| “ | I am Boss Leader, current reigning boss AND leader of the Paranatural Activity Consortium. We're an organization of several hundred individuals who, like you, can see ghosts and spirits. Together, we help keep the supernatural SUPER!™
— Boss Leader to Max Puckett (Chapter 4, Page 114
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” |
Boss Leader is the current boss and leader of an international organization of spectrals known as the Paranatural Activity Consortium. She is a wight who masquerades as a chain of sleeping human mediums who supposedly inherit the power of a spirit of dreams (though she is in fact this very spirt).
Appearance[]
Boss Leader's body is wrapped in blue bandages, and she wears a modified version of the Consortium's footie pajama-suit combination uniform with a tall, dramatic collar and heels. Her face has not been shown in-comic, due being covered in bandages and her power over the dream world distorting whatever features are occasionally seen behind them.
Personality[]
By her own description, Boss Leader likes to drop in on people unannounced because it lets her see people's "true faces" and also makes her seem mysterious[2]. Though a decisive leader, she does not seem to take her employees seriously, often making fun of them and scaring them out of their wits whenever she wants. She enjoys using her power over dreams to create disturbing and comedic visual gags, mainly by warping the bandages on her own face.
Despite this, she means well towards everyone despite knowing that inhuman choices can be made with the best intentions, and seems remorseful for any harm done to innocent people because of her actions. She seems to have a fascination with humanity, remarking on her great fondness for "real people" [3] and her "envy" of humanity [4] in her conversations with members of the Activity Club.
Paranatural[]
Chapter 4[]
After entering Texas Walker's room in the Dream Hub, he and Mr. Spender are joined by Boss Leader, who informs him that Agent Day will be arriving in Mayview the next night. After teasing Spender with a dream construct of his face with spider legs, Boss Leader sits him and Walker down to discuss her mission for him and the Paranatural Activity Club.
The next night, after Max Puckett is knocked out after falling off the Ghost Train and landing on the tracks, Boss Leader interrupts Max's dream about his mother, Mrs. Puckett, and introduces herself. She proceeds to explain the Consortium's basics and history, then offers to destroy his spirit, Scrapdragon, due to it being a grudge "beefed up on fear and rage"[5] and unsafe for a child. After he rejects her offer, she welcomes him as a member of the Consortium and explains that she wants Max to keep an eye on Spender for her as a form of peer review. After he refuses to make any promises, Boss Leader apologizes to Max for potentially putting him in danger by sending him on the mission due to his having lost consciousness, to which he reassures her that he just fell asleep on the ride. As the dream fades back into reality with Max lying unconscious on the train tracks, Boss Leader thanks Max for his kindness.
Chapter 6[]
Boss Leader is briefly seen in the Dream Base examining a large, locked door, behind which is the Great Unknown's dream.
Chapter 7[]
In a flashback, BL speaks to Dr. Gwen Burger, Ed's mother, urging her to divulge some sort of weakness on the spirit that's keeping the latter imprisoned. Dr. Burger replies that the spirit is lonely due to being trapped in nightmares as a grudge for so long, and that the two of them are also dangerous people. When Texas Walker arrives with the teenage Mina and Rick and an infant Ed, BL puts on a happy face and invites them in. BL fibs to the kids that she was introducing herself to Gwen, adding that "[her] predecessor left [her] with quite the mess".
When Mina demands that BL explain what a wight is (her brief interrogation with Dr. Burger exposing her to the term), Boss Leader summons her spirit, Sandman, to exposit: Sandman is the spirit whose power allows for the creation for the Consortium's dream base at the cost of putting her real body into a near-comatose slumber[6], and that the same price was paid by her predecessor Boss Leaders. After Mina expresses her suspicion of Boss Leader's appearance after the event at the lake, Mina presses BL about how much they'll be able to remember. The Consortium leader sadly remarks that it might be more than she wants them to, and ejects the kids from the dream without their memories.
In a later flashback, BL visits Isaac in his dream, shortly after he gained his spectral powers. During her conversation with Isaac, King Catnine accuses her of being a wight in disguise after noticing her inhuman smell; she then expresses frustration at the difficulty of maintaining a human appearance, complaining in particular about her inability to correctly mimic facial features. She moves to execute King Catnine to silence him, but is stopped by Isaac. When he confesses his feelings of guilt for his self-centered behavior, BL quietly remarks on her great envy for Isaac's humanity before dismissing him and King Catnine, and wipes their memories of the dream.
Relationships[]
Subordinates[]
- Richard Spender - Boss Leader and Spender have a relatively friendly relationship, with the former referring to him by the nickname "Rick" and having "great affection for the boy". Despite trusting that he has good intentions, she worries over Spender's increasing secrecy, and decides to conduct an internal investigation on Mayview involving the bringing of his activities to light in order to ensure that they're morally sound.[7][8]
- Texas Walker - B.L. does not seem to take Texas seriously nor does she think he's very smart, stating that she wouldn't send him anywhere unless she wants something broken. She also doesn't bother keeping him informed on a plan he himself was involved in.
