The Origin of Marvel's Sandman

hey Heroes welcome to another amazing episode of history of the Marvel Universe this channel is sponsored in part by patreon supporters if you would like to contribute and vote in monthly polls that help decide what topics get covered on the channel then you can sign up for an amount of your choosing over at patreon.com Mar marvelite the link is in the description below along with other places you can find me the individual we now know as Sandman was born into an impoverished family in Queens New York as William Baker when he was 3 years old his father Floyd Baker abandoned the family leaving Young William to be raised by his mother Molly furthermore Molly Baker was a heavy drinker and her son often longed for more attention than he got as a child he was sensitive and artistic often building sculptures out of sand his accomplishments were recognized by a teacher named M Flint leading him to develop an innocent Crush however he was met with a sudden reality check when he learned that Flint was engaged to a wealthy stock broker while his childish hopes for a romance were obviously futile The Experience only furthered Williams dejection over his own poverty that same day he was attacked by a group of bullies led by a boy named Vic Rollins who beat him up and destroyed his sculptures not wanting anyone else at school to see him William snuck home where his mother cleaned his wounds Molly Baker blamed herself for this thinking that if it wasn't for her drinking then Williams father would still be around to teach him to be a man and defend himself seeing his mother cry the boy declared that he would be a man and protect them both during his recovery he spent time at the beach watching how the sand flowed and changed shape as the water crashed against it inspired he spent the next month training tring himself to flow and move like sand and water before challenging the bullies who attacked him evading their blows he defeated the three boys and while this earned him a trip to the principal's office he quickly found that he enjoyed the feeling of holding power over someone else soon William became a bully himself forcing the smarter kids to do his homework for him so he could get better grades he garnered fear and respect from the other students and the ones who once mocked and attacked him now followed and obeyed him by the time he reached High School he'd made quite a name for himself and that name was Flint he took this as an alias not just because it sounded more imposing than William or Billy but also because it reminded him of the one person to show him kindness and of the weak little boy that he never wanted to be again he still had a lot of anger billowing inside but soon found an outlet for his aggression with high school football his football career was promising and Flint even garnered the attention of a cheerleader named Mercy Conway and the two started dating but then his bully turned Lackey Vic Rollins came to him begging for help with his gambling debts with Vic's mother in danger Flint agreed to help and started throwing games for money he thought that nobody would notice but unfortunately for him the coach quickly did and threw him off the team declaring that he'd never make his mark on the world in a rage Flint attacked the coach badly beating him with his helmet earning him an expulsion from the school after that he turned to a life of crime partnering with Rollins for armed robberies and protection rackets he tried to support his poor mother without her finding out about his legal activities but rumors soon reached her ears and it wasn't long before Flint was caught by the police and sent to prison while serving out his sentence he recognized the face of a man he hadn't seen in years his father Floyd Baker Flint soon demonstrated his strength when he defended the older man in a fight causing Floyd to remark that if his own son was that tough he might never have left home and so not wanting to admit who he really was the man who was once William Baker introduced himself as Flint Marco over the following years this became the only name he used as Flint was in and out of prison at some point marrying his girlfriend Marcy then after one stint in prison he returned to Marcy's place to find her and Vic Rollins together in a vicious rage he savagely battered his friend much too mery's fear and horror after that Flint only got angrier as his next crime spree ended with a life sentence at the maximum security wing of Riker's Island one of the few things that made his previous prison time bearable was being able to spend time with his estranged father but by this point Floyd had been released and so an emboldened and rage filled Flint Marco made a desperate bid for Freedom escaping through an unguarded drainage tunnel he evaded the state police and the FBI as he fled southwards ultimately getting as far as Georgia bloodied exhausted and desperate for a place to lie low he snuck onto a nuclear testing site thinking it was no longer in use that very morning however the military was testing an experimental nuclear device on that same Beach and Flint Marco was bombarded with bizarre radiation every every cell in his body was a wash with searing pain and his screams were drowned out by the booming explosion until he passed out on the Sandy Shore he awakened sometime thereafter to find that his body had somehow taken on the properties of the sand itself at first he was horrified by what he had become but soon realized that he could control every grain of sand in his body allowing him to perfectly mimic his human form inside and out not only that but he could quickly reform after taking any kind of damage rendering him virtually indestructible furthermore he was not limited to his own body mask but could draw in more sand to increase his size and strength the way this all works is that Marco's Consciousness his soul if you will was entirely transferred into one specific sand particle that is capable of drawing in and controlling as much normal sand as it needs to form a body around it realizing what he could do he made his way back to New York and planned on a reuniting with Mercy however he entered her apartment only to find her in bed with his old friend Vic he attacked them both with his new powers stopping just short of killing them before departing once