Virtually every major hero within the DCU has their own nemesis; Superman has Lex Luthor, Batman has the Joker, and Wonder Woman has Cheetah. But one of the most lasting recent additions to the world of the DC heroes was Grid, Cyborg’s nemesis. Grid was a background program that Victor Stone started running shortly after he became more than human. But over time, Grid developed a consciousness before turning on Stone, vying with him and the Justice League in a bid to gain the one thing that he could never simply download from Cyborg: emotions.
But Grid’s never-ending quest for self-improvement may have left him wandering around somewhere within the Mobius Chair.
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Grid was never intended to be a fully sentient being. In fact, he wasn’t supposed to exist at all. When Cyborg first acquired his new robotic body, he realized that his telecommunications systems could effectively keep watch of every superhuman on Earth as a precaution. Considering that the Justice League existed to handle threats to the world, this was an opportunity he could not pass up. But Victor wasn’t comfortable with the massive invasion of privacy that such an act would entail. To avoid learning things he’d rather not know, Cyborg ran the program through secondary systems. This way the knowledge would be passively gathered and stored for him to search for specific details instead of everything. But this decision would haunt him in ways he could never have anticipated.
Because the system was run passively, Cyborg was unaware of any new developments in the software. Over time it developed its own neural network with a personality based on all the hackers and viruses it came across in its observations. But it wouldn’t achieve full sentience until Atomica, a secret member of the Crime Syndicate, discovered the virus and guided it to full awareness. Now fully sentient, the virus called itself Grid and joined the Crime Syndicate when they invaded Earth. He stole Cyborg’s prosthetic parts to form a body, but his ultimate goal was to acquire emotions, the one thing his datamining could never give him.
Grid acted as the Crime Syndicate’s datahub, becoming instrumental during their early conquest. He cut off worldwide communications, making it easier for the Crime Syndicate to take over the disorganized Prime Earth. Fortunately, Cyborg managed to gain new parts and with the help of the Metal Men, tricked Grid into disconnecting from wireless contact so they could destroy his physical body and leave him nowhere to escape. At least, that was what they believed at the time.
But Grid managed to find shelter once again within Cyborg, hiding in his systems without him knowing, and during “The Darkseid War” Grid was reactivated by Superwoman. But since his last encounter with Cyborg, Victor’s systems had evolved, allowing Grid a more thorough means of disabling Cyborg by taking over his body. Grid’s time as a physical entity was just as short-lived this time as it was the first time. His only ally to survive the war was Owlman, who claimed the Mobius Chair for himself and had Grid download himself into it. But before either could reap the benefits of having access to such a powerful artifact, Owlman was murdered by Doctor Manhattan, leaving Grid inside the Mobius Chair with no way to direct it.
This leads to perhaps the last major mystery of the DC Rebirth era: Is Grid still inside the Mobius Chair? If he is, then there is a chance he has simply been sifting through the vast stores of data within the chair, looking for a new way to return. The Mobius Chair has had several different occupants since Grid was downloaded into it, but he’s never once been mentioned. If he truly is a part of the Chair’s data then its users should be aware of him, unless Grid has found a way to hide even from the Mobius Chair’s omniscience.
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