History
Secret origins
Wesley Dodds was born a “Jewish-Catholic” in the 1910’s to wealthy investor Edward Dodds and his wife Marina. In 1917 when he was still a child, his mother died while his father was away fighting in the First World War. Wes spent his youth with his father travelling the Orient and there learned herbalism, martial arts, and origami. After college he wished to become a writer but with his father's death Wesley became the manager of his vast estate and to manage and maintain it he became an investor and businessman. In the early 1930s, he served in the U.S. Navy as a pilot. Some time before 1938 Dream of the Endless was imprisoned on Earth and prevented from performing his duties. The universe, in an attempt to right itself, gifted many with portions of Dream's power, including Wesley Dodds, who became plagued by extremely vivid dreams of murder and criminal activities that would not allow him rest. Dodds built a laboratory in his townhouse basement, accessed behind a bookcase door, there he revised his “Oriental Teaching” of Martial Arts, and most importantly herbalism, by developing a formula for sedative and hypnotic gasses. He then bought several kinds of gas masks and created the identity of "the Sandman" for himself, and pursued the criminals that haunted his dreams. The Sandman's dreams often compelled him to pursue the most violent of criminals, such as the Scorpion, Dr. Death, and the Butcher. Each time, he left the defeated criminal with a poem enclosed in a bit of origami. In an early case, he encountered Lee Travis, a college chum, in his guise of the Crimson Avenger. The two initially fought but eventually joined forces against the Phantom of the Fair, who haunted the 1938 World's Fair. Travis gave Dodds a gun design, that the Sandman ultimately perfected as his own gas gun. The Sandman then started his career in earnest, first confronting the Tarantula, a serial murderer. Later that year, Wesley met socialite Dian Belmont daughter of District Attorney Larry Belmont, at a local ball and the two became lovers and by the end of the year she deduced and discovered his dual life. At first it dampened their relationship, but she soon accepted it and partnered him in his mission by providing information stolen from her father and even being a “getaway driver”. The two remained together until the end of their lives.
World War II
At the start of America's involvement in the Second World War, President Franklin Roosevelt wished to rally the greatest "Mystery Men" together to protect America’s home front and raise public spirit while the government focused on the war. This team came to be named the Justice Society of America. Taking notice of the Sandman, he asked Dodds to be a founding father (Wesley was also, the following year, a founder and charter member of the All-Star Squadron). In mid-1941, he took part in the case that the JSA prevented Ian Karkull from murdering individuals destined to occupy the White House over the next 50 years. The culmination of this case was the destruction of Karkull and the exposure of the assembled heroes to the chrono-energy stored in Karkull's body. As a result, the Sandman aged much more slowly than normal humans.
Change of image
Dodds also took over the guardianship of Dian's orphan nephew Sandy Hawkins who became his costumed sidekick as Sandy the Golden Boy. Sandy convinced him to take up a more friendly costume to relate with the people so the Sandman began to sport a new gold and purple costume that he bought for a costume ball earlier which Dian modified.
Tragedy
The Sandman was working with his partner Sandy Hawkins on an experimental weapon, using silicon derived from sand. The weapon exploded during the experiment, and Sandy was infused with radioactive particle, which transformed him into a silicoid monster. Terrified at Sandy's initial raving delirium, the Sandman caught him in a moment of weakness and sedated him. Unable to treat him and fearing that a misunderstanding public would demand his destruction, the Sandman kept him sedated in a large chamber in a basement of his second home.
Retirement
Shortly after Sandy's accident, Dodds gave up the role of the Sandman completely and spent the intervening years in retirement with the rest of his Justice Society comrades, who had retired when they were betrayed by the American government, which had tried to force them to remove their masks to them and work for them. Wesley spent his life as a businessman with his love Dian and trying full time to cure Sandy as well.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Prophetic Dreams: Due to an encounter with the entity known as Dream, Wesley Dodds possessed the power of prophetic dreaming. His dreams often came to him as cryptic, ambiguous visions, but Wes' keen intellect enabled him to properly interpret them. Through an unknown process, Wes passed on this power to his former ward, Sanderson Hawkins upon the moment of his own death.
- Decelerated Aging: He also gained incredible youth and vitality after the battle with Ian Karkull.
Abilities
- Chemistry: He was also a talented chemist, creating the sedative vapors in his weaponry.
- Science:
- Shortly before WWII, Wes Dodds invented a ray gun, and turned it over to the U.S. government.
- Much later in his career, Dodds invented a Silicoid Gun which could produce and control sand in any form or state. It could create walls of cement and glass handcuffs. Tragically, the prototype exploded, and bombarded his partner Sandy Hawkins with radioactive silica particles, which mutated Hawkins into a monstrous form.
- Dodds also invented or adapted a transparent chamber, in which he contained Hawkins, seemingly in an induced coma, for several years.
- Criminology: Wesley Dodds was a brilliant detective.
- Genius Level Intellect
- Martial Arts
- Mechanical Aptitude: Wes was also a talented inventor, and created his wirepoon, along with continuously upgrading his gas-gun.
Strength level
Unknown.
Weaknesses
None known.
Gear
Equipment:
- WWI Gas Mask: At first the Sandman used a World War I era gas mask to protect himself from the effects of his own sleeping gas. Over the years he upgraded and refined his gas masks.
- Wirepoon Gun: He also made use of a specially designed wirepoon gun, which fired a length of thin, steel cable that he used to scale walls and swing between buildings.
Transportation:
In the early days of his career, the Sandman drove a black 1938 Plymouth Coupe. The car was enhanced with various features to aid Wes in his crusade against crime like the interior of the bumper was lined with barbed spikes that detached with pull of a switch on the dashboard. He kept the car in his basement laboratory and could drive it out the false floor of a garage on the other side of his city block.
Weapons:
- Gas Gun: The Sandman's trademark weapon was his gas gun, a handheld device fitted with cartridges containing concentrated sleeping gas. Pressing the trigger on the gun released a cloud of dust rendering all within the Sandman's immediate vicinity unconscious.
- A variant of the gas can sedate and act as an “Truth Serum” so the incapacitated (but conscious) victims tell a interrogating Wesley all he needs to know before falling asleep.
- A form of the gas appears to have been designed to cause “sleep terror” in deserving opponents.
- During a dark time in his life, Wesley created a gas that would put its victims in a permanent coma. He only used it once in his old age, as a last resort.
- Wes was also known to conceal smaller knockout gas capsules in a hollow heel on his shoe. These proved ideal when placed in situations where his gas gun was not readily available.
- Silicoid Gun: Sandman briefly used this weapon to create sand and glass in different forms, as walls and handcuffs.
Notes
- No special notes.
Trivia
- No trivia.
See Also
- Appearances of The Sandman (Chronological)
- Appearances of The Sandman (Unordered)
- Character Gallery: The Sandman
- Fan-Art Gallery: The Sandman
- Quotations by The Sandman
Discover and Discuss
- Search News for: The Sandman · Wesley Dodds · The Sandman
Links and References
- None.
   Justice Society of America member |