Hero of the Week #25: Sandman

SANDMAN (DC)
Real Name: Wesley Dodds
First Appearance: Adventure Comics #40 (July, 1939)
Group Affiliation: Black Lantern Corps, Justice Society of America (former)
Gaming Credentials: DC Universe Online (TBA)
Infinite Wars Cumulative Ranking: #123



Last week's HOTW [Dr. Fate] was inspired by the Smallville two-parter set to feature the Golden Age heroes of the Justice Society of America, which has since taken on a life of it's own as a TV movie, Absolute Justice.

Written by fan-favourite reverend of reverence, Geoff Johns; the characters -- which were a vital part of solidifying his status as an A-list writer -- appeared to be in proven good hands, but 1up poster, Sune, raised the fair question of whether or not these colourful characters could reach the screen without becoming garrish parodies of their printed selves. As if to respond, a teaser trailer was released a couple of days later:

If you ask me, the brief glimpses featured immediately put to bed any concerns about the quality of treatment the classic characters will receive. It's difficult to gauge exactly how prominent the JSA will feature in their iconic forms, with an odd glow on shots of Dr. Fate and Sandman suggesting their costumed escapades might be relegated to flashbacks of better days -- a visually expressive interpretation of their golden age days. Not that I'm complaining! I'll take what ever I can get!

Through the course of the trailer we also get pretty clear glimpses of pseudo-Superman Clark Kent; Smallville regular, Green Arrow; the Golden Age Green Lantern's ring; and memorabilia from the JSA Brownstone, which includes a classic painted groupshot featuring; Star-Spangled Kid, Atom, The Spectre, Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Hourman, Mr. Terrific, and others. If you don't know who all of these characters are, then you'll have to take my word for this being a very cool detail.

Of particular personal note is the trailer spotlight on The Sandman.

Chances are you're more familiar with the Marvel villain of the same name who featured in the third Spider-man film, and a handful of recent related video games. Though more obscure, the Golden Age DC Sandman predates his grainy counterpart by almost thirty years, having officially debuted mere months after Batman, in the pages of the July 1939 issue of Adventure Comics.

Much like early Batman; The Sandman owed his origins much less to the superhero phenomenon being established by The Phantom and Superman, steeped moreso in the tradition of adventure and detective mysteries found in pulp magazines like those that starred The Shadow, or The Spider.

Sandman's early adventures dealt with an array of detective exploits that brought him into conflict with murderers and felons, whose fates were sealed through Wesley Dodds' sleuthing, sneaking, and clandestine operations, sponsored in part by his special sleeping gas administered through a gun. It was for this reason he donned the eerie visage of the gas mask that has become iconic to the character. It's interesting to see the unique early design of the character faithfully recaptured in the Smallville trailer, featuring the trademark face mask, rather than a more conventional WWI gasmask design found in stories like those told in the nineties adult reimagining, Sandman Mystery Theatre.

Despite the strength of his early pulp-inspired aesthetic; The Sandman actually only existed in this incarnation for a very short time. As superheroes gained momentum in the 1940s, Sandman was given a complete makeover after his first few years, retooled as a hideously indistinct yellow and purple caped crusader. The character borrowed further from the popular conventions of superheroes of the time, gaining a young sidekick, inspired by the likes of Robin and Bucky, called Sandy.

While many of the World War II heroes were granted sustained age in the comics, the Wesley Dodds Sandman was killed off earlier in the 2000s. Continuing a theme of legacy that has spiralled out of the influence of the Golden Age characters, Dodds' sidekick, Sandy, eventually replaced him as The Sandman. It's entirely plausible that the Sandy version of Sandman will be the character featured in Smallville, alongside other legacy characters (like Stargirl), but for the sake of my own fandom, let the Wesley Dodds original be our Hero of the Week!

For the best source of Sandman adventures, I would strongly recommend the first volume of the Golden Age Sandman DC Archive Edition, and the collected editions of the modern Vertigo retelling of the Sandman's early career, Sandman Mystery Theater. The character has also made a cameo return as one of the undead Black Lanterns featured in Blackest Night. An upcoming JSA Blackest Night mini-series seems reasonably likely to take a closer look at the zombified hero.