again after that he engaged in a series of robberies while calling himself the Sandman the police were unable to catch him leading to an encounter with the Superhuman vigilante Spider-Man although in their first battle the young hero was forced to flee to protect his secret identity when his mask was damaged while continuing to evade the police the Sandman decided to hide in a nearby School Midtown high upon being seen by the students and faculty he decided on a whim to demand that the principal Andrew Davis award him a high school diploma to his credit Davis stood his ground refusing to bow to demands and intending on distracting the villain long enough for the children to escape of course neither men were aware that one of the students was secretly The Amazing Spider-Man leading to a rematch as a fun side note one of the Midtown high students to witness this fight was later identified as a Teenage Jessica Jones in any event it was a tough bout for the wall crawler as the Sandman could recover from any damage taken almost instantly and that was when he did take anything resembling damage since he could also compress parts of his body to make them hard as Solid Rock in the end Spider-Man tricked his foe into converting his entire body into light sand particles allowing him to use the school's new industrial strength vacuum cleaner to trap him another funny thing about this battle is that Spidey wasn't able to get any pictures of the actual fight and so he faked shots after the fact by throwing sand into the air Sandman was turned over to the police but in those early days of the Marvel age municipalities were unequipped to hold someone who could alter their body's molecules like that and by this point his father Floyd had been imprisoned again and so he broke him free as well he intended on finally telling him that he was his son William but was interrupted by Spider-Man before he could and in the ensuing battle Floyd was seemingly crushed used by a falling roller coaster an enraged Sandman absorbed enough Mass to grow to Mammoth size and attacked he attempted to crush Spider-Man with a metal Ferris wheel but was defeated by a bolt of lightning what Marco didn't know was that the hero actually saved Floyd Baker moments before the impact Sandman escaped again but this time he was pursued by the youngest member of the Fantastic Four The Human Torch during that fight the torch triggered a building's sprinkler system soaking the Sandman enough to prevent him from changing shape Spider-Man attempted to join the frey as well but by the time he arrived the Sandman was already being arrested this time he didn't wait to get back to prison before escaping and simply slipped through the cracks in the door of the Patty wagon once he was dry enough to do so he went on a Citywide crime spree using his powers to avoid direct encounters with both the police and and the Avengers he was found by Spider-Man who tried to stop him with a giant turbine however the hero inadvertently scattered the sandman's particles across the city allowing him to ultimately escape again after pulling himself together the Sandman was invited to a gathering of villains by the notorious Dr Octopus calling themselves the Sinister 6 they conspired to wear Spider-Man down by challenging him one after after the other without giving him a chance to recover a likely realized that the desperate villains would be unable to coordinate a Combined Assault and so a war of attrition was better than attacking all at once nonetheless through cleverness quickness and determination Spider-Man defeated all six Sinister foes although the next time Sandman and Spider-Man clashed the hero was hesitant to fight at the time his elderly aunt had recently Fallen ill and so the wall crawler did not want to risk being unable to take care of her emboldened the Sandman joined forces with a trio of criminal enforcers Montana ox and fancy Dan together with the enforcers the Sandman successfully captured his other foe the Human Torch and set his sights on Spider-Man yet again after a pep talk from his aunt restored his confidence Spider-Man successfully rescued the torch and the two teenage Heroes defeated the enforcers together now they did get in each other's way while trying to capture the Sandman himself but it seems the fight weakened him enough that the police were able to arrest him after escaping prison again he took a job for a terrorist group called The sang dumort Brotherhood and attacked the United Nations Spider-Man intervened again ding Sandman with an experimental adhesive that caused him to mutate into a sticky new form but in the end the wall crawler was able to undo the damage he'd done restoring Flint Marco to his Sandy self after that ordeal the Sandman was contacted by another super villain who'd clashed with the Human Torch the wingless wizard uh to be clear the wizard is not a sorceress character but a mad scientist with a specialty in anti-gravity technology together with another torch villain paced pot Pete and the amnesiac inhuman Madame Medusa this group of malcontent became the frightful four seeking revenge on the Human Torch the Sinister quartet attacked the Fantastic Four's headquarters right after Reed Richards and Susan Storm's engagement party however the Human Torch was able to free his teammates and the frightful four ultimately fled the villainous team regrouped and past pot Pete gave himself a somewhat more dignified moniker renaming himself the Trapster for their next scheme they took a simpler approach of luring ing the Fantastic Four to an isolated at and destroying them with an atomic qbomb this came close to working as the heroes were indeed in range when the explosive device detonated however Susan Storm's invisible force field was powerful enough to Shield the Fantastic forsome from the enormous blast the frightful four then attempted to turn Ben Grim the thing against his teammates by using the Wizard's mind altering ID machine of course they were ultimately defeated yet again and while Medusa escaped the other three were captured by the Fantastic 4 by this point the city had finally built a prison cell capable of holding the Sandman without him slipping through the cracks however the wizard later used a pair of pilfered chloroform capsules to knock out the guards and free Marco once again the Fantastic Four