Nightmare Nurse

Creation

The Nightmare Nurse was created by Dan Didio and J.M. DeMatteis in Phantom Stranger #8.

Origin

Asa is a healer, sworn to minister to the sick and the dying that was forced on her against her will. Nightmare Nurse is a demon who was taking care of Alice Winter, her mistress. When Alice Winter got really sick and was on the brink of death, the demon call Asa decides to take her body as a way to save her. When Zatanna finds out, she was very upset. She even tried to banish Asa back to hell, but when she sees that Alice was about to die she had no choice but to let Nightmare Nurse and Alice fuse back again.

First Appearance

After the Phantom Stranger is stabbed and mortally wounded by the Question wielding the Spear of Destiny , the members of Justice League Dark come together to try and save him. When conventional magic fails to help him, Zatanna summons the Nightmare Nurse as a last resort. She is initially annoyed at being summoned since she was in the middle of a threesome with a dryad and sylph, but reveals that Apollo and Panacea made her swear the Hippocratic Oath once a long time ago, and thus she is compelled to help them. After being informed that the Stranger was attacked with the Spear of Destiny, she senses that his soul is no longer within his form, and with the help of Zatanna she manages to heal the Stranger by retrieving his soul from the land of Non.

During this encounter, it was also revealed that the Nurse and Constantine have a past; specifically a romantic one, and the Nurse was not very impressed with Constantine’s prowess in bed —- something that annoys him when the topic is brought up.

Asa comes to the aid of Constantine following Trinity War. She assumes the identity of Zatanna to bring him to his senses in the House of Mystery. She then aligns herself with John and Swamp Thing to battle the entity Blight.

Major Story Arcs

Justice League Dark

After healing the Phantom Stranger, Nightmare Nurse joins the JLD to help them fight mystical crimes. she makes her debut in Justice League Dark vol. 1 #25. She took the identity of Zatanna and slept with John Constantine. She talks to him and encourages him to fight against the Blight. Constantine and Asa go to the house of mystery where she shows him a female version of Swamp Thing. While they are talking, the real Swamp Thing kills the imposter. He was very angry at both ASA and John. A lot happens, but at the end, Asa and John both turn into two demons to fight against the Blight. Nightmare Nurse joins the team and acts as the doctor for the team whenever someone gets hurt during a fight.

Character Personal Information

Real Name: Asa, Alice Winter

Species: Demon, Etheral

Age: Ageless

Height: 5 feet 8 inches

Status: Antihero

Eyes: changes color

Hair: Light Brown

Weight: 145 pounds

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Mystical Healer

Base of operation: House of Mystery

Known Family: None

Asa is a Demon who inhabits a human body. In her human form, she is very attractive. She has brown hair, glowing eyes, and pale skin.

Powers, Abilities, and Skills

Nightmare Nurse is a very powerful magic user. She can use magic to alter reality itself. Unlike many DC magical users, she does not need to say any words to use her power. This is impressive because only the most powerful magical characters are able to do that. She has used magic for many uses such as:

• Pyrokinesis-Generation and control of fire.
• Aerokinesis- Generation and control of the air.
• Cyrokinesis-Generation and control of ice.
• Hydrokinesis- Control of water.
• Geokinesis- Control of earth.
• Chlorokinesis-Control over plants.
• Thermokinesis- Able to manipulate the temperature of a place to stay warm in cold environments.

Nightmare Nurse’s uses of sorcery gives her access to a ton of other powers. For example, Flight, weather control, healing, illusion casting, reality-warping, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, force field generation, dimensional travel, size alteration, spectral sight, mystical invulnerability, probability manipulation, memory manipulation (erasing and altering people’s memories), superhuman strength, superhuman durability and extraction and teleportation of souls (she only uses this ability in dire situations).

Nightmare Nurse’s speciality, however, is her ability to heal any magical injuries no matter how graves they are. She was able to heal the Phantom Stranger when got mortally wounded by a magical spear.

Equipments

Rod of Asclepius

Nightmare Nurse uses the rod of Asclepius. “In Greek mythology, the Staff of Asclepius (sometimes also spelled Asklepios or Aesculapius) and as the asklepian,^[2] is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicine.” This staff alows her to be able to identify an illness and cures it. The Rod can also appears at will to teleport and pull people put out of mystic comas.

Magical Scalps and Bandages.

Nightmare Nurse has many other magical tools which she uses to operate on her patients and victims. In one issue she used one of her scalps to see if John Constantine was being posses by deadman.

Other Media

Constantine: City of Demons

When Constantine’s best friend came up to him and asked him to help his daughter who was sick at the hospital, Constantine contacts Nightmare Nurse to help figure out what was wrong with the girl. Nightmare Nurse found that it the little girl was posses by a demon and gave Constantine a message and the location of the demon. Constantine put Nightmare Nurse in charge of looking out for the Girl. Laura Bailey is the voice of Nightmare Nurse.