<< Hero of the Week 11/29: Spawn       [Home]       Hero of the Week 11/15: Dr. Fate >>

Originally posted: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9010580

JUSTICE SOCIETY versus MORGAUTH
"It was a Dark and Stormy Night..." (DC)
Where: JSA Strange Adventures #1 When: October 2004 Why: Kevin J Anderson How: Barry Kitson

The Story So Far...
In a world where the fantastic powers of the Justice Society of America make even the most bizarre science-fiction story appear pedestrian, the tastes of the masses are changing!

Circulation of the Amazing Stories pulp magazine is falling in a 1940's America concerned with the threat of Nazi violence, and the exploits of the nation's greatest super powered heroes. In an effort to save his business, budding editor, Hugo Gernsback, calls upon his most popular writer to work with a little-known author, whose submissions have been rejected for years.

As a member of the JSA; Johnny Thunder has had a ground zero vantage point of the team's greatest exploits, experiencing them from behind the might of his mystically charged Thunderbolt! His latest submission is yet another tale of personal triumph, when only he and his Thunderbolt have the keys to defeating the mysterious monster menace of Morgauth!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Wonder Woman 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Spectre 7 (Omnipotent)
Speed: Flash 7 (Lightspeed)
Stamina: Spectre 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Spectre 7 (Malleable)
Fighting Ability: Hawkman 6 (Warrior)
Energy Power: Spectre 7 (Cosmic)


- The JSA are: Green Lantern, Starman, Hawkwoman, The Spectre, Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Fate, Mr. Terrific, Hawkman, Atom, Flash, Wildcat, Hourman, Wonder Woman, Star-Spangled Kid, Sandman, Dr. Occult, Johnny Thunder, and The Thunderbolt.

During the Golden Age of superheroes in the forties, many of the heaviest hitting heroes united to form a powerful syndicate of heroism called the Justice Society.
Among the well-known founding members were; Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Sandman, the Spectre, Dr. Fate, Hourman, and the Atom.

Despite an ebb and flow through time that has seen the team maintain varying degrees of activity, they have endured to the modern day. Extending the JSA's lifespan is a new legacy policy which allows a new generation of new members inducted by relation to former members, be they by blood, or by spirit.

- Morgauth is a hellish tentacle beast from the darkest depths of occult imagination. The extent of the lovecraftian creature's powers are uncertain, but it's resistance to magic appears to extend even to the might of The Spectre, whose powers only appeared to make the monster grow larger in their only confrontation (in JSA: Strange Adventures).

Math: JSA Ranking: Hawkman (#31)

What Went Down...
"It was a dark and stormy night...," recounts the pencil of Johnny Thunder.
At the mysterious Hotel Necro the JSA are locked in mortal battle with an immortal creature of infernal origins! Dr. Fate and Starman do their best to stem the creature's writhing tentacles as it bursts from every orifice of the hotel!

The Spectre grows to towering proportions to bathe the Hotel Necro in the glow of his wrathful arcane energies! Dr. Mid-Nite delivers a grim prognosis, unable to sense any ill effects felt by the creature. To the contrary, Morgauth bursts from the bondage of the hotel architecture, seemingly invigorated by Spectre's blast!

The Green Lantern joins Starman in an aerial assault on the bustling monster, but their energies, founded in strange science, appear to have no effect on the creature raised from a runestone.

From the ground; the Sandman attempts to turn the tables to no avail, using his custom gas gun to try to give the nightmare creature a bad dream of it's own. All the while Hawkwoman, Hourman, the Star-Spangled Kid, Flash, Mr. Terrific, and Wonder Woman all grapple with the growing sprawl of animated tentacles!

Wildcat's blows bare a brutish charm as he battles the snarling tendrils with old fashioned fisticuffs. On the verge of running out of luck, the champion brawler finds himself surrounded, only to be saved by the pint-sized might of the Atom!

