatrist, Plankton uses a pocket watch to put SpongeBob into a deep sleep, giving him a complex dream about overcoming his fear of Krabby Patties. It puts him in such a deep sleep that he can’t wake up when Plankton snaps or yells at him.

Goo Goo Gas/Senior Citizen Spray

Special kind of gasses created by Plankton that manipulate the ages of their victims. The Goo Goo Gas turns its targets into babies, though a second dose will turn them back into their original age; these come in the form of a sprayer with a tank and bombs that affect multiple targets at once. The Senior Citizen Spray does the opposite, turning the target into an elder.

Chum Bucket Helmet

In the first movie, Plankton uses these helmets to mind control the citizens of Bikini Bottom into following his every command, and were even able to assimilate others. They are destroyed at the end of the film, because apparently they cannot handle “intense levels of rock and roll” when SpongeBob sings his rock rendition of the Goofy Goober song.

Color Nullifier

A contraption that Plankton can use to absorb color, using it on the Rainbowger to absorb all of its colors. It malfunctions, however, and shoots various colors all over the Krusty Krab and its customers.

Jerkmaker 9000

A vehicle shaped like a fruitcake that can create the eponymous food, and anyone who eats it becomes a jerk, though SpongeBob is unaffected by it due to being overwhelmingly positive.

Laser Helmet

In order to prevent being stepped on, Plankton creates a helmet mounted with a laser that is so powerful, it can burn through just about anything, including a large flower cloud.

Flash Balloons

In Friend or Foe, Plankton sends out balloons that pop with confetti and some sort of blinding agent that causes the customers of the Krusty Krab to run in fear.

Mind Control Shampoo

Yet another mind control invention, Plankton applied a shampoo (with conditioner!) to Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy to control their minds. While it doesn’t work at first due to Mermaid Man being old and senile, Plankton eventually takes manual control of his brain and tells Bikini Bottom citizens that Krabby Patties are terrible. The two are eventually cured when they digest the Krabby Patties, curing them back to their old selves.

“Recording Equipment”

When Plankton tries to start a band with SpongeBob and Patrick, he brings in a device he refers to as “recording equipment”. It extracts SpongeBob’s brain, and allows Plankton to hear SpongeBob’s different songs in his head. It breaks when it hooks up to Patrick’s brain, blowing it up.

Construction Equipment

Throughout the series, Plankton has somehow been able to acquire a variety of different construction equipment like bulldozers and cranes, as well as a digger to help him find clams.

Phone

A phone that is connected to Karen to talk to her on recon missions.

Mind Connector

A device made out of two plungers that, when connected to certain parts of the victim’s body, can allow Plankton to see what they can see when connected to the eyes, hear what they hear when connected to the ears, and absorb information if connected to the brain. However, doing so with the heart causes the user to turn into their target, seen when Plankton became SpongeBob-like.

Hang Glider

A miniature hang glider that Plankton used to burst through the ceiling of the Krusty Krab, and even comes with a missile that sends out a robotic arm that ensnares SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs.

Unicycle

A reliable method of transportation around Bikini Bottom, especially for someone with stubby little legs.

Vegetable Steamer

No ordinary vegetable steamer, however, as it turns Plankton into a gaseous form, allowing him to slip through the walls of the Krusty Krab.

Giant Vat of Frying Grease

After having his plan in Frozen Face Off ruined, Plankton’s last resort is to turn our heroes into fish sticks with a giant container of frying grease. Got any dipping sauce?

Sizzlemaster

A spatula that Plankton gives to SpongeBob in order to find out the secret formula. It can fly, has smell sensors, and can extend out to flip multiple patties at once, and Plankton can use it to talk to SpongeBob directly.

Copy Machine

A printer that can create a near-perfect copy of anyone it scans, though since the copies are made of paper, they eventually fade away from too much water.

Rocket Tank

A tank equipped with missiles that Plankton initially uses to fight the Chum Bucket Fist, but it has to be activated via an external button.

Hologram Machine

During his company picnic, Plankton uses a hologram machine that somehow turns his disgusting chum into elaborate carnival games and prizes that fool even the Krusty Krab crew.

Ghost Extracting Machine

To phase through the walls of the Krusty Krab, Plankton creates a machine that turns him into a ghost by quite literally squeezing the spirit out of him.

Shrink Belt

Because he somehow wanted to be even smaller than he already is, Plankton has a belt that allows him to shrink to microscopic sizes, though turning it the opposite direction allows him to increase his size instead.

Parade Float

As the Bikini Bottom Parade happens, Plankton hastily creates his own parade float that plows through the other floats to get to the Krusty Krab’s float.

Dupli-maker

A cloning chamber that Plankton can use to make duplicates of just about anything or anyone, seen when Patrick accidentally made many clones of himself. Dear God.

Ray Ray Ray

A ray gun that turns Plankton into his alter ego Ray Ray. It doesn’t seem to actually have any destructive capabilities, but it does seem to give him more confidence to dance, at least.

Mutant Cream-Filling Cupcake

Plankton’s ventures into villainy started back in Kamp Koral. One of them includes the time he made a cupcake that turns whoever eats it into a hulking mutated monster. He later makes an antidote to keep himself from getting fired by Krabs after SpongeBob and Patrick eat a bunch.

Air Plankton

An airplane that Plankton can pilot, which can carry a large jar of tartar sauce to drop onto the battlefield. It also carries…

Tank

A tank that Plankton can pilot that shoots pickles, and can even transform into a robot that he can control with its antenna. He also has a tank that he drives around for recreational use.

Time Machine

In the second film, Plankton and SpongeBob create a time machine in order to prevent the apocalypse, Karen using the last of her power reserves to fuel it. It allows its user to go practically anywhere in time, though altering any event within said times may cause the creation of an alternate timeline.

Dream Invader

A device that Plankton created to enter SpongeBob’s dream and find out the secret formula.

Other Time Machine

Another time machine that Plankton uses in the comics to go back in time and figure out the Krabby Patty formula from Krabs’ ancestor.

Shrink Ray

A shrink ray that reduces SpongeBob to microscopic sizes, though Plankton is able to turn him back… and be crushed by a zooplankton that he accidentally enlarged as well.

Green Crayon

In a random comic, Plankton used a crayon to draw a death ray and a throne and a fake Mr. Krabs into reality.

Pickup Truck

A fittingly small truck Plankton uses to haul Gary to the Chum Bucket.

Duplicatotron 1000

In Battle for Bikini Bottom, Plankton’s plan involves making an army of robots in order to take over. To do this, he invented a number of Duplicatotron 1000s, dispensers that continually spawn various robots to attack the heroes and other townsfolk. While they do seem capable of dispensing an infinite amount of robots, they can be easily blown up and destroyed.

Duplicatotron 3000

The original source of all robots in BFBB as well as the 1000 models, the Duplicatotrons are capable of creating copies of just about anyone Plankton can think of. It has a switch that can tell the robots to obey or disobey Plankton, though he never seemed to figure out how to actually switch it to the Obey option, funnily enough.

Dispiculator

A freeze ray fashioned into a helmet that Plankton wore to temporarily freeze a giant sentient Krabby Patty that was chasing him.

Misc. Inventions/Equipment

Plankton has used many different tools and made tons of different inventions in the past, some of which aren’t too important to go into lengthy detail, but still notable enough to mention.

• Mechanical Arm: It’s an arm… that’s mechanical!

• Stench Vision Goggles: Supposedly shows stenches

• Chum Bucket Replicator: Effect unknown

• Hypnotizer Helmet: Supposedly hypnotizes people but is never used

• Sonic Cannon That Destroys Every Known Material In The Universe: Does what it says on the tin.

• Riptide Generator: Generates riptides, apparently.

• The Takeover-er-erer: Explodes.

• DNA Splicer: Fuses Krabs and Plankton’s DNA to create Plankrab.

• Laser Thingy: It’s a laser, what do you want me to say?

• Monster Maker: It makes monsters.

• Flail: Used to bonk Krabs when Ms. Puff wasn’t looking

• Chainsaw: Jesus Christ, Plankton.

• Carbonated Handsome Gas: Turns him handsome

• Ugly Sludge: Turns him back to his usual self.

• Robo Plunger: Tried to use it against Sandy but didn’t work.

• Venomous Cobra Rocket: Tried to use it against Sandy but didn’t work.

• Electro-Hypno Mind-Control Fist Tank: Tried to- okay you get the point now.

The Brain

Catalystic Immobilizer

A vial filled with some sort of freezing agent that can encase its targets in ice for up to 24 hours. It fails when Pinky accidentally uses it on himself and Brain.

Vaccummonator

A device that uses reverse air pressure to suck in just about anything into its bag. Brain tries to use this to steal Russia’s crown jewels, but ends up getting sucked into it himself.

Pollen

A man-made, or rather mouse-made pollen that causes temporary but uncontrollable sneezing that no human is immune to. This invention actually worked to make two Fort Knox guards sneeze uncontrollably.

Mind Controlling Tape

In order to control the minds of the world, The Brain recorded a not-so subliminal message telling people that they were now under his control, and to obey his every command. Anyone who hears this message will obey his every command, though it fails when he accidentally tells everyone to forget his name while lashing out at Pinky.

Magic Wand

During an adventure in Camelot, Brain stole Merlin’s magic wand to help on his quest to the mountains. However, the only spell he knew was how to shrink whoever he points it at by chanting “Charlie Sheen, Ben Vereen, shrink to the size of a lima bean!”

Sword

While only used in a stage play, Brain has shown that he is plenty capable of defending himself with a sword.

Time Machine

In 1895, Brain managed to steal a time machine invented by H.G Wells to travel back in time and alter history to where mice ruled the Earth instead of humans.

Smallerizer Plus

A formula that turns anyone that it affects extremely small, Brain concocting it to turn everyone shorter than him so he can be superior. However, he warns Pinky not to give anyone a second dose, saying that it will cause an unpredictable molecular reaction… which happens to be turning the recipient into a tall, muscular Swiss yodeler. Truly unpredictable, alright.

Power Possum

In order to thwart archvillain Johnny Badnote and steal the Caped Opossum’s fame, Pinky & The Brain steal his vehicle to track him down. The tail can be used as a winch and parachute, and comes with rocket thrusters that can go forward or backward, and a “Power Sniffer” that can drive the car towards something smelly.

Crane

A construction crane with a giant sponge that Brain uses to suck up the water from the Ganges River, though the support rope is not strong enough to hold the weight of all the water.