attempted to intervene but the Sandman escaped to battle them yet again between these encounters he learned how to enhance his power by combining his particles with different substances and designed a proper super villain costume for himself equipped with capsules containing said substances he also briefly allied with an alien from the Negative Zone named Blaster during this time the police employed a cement gun made specifically to incapacitate the Sandman and so it's interesting to note how technology gradually developed early in the Marvel age to capture and contain superhuman criminals however they were unprepared for the explosive powers of blaster who swiftly freed his new ally but in the ensuing battle with a Fantastic Four the thing pulled the Sandman into the water and struck him so hard that his entire body shattered into sand particles the tide then pulled him further apart carrying him away while the FF banished blast her back to the negative zone of course it was only a matter of time before the Sandman body reformed yet again wishing to recover his ally he attempted to steal an experimental space warp craft being developed by the US Air Force this scheme put him into conflict with yet another superhuman The Incredible Hulk he escaped their initial encounter but was coerced into fighting him again by the international crime Lord known simply as the Mandarin that battle ended when the Sandman fell into a heated pressurized vat while the Mandarin fled as a result Flint Marco was transformed from a sandman into a living glass statue he was understandably terrified of what might happen if he were shattered in that state but the Hulk's gentle Ally Betty Ross convinced the green Goliath to let him go Marco then reunited with the wizard who used his advanced technology to restore him to his proper Sandman form the frightful four attempted to launch another attack on their enemies but by this point Point Medusa had already Allied herself with the Fantastic Four furthermore the remaining three were quickly dispatched by the witch Agatha harkes another Ally of the heroic forsome Marco was able to escape again but soon discovered that the Wizards treatment was temporary as he slowly started turning back into glass for a more permanent solution he forced a doctor named Albert marand to perform a complete blood transfusion at gunpoint Point ironically the most compatible donor they could find was the same woman who' convinced the Hulk to spare him Betty Ross this naturally led to another battle with the Hulk during which the sandman's body was dispersed underwater much like it had been before furthermore Marco's silicate blood caused Betty to transform into an inanimate glass statue she was later restored by doc Samson's cathexis Ray machine but that's a story we've covered Elsewhere on the channel so I'll link that in the description Sandman eventually reformed and battled with Spider-Man and the Human Torch once again but with it being Christmas Eve the two Heroes Allowed their adversary to visit his ailing mother who remained unaware of his super villainy after that the Sandman reunited with the wizard and the Trapster and the three villains began searching for someone to replace Medusa as the final member of the frightful four their first Target was none other than Spider-Man who they briefly brainwashed into working for them however an attempt to access the Negative Zone nearly unleashed the interdimensional Conqueror known as annihilus Spider-Man ultimately Broke Free of their control and saved the day alongside the Human Torch once again the frightful four subsequently had more success with the Negative Zone portal recruiting sandman's old Ally Blaster that did not last long however as the alien Warrior quickly grew annoyed with the human villains their next recruit was thundra a super strong Warrior woman from a possible future timeline however she was more interested in a fair fight and prevented the Sandman from outright murdering the thing they continued to clash with the Fantastic Four but reduced to a trio once again the villains suffered yet another defeat breaking away from the others the Sandman started working for a gangster known as the crime Master he clashed with his old enemies Spider-Man and the Human Torch as well as former allies the enforcers who worked for the crime Master's rival the big man the whole feud between the big man and the crime Master is a whole other story so let me know in the comments if you'd like to see a video focusing on that in any event the two crime bosses were able to put their enmity aside long enough to turn against Spider-Man and the torch this conflict also caught the attention of a group of Marshall artists the sons of the tiger Sandman initially gained the upper hand against these new Challengers capturing all four of them although continued infighting between the big man and the crime Master led to the latter fatally shooting the former furthermore the intervention of Spider-Man ensured that the sons of the Tigers were soon freed with five Heroes standing against him the Sandman Was Defeated once again as an unrelated side note one of the sons of of the tiger Abraham Brown is actually the older brother of one Hobie Brown the original Prowler in any event Sandman was sealed in a container that could hold him and the authorities planned on bringing him to a federal prison however sandman's story is far from finished and so if you want to know what happens next be sure to let me know in the comments Below in the meantime thank you all so much for watching this video if you did enjoy it be sure to leave a like subscribe to the channel and share it on your favorite social media as always the issues referenced in this video are listed in the description below if you would like to read them for yourself as well as links to other places you can find me including my patreon page where for only a dollar a month you can get your name in these special thanks here and vote in monthly polls that help decide what topics get covered on the channel but that is all I have for you guys this week and so until next time True Believers 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Channel: MerryMarvelite

Views: 11,008

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Id: F2ioUpDHKog

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024