BOOKWORM

 

BOOKWORM

Real Name: Nelson Gruber

First Appearance: Sleepwalker (Vol. 1) #4, September 1991

Powers: Nelson Gruber was originally a baseline human with no superhuman powers working as a laboratory assistant at Metropolitan University. He received his powers after conducting a sleep study on Rick Sheridan, the human host for the extra-dimensional vigilante known as Sleepwalker. During the study, he electronically recreated the synaptic patterns produced by Rick Sheridan's brain waves from when he and Sleepwalker were bonded and then amplified them. When his computer overloaded as a result, Gruber absorbed the energies of the Mindscape (Sleepwalker’s home dimension) that those patterns represented.

As Bookworm, he could summon those energies from the Mindscape and shape it into constructs that manifested as anything he read from the printed page. The speed at which he summoned multiple constructs in a row indicated that Bookworm was not actually reading each book he utilized for his powers, but merely focusing on the concepts the book represented. Although he chiefly used books to focus his power, it's likely anything that stimulated his imagination could potentially summon the energies necessary for his constructs. The constructs he formed were animated and even lifelike in their activities: Projections of King Arthur or Amazon warriors acted as Bookworm imagined they would, even after he left the immediate area and they operated without his direction. He could direct the actions of his constructs as well, commanding them to attack a particular opponent.

SLEEPWALKER

 

SLEEPWALKER

Real Name: (unpronounceable by human standards)

First Appearance: Sleepwalker (Vol. 1) #1, June 1991

Powers: The being called Sleepwalker is a native of the Mindscape, a dimension which borders the unconscious minds of all living beings. He belongs to a group of guardians of the Mindscape called Sleepwalkers who are sworn to prevent the evil beings of their realm from entering the minds of innocents.

A disastrous encounter with one such foe left him trapped in the mental landscape of a human, Rick Sheridan. Whenever Rick falls asleep or unconscious, Sleepwalker materializes out from Rick's mind into our world. When Rick wakes up, Sleepwalker returns to his mind, fading from physical existence wherever he is on Earth at the time. He possesses Class 10 strength and superhuman endurance, reflexes, and resistance to physical injury. His primary power is his warp-vision, which is capable of manipulating matter in a number of ways. Sleepwalker can cause inanimate objects to seemingly come to life and attack his opponents, inducing fences or lamp posts to wrap around and entangle a victim or the street to rise up and strike someone or immobilize them in place. He could redirect the direction of matter, such as causing a burst water main to turn at a right angle and strike a specific target. Warping matter also allows him to "stretch" it in some way, like when he wrapped a mugger in a playground swing, then caused the posts the swing set was mounted with to shoot up more than 50 feet tall. Sleepwalker has taken an oath never to use his warp-vision on living beings, because the disruptive effect in excruciatingly painful and could prove fatal if not immediately reversed.

Sleepwalker possesses telescopic vision and can see in different wavelengths of light beyond the human range thanks to his warp-vision, and can project two-dimensional images in mid-air that replay anything he has seen in the past. He cannot manipulate or animate these images, but merely show exactly what is in his visual memory. As an extension of his warping effect, Sleepwalker is capable walking on air by projecting auras of energy from his feet. He is capable of mentally controlling the height of his levitation, but cannot move through the air any faster than he can walk or run, unless he uses his warp-vision to construct a wind tunnel in order to propel him at high speeds. Sleepwalker is dependent on energy from the Mindscape in order to sustain his powers and survive, and so if Rick remains unconscious for too long a time, Sleepwalker will begin suffering ill-effects. Fortunately, the normal human sleep cycle seems to be short enough that it doesn't affect Sleepwalker, and only in rare cases has this been a problem. Also, Sleepwalker's powers are inexplicably tied to contact with the ground, meaning that he becomes weaker the higher up in the air he levitates, and is rejuvenated by returning to Earth. While in the Earth's dimension, he is resistant to it's native magic, even to that of its Sorcerer Supreme.