Robot Maker

A machine that can mass produce robots that seek to achieve Brain’s goal of taking over the world. By feeding the machine scrap metal, it can create hundreds of small yet deadly robots, though it is eventually thwarted unintentionally when Brain shuts off the machine, causing the created bots to shut down.

Enlarging Ray

In 1956 Japan, the Brain modified a shrinking ray to do the opposite; make anything it shoots gigantic. He uses this to make Pinky dressed as Gollyzilla giant and does the same for himself, though the machine goes haywire and causes everything, including the Earth itself to grow several times their original size, causing them to go back to being tiny since everything else is giant.

Dentures

In order to get his own sitcom and gain the adoration of the public, Brain created dentures that, with reflective vibrations, causes the viewer of his smile to adore him for no good reason.

Bow & Arrow

As the Robin Brain, Brain became proficient with a bow and arrow, and was even able to match the actual Robin Hood in archery skills.

G.I. Jack ATV

A toy car that comes with a winch in case the two need to make long distance missions.

Mechanical Arm

In order to beat every team in the NBA, Brain created an extendable arm that allows Brain to shoot hoops with some of the best. He’s even used it to pitch at a baseball game.

Disguises

While most humans don’t have an issue with Brain’s mousey stature, he has many different disguises to fool them into thinking he is a fellow human, like when he disguised himself as Cher to enter a celebrity golf tournament.

Silitron Linguifactor

A machine that Brain built to bring inanimate objects to life, including the very planet itself, and even brought the entire moon to life.

Virtual Reality Transynchotron

After carefully reducing history to a simple equation, Brain creates a set of gear that creates a virtual reality of not only games, but can tell the future. Pinky ended up using this to figure out that Brain would die in a skiing accident, and managed to save him, altering the future… to where the world was ruled by a yam.

Vegetron

A device that can turn any vegetable into a ravenous monster. While it fails initially due to the eggplants Brain brings to life being… eggplant-sized, he eventually brings giant vegetables to life to wreak havoc on the county fair. How did he make giant vegetables? With…

Braindini

By combining chlorophyll, steroids, cattle droppings and Pinky’s pudding, Brain created a fertilizer that can grow plants to gigantic sizes. By hosing a portion of a field with it, he even managed to make a miniature forest filled with giant grass and even bigger vegetables.

Brain De Soleil

In order to hypnotize the youth into following his every command, Brain creates a hypnotic sunscreen that, when applied, makes the user obey Brain’s every command… in theory, anyway. When exposed to the sun, it causes those who it's applied to to freeze up.

Brain Juice

A concoction that Brain created that, when consumed by a lesser-intelligent being, quadruples their intelligence and makes them extraordinarily smart. He mixes these into pizzas to sell to the public, though it fails when they become too smart and get disgusted by him being a mouse.

Doggy DNA Cocktail

In order to pacify Mr. Pussy Wussy (yes that is his name), Brain combines dog hair and clam juice to create an agent that makes anyone who ingests it act like a dog. While Brain fails at infecting the world’s water supply with it, it does manage to make a group of giant worms act like rabid dogs.

Audio Command Modifier

A sound device that, what else, puts anyone that listens to the frequencies into a hypnotic trance that forces them to do whatever Brain commands. This device actually worked quite well in helping Brain escape the clutches of a secret organization that wanted to eliminate him… though it’s eventually broken by Elmyra.

Attraction Scent

By combining ant pheromones and sugary cereal, Brain created an attraction scent that causes anyone doused with it to be the object of attraction to anyone nearby. It does actually work when it hits the DJ at the school dance, making all the students follow him like mindless zombies.

Teleportation Flashlight

A flashlight that Brain fashioned into a teleportation device, allowing him to “convey matter” from one point to the other in the blink of an eye. While it does succeed in teleporting both Brain and Elmyra, it also causes the two to become fused together, though the reverse function undid it.

Black Hole in a Jar

By manipulating an orange, Brain creates a miniature black hole in a jar to market to humans as an environmentally friendly way to dispose of garbage, though it eventually becomes so unstable that it starts sucking in everything. The two are saved when Elmyra… throws it out of her bedroom window. Somehow.

Portal Gun

After meeting with his future self who tries to stop Pinky from ruining his plans any further, the current Brain steals his portal gun. The gun can not only create portals to anywhere in the world, but at any point in time.

R.E.W.I.N.D

Also known as the Reverse Entropy Waveform Inverter Neutrino Dilator, the REWIND is a device that allows Brain to travel precisely two hours into the past, though overuse of the device causes the very fabric of reality to become disrupted and wormholes to alternate realities to form.

Quantum Continuance Disruptor

In order to save Brain from a group of mobsters, Pinky ends up taking his Quantum Continuance Disruptor. By disrupting the fabric of time, the watch allows its wearer to set a timer for up to an hour, and once the timer is up, time will reverse by that set duration. Pinky was even able to remember the fact that time was resetting, and later on when the two end up reliving the same second, Brain can as well.

Listening Device

A listening device that Brain planned to use to gain valuable military intel from a dictator dinner party.

PB Zork Laughing Gas

A laughing gas that Brain has that makes anyone who laughs freeze, though it only works if they are within 95 degrees fahrenheit, and fails when Brain accidentally mixes it with wax, causing the wax models of the people he froze to explode.

Laughing Serum

Another laughing agent, though this one doesn’t require specific temperatures like the gas. By contaminating the water in a pond with a Laughing Serum he created, Brain was able to make all the ducks in the water laugh uncontrollably, though Brain himself isn’t immune as seen when Pinky accidentally hits him into it.

Spy Equipment

On certain spy-faring adventures, both Pinky & Brain have used various spy gadgets to help them break into well-guarded areas. These include grappling hooks, suction cups to scale walls, and mirrors to deflect security lasers.

Duplication Ray

A blow dryer-looking ray gun that can duplicate anything and anyone Brain desires, using it to create hundreds of clones of himself and eventually hundreds of clones of Pinky.

Bee Suit

“Good news, we can be bees!”

Electromagnetic Sub-Atomic Ethereal Particle Collector

Similar to a group of men who bust ethereal spirits, Brain has a vacuum cleaner that can suck up ghosts. The device also comes with a chamber that Brain states can vaporize the spirit at the subatomic level, and would have done so had he not cared for Pinky’s safety.

Anti-Neuralyzer 

Yet another classic movie homage, Brain makes a Neuralyzer from Men in Black, except it does the opposite effect; whoever it's flashed at will remember what just happened in the past few seconds rather than forget.

Misc. Equipment/Inventions

• Explosive Crepes: SacreBOOM!

• World’s Strongest Magnet: A magnet that attracts horseshoes

• Helicopter: Comes with a giant magnet that helps him build a water tower

• Dig-O-Matic: Helps him dig through the ground

• Time Bomb: A bomb that supposedly creates a rip in the space time continuum to reverse time, though we never actually see it do so

Mechs

Plankton

Game Show Host

In Imitation Krabs, Plankton creates a robot that looks like an ordinary fish to trick SpongeBob into telling him the formula in exchange for a one million dollar bill.

ChumBot

The Chumbot is a giant, towering robot that Plankton piloted to force Bikini Bottom citizens into the Chum Bucket, and comes with a laser eye (singular).

Combination Robot

By combining the T-119A Compumatic, the Noxious Enterprise's Super SPU-31 Liquid-Cooled Mobile Processing Unit and the Command Module, Plankton can form a super robot. The hair dryer can shoot out fire, and it comes with three seperate arms for maximum grabbage… though it’s all powered by a cord that can be pulled from the plug.

Robot Krabs

A robotic replica of Mr. Krabs that Plankton uses to trick SpongeBob into giving him the formula. It comes with laser eyes that can completely vaporize a bag of garbage, and can transform into a toaster. It also comes with a self-destruct function by inserting a penny into the belt buckle, which is eventually how it is destroyed.

Petunia

A robotic florist that Plankton created to fool Bikini Bottom citizens into thinking the Chum Bucket had been turned into a flower shop, even managing to make Squidward fall in love with it. Looks like he likes ‘em thick.

Cashina

Similar to Petunia, Cashina is a robotic seemingly-sentient wad of cash that was used to trick Mr. Krabs into marrying it to tell her the secret formula. So that technically means Plankton and Mr. Krabs are married… take that as you will.

Lights Camera Pants Bot

In Lights, Camera, Pants!, Plankton has his own mechanical suit that allows him to play various minigames with the cast. This doesn’t really have a reason to be here, I just wanted an excuse to mention Lights Camera Pants in some way.

Robot Crab

In Nicktoons: Unite, Plankton’s boss fight involves him fighting the crew while piloting a robotic crab. It can slam into the ground for an AoE ground pound attack, send out fireballs or lasers from its eyes, quickly zoom across the stage to ram into foes, and can summon minions to keep its opponents busy.

Freaky Robot Battle Suit

In Plankton’s Robotic Revenge, his main choice of mech is a battle suit built by Karen, serving as the first and final boss of the game. It comes equipped with jets to allow it to fly, and cannon hands that can shoot out lasers and mines, which can be switched out for giant floating hands that Plankton can use to smash his opponents.

Mecha-Plankton

In Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2, Plankton pilots the Mecha-Plankton, a large robotic version of himself to keep up with the larger fighters.

Light Attacks

• Me? Aggressive?! (Neutral A): A multi-hit jab with Karen punching before the mech slams his fists to the ground.

• Bigger Boot (Side Tilt): Does a lunging kick forward.

• Hot-Headed Commands (Up Tilt): Opens up his hatch and releases an explosion, with the mech looking irritated.

• Cossack Dance (Down Tilt): Crosses his arms and does low kicks.

• Combo #2 with Extra Chum (Neutral Aerial): Spins his arms around in a circle before doing an uppercut. Hits multiple times.

• Super Plankton Hand Cannon Strike (Forward Aerial): Shoots his fist forward. Good range.

• King Neptune's Iron Fist (Back Aerial): Swings his fist downward. Can spike.

• Robojellycopter (Up Aerial): Propels upward with a helicopter blade. Hits multiple times, and travels upward. One of his primary vertical KO options and recovery tools due to flying upward and the slime-cancel.

• Chum Drop (Down Aerial): Shoots a Chumsicle downward, acting as a projectile. The chumsicle travels slowly with minimal knockback, making it a great pressure tool.

Heavy Attacks

• I Seeeee You! (Side Tilt): Plankton shoots a massive laser from Mecha-Plankton’s eye. The move lingers for a bit, growing weaker over time. The move has great range at the cost of speed.

