Sanderson Hawkins was originally the sidekick to the original Sandman, going by the name of "Sandy, the Golden Boy." Like Batman's sidekick Robin, he was an orphan who was adopted by the hero he fought beside. Sandy's origin was further explained following the conclusion of Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sandy was sent to the All God's Children Orphanage after the death of his parents. There he met Dian Belmont, an employee of the orphanage and Wesley's love interest. Dian immediately took affection to the boy and later, after discovering that she was Sandy's aunt, adopted him as her ward. Sanderson was a big fan of Thrill Comics, which contained heavily fictionalized adventures of the Sandman. In particular, he liked to identify himself with the Sandman's fictitious sidekick in the comic strip, who looked similar to Sanderson and even shared his surname. Inspired by these comic book adventures, and dreaming to one day become the sidekick of the real Sandman, Sanderson began his career as a costumed crime fighter. After Sandy became involved in one of the Sandman's cases, Wesley decided to give the boy a chance at being his apprentice and made Sandy his ward as well. Soon after, Sandy learned that Wesley was really the Sandman, and the two began a prolific career as a superhero duo.
Sandy was a member of the Young All-Stars, a team that was later absorbed into the All-Star Squadron. He was later turned into a silicon-based monster by one of his mentor's failed experiments, a "silocoid gun" that exploded and bombarded him with radioactive silica particles. Sandy was kept in suspended animation for many decades while the Sandman searched for a cure.
After being turned back to normal by Sandman and the Justice League, Sandy found he had the ability to transform himself into sand as well as other powers over earth derived from his ability to control silica compounds and the generation and control of seismic energy. He changed his codename to Sand and led as the first chairman of the modern incarnation of the JSA for a time. As Sand, Hawkins uses a gas mask and 'gas gun' similar to that of his mentor. After Wesley Dodds' death, he also inherited his mentor's prophetic dreams.
A new Sandman appears in Justice Society of America (vol. 3) # 1. As of issue #3 he is revealed to be Hawkins who has taken up the mantle of Sandman wearing an outfit similar to Wesley Dodds' original costume. According to Geoff Johns' interview in Wizard Magazine # 180 (October 2006) Sand will become the JSA's "Recon Man" doing more detective work in the process. Apparently, his prophetic dreams now come in the form of nightmares, and he now wears a mask that appears to be a cross between his old mask, Wesley Dodds' mask, and the Helm of Dream of the Endless.
Here, he survives as molten rock/substance. He's not keeling over from the heat so much as the fact that he just had his sanity/mind/soul returned to him.
Some major villains (Mordru, Eclipso and Obsidian) through the moon out of orbit and wreak havok with the earth. Tectonic plates are shifting, volcanoes are erupting, earthquakes around the world. Sand holds the whole earth together, nearly sacrificing himself in the process.
Bout time you made this. You've been talking about making it since you made the Sand V Torch fight. I must thank you for getting me interested in a DC character.
Ironically, I could post 6-7 of his worst showings just for reference if I wanted to, because I've followed JSA for a while and did a fair amount of research on him in anticipation of fighting him in the tourney. But alas.
And I won't post them, btw. No reason to. Sand's cool, along with JSA. And his low showings were hard to come by, and a few were quite specialized instead of general, which actually makes him all the more impressive. Sometimes a lack of discernible low showings is every bit as impressive as the high stuff. Like Speedball, who shocked me even more during research.
Yeah, I've been meaning to do this one for a while. And you're welcome- Sand gets little recognition, despite the fact that he's been with the JSA for a long time.
Yeah, well, everybody who's been around for a year or two has low showings. Overall, though, Sand's got his defenses covered pretty well, though he has been punked by a low level matter/chemical manipulator before.
"...heart and soul of the [JSA]" That's how it was in the JSA of old, though in the new one, he's a bit more like the love child of Bruce Wayne and a beach. Oh well.
"According to Geoff Johns' interview in Wizard Magazine # 180 (October 2006) Sand will become the JSA's "Recon Man" doing more detective work in the process. Apparently, his prophetic dreams now come in the form of nightmares, and he now wears a mask that appears to be a cross between his old mask, Wesley Dodds' mask, and the Helm of Dream of the Endless."
He acts as the current JSA's detective/Batman/mysterious type character. He's cool, and there's a lot more focus on his forensics/detective background now, but it's a shame that he's much less central to the JSA than he used to be.