Where YOU Weigh In on the Pros and Cons of a Character's New Attire
FEATURING:
As spiffy as the Sandman may look here, in 1963 he premiered with a very simple, somewhat thrifty look wearing a striped green pullover shirt and a pair of casual slacks, which served him well for quite awhile and a look which he eventually readopted. Yet in 1967, he gave himself a refit, wearing a costume of his own design while having taken a crash course in science to outfit it with chemicals that would mix with his sandy form and give him an additional edge in battle.
That must have been some science course. Admittedly I had to shake my head a couple of times at trying to wrap my head around Flint Marko (aka William Baker) giving Reed Richards a run for his money in dishing out ten dollar words that explained his costume's new functions in detail.
As we can see, artist Jack Kirby didn't let Marko keep his sleeves and gloves for long, probably because the Sandman's arms and hands were so often in use in sand form. In fact, it was often hard to tell whether the upper part of the costume which contained his chemicals was able to shift to sand along with the rest of him. At first the answer appeared to be "no":
...which might be a good thing, because the Sandman looks pretty awesome when allowed to shift his entire form to menace his opponents.
Other artists, however, had no qualms about making the Sandman's costume, along with its chemical supplies and controls, a part of him.
It looked to be the same situation with Marko's casual attire, where Kirby kept us guessing as to whether or not it was able to blend with his sand form (we have to believe that Marko at the time wouldn't have had a clue about how to whip up clothing made of unstable molecules):
While artist John Buscema dispensed with the conundrum entirely.
The Sandman's new costume received a decent amount of mileage in titles like Marvel Team-Up, Incredible Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, et al. before Marko reverted to his old look. But the jury may still be out with readers as to whether his chemically accessorized all-green threads should make a comeback.
So what's the verdict: Is the Sandman's costume an improvement over his original look?
OR: 
?
13 comments:
👎🏻 The original costume was a part of him and could turn to sand. The new costume either doesn’t turn to sand (so doesn't look right) or does turn to sand (which is hard to explain). That's good enough reason for me.
I think we can put down the new costume to Kirby's annoying habit of wanting characters to have a new weapon or superpower every time they appear. Remember Sub Mariner's electric eel power and puffer fish power? Doctor Doom being able to swap bodies? Thor's time travelling ability and belt of strength? Human Torch's super strength that still hung around after his flames had disappeared that he used to defeat Sandman? The weird properties of Spider-Man's webbing when Kirby added extra panels to his first fight with the FF? Spider-Man being able to fly In ASM #8? All stuff that gets conveniently forgotten, just like that Sandman costume.
Oh. Another thing. In FF#61, Stan messed up by changing Sandman's style of speech to something sounding more like Doctor Doom or Magneto when we were more used to him sounding like The Thing. In issues #62-63 I think he's back to normal. It's interesting reading the speech bubbles in all the FF panels on this post - the speech patterns in the #61 panels stand out a mile.
As dangermash brings up, it wasn't the costume so much as the wild upgrade in vocabulary and diction (and science skills). That was the wildly wrong path to take!!
But to your actual question: the fancy-schmancy super costume went far too far. I suspect the impetus for it was because, when not in action, Marko was a boring visual. Just a thug in normal labourer clothing. Something distinctive would have been good, but not, as they say, a parade going by. However, it's been my impression that the Olden Days of Marvel didn't see a lot of deep thought given to costume design.
Whether he knew about unstable molecules or not, why didn't Sandman just make the rest of his costume out of the same stuff as those trunks and wrist bands?
Not that I care that much, as I'm not at all keen on the Sandman's psychedelic/glam look (or vocabulary upgrade).
Its like Paste Pot Pete suddenly being called the Trapster - why?
-sean
I agree and disagree with Big Murr: his original costume is boring (unimaginative) but it's also distinctive. It's only a shirt, but a green striped shirt (and maybe the slightly squared-off buzzcut) is visual shorthand for the Sandman, almost as much as red 'n' blue webs is for Spidey, in my view. Not to mention that when he has purple pants, it clicks with that green-n-purple theme that a number of Marvel villains - and at least one other dangerous individual - have.