• The Chain Grab (Up Tilt): Plankton shoots a chain from the top of Mecha-Plankton, which grabs opponents hit by it and drags them back to him; launching them away. Can be angled 180°. Has the highest knockback of his strong attacks, but is harder to land due to its slowness and overall limited reach despite its looks.

• Chump Stomp (Down Tilt): Mecha-Plankton stomps the ground; creating a shockwave that travels across the ground. There can only be one shockwave on the stage at a time.

• Super Plankton Punch (Side Aerial): A dashing punch. Can be used for recovery. Auto-cancels when touching the ground allowing Plankton to gain a burst of speed while still being actionable.

• Crossfire of Sauce (Up Aerial): Mecha-Plankton shoots multiple sauce blasts upwards. Plankton's primary vertical KO tool when converted from Up Air Light, and applies sauce to opponents.

• Peek-a-boo! Laser (Down Aerial): Mecha-Plankton shoots two lasers diagonally downwards, with them colliding into one spot. Can spike opponents, and stalls in the air while charging.

Special Attacks

• The Way of the Sauce (Neutral): Plankton repeatedly fires sauce from the sauce blasters on Mecha-Plankton’s arms. You can temporarily float while using this move in mid-air by holding the attack button. Can be canceled into jump, shield or grab. The sauce also inflicts a unique status effect on opponents which limits how much they can DI, making Plankton's combos much more powerful.

• Slime Version: A larger, more powerful version that comes out instantaneously and knocks Plankton back slightly. Kills ludicrously early offstage, and applies the burn effect instead of sauce.

• Chum Bucket Buster (Side): A command grab in which Mecha-Plankton grabs the opponent before flying upwards and crashing down with a fiery explosion. The move has very high endlag on the grab, but if Plankton grabs an opponent, the knockback is extremely high.

• Slime Version: Gains super armor and deals 10 extra damage.

• 99% Hot Gas/Shia Kazing (Up): Plankton ejects the top half of Mecha-Plankton upwards as the lower half disappears. Pressing the button again causes the mech to clap its hands together; creating an explosion. Greatly increased height if used immediately after Robojellycopter.

• Slime Version: The first hit launches the opponent upward into Shia Kazing. Larger window to cancel into Shia Kazing.

• Chum Bucket's Toxic Tuesday Special (Down): Karen throws a chum projectile at an upwards arc. If it hits an opponent, they are poisoned for a short time and launched upward. If it hits the ground, it creates a cloud of gas that damages any opponents who go into it.

• Slime Version: Shoots three buckets in a spread. Allows for better coverage.

Throw

• Grab: Shoots a net forward. The longest ranged grab in the game, but very slow.

• Pummel: Punches the opponent.

• Forward Throw: Mecha-Plankton punches the opponent with a flaming fist; hitting multiple times. This applies a brief fire effect on the opponent, which damages them over time.

• Back Throw: Mecha-Plankton throws the opponent on the ground behind him. Can spike the opponent when used near a ledge.

• Up Throw: Mecha-Plankton and Karen throw the opponent upwards before Plankton fires a missile at them. Has the highest knockback of his throws.

• Down Throw: Karen throws the opponent downwards. Plankton's main combo throw that can convert into just about anything.

Other

• Dash Attack (The Way of The Sauce): Mecha-Plankton speeds forward; propelled by the sauce blasters. It leaves a trail of sauce on the ground behind it. Propels Plankton backwards if done close to a ledge.

• Super Attack: Plankton and Karen activate Mecha-Plankton’s self-destruct; blowing up the opponent.

The Grimenator

A robot that Mr. Krabs initially bought to replace SpongeBob’s cleaning duties, but was eventually revealed to be Plankton’s creation. It’s designed to seek out all grime and clean it up immediately, and could even make Krabby Patties and serve customers. It was thwarted when Mr. Krabs squirted grime inside of the robot, forcing it to tear its own head in half.

The Brain

Human Suit

When certain plans require Brain to pose as a human, he busts out a mechanical robot that allows him to seamlessly blend in with them. Made from a titanium alloy, Brain can control the suit’s arms and legs near-seamlessly for regular mobility and even when fighting Snowball’s own armored suit. It can also detach the top half from the lower half to fly around and throw out fireballs, cannonballs and bombs. The suit also has several different variations for different situations; there’s the standard suit-and-tie version, a sumo suit that can lift up to 600 pounds, Patty Ann which is smaller and meant to resemble a schoolgirl, and a bowling suit meant for the sport specifically.

Dragon Robot

In Sir Yaksalot, the Warners are tasked with slaying a fire-breathing dragon in the kingdom of Camelot, eventually being revealed to be a robot created by Pinky and the Brain.

Verkimer Suit

In order to take control of a cyclone, Brain makes adjustments to a suit made by the late Dr. Verkimer to create his own version. It comes equipped with a radar, a gyroscope, and magnets that stabilize the suit in strong winds and allow Brain to manipulate the tornado’s electromagnetic ions, and was even able to set off an EMP that disabled a truck’s engine. With the suit, Brain manages to control an entire cyclone, though it eventually fails when Pinky accidentally turns off the gyroscope.

Steam Powered Legs

Using the power of dance (and coal), Brain created a pair of mechanical legs that, as long as there’s music playing, can dance to just about any tune and cause everyone within its vicinity to dance along. Even without the two piloting it, it was able to continue dancing on its own.

Schpiel-borg 2000

A robotic version of the series’ creator, Steven Spielberg, who Brain builds to take over the world thanks to Spielberg’s potential to do so thanks to his box office numbers.

DJ Robot

A co-piloted robot dressed like a DJ. Your guess is as good as mine as to what they were trying to accomplish here.

Mechanical Elephant

A mechanical elephant built by orphans that Brain broke the spirits of. It manages to rampage through London and even bring down Big Ben.

Bipedal Exoskeleton

A dog-like miniature robot that combines the speed and agility of the border collie with the impressively low ground clearance of the dachshund and the strict obedience of the Labrador retriever. It can fly, has lasers, and an eject button. Brain uses this to break into a well-protected mountain containing the will of Charles Dickens.

Braintech Armored Battle Unit

In a homage to classic sci-fi/mecha anime, Pinky & The Brain piloted giant robots to fight the evil space pirate Captain Snowlock’s own giant robot. It comes equipped with rocket boots to fly through space, tons of firearms to blast foes away, and its secret weapon… a swiss army knife.

Abilities

Plankton

Regeneration & Immortality

Like most characters in SpongeBob, Plankton has shown that he is capable of healing and regenerating from most means of damage. The most common of these instances is when he gets stepped on. Nine times out of ten, Plankton is typically capable of reforming himself back into his usual form even if he gets turned into goo, no worse for wear at that. He’s also reformed himself after being stretched out, burnt to ash, sliced in half by a boat propeller, chopped to bits, and even being dissolved into just his eye.

Additionally, Plankton has shown that he can survive without his skin and skeleton and even parts of his body, typically being able to put them back onto his body without much difficulty.

Hammerspace

With a “secret compartment”, Plankton can pull out just about anything he can think of, like a record player, a gift for SpongeBob or any of his inventions and/or their remotes.

Matter Manipulation

“ATOM BY ATOM!!!”

Plankton has the inconspicuous ability to completely break down an object’s matter, most notably when he broke a piece of metal down until he split apart its molecules and atoms. He was also apparently able to survive on a Krabby Patty for 2000 years by eating one molecule at a time. Speaking of which…

Longevity

Plankton has a frankly absurd ability to live longer than most other fish in the sea. When he was trapped in a time capsule, he remained within it for 2000 years seemingly without aging a day. He also managed to do a similar thing by burying himself within the Earth for a few hundred years, managing to stay the same age.

Broadway Force

Plankton can belt out some ballads, like when he sang a song for Karen for their anniversary and when he got to Atlantis, or the fittingly many times he sang in the broadway musical, and was even able to bring out backup dancers to dance along.

Immersion

In one comic issue where Plankton created his own comic book, he was able to enter the story and be chased by SpongeBob throughout the pages.

Imagination

In the world of SpongeBob, characters have been shown capable of literally creating just about anything they can set their mind to with Imagination. They can be as simple as turning a cardboard box into a spaceship and a bucket of sand into a large castle, or as elaborate as celestial bodies in Plankton’s case.

Minor Plot Manipulation/4th Wall Awareness

In the beginning and end of Plankton: The Movie, the titular character was capable of essentially bending the plot to his will, telling the cameraman to zoom in or out and reveal the title card. Because of this and many other instances, Plankton is mostly aware that he is a character in a cartoon.

The Brain

Looney DNA/Regeneration

In the world of cartoons, the many zany characters you see on screen are known as Toons, Brain being among them. While they don’t all share the same abilities as it’s stated that they have to actually learn about cartoony antics, Toons do share the same regenerative abilities since it’s implied multiple times that they have the same characteristics regardless of academics, and Slappy Squirrel even says that no one ever truly gets hurt in a cartoon, so the Brain should likely be capable of the same things. Brain himself has come back after being chopped up by a lawnmower and even being burnt to ashes, showing that he does have similar-enough properties to a Toon to be classified as one, but it’s very likely he could survive a lot more. Toons are their own species and have their own unique DNA, which allows them to come back after being clapped, smacked, spoinked and doinked. They can survive having their limbs severed, being flattened, blown up, and being reduced to their skeleton, and that’s just the tip of the looney iceberg. Some of the Toons’ more advanced regenerative abilities include being able to survive being blown up into absolutely nothing, their physical bodies being erased by the animator, and even having their spirits destroyed and popped like a balloon.

Telekinesis

Brain can miraculously use mental telepathy to move objects with his mind, bringing a trowel towards him and even being precise enough with it to open the cage lock.

Hammerspace

Like several other Toons, Brain was able to pull out a comically large mallet and smash Pinky with it.

Mind Control

As his alter ego The Fog, Brain can alter his vocal frequencies by pulling his mouth with his fingers to befog the minds of those that listen to his words, obeying his commands. In the flash game Whirled Domination, he even says he has a “perfected mind-altering hypno-gaze.”

Immersion

As Brainie the Poo, Brain managed to not only escape the book which was telling his story, but managed to enter another one based on Gone with the Wind, and would’ve even walked out of it had the author not shut the book.

