In the Sand Scheme of Things
Baker escaped from custody, freeing his father in the process, but Johnny Storm, AKA Human Torch, captured Sandman by using a sprinkler system to waterlog him. After drying out, he escaped again and terrorized the city for days, evading its defenders until Spider-Man dispersed him with a giant turbine. Reassembling himself, he joined the Sinister Six led by Doctor Octopus, but again failed to defeat Spider-Man. Later, emboldened by Spider-Man’s recent defeat by Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin, the Sandman attacked Spider-Man and forced him to flee. Allying himself with the Enforcers Fancy Dan, Montana and Raymond Bloch, AKA Ox, Baker captured the Human Torch, only to be humiliated by Spider-Man once more. As a hireling for the terrorist Sang du Mort Brotherhood, Sandman attacked the United Nations, but after Spider-Man doused him with an experimental adhesive, he mutated into a gluey, near-mindless monster and went on a rampage until the web-slinger devised an antidote and cured him.
Escaping from prison with Peter Petruski, AKA Paste Pot Pete (later the Trapster), Baker encountered Bentley Wittman, AKA Wizard, who allied with the two escapees and amnesiac Inhuman Medusa to form the criminal Frightful Four in opposition to the Fantastic Four (FF). They crashed FF couple Reed Richard, AKA Mister Fantastic, and Susan Storm, AKA Invisible Woman’s engagement party, incapacitating the spouses-to-be and Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing, but were overcome by the Human Torch and fled. They next stranded the FF on an atoll with a Q-bomb, but that too failed, as did an attempt to turn the Thing against his friends with the Wizard’s mind-altering Id Machine.
Going solo, Baker designed a new, power-enhancing costume for himself and invaded the Baxter Building on his own but was forced to flee when he accidentally activated Richards’ Negative Zone portal. This accident proved fruitful when he formed an alliance with Blastaar, who emerged from the portal, but during their ensuing battle with the Thing, Sandman fell into a river and dispersed. Re-forming, Baker tried to steal an experimental space-warp ship to retrieve Blastaar from the Negative Zone, bringing him into conflict with Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk. Later, forced into the service of the Mandarin, Sandman again fought the Hulk, who hurled Baker into a high-pressure vat, turning him into glass. He was cured by the Wizard and rejoined the Frightful Four, but their revenge plot against the FF was undone by the FF’s magical new governess, Agatha Harkness. Finding himself slowly turning back into glass, he forced blood specialist Dr. Albert Marquand to perform a complete transfusion, replacing Baker’s blood with that of Betty Ross, who was the only person available with Baker’s blood type. Baker’s irradiated blood transformed Ross into glass, although she was eventually restored.
Cured, Sandman battled the Hulk before being dispersed underwater. He reintegrated in time to visit his mother on Christmas Eve; Spider-Man and the Human Torch briefly tangled with Baker but elected to let him go after realizing his intentions. Baker remained a mainstay of the Frightful Four’s everchanging roster, battling the Fantastic Four and others, including Spider-Man and Namor McKenzie, AKA Namor the Sub-Mariner, but also maintained his criminal career outside the group. He worked for Nick Lewis Jr., AKA Crime-Master, in his war against Janice Foswell, AKA Big Man, but was apprehended by Spider-Man and the Sons of the Tiger. Days later, however, he was freed by agents of Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, who sent him to steal a freeze ray, which Spider-Man promptly turned on Baker himself. Captured when the Frightful Four unsuccessfully tried to invade the Baxter Building, he was broken out by Baron Brimstone and briefly aided him against X-51, AKA Machine Man, but the robot defeated Baker with Spider-Man’s help.
Following a Frightful Four stint under the vengeful Lemurian Llyra, AKA Llyra’s command, Sandman competed with fellow super-criminal Morris Bench, AKA Hydro-Man, for the affections of barfly Sadie Frickett. The two quarreling elementals inadvertently merged into the monstrous, mindless Mud-Thing, whose rampage ended when it was chemically dried out and broke apart, seemingly dead. After a long period of dormancy stuck together within the Mud-Thing’s remains, however, the two component villains successfully separated their molecules from one another, splitting back into Baker and Bench. Traumatized by this experience, Baker struck up a friendship with the Thing, who encouraged him to reform.
