"Time Runs Like Sand!"

[flint_marko]

This is from Marvel Two-In-One #86, by Tom DeFalco and Ron Wilson.


The Thing is helping Reed move some equipment, and he complains about how he should be fighting Dr. Doom or the Sandman instead. Reed recaps what happened to the Sandman when we last saw him, how he and Hydro-Man were transformed into the Mud-Thing before being destroyed by the NYPD.

The story then cuts to a downtown police laboratory, where some scientists are trying to experiment on the wet lump of sand that was the Mud Thing. They finally give up, and the remains are transported to a nearby city dumping site.





Sandman steals some clothes from a Salvation Army clothes box and roughs a guy up for some cash before heading to a bar to sort things out. The bartender sees the sand trailing behind him and recognizes him. He tries calling the cops but they don't believe him so he calls the Baxter Building. The Thing picks up, and while he doesn't believe the bartender he thinks it's a good excuse to head to the bar.

When the Thing sees Sandman at the bar he is about to attack when Sandman says that he isn't in any shape to fight and that he'll go quietly.






Sandman says how he owned New York in those days, and that no crime was too big for him. We see him robbing people, carjacking, robbing banks, ect. He says how he had a girlfriend named Marcy and that for a while he thought about settling down and going straight.

He says how he eventually ended up in the maximum security ward of Ryker's Island Prison, before finally managing to escape and, in trying to get away from the cops, headed to a part of the beach that was a military testing site. When they decide to test an experimental nuclear device, he gets bombarded by the radiation and becomes the Sandman.

Sandman says how he thought he was invincible, but how he would always lose whenever he went up against another superhero, and that he thinks he doesn't have the heart to fight anymore.





And in Marvel Two-In-One #96, the Thing is recuperating in the hospital from a battle with the Champion of the Universe. Most of the issue deals with the other superheroes protecting the hospital from the various supervillains trying to take advantage of his weakened state.




And here are two pieces of art inspired by the cover to #86:


This is by Luke McDonnell (since deleted and I can't find a larger version besides google's cache)


And this is by Rusty Shackles.

Comments

[blake_reitz]

Man, this is why I was so sad to see Sandman going back to a one-note bad guy. It's why I hate it when any redeemed villain goes back to being a one-note bad guy.

[icon_uk]

Motto

[proteus_lives]

I dislike that as well.

[tsunamiwombat]

Motto.

I'd love to see a story with the Sandman pulling jobs to pay for his mothers Medical bills or something. Or hunting down his delinquint father.

Anything besides "ima get money ima get powar", because Sandman would've figured out by now thats just not in the cards.

On a regular crime level, he's a great heavy. In the superhero game he's C list at best. Him and Taskmaster need to get together and make their own 'Villains for Hire'.

[filkertom]

Yet another motto. Between this and the Christmas story (you know, the first appearance of Misty Knight), the fact that Marko obviously loved his mother deeply made a great impression on me -- literally, the "no one's completely bad" thing.

[bewareofgeek]

Motto +3.

I know we aren't supposed to badmouth creators here, so let's just take it as said and move on.

[luxshine]

So true! I loved Sandman as a hero, friend of Spidey and Ben, and of course, part of the Wildpack. So many stories they could've told... but no. Villian again, in a stupid ret-con :(

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Indeed.

"Resolution? New villains? Forget that! Let's retread someone people know."

[proteus_lives]

Great story and pics!

[blackruzsa]

Oh, I love this. Man.... I won't say what the others have pointed out already, so instead....

I love that he's had the same shirt since he was a boy.

[tsunamiwombat]

Same shirt. Every day. For his whole life.

[blackruzsa]

It's magic.
Or made up of unstable molecules.
Sent back in time when the FF were having a charity drive.

[biod]

Or his family bought the shirts in bulk because they couldn't afford it any other way.

[halloweenjack]

One crate fell off the truck and went to the Markos, a different crate went to Charlie Brown's family, and yet a third went to Mo from Dykes To Watch Out For.

(Srsly, though, I can get the impulse to go with the same thing on a regular basis; I tend to wear all black when I'm off work in the non-summer months, not out of some emo-goth impulse or for the Johnny Cash reasons, but simply because I've always liked to (and I don't have to wonder if things match).

[kusonaga]

Always wanted to read this, thanks! It's good stuff!

[retro_nouveau]

Awesome, my life is much more rich now. This also bumps Spider-Man 3 up a couple of notches for me, and I already loved it - for all the things it could have done better.

Bench has a point about heading south. He could own Miami, no heroic people within a thousand miles.

[bariman]

Swamp-Thing?

Yeah..Tell me about it!

[steverodgers5]

One of the reasons I've always found Spiderman 3 to be the least flawed of the Sam Raimi films..(In explicit contrast to everybody else who's seen it I suppose ;) ) is that Raimi's desire to make the villains sympathetic..(Except for Venom who he hated of course..) is that in the sandman's case it actually felt relatively true to the character. If you'd read these issues.

Heck didn't he even save Spider man and Silver Sable from the Sinister Syndicate? Which given that hydro man was a member of that group, was taking a real risk for him of getting mixed up again!