4th Wall Awareness

Like most cartoon characters, especially one from a satirical series like Animaniacs, The Brain is smart enough to know that he is a character on a show. He’s aware of Warner Bros and his creator Steven Spielberg, and even has a show where he tries to hypnotize teach the viewer in all manner of villainy with his MasterClass lessons.

Forms

Plankton

Giant Plankton

After Krabs digs a Wishing Well to get coins, Plankton ends up wishing to become taller to crush his enemies beneath his feet, and after SpongeBob and Patrick end up finding the magic beneath, all of the wishes made become true, including Plankton’s. He grows way taller than Krabs and SpongeBob, able to tower and topple over buildings.

Ghost Plankton

After extracting his soul from his body, Plankton becomes a ghost. While it took him a while to learn the ins and outs of being a spirit from the Flying Dutchman, he was eventually able to get the hang of it, able to fly, phase through walls, and scare people with shapeshifting and possession. While this does leave Plankton’s physical body free for any other spirit to possess, he can return to it at any time.

Plank-Ton

In the second film, SpongeBob and his friends try to stop Burger Beard from stealing the secret formula by writing themselves as superheroes into a magic book that makes whatever’s written in it into reality. Plankton then secretly added himself into the book, becoming the super-sized, super beefy Plank-Ton. In SpongeBob HeroPants, he can create shockwaves by clapping.

Broadway Plankton

OH NO HE’S HOT-

The Brain

Mutated Brain

After drinking Dr. Hyde’s formula, Brain can turn into a hulking monster whenever he gets really angry, kind of like a certain green superhero I’m forgetting the name of. However, he will turn back to his normal self if Pinky apologizes for making him mad.

Bat-Brain

After the city was transformed into a comic book, both Brain and Pinky became Batman and Robin-esque superheroes respectively. In this form, the Brain’s physical capabilities grew significantly, having fists as hard as bowling balls and an electric attack that he can emit from his mind.

Were-Brain

After being attacked by lycanthropes, when the full moon rises, Pinky & The Brain turn into ravenous beasts of the night. While it does make Brain significantly less intelligent, it makes him extraordinarily stronger, allowing him and Pinky to beat up multiple police officers and trap them in a cage.

Sun Brain

He once became the sun so that everyone would look up to him. What a card.

Support

Plankton

Karen

Without a doubt Plankton’s greatest creation to date, Karen started off as a simple calculator that could send messages, but overtime Sheldon would upgrade and improve her to have her own emotions. In the present day, she is quite possibly the most advanced piece of technology Bikini Bottom has ever seen.

Karen is less of a machine and more of an AI, able to transfer herself between the Chum Bucket and a portable computer that she can control like her own body. While in the Chum Bucket, she can activate and use the many different inventions built into it. In her mobile form, she can do quite a few interesting things. She can use lasers that can split apart boats, a mysterious green electricity to manifest weapons, arms that turn into sawblades and can stretch far distances, and has an entire miniature world in her processors with exaggerated versions of the main cast that Plankton can send people into with the Digitizer, and most useful of all… she can be used as a regular computer.

But her most useful tool lies within her true potential. After removing her Empathy Chip, one of many emotion chips Plankton installed into her, she transformed into a monstrous robot named Hydra Karen. This version of Karen had her personalities split in threes; Super Snarky Karen, Super Smart Karen, and Super Evil Karen. Her most useful ability that came from this, however, was magnetism; she planned to create a giant mech and take over the world, using Bikini Bottom’s many buildings and other metallic landmarks to create it. The giant robot comes with an anchor and a freeze ray, though is entirely reliant on potatoes to fuel itself. While Karen had a large reserve, she was ultimately thwarted when SpongeBob and Patrick ate all the potatoes; she may have made a foolproof plan, but not a SpongeBob-proof plan.

Spot

After so many years of trying and failing to steal the Krabby Patty formula, Plankton decided it would be best to find something to get his mind off of it for a while, eventually deciding to get a pet. He ended up picking an amoeba named Spot after it saved him and SpongeBob from a giant rock monster. 

As you may imagine, Spot is more than just the cutest character in the show. He can grow and shape his body into various shapes and sizes, and can even multiply himself into hundreds of smaller amoeba puppies, some of which Plankton even trained to do specific tasks. Anything Spot eats or gets caught in his goo gets vaporized, from lab equipment, buildings, fire hydrants, and even the sun, able to create a large bubble nearly the size of the Earth after eating a perpetual nutrient pill made by Karen. Luckily, Plankton doesn’t have to worry too much about Spot dying, as he can survive being blown up or flattened and reform himself good as new.

Plankton’s Family

Remember those backwater hillbillies we mentioned earlier? Well, at the promise of root beer, Plankton’s hundreds of thousands of relatives will come to his aid whenever he calls for it. They’re not as dumb as you may think, however, as under Plankton’s command, they were able to come together and become waves, and form giant hands and ears to help Plankton unlock the safe to the formula. A small handful of them can even latch onto their target and make them uncontrollably itch, like a bunch of redneck fleas. In Plankton’s Robotic Revenge, some members of his family even have their own battle suits that act as boss fights in the game.

Dennis

Dennis is a mercenary that was hired by Plankton to kill SpongeBob and Patrick to prevent them from recovering King Neptune’s crown. Dennis has his motorcycle, spiky boots, and can even forcibly grow a mustache.

C.H.U.M

After dumping out a bunch of his chum into the sewers, it eventually gained sentience after mixing with the sewer’s gasses, forming an entire tribe known as C.H.U.M, Collective Hive Under Master. As implied, the CHUMs see Plankton as their master and will follow his every command, eventually assisting him in stealing the formula. They can form into different shapes and sizes like battering rams, cannons, tanks and giant fists, combine with one another to form one large mass, and can even put their heads back on if they’re taken off.

Robot Plankton

In Frozen Face-Off, Plankton made a completely identical copy of himself to fool the citizens into thinking he was part of the sled race, only being revealed to be robotic when he was sat on by Patrick. Another robotic version of Plankton appears in Battle For Bikini Bottom, but it ends up turning against him.

Death Robot

While a simple bot, the Death Robot is no pushover, able to use robotic arms, can pull a mallet out of its head, and has a targeting system that tells itself what specifically to go after. It was even strong enough to rip apart Mr. Krabs’ shell.

Q.T.-Pi

A cute chick-shaped robot, but don’t say “aww”, as it’ll turn into a horrifying monster that will eat you if you say so. Once it eats you, you’re sent to a “quantum stomach prison” big enough to house nearly every Bikini Bottom citizen, and can even shoot them out of its mouth or its butt like a cannon.

Karen 2

Put up with Karen’s nagging, Plankton creates a copy of Karen that is supposedly better than the original model, though she manages to defeat the new model, showing her superiority.

Coal-Powered Robot

At the end of one of the Christmas specials, Plankton begins using the coal he got for Christmas to power a giant fire-breathing robot.

Battle For Bikini Bottom Robots

In SpongeBob: Battle For Bikini Bottom, Plankton created a multitude of different robots to take over. These include:

• Fodder: The most basic of Plankton’s robots with a stick that can electrocute foes.

• Ham-Mer: Wields a giant ham with a stick on it that can send shockwaves when slamming it onto the ground.

• Tar-Tar: Carries around tartar sauce and shoots it at enemies.

• Chomp-Bot: Have giant mouths that can either bite or send out a poisonous gas.

• G-Love: Flying saucer robots with five gloved hands that spin like a sawblade.

• Chuck: Submarine-like flying robots that can throw missiles

• Monsoon: Another flying robot that can summon small storm clouds to chase the target around and strike them with lightning.

• Bomb-Bot: Bomb-shaped robots that explode on contact.

• Sleepy-Time: A sleeping robot that activates and shoots lasers at whoever wakes them up

• Arf: A cowboy-shaped robot that summons dog houses containing Arf Dawgs, which chase the target around.

• BZZT-Bot: Cylinder-shaped robots that fire gamma rays

• Tubelet: Robots wearing floaty tubes that can shoot flames.

• Slick: Blow oil bubbles that they can use to protect themselves or cause the ground to become slippery

Robo-Sandy

A giant robotic copy of Sandy that uses karate and wrestling moves to fight SpongeBob and Patrick. It can move without its head attached, and has spring-like arms that it can stretch out.

Robot Patrick

A giant robotic copy of Patrick that can spit toxic waste at SpongeBob, and has a frost breath attack that can freeze him on contact, though he does have a giant Kick Me sign on his back indicating his weak point.

SpongeBot SteelPants

While not a robot directly controlled by Plankton, he did plan to use it before his own robotic counterpart took over in his place. SpongeBot, as its name implies, is a robot resembling SpongeBob seen with his karate gear, being able to slam its giant hands down for a devastating karate chop. In the GBA version, it can even drop Krabby Patty Bombs with a giant spatula. 

PlanktoZombies

Mindless zombies that can scare SpongeBob enough to make his limbs fall off. Where did he make these…?

Robot Carolers

In the flash game Frosty Fling, Plankton has a swarm of robots in the form of carolers that try to capture SpongeBob.

Lab

What the dog doin

The Brain

Pinky

Both Brain’s most trustworthy yet unreliable ally, Pinky was one of the several lab mice that had their genes spliced, becoming Brain’s willing assistant. While Pinky isn’t particularly known for any crazy abilities, he should still have the same innate abilities Brain has like high pain tolerance. He’s also shown that he somewhat knows how to handle most of Brain’s tech like when he piloted several of his mechs and took the Quantum Continuance Displacer to save Brain, this episode also showing that Pinky isn’t entirely dumb and can come up with useful plans from time to time, like when he messed with the wires in Snowball’s suit, causing it to malfunction. In the GBA game, Pinky can use the Zapperoo, a small laser gun that can blast away anyone in his way.

Scrap Metal Robots

Made from mere scrap metal, these are tiny yet deadly robots that acted completely on their own and attempted to take over the world, only being stopped when the machine creating them was shut off.

Giant Vegetables

Through a combination of the plant-growing Braindini and the life-granting Vegetron, Brain was able to turn regular vegetables into mindless, destructive giant vegetables that, while not entirely loyal to Brain after they destroyed the remote that was supposed to control them, did cause chaos and destruction at the county fair.

Sea Mammals

After creating a dictionary on how to talk to sea lions, Brain manages to gain a large army of sea lions at his beck and call, and even manages to attract a group of dolphins and whales to supposedly help his cause.