From the neighbouring rooftops above Dr. Occult clutches his mystic disc and compells it's energies to strike at the beast. Instead, the mortal man summons only the wrath of Morgauth, whose giant tentacle reduces his vantage point to firewood! Only the highflying intervention of Hawkgirl saves his life!

Meanwhile; Johnny Thunder was receiving a helping hand of his own from Wonder Woman and her indestructable golden lasso! Her rescue leaves Johnny Thunder able to cite the mystic command, "Cei-U," calling forth the mighty Thunderbolt!

Johnny directs his friend to the menacing monster, whose weak point proves to be it's gigantic central eye! The Thunderbolt streaks directly into he beast, reducing it to slop with his triumphant emergence!

The Hammer...
Well, of all the tangled tales to tie into... We're tempted to call this one a shared victory for the entire Justice Society, but it would be not without some contrivance. Technically Thunderbolt deserves the win, even though the story is told from Johnny Thunder's perspective, and we could assume the already admirable efforts of the JSA deserve more than a statistical assist credit. This isn't the only layer relevant to our on-going statistical tally, however...

The presence of characters like Dr. Occult and Star-Spangled Kid have raised certain questions about the situation of the story in DC history. With only the most unique exception, we analyse characters from alternate universes as part of the potential of their key-universe counterparts, so it's effectively a non-issue.
Strange Adventures could, however, very easily be interpreted as an untold tale from late in the pre-Crisis (or Earth-2) JSA; if not a stand-alone story.

Whew. If you found that paragraph utterly asinine, more power to you!

I like the Justice Society! I like the Golden Age!
I can't claim to be any kind of expert on the intricate histories of all these heroes, but there's an instant asthetic that makes them instantly recognisable, and delightful. It has come to my attention, however, that there are shade of ignorance that can radically change the interpretation of what these characters are.

If you've been reading the Infinite Wars of late you know that October is all about monsters and spooks, and that before that, we'd been paying quite a lot of attention to the meeting of Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe [ie; Dark Kahn]!

It's been an interesting interpretation that the T-rated departure for the blood soaked franchise is an admission that the appeal of the series skews toward a younger demographic. It's quite possibly true, but at the very least, I've found, the MK audience has a far less exposed palate with which they taste the fictional domain. For many, brightly coloured characters like Captain Marvel and Green Lantern were bitterly received, with no notion of the irony.

This trend might cast a lot of aspertions toward MK fans, but to look inward, it probably also reminds us how important perspective is to understanding, and appreciating, some of these most beloved relics of comics' Golden Age.

A regularly recurring subject has been the asthetics of "darkness" read as both adjective, and abstracted noun. The word's use as a buzzword in mass media has ensured fans of all walks of entertainment have their own shallow expectations of the word. It's fair to say even in comics there is a widespread misconception about what darkness might entail and how it applies to the DC Universe.

For the original heroes of the thirties and forties -- a certain amount of thematic darkness was retained from it's pulp predecessors, before being sanitized and reprocessed as post-Werthem goo. Heroes like Batman, Green Lantern, Sandman, and many others of JSA fame, all tackled macabre and horrific tales in their early adventures. While the debate is an evolving one, these World War II era characters also shared a moral compass that has come to accept certain extremes of violence, in the case of some, prosecution by murder.

In recent years DC comics has gone to great lengths to give it's characters and universe a hard edge of consequence. Despite being well recognised for their accessible materials for children, the publisher has managed to avoid being as conservative with it's sacred cows, placing violent stakes on the threats they face with a conceptual drive that has fairly justified them [see; the totem of justice].

Wonder Woman's penchant for swordplay and fatal brutality (breaking Maxwell Lord) garnered much more attention than the genocidal mass murder of three million undertaken by Black Adam. These hero-driven events say nothing of the controversy stirred by novelist Brad Meltzer's 2004 mini-series, Identity Crisis, which set the tone for the DCU with the rape of a beloved supporting character and a string of murders.

Attentive writing has really been on DC's side for the past decade as they've rebuilt the DC Universe as a cohesive entity. It's fair to say of most comics that they challenge the shallow nature of "darkness" as defined by gimmickery and trinkets, benefitting so from a language and precedent developed over seventy years. The emotional, psychological, conceptual, and ethical are all on display.