When he encountered Spider-Man fighting the Enforcers, Baker made good on his intentions and defeated his old allies with the web-slinger’s help. Still a wanted fugitive, he began boarding with the Casadas, a Brooklyn family, under the alias Sylvester Mann. After Sandman aided Spider-Man and the mercenary Silver Sable against the Sinister Syndicate (which included his rival Hydro-Man), Sable offered Baker a job, which he accepted. In his first assignment for her, they faced the Sinister Syndicate again in the European nation of Belgriun, where the Syndicate had helped Doctor Octopus and local rebels depose the king.
Other assignments followed, helping Hawkeye and Alan Racine, AKA Peregrine, capture the Communist Albert Malik, AKA Red Skull, and later joining Barton in breaking up an arms deal between Doctor Octopus and Sunset Bain, AKA Madame Menace. Sandman helped Sable take down Frank Cruz and his neo-Nazi army, then protected Sable and Spider-Man from Spider-Man’s misguided allies Hobie Brown, AKA Prowler, Thomas Fireheart, AKA Puma, Robert Farrell, AKA Rocket Racer, and Jackson Arvad, AKA Will-O’-The-Wisp, who mistakenly believed that Spider-Man had become a criminal.
When Doctor Octopus threatened to harm the Casadas unless Sandman joined his new Sinister Six, Baker initially played along but eventually turned on Octavius, who transformed Baker into glass. Believing that the Avengers were plotting against him, Spider-Man later recruited a recovered Baker, along with the Prowler, Rocket Racer, and the Puma to assist him. The two teams briefly battled before uniting against the true threat, a ravenous black insect swarm. Pardoned for his crimes, Baker joined the Avengers as a probationary member alongside rookie hero Elvin Halliday, AKA Rage. In his first mission with the team, he helped defend Avengers Headquarters from a squad of Victor von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom’s Doombots, and later aided the Avengers against subterranean tyrants Brutus of the Deviants and Grotesk. When he intervened in a terrorist hijacking of military hardware, however, Captain America reprimanded Sandman for violating their then-current mandate to defend against global-scale threats. Baker overreacted and quit the Avengers.
Unemployed, he infiltrated a terrorist group that had kidnapped a Canadian politician’s daughter, hoping to rescue the girl. He was forced to battle Silver Sable’s Outlaws, who also intended to retrieve the girl. Baker ultimately turned on his employers and joined the Outlaws himself. Sable took the Outlaws to England, where they tried to retrieve a stolen Symkarian bionuclear simulator from the Darkmoor Research Centre and clashed with Excalibur; the two teams were forced to unite when Darkmoor administrator Dr. Walshe (secretly a renegade creation of Arnim Zola) used the device to animate an army of radioactive clones.
By now a full-time member of Silver Sable’s larger Wild Pack team, the Outlaws having drifted apart, Sandman frequently saved Sable from foes like Hydra and a Doctor Doom doppelgänger, only to be rebuffed for disobeying orders. While on leave from the Wild Pack, Baker was wooed by the Next Wave, a rival mercenary team, who promised him higher pay and fewer rules, and he quit Sable’s service. On his first mission with them, he found himself assisting the Wild Pack, and was put off by Next Wave’s selfishness and showboating. Sable welcomed him back and soon put him in charge of his own squad of superhuman operatives: The Intruders. Although initially unsure of his leadership abilities, Baker had great success in missions against the nihilist Viper (formerly Madame Hydra), the Bio-Genes, and Justin Hammer’s superhuman enforcers, and also befriended the single-minded strongman Fin, who had left the Next Wave with him.
He still participated in occasional Wild Pack missions, such as trying to capture Eddie Brock, AKA Venom. Learning that the Morelle Corporation had obtained bio-samples from himself and Quicksand (a Vietnamese scientist with powers similar to his own), he tracked them down, only to find that they had already transformed grad student Tony Trainer into the rampaging Sandstorm. Turned against Baker and Spider-Man by Quicksand, the disoriented Trainer nearly slew Sandman. After recovering in time to help Spider-Man defeat Sandstorm, however, Baker requested that the police treat the boy fairly.