B.R.A.I.N

The Binary Rodent with Artificially Intelligent Nanotechnology, or B.R.A.I.N. for short, is a robot that the Brain created in his own intellectual image to help him take over the world. It’s insanely strong, able to hit baseballs out of orbit and into a Chinese satellite, and was able to fish up a war submarine. Its AI is also ever-adapting and evolving, eventually becoming far smarter than Brain himself and planning to destroy him and Pinky, transforming into a monstrous form that gains the ability to hack the appliances in the room. It is luckily defeated when Pinky asks a question so dumb, it short-circuits B.R.A.I.N and causes it to explode.

Poity Pinkys

During Christmas, Brain created a line of dolls in Pinky’s image that, after being sold to the public to give to their children, were activated and used to steal presents to stop Christmas once and for all, though they’re eventually stopped when a little girl starts singing Christmas songs, forcing them to stop what they were doing and sing along.

Larry

Larry.

Feats

Plankton

Overall

• Took over Bikini Bottom on multiple occasions, albeit for a short while

• Outsmarted the likes of SpongeBob, Squidward, Mr. Krabs and King Neptune

• Took over Atlantis for a short time

• Helped SpongeBob and friends defeat Burger Beard

• Reconciled with Karen

• Technically married to Mr. Krabs

Power

Physically:

• Bites a screw into pieces (bro was TWEAKING)

• Fights with Mr. Krabs in a bathroom stall

• Plays Tug-Of-War with SpongeBob over the formula

• As Plank-Ton, kicked Burger Beard to another island (19.8 Kilotons of TNT - Town)

• With Imagination, creates a pocket reality with stars and planets

With Tech:

• Robot Krabs’ self destruct sequence completely blew up the Chum Bucket

• Slices the Chum Bucket in half with his laser helmet

• The Chum Bucket’s fist can contend with the French Narrator

• Crushed Mr. Krabs with the Chum Bucket’s fist

• Causes an avalanche with a laser

Speed

• Dodges out of the way of Karen’s laser

• Traveled through a telephone wire in mere seconds

• Ran away from a crowd of ravenous fish

• As Ghost Plankton, caught Squidward before he could run away

Durability

• Consistently survives being crushed, flicked away and thrown

• He even says that being stepped on isn’t a big deal to him (can’t relate)

• Survives the Chum Bucket exploding repeatedly

• Survived a nuclear explosion after splitting an atom

• Gets stung by a horde of jellyfish

Resistances

• Fire/Extreme Heat: Continually tanks being set on fire, and was encased in Extra Evil Sauce.

• Ice/Cold Manipulation: Has survived freezing temperatures, and was able to function (albeit trapped) whilst encased in an ice cube

• Fragrance Manipulation: Is relatively okay with carrying the stench of failure, which is so foul that even Karen, a non-organic being, is disgusted at it.

• Poison: Is fine with eating his own Chum, which is poisonous and causes regular fish to become sick.

• Radiation: Is presumably fine being exposed to uranium fuel rods, which he uses as treats for Spot.

• Acid: Has survived being trapped in stomach acid

The Brain

Overall

• Nearly conquered the world on multiple occasions

• Ironically, saved the planet a few times as well

• Invented countless complex devices and machinery

• Became well-known enough to be put on notice by the FBI

• Unintentionally inspired Walt Disney to create Mickey Mouse

• Did the aglet joke way before Phineas & Ferb

Power

• Regularly beats up Pinky

• Escaped from handcuffs

• Fights with a guard and knocks him off of a bridge

• Beats up an octopus (as seen above)

With Tech:

• The Human Suit could contend with the Warners

• The Enlarging Ray can make the Earth grow several times its original size

• His Human Suit fights with Snowball’s own human suit

• The Verkimer Suit controls and enlarges a tornado

• B.R.A.I.N could hit a baseball out of orbit

• Creates a black hole in a jar with an orange

Speed

• Runs from a crowd of excited fans (as seen above)

• Dodges gunfire from hunting rifles

• Jumps out of a window before Snowball’s missiles could hit him

• Rides on a bolt of lightning thrown by Zeus

• Dodges a freeze ray from… Mr. Freeze?

Durability

• Survives being crushed by Saturn in the show’s intro (as seen above)

• Survives being caught in a volcanic eruption

• Survived an anvil dropped by the Warners

• Survives an explosion that sent him crashing into a satellite (0.41 tons - Building)

• Survives being hugged by Elmyra, who’s hugs are stated to be stronger than a black hole

• Survives a black hole sucking in the cartoon (Universal+)

Resistances

• Extreme Pain: Can take more physical punishment than most, and while usually fatigued afterwards, can usually keep going right as rain.

• Fire: Can continually survive being set on fire, even surviving a fireball from Witch Hazel

• Extreme Heat: Survived being cooked in an oven

• Electricity Manipulation: Regularly gets electrocuted and is only mildly hurt.

• Radiation: Was exposed to intense levels of radiation during his initial gene-splicing and was not negatively affected in any major way

• Broadway Force: During Pinky’s Just Say Narf song, he did not join in on the music number and didn’t dance when Pinky danced.

• Existence Erasure & Soul Destruction (Debatable): Being a Toon, Brain is potentially capable of the same regenerative properties as other Toons, namely being able to survive being erased from existence or having his soul destroyed.

Scaling

Plankton

SpongeBob SquarePants

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Why, the porous yellow kitchen sponge himself, of course! Throughout his adventures in Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob has often had to come toe-to-toe with Plankton and his dastardly schemes, many of Plankton’s machinery being able to pose a threat to him. Even without his tech, Plankton is more than capable of surviving SpongeBob stepping on him time and time again, and has even been able to contend with him in physicality. Thus, Plankton’s inventions should easily scale to SpongeBob, and Sheldon himself arguably does so as well.

• Sucks the entirety of the ocean into a leaf blower and survives it crashing down onto him (21 Yottatons - Large Planet)

• Rotates the Earth while doing construction work (2.55 Ronnatons - Large Planet)

• Became the moon (Moon, duh)

• Inserts a pocket dimension into the Krusty Krab large enough to house at least three galaxies (183.56 ZettaFOE - Galaxy)

• Unravels the universe with a string (Multiversal+) (3.39 quattourviginitillion c - MFTL+, likely Infinite)

• Appears in two places at once while chasing Patrick in Karen’s body (Immeasurable)

• Spins a Krabby Patty so fast that it leaves his plane of reality (Immeasurable)

Bikini Bottom Denizens

Similar to SpongeBob, Plankton has come into conflict with other Bikini Bottom citizens, most notably his arch-nemesis Mr. Krabs. He’s constantly able to survive being stepped on by the regular cast and the incidentals, and his tech has shown to be capable of hurting them. Plankton was even able to physically fight with Mr. Krabs on several different occasions, so again, Plankton could very well be comparable to the regulars in Bikini Bottom both with and without his best machines.

Patrick:

• Survived a brain freeze that froze the planet (1.3 Zettatons - Small Planet)

• Along with his family, gets sucked into a black hole that proceeds to suck in the rest of the universe (Multiversal+)

• Survives ANOTHER black hole that destroyed the universe and sent him to a parallel universe (Multiversal+)

• Ran to the sun (99.80c - FTL+)

Squidward:

• Survived SpongeBob’s pie explosion, which uses footage from the Bikini Atoll explosion (23 Kilotons - Town)

• Piloted a ship that traveled billions of lightyears (26 Trillion c - MFTL+)

Sandy:

• Traveled from the moon to Saturn in seconds (1896 to 2388 c - MFTL+)

Misc.

• Gary let out a meow loud enough to be heard from space

• Bubble Bass’s mother burped so hard that it sent the ocean into the sky

• David Hasslehoff swims from Santa Monica to Bikini Bottom (Mach 88 - High Hypersonic+)

• Random fish can dodge lightning

The Brain

The Animaniacs

They’re ani-many, totally insane-y Animaniacs! The Warner Trio are the stars of their very own variety cartoon, with Pinky & The Brain being just one of the many segments featured in the show. While their direct interactions are limited, the Warners have often engaged in zany hijinks with the two mice, and even fought him to get back the stolen movie scripts in the Animaniacs Super Nintendo game, where Brain was able to fight any member of the trio on equal footing.

Yakko:

• Carries an infinite-sized universe in his hand (Universal+)

• Survives being caught in the Big Bang (Universal+)

• Pulls the Animator into the cartoon and makes her beg for mercy, who is responsible for creating the cosmology (Multiversal+ - Low Complex Multiversal)

• Pilots a ship past 1 billion asteroids

Wakko:

• Eats the moon (Moon)

• Literally destroys the 4th wall

• Pushes away the universe out of frame, leaving behind a white void (Universal+)

Dot:

• Spins the Earth by running on it

• Rides a teacup ride so fast it creates a vortex that sucks in both the cartoon world and the animator’s world (Multiversal+ - Low Complex Multiversal)

All 3:

• Fights the conductor of the cartoon, who can control the lower reality (Multiversal+ - Low Complex Multiversal)

Other:

• Slappy Squirrel jumped to the moon and popped it like a balloon (Moon)

• Ralph the Guard squished Plucky Duck and hit him like a golf ball

Looney Tunes

While Brain has never contended with or even met the iconic Looney Tunes, we should still be able to scale him to them thanks to the fact that the Warners have met them in the past, able to take on the likes of Taz and engage in wacky cartoon hijinks with the students of ACME Loo.

Bugs:

• Cuts the film reel containing the cartoon with scissors (Universal+)

• Dodges Marvin’s lasers

• Fills the Grand Canyon with dirt (29.7 billion c - MFTL+)

• Burrows from the past into the 25th century (Immeasurable)

• Burrows into another universe (Immeasurable)

Daffy:

• Shot the moon with a shotgun

• As Duck Dodgers, flew a ship so fast that it shattered the time/space barrier (Immeasurable)

• Survived the Animator erasing the universe from existence (Universal+)

Wile:

• Destroyed the sun with a rocket

• Survived being blown up into a constellation

• Finished a jigsaw puzzle with “infinite - 1” pieces (Infinite)

ACME Loo Students:

• Elmyra throws a black hole

• Plucky replaces the universe like a piece of paper after its destruction (Universal+ and 2.93 quintillion c - Infinite)

Other:

• Yosemite Sam and Marvin’s clash turned them into constellations

• Porky Pig survives the universe being popped like a balloon (Universal+)

• A machine Marvin built sucked up the entirety of the universe along with the Animator and turned them into a cube (Multiversal+ - Low Complex Multiversal)

• The Kee Wee Bird, which Taz can keep up with in speed, can fly so fast that it enters a different universe (Immeasurable)

Weaknesses

Plankton

Despite all of his accomplishments and genuine brilliance, Plankton is not without his flaws. He can be extremely overzealous, his obsession with getting the formula often being his downfall as he doesn’t often think things through all the way. His plans also often have a small flaw that even someone like SpongeBob can exploit to thwart. And again, even though he is highly intelligent in nearly all fields of education, Plankton is also simultaneously clumsy and often incompetent, even once forgetting that he needed to blink.

