For other comic book characters with the same name, see Sandman (comics).

The Sandman, alias Wesley Dodds, is a fictional masked crimefighter in the DC Comics universe. The first of several DC characters to bear the name, he was created by writer by Gardner Fox and artist Bert Christman.

Attired in a green business suit, fedora, and gas mask, the Sandman used a gun emitting a sleeping gas to sedate criminals. He was originally one of the “mystery men” to appear in comic books and other types of adventure fiction in the 1930s but later developed into a more proper superhero, acquiring a sidekick Sandy the Golden Boy and joining the Justice Society of America.

While the character's first appearance is usually given as Adventure Comics #40 (July 1939), he also appeared in DC Comics' 1939 New York World's Fair Comics omnibus, which historians believe appeared on newsstands one to two weeks earlier, while also believing the Adventure Comics story was written and drawn first. Don Markstein's Toonopedia: "Adventure Comics #40 wasn't quite the character's first appearance, though. The 1939 issue of New York World's Fair Comics, an extra-big anthology DC put out to capitalize on the eponymous event, contained a Sandman story, and probably hit the stands a week or two before his first Adventure story (though the one in Adventure is believed to have been written and drawn earlier)". Sites including JSA Member Profiles: The Sandman and Members of the Justice Society: The Sandman concur. Creig Flessel, who drew many early Sandman adventures, has sometimes been credited as co-creator on the basis of drawing the Sandman cover of Adventure Comics #40, but no other evidence has surfaced.

Like most superheroes, the Sandman fell into obscurity in the 1950s and eventually other DC characters took his name. In the 1980s, when writer Neil Gaiman's Sandman, featuring the anthropomorphic embodiment of dreams, was popular, DC revived Dodds in Sandman Mystery Theater, a noir-ish series set in the 1930s.

Publication history

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Golden Age of comic books

Following his first appearance in Adventure Comics #40, the Sandman continued to star in one of that omnibus title's features through #102 (March 1945). One of the seminal medium's "mystery men", as referred to at the time, the Sandman straddled the pulp magazine detective tradition and the emerging superhero tradition by dint of his dual identity and his fanciful, masked attire and weapon — an exotic "gas gun" that could compel villains to tell the truth, as well as put them to sleep.

He was one of the original members of the Justice Society of America when that superhero team was introduced in All Star Comics #3, published by All-American Comics, one of the companies that would merge to form DC.

In Adventure Comics #69, in 1941, Dodds was given a more superheroic yellow-and-purple costume by writer Mort Weisinger and artist Paul Norris, as well as a yellow-clad kid sidekick, Sandy the Golden Boy. Later that year, the celebrated team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby took over this version of the character.

Silver Age to Modern Age

Reintroduced in the Silver Age in Justice League of America #46 (July 1966), the Sandman made occasional appearances in the annual teamups between that superhero group and the JSA.

A film noir-inspired retelling of the original Sandman's adventures ran from 1993-1998 in the series Sandman Mystery Theatre from DC Comics' mature-reader Vertigo imprint.

Kingdom Come

Wesley Dodds, the former Sandman, actually prophesizes the future events in Kingdom Come before dying in the hospital, playing a brief yet important part in the story.

Character biography

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He was one of a number of Justice Society members who found themselves in the "Ragnarok Dimension" during the early Modern Age of comic books. Later in this contunity, a retired Wesley Dodds is shown as an elder statesman of superheroes, most notably in a team-up with Jack Knight, the son of Dodds' JSA teammate Starman.

A one-shot special by Neil Gaiman, author of the Modern Age supernatural series The Sandman depicts an interaction between the two characters, with the original visiting Great Britain and encountering the imprisoned Dream, the protagonist of Gaiman's series. A minor retcon by Gaiman suggested that Dodds' chosen identity was a result of Dream's absence from the realm the Dreaming, and that Dodds carries an aspect of that mystical realm. This explains Dodds' prophetic dreams. In Mark Waid and Alex Ross' miniseries Kingdom Come, Wesley Dodds is tormented by prophetic visions of Armageddon. After his death these visions are passed to the protagonist, Norman McKay, who was one of Dodds' only remaining friends. The story later reveals that the visions were sent to Dodds because his tenure as Sandman somehow gave him an affinity for dreams and their interpretation.

In JSA #1 in 1999, Dodds committed suicide rather than allow the location of Dr. Fate to be taken from his mind by the villianous Mordru. His youthful but now grown-up sidekick, Sandy the Golden Boy, became known simply as Sand and took his mentor's place as a member of the Justice Society of America. Like the Marvel Comics Sandman, Sand had gained the power to turn into sand.

Footnotes

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