S: Sandman

Here's the new entry for my A-Z Challenge. My theme, "Golden Age Comic Book Characters with the Same Name As Modern-Day Characters."

DC comics has had a few characters called Sandman since the 1940s. The first, pictured above and below this paragraph, initially appeared in Adventure Comics #40, 1939. He was Wesley Dodds, and he ended up changing his uniform in Adventure Comics #69, to odd yellow and purple superhero togs.

I can't show any of the more recent DC Sandman characters, because that would be breaking my own rules about using updated characters for the A-Z Challenge! Instead, let me list Marvel Comic's villainous Sandman, who first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #4, 1963! Flint Marko (a/k/a William Baker) was a criminal who'd escaped from prison. He wound up on a beach that had been a nuclear testing sight. Marko's body bonded with the radioactive sand, and since this is comics, he didn't die. Instead, he gained the power to turn himself into sand! (Marko later reformed, by the way.)

Thanks for your time.