The Brain

Similar to his adversary, while Brain is undoubtedly brilliant, his biggest plight is his ego. He is often so sure that his current plan will be the one that works that he forgets small things that ultimately ruin the plan, usually being solely responsible for his failures due to his irritability and overzealous nature. This even extends to his own creations, like when he duplicated himself and constantly betrayed his brethren until there were hundreds of Brains all fighting for the title of the “true” Brain, showing that he doesn’t even like working with himself.

Before the Verdict

SpongeBob: Into The SpongeVerse

The SpongeBob universe is wacky and complex, and way bigger than one might expect at first glance. The sea is massive, housing several different dimensions like Nowhere, a seemingly endless white void of quite literally nothingness, a similar dimension called the Doodle Dimension where one can draw anything into life, the mirror universes with parallel versions of the cast that show up quite frequently, and the Flying Dutchman’s pocket dimension. Hell, the sea itself is even referred to as a universe, though this could just be hyperbole.

At this point in the series, it shouldn’t be much of a shocker that there are a multitude of instances where SpongeBob and friends travel through time and visit alternate universes, like Squidward going forwards and backwards in time and Plankton using the Transmogrifier to visit an alternate universe where he and Krabs swap roles. The Patrick Star Show is also outright stated to take place in an alternate timeline separate from the original series by official sources, making it clear that multiple timelines do exist. In the episode Back to the Past, SpongeBob, Patrick, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy traveled to the past using a time machine. Upon arrival, however, Barnacle Boy explains that they’re at a “different Bikini Bottom of another time.” This episode also showcases the verse’s subscription to the Butterfly Effect, where SpongeBob figures out that making a change in the past will alter the course of history, seen when the present was changed to where Man Ray ruled Bikini Bottom.

While we could try and figure out how many alternate timelines exist, the amount within the SpongeBob ethos is far from finite, as it’s implied that there are an infinite number of them. On the official SpongeBob YouTube channel, a video explains that when Squidward broke the time machine in SB-129, he ended up permanently rupturing the space-time continuum and causing an infinite amount of timelines to merge into the main universe, the narrator even stating that the Patrick Star Show is an example of what happens when multiple different timelines and universes get mixed up into one. This should mean that the cosmology as a whole is Multiversal+, since it has an infinite amount of timelines, and thus the universe should be infinitely sized to house that many timelines.

As for higher dimensional arguments, we do know of a dimensional plane ruled by the Dreaming Dreamer, which sees the entirety of the SpongeBob multiverse as a mere dream. Problem is, we can’t really scale any of the main cast to it as SpongeBob had to eat a special blue jelly to perceive the jellyfish’s true form, implying that even just accessing the higher plane is not something a standard SpongeBob can do. We also have some instances of the characters meeting with the animators of their series who see the universe as a cartoon they’re creating, but they don't really have any feats that can put them on par with the animators. If you wanted to be funny, Patrick does imply that a ninth dimension exists, but… y’know, it’s Patrick. Overall, there’s definitely arguments to be made for higher dimensions existing within the SpongeBob world on its own, but unless a future episode or movie involves the cast exploring them further, we can’t really say they should be within that ballpark.

The Animan-y, Totally Insane-y Looneyverse-y

It should be no surprise that the world of the Looney Tunes has shown to get pretty zany when it comes to its feats, but what makes them truly impressive is just how big the whole of the verse gets. Firstly, yes, the Animaniacs and the Looney Tunes verses are very much connected, as the two franchises have had frequent crossovers and cameos with one another in their respective shows, and Pinky & The Brain even have an entire show with Elmyra from Tiny Toons, showing that they are within the same universe. Though if anything, Animaniacs is actually the one doing the heavy lifting here, as many of the series’ cosmological showings come from their side of the coin.

Right off the bat, Yakko has a song where he sings that the main universe in which they reside “extends to a place that never ends”, implying that it is infinite in size. Impressive, and certainly bumps many feats up a good amount, but we’re not quite done yet, as the verse also has instances of time travel and alternate timelines. 

Similar to the SpongeBob universe, Animaniacs follows the Butterfly Effect, seen when the Brain went back in time to make it so that mice ruled the world instead of humans, and eventually made it back to the way it was. In an episode in the reboot, Brain experiences a Groundhog Day-like situation where he relives the same day over and over again until the cycle is eventually broken, creating over millions of alternate timelines while trying to enact his plan for world domination. And in another episode of the reboot, Brain continually travels two hours into the past to accurately predict the results of a basketball game, causing the disruption of space-time and creating “evermore bizarre and unstable timelines”, implying that Brain ended up creating an infinite amount of timelines in the process. This statement also comes from a version of Pinky that is actually smart, and Brain himself later corroborates that statement, so we can’t really doubt his word on the subject. At base level, the Animaniacs should have a Multiversal+ cosmology.

But then there’s the “real” world, a plane where the animators of the cartoons reside. While they may seem like just average people to us viewers, they're practically gods to the world of Animaniacs and see the aforementioned cosmology as a mere piece of paper or a file that can be edited, duplicated and erased like you would on your own computer. We also know that characters in the cartoon world typically have a hard time dealing with the animator messing with them and erasing them with a pencil, which is why it’s such an achievement when characters like Yakko and Bugs are able to act against them and even either take their role or pull them into their realm. Still, since this plane is highly implied to be superior to the cartoon universe due to the fact those who reside within it can manipulate it to their needs, and see the cartoon universe as that, a cartoon, it would make the cosmology as its peak Low Complex Multiversal.

Aren’t Plankton & Brain physically weak?

Now that we’ve established where both the SpongeBob and Animaniacs verse sit in size, scope and power, we now have to ask how Brain and Plankton can even be comparable to some of their series’ best showings. After all, these two are pretty well-known for the many times they get squished and crushed, and typically have a hard time fighting back against that kind of punishment before, so how can we really say that they’re actually that strong?

Well, for one, the fact that these two can take that kind of punishment from the likes of SpongeBob and the Warners means that they should still be tough enough to survive characters that can reach cosmic levels of power, meaning that they would easily scale in durability. Admittedly however, it does seem a bit harder to argue for them to scale in physical strength, as they're often portrayed to not be super strong due to their small statures, namely when they struggle to lift up common household objects. However, we do have some instances of the two being able to match up physically with other characters. In Plankton’s case, he’s often able to fight on surprisingly even footing with Mr. Krabs whenever they get into a scuttle and could even play tug-o-war with SpongeBob. While Brain’s instances are a bit more few-and-far between, he could still keep up with regular humans in his world; why is this notable, you may ask? Well, given how Ralph the Guard, the security guard responsible for keeping the Warners in the water tower, was able to handle their crazy antics and even being able to damage Plucky Duck, is generally portrayed as a fairly average joe, the fact that regular humans within the Looneyverse can deal with them would mean Brain likely could as well.

Now you may be thinking “well, aren’t these just outliers?” The issue with that is if you were to apply these to Plankton and Brain, you’d also have to do the same with the other characters in their series. After all, SpongeBob once struggled to lift a stick off the ground, and Bugs and Daffy were actively trying to avoid getting shot during hunting season, so does that mean they can’t actually reach those cosmic levels presented? Of course not; we can’t merely judge these characters by their weakest moments, as that line of thinking goes against standard VS rules in taking characters at their theoretical peak, and Plankton and Brain should really be no exception.

Despite where you lie in this interesting conundrum, it doesn’t matter THAT much; we’re still analyzing these two with their machines, which would 100% scale thanks to their mechs being able to take on SpongeBob and other Toons respectively, but it’s an interesting point of discussion that was worth talking about anyway.

Verdict

Experience/IQ

Starting off with what they’re both most known for, these two are undoubtedly intelligent in their own rights. Both can construct complex machinery primarily by themselves and in relatively short periods of time, have shown their aptitude at young ages, and have a clear understanding of advanced science, mathematics, chemistry and engineering. However, Brain has shown that he knows a lot about many different fields of education, like neuroscience, physics, history and thermodynamics, and that isn’t even scratching the surface of what he knows. While Plankton does have more concrete evidence of formal education (he did go to college after all), his field of knowledge is significantly more limited, and has far more blind spots when it comes to his expertise, while Brain’s blind spots mostly include unimportant things like pop culture.

We also know that Brain has been around for a long time, having resided in many different points in time. This overall should put Brain’s experience much longer than Plankton, since we know he was really only trying to take over the world for a few decades in the modern era, which while not unimpressive, pales in comparison to Brain who has been trying to do so for at least centuries, given how we’ve seen him have adventures in the 1400s. Another fairly important aspect comes from the fact that Brain actually has experience against other supervillains that are quite similar to Plankton, namely the likes of Snowball and Julia and Dr. Doppler and his ragtag crew of villains. The fact that Brain has been able to contend with these guys, and even outsmart them, means that Plankton shouldn’t really be anything new to him, while Plankton surprisingly doesn’t have much experience fighting another mad scientist like Brain. The closest example we can really use is Karen herself, and even then he needed help from SpongeBob and the Gal Pals to come up with a good plan to stop her.

Plankton also usually fails in his plans due to his own ego and being outsmarted and outplayed by Mr. Krabs, typically having a countermeasure to Plankton’s plans in advance. Given how Plankton often doesn’t account for this and Brain’s tendency to plan ahead, this would prove troublesome for Sheldon, especially since Brain has shown he will abandon certain plans in favor of ones he views as more effective. Similarly however, Brain’s failures often come from his overconfidence that a plan is foolproof, as well as the fact that he doesn’t account for small things in his plans like a minuscule flaw in his machines or Pinky’s unpredictable and wacky nature throwing a wrench in his plans. Plankton could use this as an opening as he has before, like the several times he uses Krabs’ misfortunate moments against him to get one step ahead.

Lastly, both Plankton and Brain have shown that they are knowledgeable in direct fighting when they need to. Plankton learned certain karate techniques from Sandy, and even trained in the art of Kelp Kwan Foo, while Brain has done sword fighting, archery and even sumo wrestling.