It might be a similar kind of thing to Hammerhead and Tombstone. They have less unusual clothes and more unusual physical features, but only until Marko gets those big sandy arms flailing.
His more supervillain-y costume - yeesh. It might be less everyday clothing, but in terms of comic costumes I don't know if I can think of a more forgettable one off the top of my head. (Which you might expect if it was 'more forgettable', but still) It's somehow too bland and generic AND too complicated, to be iconic. It's like he picked up the first off-the-hook costume he saw in that tailor's shop in The Venture Bros.
Maybe if it had some purple on it, somewhere...
sean, I must say I was grateful to see Paste Pot Pete lose that ridiculous paste pot he carried around and become instead the Trapster, rather than continuing to threaten his foes looking like a washed-up Van Gogh. That said, I would have much preferred his new identity focused more on deploying innovative trap devices than relying on yet another paste dispenser.
Warren, you make a good argument for Marko's original threads. Less is indeed more, sometimes--though for the Sandman, any costume is going to take a back seat to the ways he chooses to shift his form in battle.
I prefer the striped shirt look. Marko did indeed make it his own after decades of appearances. I only meant that back in the day, I can imagine the discussion "They're the Frightful Four. The kids are asking why one of them looks like their Uncle Jerry coming home from work?"
Also back in the Olden Days, I think they had a decision to make about Paste Pot Pete. Try to remake him into a more serious trap-maker villain (you're right, CF...they should have stressed a wider variety of traps in the new improved Trapster) OR keep the name and costume and turn him into a "giggler" villain. A zany practical jokester. Maybe too close to so many DC villains?
I think Paste-Pot Pete's odd name was a nod in the direction of "Piss-Pot Pete," famous in naughty limericks. (You can look him up: the poetry is a bit rude for this site.)
I suspect the name was coined by Jack Kirby, with a wink and a nudge, at his original appearance back in 1962. A few years later, I suspect, Stan found out (maybe after being alerted by the Comics Code administrator?) and had the character name changed.
Thumbs down from me. I never liked that costume but until recently I couldn't put my finger on why. Then I realised, it's a quintessentially Kirby costume put onto a Ditko character, so it just looks wrong.
Other points:
Sandman never needed a power-up; he already had a unique power-set ideal for frustrating bruisers like the Thing and the Hulk. And the mask was utterly superfluous, everybody already knew Marko was Sandman.
How are all those superheroes and supervillains such fantastic tailors? I can barely manage to sew on a button but all the Marvel characters can design and produce their own elaborate costumes :D
I think that Peter Parker's 'Spider-Man onesy' that you get a brief glimpse of in CA:CW is exactly the sort of thing you'd see most superheroes or supervillains in.
With great power there comes great responsibility... and great sewing skills.
The Sandman only showed up a couple times in Amazing Spider-Man in the '60's, and I wonder why Stan sent him over to the Fantastic Four. Maybe he liked the character so much he gave him a promotion. Kinda the opposite of what happened to Mr. Hyde.
I think the original outfit was fine for fighting Spidey, but a villain needs some fancy duds if he's gonna fight the F.F. Brown pants and a stripey shirt looks like something I wore for my third-grade class picture. It was the '70's.
In other words, I don't have a strong opinion either way.
But my favorite appearance of Sandy is when he teamed up with Blastarr. There was a street-by-street battle with the Thing and the Torch and even Triton showed up.
The Sandman walking down the side of the Baxter Building by using the chemicals in his suit to make "adhesive sand" was priceless.
M.P.
Haydn, what an interesting bit of trivia, thanks!
Murray, a fair point about the Sandman "looking the part" while in the Frightful Four. (Though in this case, "Uncle Jerry" would be coming home with a satchel of cash he'd, er, withdrawn from a bank!) I think that also pivots to George's comment about the Sandman bothering to wear a mask--completing that "look" and possibly being overkill, but I think Marko may have intended it to be intimidating. If so, Kirby's instinct in that regard was spot on.
M.P., the battle featuring the Sandman and Blastaar was one of my favorite FF stories as well, and remains so to this day.
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