What is darkness? I think it's all these things.
I do hope, however, that fans of both Mortal Kombat and DC Universe can come to accept certain grounds of perspective. The DCU deserves full credit for the luxuries it is afforded by it's extensive network of titles, characters, writers, artists, and decades of history. This perspective is communicated through it's properties in ways the uninformed may not appreciate, but do not diminish.

I cannot communicate adequately the particulars of what it is about these antiquated heroes that is so charming and valuable. In meeting the much younger, less exposed audience it really has brought this home.
I suppose what I'm musing is that it's a misconception that does them the disservice. These characters in their long lives possess so much of the same make-up that their many descdents have - and then some!

At the same time, the great charm of a Sandman or Starman might just be the quaint simplicity that encompasses their character. They are the among the purest superhero concepts, summed up by their design and place in the world.
The popularity of retro-modern in the mid-00's really captured that and while it might have been better done in Detective Comics or JSA at the time, it's still very evident in Strange Adventures.

Suffice to say, there is still much to ponder, and more spooks and monsters to see as the month progresses. [EDIT: However, Mike fell ill after writing most of this entry, and consequently the month may be condensced upon his return.]

The Fight: 4 The Issue: 4

To the best of our knowledge JSA: Strange Adventures has not been collected, but you'll find plenty more on offer in the Infinite Wars Amazonian Gift Shoppe! Collections featuring most issues reviewed previously on the site are all on offer and by using purchase links provided you not only benefit from Amazon's services, but also help sponsor future entries in the Infinite Wars!

QUICK FIX DOUBLE FEATURE: Bring me a dream...
THE SANDMAN versus THE TARANTULA
The Tarantula Strikes (DC)
Where: Adventure Comics #40 When: July 1939
Why: Unknown How: Larry Dean

Quick Fix...
My word! A comedy of errors here at the Infinite Wars as I slide into lateness once more, and accidentally delete the previous poorly drawn Comik-Politik cartoon. Apologies particularly to the fangirls from WFA who were following the much appreciated link, and finding only dead air.

Speaking of dead air, today is, of course, Halloween!
To mark the occasion we've spent the latter half of the month hovering around the sinister and macabre, and as easy as it could've been to go with vampires and zombies, I thought it might be fun to take this holiday of nightmares and use it as a vehicle for a couple of interesting little posts with a sleepy theme to them.

Now, it goes without saying that I'm a big fan of the Spidey villain.
I thoroughly enjoyed Spider-man 3, and personally regarded Sandman, who is among my favourite Spidey villains, one of the true undisputed highlights of the film. Therefore, it's with that qualifier that I make the curmudgeonous statement: There is only one true Sandman in the DC Universe, and he doesn't go down especially well with eye-liner or Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Wesley Dodds debuted in New York World's Fair Comics #1, and quickly became a recurring staple of Adventure Comics from NAP, in the late thirties.
The character straddled the pulpy line between mysteriouso, gadget-wielding detectives like The Shadow, and the new wave of super-hero ushered in by Superman and Batman in sister titles; Action, and Detective Comics.

Much like Batman, it would only take a few years for the character to lose much of his connection to the pulp stories of the previous era, joining the superhero fraternity with the initiation of a new colourful suit, and junior sidekick.

I'm by no means any kind of expert on the Golden Age, but it was an affinity for characters like the Sandman that influenced the earliest iterations of my own work, The Kirby Martin Inquest. The Sandman would no doubt have featured much sooner in the Infinite Wars, if it were not for the nature of his character as a subversive combatant, and his appearances here in mostly short stories.

Indelible influences from a childhood of Phantom stories written by Lee Falk and drawn by grossly underrated American masters like; Raymond Moore and Wilson McCoy; probably primed me for a fascination with characters of this mould.
In the same way one views the wide array of characters from contemporary Marvel and DC comics; the Sandman represents a different slice of the same cultural pie, calling upon popular influences, themes and zeitgeists of the time.