When Hydra splinter group the Genesis Coalition captured Sable, Baker once more defied orders and sent the Intruders in to rescue her, fighting alongside Hydra’s System Crash in the process. Later, Sandman’s old Frightful Four teammate Trapster professed a desire to reform and join the Wild Pack, but when Baker learned that Trapster had been exploiting his kindness and had already returned to crime, he almost beat his former friend to death before Sable intervened. Further adventures followed, during which Sandman’s soft spot for Sable grew into unrequited love. After he aided her against metal-skulled mobster Hammerhead, Sable kissed Baker, but their relationship went no further.
When Ben Reilly replaced Parker as Spider-Man, Sable sent Baker to test him, but Baker ended up battling both Reilly and the Human Torch, thanks to a misunderstanding. He later teamed with Spider-Man (Parker) to prevent ULTIMATUM and its founder Karl Morgenthau, AKA Flag-Smasher, from destroying the Channel Tunnel and Buckingham Palace. Continuing his work with Sable, he helped her capture Hydro-Man and clashed with Oracle Inc.’s Heroes for Hire over scientist Wolfgang Hessler. He was one of several former and active Avengers who assembled to battle the sorceress Morgan le Fay’s forces, and briefly served in her Queen’s Vengeance army as Quarryman when she altered reality to make herself Earth’s ruler.
Baker’s heroic career was not to last, however. The Wizard kidnapped Sandman and submitted him to the Id Machine, which amplified his personality’s dark side and turned Baker back to a life of crime. He briefly allied with the Wizard and the Trapster in a plot with the alien-mutated U.S. Senator Stewart Ward, but soon went solo. While trying to steal an alien artifact, he found it defended by Silver Sable; his brainwashing having twisted his affection for her into hatred, he nearly killed her before being blown apart by the Wild Pack.
He next reunited the Sinister Six to seek revenge on Doctor Octopus and to claim a bounty on Ward. Daniel Berkhart, AKA Mysterio, convinced him to let Venom join, but the symbiote turned on them when Baker revealed that they had no intention of attacking Spider-Man. In the ensuing melee between Octavius, Ward, Venom and the Six, Mysterio and Max Dillon, AKA Electro, escaped with Ward, leaving Baker and the others empty-handed. When MACH-2 (Abner Jenkins) approached Baker to help his Thunderbolts retrieve their teammate Erik Josten, AKA Atlas, from Symkaria, Baker accepted, plotting revenge on Sable.
After assaulting two Wild Pack members, he was defeated and returned to the U.S. by the Thunderbolts and the V-Battalion. Upon his return, he was mauled by the vengeful Venom, whose alien physiology negatively affected Baker’s control over his particles. Degenerating physically and mentally, Baker unsuccessfully tried to kill Mysterio and Electro before crumbling into the sewers. Washing up on a beach, he was soon revived by a the filming of a Sonic TV spring break special. He began absorbing several pop stars, drawing sustenance from their mental energies, but was forced to disgorge them when their egos proved too much for him to handle. He fractured into four separate entities—his good side, his evil side, his feminine side, and his inner child. Spider-Man managed to persuade three of the “Sandmen” to reunite, but could not save the “good side,” who crumbled into dust.
Resuming his criminal career, he aided his Sinister Six comrade Adrian Toomes, AKA Vulture, faking his own murder at the hands of Toomes’ daughter Valerie Jessup to compel a team of unruly Super Villains into following her commands. After breaking out of Hank Pym’s “Big House” prison, Baker joined Norman Osborn’s Sinister Twelve as part of a plot to destroy Spider-Man. When that scheme failed, he teamed with the Trapster to destroy Yancy Street’s Grimm Youth Center, but fell afoul of the Thing, who was enraged by Baker’s return to crime. Sandman later learned that his father had been arrested for allegedly murdering an alternate-reality Earth-6078’s Ben Parker. Enlisting Spider-Man’s aid, Baker discovered that the murder had actually been committed by Earth-9500’s Chameleon. With Spider-Man’s assistance, Sandman rescued his father from death row, leaving the Chameleon to be executed in his place.