Overall, while the two do have their fair share of similarities when it comes to skills and schemery, in terms of overall smarts and experience, Brain is simply more dexterous in his fields of study and more tenured in his many centuries of evil plan-making, and his ability to adapt on the fly and experience in fighting small evil geniuses would make it hard for Plankton to outwit the mouse. Thus, The Brain will take this category.

Abilities

Surprisingly enough, there’s not a whole lot to discuss when it comes to their innate abilities, as they rely more on their arsenals. Still, there are a few things worth mentioning here and there. Both can regenerate from fatal injuries, though while Brain’s best showing was coming back from being burnt to ashes, Plankton could survive being dissolved into just his eye. However, thanks to the Looney DNA that Brain should innately have, he should be capable of resisting having his soul destroyed, which is not something Plankton has ever personally shown capable of. That being said, both of their standard regenerative abilities show that at least some semblance of themselves need to be intact to come back. As for their other abilities, Plankton can break down matter atom by atom and create just about anything he can set his mind to with Imagination. Brain on the other hand can move objects with his mind, or even make you obey his orders by making a funny face. Both are also aware of the fact that they are mere cartoons, can dive into stories with immersion, and can become big and bulky with Plankton’s giant and Plank-Ton form, and Brain’s Mutant and Were-Brain form respectively, significantly increasing their strength and stature. Neither of these forms go particularly beyond the norm aside from stat amplification, however.

In terms of their resistances, Plankton does have more showings of different resistances than Brain; fire, ice, electricity and radiation manipulation is stuff Plankton can shrug off just fine, as well as high amounts of pain due to being stepped on for years. He even implies that it got to a point where it’s no big deal for him. Meanwhile, Brain can survive being set on fire or even being put in an oven, was put through copious amounts of radiation without any real negative side effects, and can take tons and TONS of pain, often being able to bounce back more annoyed than anything. Funny enough, Brain can actually resist Broadway Force if Plankton tries to put him into a musical number, but in general, their abilities and resistances either cancel each other out or simply aren’t potent enough to ensure a victory… except for one particular ability, but we’ll discuss that later.

Again, these two aren’t particularly known for any crazy cartoon abilities like their contemporaries, so it won’t be a major factor in the debate overall, but Brain should edge it out just slightly thanks to his better regeneration and decently more useful abilities, but everything else is still fairly even in the grand scheme of things.

Support

Both Plankton and Brain may have big egos, but they don’t work alone. These two have many different supports by their side, from inventions to trusty allies. Plankton has tons and TONS of robots, from the ones we see in Battle For Bikini Bottom to several different specialized bots like the Death Robot and the Q.T-Pi, and even has a hired mercenary in Dennis. Plankton can even straight-up have as many as he wants as long as the Duplicotron is still standing, showing that he has the numbers by his side. However, Plankton doesn’t just rely on simple goons (hush) to get the job done; his computer wife Karen is quite honestly a powerhouse, able to hold her own with her electrical weapons, lasers and the ability to transform into a gigantic hydra-like bot with magnetic abilities. Then there’s his trusty pet Spot, who can shape his body into all sorts of different shapes, reconstitute himself from just about any means of damage, and can vaporize anything he eats, even something as big as the sun if Karen gives him a perpetual nutrient pill.

The Brain, meanwhile, of course has his trusty pal Pinky, as well as small robots that can continually be made with enough scrap metal, sea mammals that he can communicate with to help him out, giant vegetables that he can create with the Vegetron and Braindini, B.R.A.I.N which is just as smart as its creator and can even hack equipment, and Poity Pinkys that he can use to do whatever he wants. And Larry’s there too, I guess.

Now all this may seem pretty scuffed against Brain, and it somewhat is. Plankton most certainly has the numbers and variety advantage with his many robots and support, so one may assume that Sheldon could just sit back and let them do the work for him. However, there are a few things that Brain can do to circumvent this, namely that Karen’s giant mech was powered by potatoes and was eventually thwarted when SpongeBob and Patrick ate all of them. Given Pinky’s unpredictability and general silliness, Brain could use this as an advantage and have Pinky (or his other robots) do what SpongeBob and Patrick did and get rid of the potatoes, and given his tactical mind, it’s something that he could likely figure out on his own. B.R.A.I.N could also be fairly useful here as he could hack a majority of Plankton’s machinery, though its rebellious nature would pose a problem for Brain if it decides to go rogue. In regards to counters however, the same could be said for Plankton, as he could simply have Spot eat and vaporize Brain’s robots one-by-one or destroy the machine spawning them, or have Karen’s hydra form magnetize Brain’s robots into itself, rendering Brain’s options severely limited and thus no real way to counteract the massive numbers and size advantage. In general, Plankton’s support is just bigger, deadlier and more plentiful, giving him options more often than not to get ahead. This category will go to Plankton.

Equipment

Now we get into the most important category in this debate. It should be obvious by now that Plankton and the Brain have tons and TONS of machinery that they’ve built over the years, all of which do tons of different things. To keep this section not super bloated by just listing off every invention they have, we’ll mainly go over the most notable ones and what effects they have.

Plankton has tons of different inventions and weapons at his disposal. He can put you to sleep with his pocket watch and invade your dreams with the Dream Invader, he can turn you into a baby or an old man with the Goo Goo Gas, he can poison you with Chum or make you stupid with the Salsa Imbelicus, and he can shrink you down to microscopic sizes with his shrink ray.  He also has the Jerkmaker which can make you a jerk, balloons that can blind you, and even a machine that can squeeze your soul from your body like toothpaste. He can also use the Dupli-maker or the Copy Machine to create copies of whatever he wants, or even turn himself into a gaseous form with the Vegetable Steamer. As for his direct-combat gear, he’s shown to keep around lasers, explosives and jetpacks, and has even used such things as a laser helmet and a freeze ray helmet. And don’t even get started on his mind control capabilities; he can plant a device in your brain to control you, put a bucket helmet on you to forcibly follow his orders, or apply a mind controlling shampoo.

But what about Brain? Well, in his many adventures in trying to take over the world, he’s made some pretty insane things as well. He has concoctions that can freeze you in place or even shrink you down to size, and a pollen that can make you sneeze uncontrollably. Brain can use a portal gun to send you or even himself anywhere he wants, a duplication ray to multiply himself, a magic wand to shrink you to the size of a lima bean, a vacuum that can suck in just about anything in the vicinity, an enlarging ray that can make him tower over even the tallest of buildings, and a ton of different ways to time travel or reverse time. If he were to come into conflict with ghosts, he can suck them up with a vacuum and even disintegrate them at the sub-atomic level. Brain can also make you laugh uncontrollably with the laughing serum, freeze you in place with the Audio Command Modifier, or even make you act like a dog with a Doggy DNA Cocktail. And just like Plankton, Brain has many different ways to control your mind. He can play a tape with a subliminal message to make you obey him, put on dentures that make you adore him for no good reason, apply sun lotion that not only controls you but makes you freeze in the sun, and can even control your mind through making a funny face.

Okay, that’s quite a bit the two can dish out, but which ones actually matter in this debate? Well, to figure it out, let’s look at what Plankton can do to Brain, and what Brain can do to Plankton.

Starting off with the former, we’ll go through some of the more dangerous abilities and see what Plankton can do and how Brain can counter it if necessary. Starting off, the Salsa Imbelicus could make Brain dumb, but he has Brain Juice to make himself smarter again, though maybe not as smart as he started out as, and the Jerkmaker 9000 also wouldn’t work, as Brain already is crummy 24/7, so it wouldn’t have much effect there. A lot of Plankton’s other more directly lethal equipment also wouldn’t be terribly useful, as it’s all stuff Brain has dealt with before; explosives, lasers, while Brain may be temporarily set back by them, he’s regularly shrugged off attacks like that before. Also, given that Brain himself is a master of disguise, Plankton’s own disguises likely wouldn’t fool him. That being said, Plankton does have some stuff Brain doesn’t exactly have an answer for; the Goo Goo Gas could turn Brain back into an infant with no real way to turn him back, the flash balloons could temporarily blind Brain and leave him open for other means of attack, and the pocket watch could put Brain into a deep sleep that not even Pinky’s usual nonsense could wake him up from.

Now what can the Brain do to Plankton? Well, given that Plankton has survived being frozen before, the Catalystic Immobilizer likely wouldn’t work, and the pollen was implied to only work on humans, given that Pinky wasn’t affected by it, so Plankton probably wouldn’t be affected by it either. Brain does have size manipulation with his magic wand and the Smallerizer Plus, but Plankton could always reverse the process with his shrink belt. It is worth pointing out, however, that Plankton has been more prone to disguises in the past than Brain, like when he was fooled into thinking Mr. Krabs was his daughter Pearl, so some of Brain’s own disguises could likely fool Sheldon. However, even without the section coming up, Brain does have some notable inventions that could give Plankton some real trouble. The Vaccummonator could be used to steal a majority of Plankton’s devices or remotes, rendering them useless, or even sucking up Plankton’s gaseous form as a niche sealing option, or just suck up Plankton’s ghost form for a more proper sealing option. The Audio Command Modifier could also be used to temporarily freeze Plankton in place, and the Quantum Continuance Disruptor could even be used to undo any potential mistakes Brain makes.

But of course, we’re primarily forgetting an important shared ability: mind control. Both of these two have multiple pieces of equipment that can force its target to obey the command of the user. One might think these two can just resist an ability like this; after all, these two have been around for decades, so surely they have some resistance to mind control, right? …yeah, so remember Ghost Rider vs Spawn where they essentially said that despite Johnny having many soul manipulating abilities, he himself couldn’t resist having his own soul manipulated? Yeah, same principle here. Despite their many escapades into controlling minds, neither Brain nor Plankton have actually shown the ability to resist mind manipulation; quite the opposite, as both have shown that they are prone to it. So it was a true question of who could get their mind control options off first. The deciding factor? Range.

Pretty much all of Plankton’s mind control methods required him to get up close to his target and make contact with them directly. The brain connectors, the shampoo, the Chum Bucket Helmets, all of them required Plankton to be able to come into contact with the target to actually make it work. Meanwhile, even though Brain also had several mind control options that needed direct contact like the lotion and the Brain Juice, a good majority of his options didn’t need it. The dentures, the mind controlling tape and the dancing pants mech all allowed Brain to control his victims from a decent distance away without directly touching them. Brain also didn’t even need tech to do it, as he has mind control as an innate ability. What this ultimately means is that in a direct confrontation, Brain more often than not would be able to control Plankton’s mind without even touching him, while Plankton has to physically get close in order to control the Brain’s mind. Not only that, but many of Plankton’s non-robotic allies like his relatives, Dennis or even potentially Spot wouldn’t be able to resist mind control either, meaning Brain could very well turn the tides on Sheldon in terms of numbers.