Holding true to his ties to the pulp corner of this developing universe, the Sandman lacks the colourful rogues gallery of recurring villains that would lead to a distinct divergence between this character, and a Batman. The Sandman's stories are largely isolated tales more about corruption and common villainy, than the garrish, or costumed.

That's not to say there weren't memorable characters, and certainly The Tarantula emerges as one of the more visually stimulating villains.
It would be this character that would serve as one of many inspirations for the 1990s revival in, Sandman Mystery Theatre. This Vertigo version of the classic Sandman (written by Matt Wagner) would dramatically redefine many early stories, developing them in more removed ways than typical retellings of past tales [similar to Wagner's later Batman work]. This was far from an Ultimate affair, despite being perhaps more worthy of the prefix than those that use it.

Wagner largely takes only the basic premise of the original tales, setting his series in 1930s New York, where the Sandman tracks a serial kidnapper and abusive version of the The Tarantula. This original creation highlighted the uncompromising shift in Wagner's overall approach, acting free of the social constraints that kept the Sandman within certain parameters of specifics, as mature as the broader concepts may have been.

Wagner blows the character out into a world of intrigue and incestuous bickery between disgruntled family members, and exposes the homicidal tendencies of an emotionall withdrawn weakling. So specific is Wagner's direction, that it specifically references the motivations of the original Tarantula kidnapper.

Wesley Dodds, having learnt of the kidnapping ransom of actress Vivian Dale, travels to her home by cover of night, putting himself to bed in effigy to stalk the streets as the sinister Sandman.

Evading the police net, Sandman lurks the grounds of Ms. Dale's estate where police hold all houseguests and servants as suspects, while waiting for the Tarantula's next message.

With a mystery surrounding the Tarantula's methods for whisking the actress away unseen, Dodds already carries the theory that she may not have left her large, ancient mansion. A theory that ultimately proves to have some credence when he follows the Tarantula to a secret hallway hidden within the walls.

With the aid of his gas gun, the Sandman puts to sleep the gunman who guards a bound Vivian hidden within a secret room. Following the labyrinth of hidden passages through the old home, Sandman discovers a room empthy that should be filled -- the guest room of Mr. Crossart, a man who had objected to the police's treatment of those staying with Ms. Dale.

The Sandman proves to be Crossart's undoing, drawing fire from the villain's pistol with the use of a pillow garbed in his hat and coat, placed carefully across the room at the guest's desk. The Sandman is able to turn the tables, putting the Tarantula to bed, which is where the police discover a sleeping Vivian Dale, with the thwarted crooks tied to her bedpost -- with a sprinkle of sand on each: the calling card of the Sandman!

Perhaps as interesting as this six-page short story and it's responsibility for inspiring four full issues of work six decades later, is that DC credit the story's art to Bert Christman, using the pseudonym Larry Dean, but are unable to cite a writer.
A tragedy, given the kudos deserved for being a crucial part of these great Sandman tales, before the character would succumb to the mediocrity and loss of identity as yet another costumed hero.

Wesley Dodds may have been succeeded by his forties sidekick Sandy, but I can't help but regard this character as the one-and-only true Sandman at DC comics.

The Fix: 2 The Story: 4
Winner: Sandman

Wesley Dodds may have been succeded by his forties sidekick Sandy, but I can't help but regard this character as the one-and-only true Sandman. His early adventures have been collected as "The Golden Age Sandman Archive Edition" from DC Comics. Likewise, the earliest issues of Matt Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre can be found in trade on Amazon.com. Each are a worthy addition to any collection!

---

HULK versus THE STALKER
The Evil That Men Do! (Marvel)
Where: Incredile Hulk #335 When: September 1987
Why: Peter David How: John Ridgway

From the Sandman to the sleeper, as we wrap up our Halloween double feature with yet another tale of spooks and scares. This time, from a period in Bruce Banner's history when, much like the first days after his accident, he finds himself changing uncontrollably by moonlight into the grey-behemoth that is: The Incredible Hulk!