Although making him an avenger was maybe too much of a stretch.. But still preferably to maing him a one note villain again.

[retro_nouveau]

Cool, and here I thought I was the only one. I won't go so far as to say that 3 was the best, but all three are really high on retro's List of Favorite Superhero Movies.

My favorite villains are either the magnificent bastards, like Doom, Magneto, Luthor, Ra's al Ghul, Grodd, etc. or the ones who try to rise above but struggle, waver on the line, and sometimes fall back to old ways, like Eddie Brock, Harley Quinn, Harvey Dent, Edward Nygma, maybe Selina Kyle, and of course Flint Marko.

Definitely!

[steverodgers5]

"My favorite villains are either the magnificent bastards, like Doom, Magneto, Luthor, Ra's al Ghul, Grodd, etc. or the ones who try to rise above but struggle, waver on the line, and sometimes fall back to old ways, like Eddie Brock, Harley Quinn, Harvey Dent, Edward Nygma, maybe Selina Kyle, and of course Flint Marko."

I'm not that fond of Grodd. But Doom Magneto, Luthor and Ra's al Ghul are definitely the best of the best. (Was so glad to see Ra's used in Batman Begins. That was such a refreshing change..)
Once upon a time I would have added Thanos & Darkseid in there too. But they've not really been used all that well lately.

As for those who walk the line. Yeah I'd agree with your selection too, though I'd add the Black Cat to it as well, as I've always had a soft spot for Felicia. (Though I guess she has pretty much reformed now into a proper super-heroine!) Funny how it's all usually Spiderman and Batman villains that tend to have that type of variation.
One could argue the X-Universe is similar, but I think that's because of the whole mutant issues bonding a lot of the heroes and villains there..

[amaniwolf]

Ah this is when stories were at their best, when characters evolved and even enemies could find some common ground and be close to friends. And look! Continuity! Oh how i've missed you.

[crinos]

Does this count for a "Evil cannot comprehend good" moment for the Mad Thinker? I mean he assembles every badguy he could find to go after Thing, reasoning that law of averages means one of them will get through the hero blockade to get to him, but his plan falls through because he didn't take into account the villain to get through didn't wish Ben any harm.

[starwolf_oakley]

Here's what I know about John Byrne making the Sandman a bad guy again (one of the few parts from his Late 1990s run Marvel kept around):

1. Despite his reworking/ignoring stuff from the Lee/Ditko AMAZING run for CHAPTER ONE, Byrne noted that William Baker/Flint Marko/whatever was on the FBI most wanted list, so he'd be unlikely for reform. Also, Byrne considered altering Sandman's origin slightly, saying he was hiding in the trunk of Rick Jones' car when the gamma bomb went off.

2. So, the Sandman was just suddenly a bad guy again.

3. A backup story in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #12 revealed that the Wizard had brainwashed Sandman with an "Id Machine" into becoming a villain again. I thought Byrne had written the story, but it may have been Howard Mackie.

[crinos]

Well, 1 makes no sense what so ever; Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver were ex criminals when they joined the Avengers, hell, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were TERRORISTS, a might worse than anything Marko ever did as a villain.

So why would they get a free pass and Sandman wouldn't?

I wont even dignify option 2 with a comment.

3 makes the most sense of all of them, but it still sucks for Sandman. They should put him on the Thunderbolts or something.

[starwolf_oakley]

I wont even dignify option 2 with a comment.

I mean to add something to 2 about Byrne giving Electro a blue and white suit that the comics didn't keep around.

[flint_marko]

The Wizard story was written by Tom Brevoort; Byrne just acted like the Sandman had only pretended to reform.

[starwolf_oakley]

My mistake. Thanks for the correction. If I remember the story (and I probably don't) the Wizard seemed to think the Sandman had been brainwashed by mixing with Hydro Man. Or something.

[crabby_lioness]

This is great. Whatever happened to "anyone is capable of redeeming themselves if they want it badly enough and work at it hard enough"? That meme made for much better stories.

[lieut_kettch]

Two questions:

1) Can anyone tell me what made Flint do his heel-face-heel turn? The guy even joined The Avengers for a while!

2) Do you think Flint and Cain Marko are related?

[flint_marko]

1) Did you read the story?

2) Flint Marko is an alias. His real name is William Baker.

[lieut_kettch]

1) You mean the scans? They only explain half of his heel-face-heel turn. What made him turn bad again?

2) The scans made it look like he was using the Marko surname in childhood and adolescence. I have a feeling the Baker surname was retconned in later-- probably to avoid confusion in having two supervillains surnamed "Marko."

[flint_marko]

Ah, sorry, I thought you were asking why he turned good.

John Byrne, who didn't like that he had been redeemed, basically made him a bad guy again without any explanation, then Tom Brevoort wrote that the Wizard had brainwashed him.

I don't think his name change had anything to do with the Juggernaut; Marvel Team-Up #1, in what was probably a continuity error, said that his name was William Baker. Later writers then made it so "Flint Marko" was just an alias.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1979172.html?#cutid1