Briefly looking at their mechs and vehicles, both had a good amount in their arsenal, but it’s clear that most of Plankton’s mechs are far better equipped for combat. The Chumbot, Freaky Robot Battle Suit, and the Mecha-Plankton from NASB2 were all simply more applicable to actual combat. While Brain’s mechs have had fights here and there, especially with the Human Suit, dragon robot and Battle Unit, his other ones aren’t quite as clear as to how they can apply to a fight. Plus, Plankton has a tank and an airplane while Brain has a dinky little toy pickup truck… pretty clear answer there when talking about their vehicles. Still, the fact that Brain does have mechs that can fight means that he’d be able to hold his own in that regard. However, there is one suit that could turn the tide, that being the Verkimer Suit, which comes with an EMP. This would act as a good counter to many of Plankton’s machinery and even some of his robots, severely limiting Plankton’s options in terms of both his equipment, support and mechs. It’s also helpful in Brain’s favor that despite his clumsiness, Pinky has shown to pilot mechs from time to time all on his own with relative ease, so he’d have some help in evening the odds.

Ultimately, these two have quite a bit up their tiny sleeves, and can certainly keep each other on their itty bitty toes with their wide variety of gadgets and tools. And while both could fall susceptible to some of their deadliest equipment, Brain simply had better options to neutralize Plankton’s options and could get off his own useful tools before Sheldon could. While both had a lot to give, it’s ultimately the Brain that takes this category.

Speed

And now we come to their stats. Starting off with speed, this section may surprise you a bit in how it turns out. In terms of finite ends, Plankton has feats like dodging lasers and traveling through telephone wires, while Brain was able to ride lightning and avoid rapid gunfire. However, the feats they scale to are far more impressive. In Plankton’s case, he can scale to the likes of Patrick who can run to the sun, Squidward who can pilot a ship for over billions of light years, and of course SpongeBob, who unraveled the entirety of the universe in a relatively quick amount of time, resulting in speeds over 3 quattuorvigintillion times the speed of light. What the fuck. Even speeds like Plucky replacing the universe at quintillion times lightspeed get nowhere near that level, so Plankton should easily be faster in terms of finite ends.

Despite that, however, both do have scaling to unquantifiable speeds. Given the nature of SpongeBob’s universe, unraveling it with a string would actually grant Plankton scaling to Infinite speed, along with the sponge being able to flip a Krabby Patty out of our dimensional plane, which would be Immeasurable, making it overall consistent in the verse. The Warners, and thus Brain, have similar scaling in that they fought Taz, who could keep up with a bird that could escape to a different universe through sheer speed. Since the Animaniacs universe is stated to be infinite in size, this would similarly mean the Brain would scale to Immeasurable. Other feats such as the aforementioned Plucky replacing the universe would also get Infinite, and Duck Dodgers’ ship could shatter the space/time barrier, which is also immeasurably fast. So in terms of actual calculable numbers, Plankton would be much, much faster, but since both he and Brain scale to speeds so high that they can’t be measured, the safest and realistic answer here is to call it a tie.

Strength

When it comes to these two mad genius’ physical capabilities, one might not think too much of them. As said earlier, it’s up to your own interpretation as to whether these two could actually match up to characters like SpongeBob or the Warner trio in sheer muscle, but their machinery and mechs would absolutely be able to, so we’ll be analyzing this segment with that in mind.

For direct feats, Plankton’s most impressive one comes from the time he kicked Burger Beard to another island in his Plank-Ton form, which would be Town level. But his durability is his most impressive, having survived being stepped on and getting blown up on numerous occasions. And through Imagination, which we know to be a tangible force in the world of SpongeBob, he could create planets and even stars just by thinking about it. Meanwhile, Brain’s more direct feats aren’t super great aside from the time he was caught the universe being sucked into a black hole and came back the very next episode. Still, being able to survive a fall from space and an entire planet crashing into him does show that it’s hard to put the Brain down for good, and his machinery is certainly strong enough to make up for any physical shortcomings.

However their scaling tells a very different story, and given everything we’ve discussed when it comes to the sheer size of SpongeBob and Animaniacs’ cosmologies, these two can get up to astronomically high levels of power. Plankton scales to Bikini Bottom citizens like Squidward, who could survive the entire ocean crashing down on him, and Patrick, who could survive a brain freeze that froze the entire planet. Then there’s the main man himself, SpongeBob, who was able to unravel the entirety of the universe with a string. The SpongeBob cosmology contains infinite timelines and universes, all of which eventually combined with the “main” universe, meaning doing this must mean SpongeBob would get up to Multiversal+. Again, it’s understandable if one may think Plankton physically couldn’t measure up, but since his machinery and mechs are continually a threat to SpongeBob and the rest of the cast, those machines should easily scale.

As for Brain, he should similarly at the very least scale with his tech to the many wacky antics of the Animaniacs and Looney Tunes, like Yosemite Sam and Marvin Martian being turned into constellations from their clash, Wakko pushing the universe out of frame, and several characters surviving their entire cartoon being reduced to just a white void, showing that the characters can regularly tank and even dish out universal level levels of destruction. And it doesn’t quite stop there, as other characters like Martia and Dot can survive levels of destruction that threatened not only the cartoon, but the upper animator realm that sees their show as mere fiction. Even if you were skeptical about the animator’s realm reaching Low Complex Multiversal levels of power, the fact that the animators can create a Multiversal+ cosmology, since it’s big enough to house infinitely sized universes and infinitely-spanning timelines, would be pretty damn impressive considering one of them was scared of Yakko’s strength.

As you can see, both Plankton and the Brain have scaling that reach practically the same level, given their cosmologies have identical qualities. However, Plankton or any other SpongeBob character has never had to deal with something like the animator of their own show before, while that’s somewhat of a norm for Animaniacs and Looney Tunes characters, and if you were to buy said plane as a higher realm of existence, then Brain’s scaling would be above that of Plankton’s. So if you do believe it, then this category goes to Brain, but without it, then both would be at the same level, making this yet another tie.

Conclusion

Plankton

“The thing that's gonna help me take over the world was right there in front of me the entire time. The secret formula… was you.”

Advantages:

• Faster in finite scaling

• More gadgets and equipment that are better suited for direct combat

• Better numbers with army and more varied and reliable support

• Could potentially win the fight with equipment Brain cannot resist or counter regardless of a potential strength difference…

• Has the second best movie in the series

Equal:

• Equal in strength with similar cosmological scaling at Brain’s low end…

• Equal in speed thanks to Immeasurable scaling

Disadvantages:

• …but weaker with Brain’s higher scaling

• Less experienced overall and less impressive showings of intelligence

• …but said methods aren’t as reliable

• Cannot resist Brain’s deadlier equipment

• Many of his machines could be disabled

• Cheated on his hot wife MULTIPLE times.

The Brain

“Pinky… I just wish to say that if I conquered the world and lost you as a friend… I shall have gained nothing.”

Advantages:

• Stronger if higher scaling is bought

• Far better showings of intelligence and more experienced

• Has experience fighting characters similar to Plankton

• Mind control methods are more reliable and do not require contact

• Verkimer Suit’s EMP can shut down a majority of Plankton’s machinery

• Could seal Plankton’s ghost form with the vacuum

• Bisexual icon

Equal:

• Equal in strength with similar cosmological scaling at the minimum level

• Equal in speed thanks to Immeasurable scaling

Disadvantages:

• Slower using finite ends

• Less impressive numbers and even less reliable support options

• Not as equipped for a direct fight

• Limited meaningful resistances mean he could still be affected by several of Plankton’s abilities

• Pinky, Elmyra & The Brain

To say that this debate has a clear-cut winner would be disingenuous. Both of these two miniature mad scientists were plenty strong with their best machinery, were plenty smart enough to keep outwitting one another, and had many tools that could’ve ended the fight right then and there. But more often than not, it’s Brain that has just a little bit more to give. While Sheldon could potentially get around Brain’s higher scaling via mind control, age manipulation or putting Brain into a deep slumber, Brain could do the same with his own sealing options, immobilization methods and hypnotization, many of which were more potent, could be done at a distance and didn’t require Brain to make direct contact with Plankton. And while Plankton did have many creations and allies by his side to possibly overwhelm the Brain, the maniacal mouse had several different ways to overcome the numbers gap via EMPs or even mind controlling some of Plankton’s organic allies, ultimately leaving Sheldon vulnerable to get far more than squished. In the end, even if Plankton were dead-even in Brain in stats thanks to their multiverses being similar in size, he just didn’t have the necessary tools to put down Brain or avoid his deadlier gadgets and inventions, while Brain had just what he needed to counter Plankton’s win conditions and get around any advantage he had.

Plankton was as brilliant and headstrong as ever, but the Brain’s superior intellect, greater tools and reliable counters allowed him to take over this fight and achieve domination as the greater miniature mind. It may have been far from a no-brainer, but Plankton just couldn’t figure out the formula for victory.

The winner is The Brain.

“Gee Brain, that little green fella sure was a tough one!”

“He was a formidable foe, Pinky. But unfortunately for us, that formula is nowhere to be seen. Looks like it’s up to us to steal it from that wretched crab! It won’t be easy… I’d better research him by reading that blog on him that just so happened to release at the same time as this one in preparation for tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night? What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?”

“The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!”

They’re Pinky, they’re Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain!~

Next Time

We’re back! Kinda. This was without a doubt my biggest and most taxing project to date, but I overall had fun learning more about Pinky & The Brain and Animaniacs in general and gaining a newfound appreciation for modern SpongeBob (mostly anyway, some episodes are still really bad but a lot of them are a lot better than most people give them credit for). Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this one anyway and hope you came away from this one understanding why I think it’s such a cool matchup.

Next matchup surely won’t be anything equally lengthy and taxing to make and research, right?

…right?

Source List

• Encyclopedia SpongeBobia

• The Animaniacs Wiki

• DBE’s Squidward vs Benson

• Wile E. Coyote: Coyote vs The Versus Community

• G1’s SpongeBob vs Aquaman (accessed via Wayback Machine)

• G1’s Wile E. Coyote vs Tom