Peter David has been responsible for many iterations of the Hulk, and throughout the years has crafted some of the best regarded stories with the character. Among a plethora of memorable moments and stories is Hulk #340, which bares the famous Todd McFarlane drawn Wolverine cover, seen recently as a painted zombie variant by Arthur Suydam [Marvel Zombies #3].

Perhaps the most provocative quality of David's work was the psychological exploration of the characters of Bruce Banner and Hulk alike. Many stories not only spotlight the pathos of Banner as a cursed individual, but also the nature of Hulk as a character walking the line of hero and villain.

This stand-alone story presents a delicious double-header that paints a commentary about a social culture that derives trade from the glorification of violence, and the Hulk, whose relationship with violence presents a similar potential for downfall and loss of control.

Our story begins with a frightened girl attacked by a weedy man with claws who slinks out from under her bed at night, and clutches at her pyjamas. Wearing a wide floppy hat and cloak, the suited individual rakes at her eyes with a spray of blood, leaving her blindly stumbling for an exit out the window.

The Stalker pursues his victim through the suburban street, the girl too frightened to cry for help. Her salvation comes in the form of a solid grey mass standing in the middle of the street. Blinded, she collides with the fleshy obstacle, but immediately fills with a sense of reassurance and salvation.

The seedy Stalker tempts the Hulk to join him in his conquests of evil, but the Hulk declines, despite playfully contemplating the notion. It is the arrival of local law enforcement that prompts the Stalker to disappear into the night, the Hulk finding pardon for his menacing stature by sponsor of the grateful blinded girl.

A tour of the town allows Bruce Banner insight into the inner workings of the creature that stalked the suburban sprawl by night. He discovers a young man unwittingly in a predicament not unlike his own. A man who has surrendered to his demons, living a life of exiled solitude, worshipping devils in a collection of slasher movies, while getting drunk on cheap booze.

When Gil Jeffers falls asleep watching one of the many mind-numbing horror films he's seen hundreds of nights before, the spirit of the Stalker emerges, "free at last!" With night falling, Bruce Banner too falls victim to his hidden monster, transforming in the yard from where he spies.

The Stalker compels the Hulk to join him once more, successfully luring him with promise to free himself of the shackles of his other, and become the controlling bond like he has with the Jeffers boy. A boy whose hatred and imbalance has given birth to this monstrosity that would harass the girl he was too shy to talk to.

The Stalker leads Hulk to a bar where he angrily lords his murderous strength over the innocent patrons. The Stalker spirit entices and tantalizes the Hulk with the kill. Be it the man within the beast, or the Hulk himself, he refuses, falling on the side of angels has he has so many times before.

Suffering a taste of his own medicine, the Stalker flees the bar, throwing a police officer from his patrol car as he realises he is unable to awaken his drunken host, Gil Jeffers.

He flees desperately becoming the victim of this horror film, turning around streets only to find the grey visage of the Hulk waiting to crush his car, and the Stalker inside it! The killer flees on foot, reaching the home of Jeffers, but is still unable to shake him from his drunken slumber, forced to face the Hulk instead.

You might debate that the Hulk sunk to the Stalker's level by killing him, but the lines between justice and villainy are grey in this example. Ultimately, the Stalker's gleeful claims he had rid himself of the interference of his host proved true. Destroyed, he left behind the comatose shell of Gil Jeffers, who apparently had been so consumed by his inner monster, there was little else left.

And with that sufficiently macabre conclusion, we put a close on our [belated] Halloween post. Stay tuned for "tomorrow's" Punch-Up as we run down the villains featured in our Ultimate Alliance Mondays, and stay tuned for spill-over as we keep the spotlight on the things that go bump in the night!

The Fix: 5 The Issue: 5
Winner: Hulk

David's script is brilliantly complimented by atmospheric pencils supplied by guest-artist Ridgway, whose spooky depiction of middle-American suburbia is rounded out by colours from Petra Scotese. Visually, it's very eighties, but it does the job tremendously, recalling the alternative styles of horror comics of the seventies and eighties. This issue is included with others in the first Peter David: Hulk Visionaries.