Sandman

Real Name
William Baker

Occupation
Professional criminal; former adventurer

Citizenship
U.S.A. with criminal record

Place of Birth
Queens, New York

Known Relatives
Floyd Baker (father), Mrs. Baker (mother), unidentified cousin

Group Affiliation
None; (Formerly) Sinister Twelve, the Sinister Six, the Frightful Four, the Outlaws, the Intruders, the Wild Pack, and reserve member of the Avengers

Education
High school (incomplete)

Height
6'1"

Weight
240 lbs.-450 lbs.

Eyes
Brown

Hair
Brown

Powers
The Sandman possesses the ability to convert all or part of his body into a sand-like substance by mental command. His brain has attained subliminal awareness of all granulated particles of his body. Through conscious effort, he can affect the degree of molecular cohesion between the numerous adjoining surfaces of his particles and thus cause locomotion of discrete volumes, down to the individual grains. His radically mutagenically altered body composition and increased density enable him to compact or loosen the particles of sand that make up his form. Consequently, the Sandman can become as hard as sandstone, or disperse his body so that he becomes invulnerable to physical attacks. He can shape his sand-state body into any continuous shape he can imagine. He can project his sand particles outward at high speeds and, when in the shape of a bulky object, with the impact of a large sandbag.

The Sandman is vulnerable to temperatures over 3,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Such temperatures can cause his highly impure silicate composition to fuse into amorphous silicate (glass). The Sandman maintains mental control of the particles of which his body is composed so that he can reform his scattered grains unless a substantial portion of his body mass has been isolated. Apparently, he can also convert common grains of sand around him into constituents of his body to replenish portions he might lose track of during battle. In this manner, he can increase his overall size and volume (to some as yet unknown limit), or that of his limbs.

There appears to be no limit to how long the Sandman can remain in his sand-state. If he were to be rendered unconscious while in his sand-state, he would remain in that state, although the relaxing of his control over his particles would cause him to become an amorphous pile of sand.

The Sandman's mind continues to function in astral form even when he has turned his head into sand and even when the particles of sand that composed his brain are widely scattered. The limit to how far the particles of his brain can be dispersed before he is unable to reassemble is not yet known.

Other Info
William Baker was abandoned by his father when he was three-years old. William stole and cheated his way through adolescence. He was expelled from school after accepting a bribe to throw a football game, and he was accepted by a gang and adopted the alias Flint Marko (the name used in the movie, Spider-Man 3).

William/Flint was very successful in the New York criminal underworld, but he got arrested, convicted, and forced to spend many years in solitary confinement. When he was released, he discovered that his long time girlfriend Marcy Conroy had left him for Vic Rollins, another member of his gang. In a rage, he got revenge on Rollins and started a lone citywide crime spree.

Later in his life, Marko was escaping from a prison and sought refuge at an atomic testing site near Savannah, Georgia. There, he was resting on a nearby beach when an experimental reactor's steam system exploded which gave him with a massive dose of radiation and apparently bonding his body with the sand. The experience made him go unconcious and when he woke up, Flint discovered his new powers of transforming into a sand and he became Sandman.

On one occasion, Sandman accidently merged with a rival criminal named Hydro-Man. When these two accidently merged, they became a creature named, "Mud-thing." The police captured Mud-Thing and were able to dehydrate it and Hydro-Man and Sandman eventually managed to separate back into their original forms. This whole ordeal traumatized Sandman so much that he began to rethink his criminal life. From this point forward, Sandman has gone back and forth between good and evil. At one point, he was granted a pardon for his crimes. During these times, he developed two big friendships with Spider-Man and the Thing. Some of the teams he joined during this time were the Wild Pack, Outlaws, and the Avengers. (To learn more about the characters and teams that Sandman interacted with, click on their names above. For a complete list of the teams he associated with, see the "Group Affiliation" section above. A picture of Sandman as Mud-Thing is posted above as the fourth picture.)

Sandman briefly used a suit that he created with Reed Richards' stolen equipment. He used it to mix chemicals with his sand to create new affects. Some of the chemicals could make his sand into a slippery puddle, adhere him to vertical walls, and coat him with a substance that would turn into a poisonous powder when he was heated by the Human Torch's flame. (I believe the third picture posted above is a picture of that costume.)

To learn more about Sandman and his interactions with other mutants and mutant teams listed above, or just to learn more about his life, just click on the following link, http://www.marvel.com/universe/Sandman.