Origin

Unknown to Eddie Brock, the Venom symbiote was expecting to spawn a new symbiote. Venom had kept that secret from Eddie and was concerned that bonding it to a human too early would turn it into a monster like the rest of Venom’s spawns. They were being tracked by a symbiote task force that wants to take the spawn and bond it to Scorpion, so Venom heads to Alchemax to get Dr. Steven’s help delivering it. Conspiring together, they fake a stillbirth to get Scorpion and the task force off their scent. Instead, they trusted Steven to take care of it until it was older and capable of choosing its own host.

Creation

Sleeper was born in Venom (2016) #164 by Mike Costa and Mark Bagley.

Major Story Arcs

First Host

While safe at Alchemax, Sleeper would suddenly be taken hostage by Tel-Kar, a Kree soldier who was the first host of the Venom symbiote. He wanted to be reunited with Venom, but when Venom refused, Tel-Kar used Sleeper to force Venom into complying. In order to get Venom back, Sleeper volunteered to bond with Eddie so that Eddie could accompany a Skrull spy, M’Lanz, as she chased Tel-Kar, who was searching for a dangerous Skrull weapon to take vengeance on the Skrull empire for his imprisonment during the Kee-Skrull War.

They caught up with Tel-Kar on a Skrull space station, but he had already released the Skrull bio-weapon, forcing Sleeper and Eddie to lock M’Lanz on their ship. Sleeper, though, was immune and capable of being used as a hazmat suit by Eddie. They were unfortunately no match for Tel-Kar while bonded to Venom. Sleeper tried to make a psychic link to Venom, hoping he would fight back against his bond with Tel-Kar. Before he could, Tel-Kar decided to immobilize Venom and give up on their bond.

M’Lanz would catch up with them, but Tel-Kar would also pierce her hazmat suit. Committed to not letting anyone die, Sleeper bonded to M’Lanz and saved her, giving Eddie and Venom the chance to reconnect and take on Tel-Kar. Once M’Lanz was safe, Sleeper bonded to Tel-Kar and lobotomized him. Using his body as a mindless puppet, Sleeper would depart his parent to travel through space and find itself.

Absolute Carnage

While traveling the cosmos, Tel-Kar’s body was killed, but Sleeper continued using his corpse as its host like a backbone. It was drawn to Klyntar when Knull, the god of symbiotes, tried merging all the existing symbiotes into his hive-mind. Sleeper was able to fight off the influence but learned that Eddie and Venom were in trouble. So, it quickly made its way to Earth.

Once there, it tracked down Dylan Brock and Normie Osborn. It protected them from its siblings, the Life Foundation symbiotes (minus Scream). They had all been corrupted by Knull and were working for Carnage, Knull’s best general. Unfortunately, all the symbiotes, including Sleeper, were collected by The Maker, who intended to exterminate all of them, despite Dylan’s protests that Sleeper was on their side. Dylan eventually freed Sleeper, but not before the Life Foundation four bonded to The Maker as a new Hybrid.

Sleeper tried to bond to Dylan, but Dylan’s natural symbiote powers caused Sleeper to burn at his touch. Instead, Dylan mind controlled Sleeper into a wolf to help the Avengers take on the Hybrid-bonded Maker. Sleeper was unhappy that Dylan took over its mind but forgave him when it was called out on its hypocrisy regarding Tel-Kar.

Venom Island

After stopping Knull’s first wave of attacks, Eddie and Venom secluded themselves on an island to protect their family from Carnage’s influence over Eddie. They left Dylan with Normie’s mom, Liz Allen. Sleeper took the form of a housecat to look after them.

Dylan had practiced using his symbiote mind-control powers on a thread of grendel dragon he had acquired during Knull’s first wave and was hiding it from Sleeper. The thread opened Dylan up to Knull and caused him to lash out at Normie. Sleeper had to stop his attack and then chastised him for keeping the symbiote piece. Dylan was able to convince Sleeper, though, to train him as long as he told Eddie the truth when he returned from the island.

Unfortunately, Dylan pushed himself further than Sleeper was comfortable with and connected to the hive mind. There, Venom was able to get a distress call to Dylan because Eddie was being hunted by Carnage and minion symbiotes on the island. He reflexively opened a portal that allowed him to bond long-distance with the Venom symbiote and fight the Carnage symbiote, which had forcibly bonded with Eddie.

In the fight, Dylan was forced back through the portal, where Sleeper caught him, despite the burning pain he would feel saving him.

Extreme Carnage

After Knull was defeated, Carnage was able to take control of the symbiote hive-mind. This allowed him to collect the Life Foundation symbiotes and use them to incite anti-alien hate through the Peter Krane congressional campaign. Newly resurrected Flash Thompson had recruited a few symbiotes, including Sleeper, to help him covertly take them down. Sleeper was assigned to secretly bond with Flash’s military friend, Hank, without Hank's knowledge. Hank would get a job on the campaign as a mole for Flash, while Sleeper physically protected him.

Hank’s cover was eventually blown, and he was killed by Carnage, bonded to Sen. Crane’s son, Arthur. Sleeper took control of Hank’s unconscious body and kept him alive while he healed. He was also able to immobilize Riot.