After Spider-Man made a deal with Mephisto to save his Aunt May, his identity was wiped clean from the minds of everyone on Earth, including Sandman. Meanwhile, his powers seemed to be expanding or he learned how to control them better and could animate any sand nearby. After doing several stints in prison, while he was there, he communicated with Alma Alvarado, who had a thing for imprisoned Super Villains. When he was out of prison, he met up with Alvarado and her daughter Keemia whom he considered a daughter. Though parts of his personality started to fragment and his darker aspect murdered Alma and her new lover. Sandman convinced Keemia that she was a princess and she accompanied him to Governors Island where he battled and was defeated by Spider-Man and Marc Spector, AKA Moon Knight.
When Doctor Octopus wanted Sandman for a job to capture Lily Hollister and Norman Osborn’s newborn and cure him of a deadly condition, he saw an opportunity to get custody of Keemia and took him up on it. Of course, Spider-Man intervened and delivered the newborn to safety. Sandman worked closely with Electro to recover the child, but the duo was swiftly defeated by Spider-Man, who used Herman Schultz, AKA Shocker’s vibro-gauntlets against Sandman causing him to disperse. Sandman continued to help Doc Ock in finding a cure with the Sinister Six which included Chameleon, Electro, Mysterio, and Rhino. Sandman ended up doing Doc Ock’s bidding and going up against Pepper Potts and Spymaster. Later Sandman broke into the Baxter Building and stole what Doc Ock needed. Sandman’s need for crime didn’t stop there and he attempted to rob a jewelry store but was thwarted by Spider-Man and frozen solid when exposed to liquid nitrogen. Sandman rebounded and rejoined the Sinister Six.
He then clashed with the Young Masters of Evil and Intelligencia which put the shape-shifter elemental up against his ally the Wizard. Sinister Six won that battle and continued to execute Doc Ock’s secret plan which was to hold the world’s governments hostage by threatening to aggravate or remedy global warming’s effects on Earth. Negotiating 2 billion dollars for each of his comrades and full pardons, Sandman was further motivated to carry out Doc Ock’s wishes and followed orders to guard a missile silo in the Sahara Desert, where Doc Ock had readied space probes for the destruction of Earth. While there, Spider-Man foiled Sandman by locating a grain of sand that contained Sandman’s consciousness and trapped it. Spider-Man also thwarted Doc Ock’s plot as well.
While trapped, Doc Ock avoided death by transferring his consciousness to Spider-Man’s body, fooling everyone including the Avengers. Doc Ock as Spider-Man kept Sandman contained for months and captured the other Sinister Six members to mind-control them and create his Superior Six. Though thinking it was Spider-Man holding them hostage, Sandman thought Spider-Man dead to him since he had crossed a line by taking their free-will.
After ending up in Ryker’s prison, he ended up allying with the Thing, who had been accused of murder. The pair broke out and when the Quiet Man invaded Earth, Sandman joined a new Frightful Four team to beat back the invaders. The Fantastic Four defeated Quiet Man’s plans.
When everyone’s internal compass was flipped, Sandman saw his fellow felons turn good, including himself but the media couldn’t let go that he had been a villain. When Sandman started to lose control over his body, he sought help from allies Mad Thinker and the Wizard but no one could help. He was also experiencing memories and visions of an alternate future. While hospitalized from these events and his life seemed to be ending, Spider-Man visited him and whisked him away to the beach where he could die in peace. Though he didn’t actually perish. Sandman’s form was possessed by the future version of himself who had lived billions of years and had found an opening in between realities where he could escape the death of Earth and live in the past. The original Sandman found a way to contact Spider-Man by transferring his ability to control his form and prevent future Sandman from the hostile takeover. Spider-Man worked with Human Torch to seal the rift between the realities and departed Sandman to be alone, realizing he was immortal.
Sandman could once again command his form to his human shape and joined Doc Ock’s Sinister Six at Kindred’s behest, and only agreed to do so to regain mortality. When the team delivered Spider-Man to Kindred, Kindred pitted the team up against other Spider-Man foes by placing centipedes in their brains to force them to battle. Doc Ock helped free everyone with a device that eradicated the centipedes, liberating Sandman.
