Real name: Ram Deol. Born in Calcutta in 1840, the result of an affair between Ashton Soul and a Hindu woman. It is said there was a strange light in the sky the night he was born...it may have been a Zha'Tahn ship, activating the nanomachines that were hidden/implanted in Soul's DNA. The woman did not survive the birth of her son, and he went through no less than nine foster mothers...each becoming afraid of Ram Deol.

The human eye and ear has innate limits---but the Zha'Tahn nanomachines within him could project a small field outside his eyes, ear, or mouth. With that field, light or sound could be amplified, and its frequency changed. Ram could look through the full electromagnetic spectrum, seeing microwaves, infra-red rays, normal vision, ultra-violet and x-rays. He could also amplify those images at will, becoming a living telescope or microscope. The same was true of his hearing, which could range from the ultrasonic to the infrasonic, and could be amplified to an amazing degree. (Sometimes he would combine the two; for instance, x-ray vision could result in a dark landscape, barely lit by a feeble sun--relatively few x-rays hit earth--except he could also amplify the image till it was easy to see.)

A similar field amplified his voice at will, an ability he discovered when very young--often resulting in the destruction of the home, or even the village, of his foster-mother. (Think Black Bolt's whisper, or Black Canary's sonic scream.) Though born of a relatively high caste, his abilities rendered him a virtual outcast. ?He did learn to alter his voice even more with a series of horns, and to master its effects. These days he carries an electronic voice amplifier/modulator and that, combined with the small field, can be used to with surprising percision to break down walls or knock out others.

Ashton Soul found his son during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and inducted him in the organization he called the Command, which would evolve into the Next Level. Vigilant became the watchman/guardian of their headquarters, and the most uncompromising in protecting their headquarters. Of all the Next Levellers, he is the most suspicious of Flickerflame.

He occasionally leaves the Next Level headquarters. It is said in the late Thirties he visited Cleveland, perhaps to see if Siegel and Shuster, who had just created a super-powered hero, knew anything about the Next Level. If so, they might have learned more about the Next Level than he intended, because soon their creation, Superman, had super-hearing and later still, x-ray and telescopic vision. Back to the Cast Page