Friday, January 28, 2022

MINDWORM


 
MINDWORM

Real Name: William Turner
First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #138, August 1974

Powers: William Turner was born a mutant with an enlarged head, piercing eyes, and a psychic vampirism. His mutant power drained psionic energy from thoughts and emotions of anyone within close proximity to him, gaining nourishment that invigorates him. Prolonged siphoning will cause death to his victim. William also possessed telepathy, allowing him to read minds, mentally draw people to him and command them, unleash waves of mental force, invade dreams, inflict brain damage, and erase memories. He had limited telekinesis and cold levitate his own body a few feet from the ground.

JOYSTICK

 


JOYSTICK

Real Name: Janice Yanizeski
First Appearance: The Amazing Scarlet Spider (Vol. 1) #2, October 1995

Powers: Originally a baseline human with no superhuman powers, Janice Yanizeski was surgically altered to become the superhuman mercenary known as Joystick. She possesses enahnced human strength, speed, agility, and reflexes. She wore a set of high-tech gauntlets which generated her "joystick" energy batons. Incredibly dense force constructs, these sticks can be used for hand-to-hand combat, channel energy discharges from their tips, or be thrown at a target as an explosive weapon. She can also slam two batons together in order to generate a blinding flash of light. Joystick wears specially-polarized lenses to protect her eyes from the flash.

At some point, Joystick underwent further enhancement when she began to work for the Grandmaster, by tapping into the Wellspring of Power and making her the "living embodiment of action". She is now stronger than before, can move and react at supersonic speeds, and now generates her baton energy naturally -- she can either charge regular baton weapons with power or materialize batons of pure energy at will. These batons can also be lengthened into a quarterstaff form.

ALISTAIRE SMYTHE

 


ALISTAIRE SMYTHE

Real Name: Alistaire Alphonso Smythe
First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man Annual (Vol. 1) #19, August 1985

Powers: A baseline human with no superhuman powers, Alistaire Smythe is the son of Spencer Smythe, inventor of the robotic Spider-Slayers which were designed to capture and unmask Spider-Man. Spencer grew obsessed with killing Spider-Man, leading to his desertion of his family and eventual death. Grief-stricken and increasingly unstable, Alistaire blamed Spider-Man for his father's death. He eventually gained employement from the Kingpin, using his resources to invent a new generation of Spider-Slayers.

A self-taught genius in robotics and cybernetics, his knowledge enables him to re-create and upgrade his father's inventions and develop many of his own (including over a dozen variations of the Spider-Slayer. After suffering a paralysis, he invented a super-powered carapace that restored his mobility. While encased in his cybernetic carapace, he possessed superhuman strength (Class 10), speed, durability, as well as claws, talons, limb barbs, extendable "fangs" from his shoulders, and web shooting arms.