- Agent Day - Despite her comparative youth, Boss Leader respects Agent Day's wisdom[9] and praises her as "very good at winning people over"[10]. After sending her to Mayview to pursue a secret series of objectives under the pretense of investigating monsters, Boss Leader wonders whether things will turn out different now that she's "finally stopped holding her back"[9].
- Mina Zarei - Mina appears to hold a level of contempt towards Boss Leader, scoffing at the idea of Agent Day being trusted by her[11] and distrusting her with knowing "what [she's] achieved" and "what [she hopes] to achieve"[12].
- Max Puckett - She meets Max when he was rendered unconscious after he was thrown out Ghost Train. She freely informs him about the Activity Consortium, their goals, and her proposition for him to spy on Spender's activities through informing Agent Day. She is also impressed with Max's logical sense when he declines her offer to destroy his feral spirit. Although he rejects her propositions on principle, he holds no ill will, and didn't blame her for the unexpected danger that entailed during their meet-and-greet mission, which she is thankful for.
Other[]
- Cousinhood of Man - Boss Leader refers to the Cousinhood of Man as "weirdos" that are dangerous, "gross", and "really super icky"[13], but she may have said this to provoke a reaction from Spender. During her meeting with Max, she referred to the Cousinhood as a "tangentially supernatural organization" and their agents as "dogs". Her true opinion is unknown.
Abilities[]
Medium[]
As the medium serving as the host for the wight Sandman, Boss Leader can enter peoples' subconscious at will and freely manipulate their dreams. This includes changing the shape of her own body and altering the perceived duration of the dream[14]. Within the subconscious dreamworld, she can see and interact with the true, wispy, form of spirits hiding inside tools or mediums and eliminate them directly, such as when she offered to destroy Scrapdragon for Max's safety.
The same powers allows her to link the dreams of different people together regardless of their actual distance from one another, utilizing this power to create the Activity Consortium's dream base. As a consequence of being Sandman's medium (and as a necessary cost to allow the headquarters to exist) her real body is always asleep.
Quotes[]
- "What matters is that I, like, you, am what's known as a "spectral", and a "medium" for a spirit of dreams, whose powers I used to INVADE YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND and watch your dreams like a movie. You were in the area, metaphysically speaking, so—"
- — Boss Leader to Max (Chapter 4, Page 113
)
- Boss Leader: "Listen. Our agents need formal work attire they can sleep in on the go. They mingle, study, and receive orders in a shared dream hub and execute those orders in a cruel reality unkind to non-suit-wearing bozos what don't wear suits. Our pajamas are a practical and elegant tool of the trade."
- Boss Leader: "..."
- Boss Leader: " PFFFFT Hahahahahaha they actually WEAR them hahahaha"
- Max: "YOU'RE WEARING IT TOO!!"
- Boss Leader: "Psh, yeah, ironically. I make everyone else wear it as a jo—"
- — Boss Leader and Max (Chapter 4, Page 114)
- Boss Leader: "When I asked Rick to take you kids on Mina's train, I didn't intend to lead you to harm. I always mean well, truly - Towards you, Rick, everyone. But I know... inhumane choices... can be made with the best-"
- Max: "It's fine. I just dozed off on the ride is all."
- Boss Leader: "...Thank you, Max. That's very kind of you."
- — Boss Leader and Max as the latter begins to regain consciousness (Chapter 4, Page 122)
- Gwen Burger: "Whatever happens when the creature wakes... I fear we may deserve."
- Boss Leader: "...What else was there to do? it's always been too dangerous."
- Gwen Burger: "Maybe so. But then... You and I are dangerous too, aren't we?"
- — Boss Leader and Dr. Burger talk strategy (Chapter 7, Page 6)
- King Catnine: "Only... human... You... You don't smell human, not at all."
- Isaac: "...W-what?"
- Boss Leader: "Something so silly..."
- King Catnine: "SHOW yourself. Let me face you in my TRUE FORM, and I will rend the lies from YOURS."
- Boss Leader: "I could never quite get the face right, but the smell? Of all the ridiculous indignities..."
- — Boss Leader, King Catnine and Isaac (Chapter 7, Page 87)
Trivia[]
- Boss Leader and Penny Spender are the only characters to be seen so far with white spectral energy.
- While using her shapeshifting powers, Boss Leader has twice been shown with the same glowing golden eye as the spirit possessing her, firstly when she detected an unusual presence inside Max's dream[15] and again while fighting the unnamed wight in Dr. Burger's dream[16]. Given the circumstances where it's happened this is possibly an unconscious effect of being under duress.
Gallery[]
Official Artwork[]
Comic[]
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)References[]
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 87
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 17
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 122
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 88
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 114
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 17
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 117
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 119
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 4, Page 118
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 121
- ↑ Chapter 5, Page 155
- ↑ Chapter 5, Page 148
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 18
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 122
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 120
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 13