He also used Hank’s body to get to the campaign rally that Carnage intended to attack. Joining Flash’s team, they were able to take out most of the Life Foundation symbiotes, with only Carnage and Agony retreating. Hank eventually regained consciousness and never learned of Sleeper’s involvement, but Sleeper secretly stuck with him anyway until he was fully healed. After which, he left a little bit of him behind in case he ever needed to activate Hank as his "Sleeper Agent."

Absent Throne

Sleeper moved in with the Brocks, usually hiding in his house cat form. Eddie had become the new King in Black after defeating Knull. Unfortunately, Eddie’s body was destroyed in an attack, but his mind was able to enter the symbiote hivemind sending him across the universe. When this put Dylan in danger, Dylan had to run away from home with the Venom and Sleeper symbiotes by his side. A cryptic message from his dad led them to Archer Lyle, a journalist contact of Eddie’s who was investigating the “Absent Throne” conspiracy. She betrayed Dylan and Sleeper to Alchemax, but Sleeper was able to send a chemical distress scent back to Venom, who rescued them by bonding with Dylan.

They lived off the grid for as long as they could, but they were eventually hunted down by the Life Foundation operative, Spearhead. Sleeper managed to escape, but Dylan and Venom weren't as lucky. Venom disappeared after being injured, and Dylan was kidnapped and rendered comatose. Sleeper sought out Archer to guilt trip but also activated his Sleeper Agent contingency in Hank Hensley. They managed to rescue Dylan and return him to the injured Venom, merging them into a new being, Codex, revealing Dylan to be half symbiote in nature. As such, he disconnects Sleeper from the hivemind, as he will need an army of symbiotes to save his father.

Venom War

After Dylan heard from Toxin about his dad teleporting into a live pro wrestling event and demanding to see Dylan and Venom, they would assemble Sleeper and the rest of Dylan's hive: Normie Osborn with Rascal and Flexo. At first, they tried to hang back and just watch the live feed, but eventually, they got sick of Eddie's behavior and decided to sneak into Grand Garden Arena to confront Eddie together. Sleeper would drape himself over the whole squad to use his camouflage ability to get by the security forces who had the arena in locked down.

Venom showed up bonded to Spider-Man hoping to keep the peace between the two groups. This irked Eddie who forced the Kings in Black symbiotes to combine into one super symbiote. While Spidey held his own, Dylan finally jumped into action by having Sleeper and Flexo combine into a super symbiote for him to bond to. Eddie refused to hit his son, but Flexo was being secretly manipulated by Doctor Doom. He prepared to fire on Eddie. Sleeper tried to restrain him but was ripped from Dylan's body by Flexo and now needed time to recover.

Sleeper reverted to his cat form and was protected by Toxin. As the fight raged on, they were joined by Agent Anti-Venom. Flash used his powers on Bedlam rending him inert, but he incidentally led a horde of zombiotes, mindless symbiotes that multiply and spread like an infection, into the arena. Eddie combined the Anti-Venom symbiote with his King in Black hivemind connection to cure all the zombiotes. Sensing this, Meridius used Carnage's cosmic weapon, the All-Blood Necro Spear, to reinfect the Eddie and the zombiotes with Carnage. Sleeper and Toxin were immune thanks to Dylan disconnecting them from the codex.

Toxin tried to fight through the carnage zombiotes to get to Dylan, but he couldn't make it. Luckily, Dylan's future self time traveled to the present with a cold metallic symbiote called Eganrac, an anti-venom version of Carnage. With this new symbiote, Dylan was able to use the All-Blood to kill the entire zombiote plague and defeat Meridius. Unfortunately, the Eganrac and the All-Blood started to take each other out, and Venom was forced to abandon Dylan before the gangrene got him too.

S.C.A.R.

After the Venom War, Sleeper was taken into custody by SCAR (Symbiote Containment and Rendition), a government agency put in charge of finding a new non-hostile planet to deport the symbiotes to. According to Toxin, Sleeper spent most of his time in cat-form, sleeping and remaining mute. He was secretly using Rick Jones as his new Sleeper Agent and was independently investigating Venom and his new host, Mary Jane Watson.

When Flash and Venom staged a fight to cover Flash's cover as a SCAR agent, other agents came to Flash's defense. Sleeper took this chance to pilot Rick to SCAR's now understaffed holding facility to save him and Toxin. Unfortunately, the holding facility had a secret staff member: Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock was able to remove the piece of Sleeper from Rick and prepared him for dissection. Sleeper was able to send a psychic distress signal to the other symbiotes so they would come to his rescue.

Venom and Flash answered the call and broke them out of their captivity. Sleeper hesitantly agreed to stop erasing Rick's memory or remote controlling his body in return for his cooperation. He even eventually convinced Rick to become Toxin's host so Toxin doesn't die.

Powers and Abilities

Symbiotic Physiology: Sleeper can enhance the physical characteristics of its host, including: strength, speed, endurance, agility, immunity to poisons, toxins, and venoms, and rate of healing.

• Spider-Hero: It also has a connection to the Klyntar hive-mind and can mimic Spider-Man abilities, including web-slinging its tendrils and wall-crawling.
• Camouflage: It is also capable of both shapeshifting into clothing and blending into its surroundings effectively becoming invisible.
• Hostless Animation: Unlike other symbiotes, it is able to manifest a solid form without a host.

Enhanced Vision: Sleeper is also able to perceive an array of visual spectrums.

Biochemistry: He is capable of secreting a variety of chemicals and pheromones to induce euphoria, sleep, and other states of mind.