WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker #2 by Chad Bowers, Chris Sims and Todd Nauck, on sale now.
Marvel Comics' latest major event, Infinity Wars, is centered around six of the most powerful artifacts in the Marvel Universe -- the Infinity Stones. It's common knowledge at this point that anyone who wields an Infinity Stone more or less has complete control over one aspect of creation: Mind, Soul, Space, Power, Time or Reality. Beyond that, the stones are fairly mysterious, the means by which they operate left open to the imagination of the reader. That is, except for the original stone, the Soul Stone, which has long been considered the most complex of the ancient artifacts, if only because it contains an entire pocket dimension within it.
Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker #2 reveals that the Soul Stone is no longer unique in that regard. In fact, the series looks poised to explore each stone in-depth, starting with the Power Stone. The issue reveals that, while the Soul Stone lays claim to the formerly utopic Soul World, another pocket dimension akin to Soul World exists inside the Power Stone -- the Arena. The Mindscape cop Sleepwalker must traverse this dangerous (and muscly) realm if he is to reunite with his human host from the waking world, Rick Sheridan.
RELATED: Infinity Wars: Weapon Hex Rewrites the X-Men’s Infamous M-Day
That's a lot to digest, though, so let's take this one a little easy and start from the beginning. First appearing in Marvel Premier #1 by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in 1972, the Soul Stone (originally called the Soul Gem) was introduced solo, gifted to Adam Warlock by the High Evolutionary, who tasked the newly-reborn hero with sorting out Counter-Earth's Man-Beast problem. The gem stayed with Warlock for a time, until he realized it had a penchant for eating souls. Eventually, the stone even spoke to him and, in time, ate him up, too.
Infinity Wars has revealed the inside of the Soul Stone to be a pretty sucky place, all full of whipping winds, ethereal deserts and one really, really big tentacled monster named Devondra that just wants to chow down on anything it can wrap itself around. That hasn't always been the case, though. Soul World was once an idyllic, quiet place, free from the violence, stress and anger that defines earthly life. Infinity Wars and the various comics leading up to it established that the stone was corrupted, leading to the chaos seen on the page and the present predicament where Gamora has folded the universe over on itself.
The remaining five stones (and a seventh -- the Ego Stone -- that has been all but lost to time) were introduced later, but their powers, as mighty as they may be, never quite reached the heights of the Soul Stone. The Power Stone let its users smash their enemies into little, tiny bits if they so pleased, but there was no Soul World equivalent. Now, though, that's no longer the case. Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker #2 has introduced the Arena, and it turns out the dimension within the Power Stone has its own society the hero must contend with. Sleepwalker even gets the honor of negotiating with that society's leader.
The negotiations, of course, go very poorly.
Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Meet Dynamus, Head Beef Cake of the Power Stone’s Pocket Dimension']
As the Mindscape's top enforcer, Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker #1 saw the titular hero do the most cop-in-a-movie thing imaginable: He tried to convince his higher-ups that a problem they were ignoring was only going to get worse if left untended. For his troubles, he was demoted. Rather, he was banished to a realm of perpetual nightmares and left to fend for himself (a little harsher than, "Your badge and your gun -- on my desk, now"). Again, though, in classic cop-in-a-movie fashion, this was Sleepwalker's chance to go rogue and stick it to the brass.
If the hero wanted to save Rick, he was going to have to get inside Gamora's warped reality, which meant traversing the Infinity Stones as if they were a circuit. Sleepwalker enlisted a sleeping Infinity Warp named Little Monster (the diminutive fusion of Hulk and Ant-Man) to act as a guide and the two set off. Issue #2 kicks off with a brief introduction to the revelation that each stone contains its own pocket dimension, revealing that they all contain "curious terrain within," but that "none of them are safe."
The Arena is the Power Stone's realm, a land of eternal conflict and savage contest where only the strongest survive. "To endure here, one must possess great power," quips Sleepwalker. "Responsibility is optional." Sorry, Spidey, but maybe let the dream cops sort this one out.
The Arena's contestants give way to the might of Little Monster, who is literally equal parts tiny and ferocious. Little Monster's rolling scuffle attracts the attention of the Arena's master, Dynamus, who claims to be the living embodiment of the Power Cosmic. This is an interesting detail, as the Power Cosmic is usually associated with Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer.
Dynamus' boast might serve to confirm that the origin of the Power Cosmic is the Power Stone, which makes a certain amount of sense, given the name and all. The fact that Galactus is so ancient and intrinsically connected to the lifecycle of the universe also adds some credibility to the claim, as the Infinity Stones themselves are ancient and required for the universe to function properly.
RELATED: Loki’s New Avengers Are More Like One Of Marvel’s Cosmic Teams
Of course, the issue also serves to establish that the Power Cosmic ain't all that, as Sleepwalker uses his Warp Gaze to trap Dynamus in the terrain around him. With the leader of the Power Stone's Arena thwarted, Sleepwalker and Little Monster are free to continue their travels. From the looks of it, the next Infinity Stone pocket dimensions on the list are Space and Time.
While Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker is a side story to the main event that is Infinity Wars, the series cataloging Sleepwalker's journey though the Infinity Stone circuit has already provided several major revelations about Marvel's cosmic realm. The Arena is just the latest development, but the remaining realms within the Infinity Stones are sure to be just as revealing, though decidedly less buff.