1970's Flashback: Sandman

Industry legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who had created comic book icons Captain America, the Boy Commandos and the entire Romance Comics genre for an earlier generation of fans, were reunited one last time in 1974 to produce the DC Comics title, The Sandman.

Unlike their similarly named 1940's version, this Sandman operated from his Dream Dome headquarters where he visited the strange worlds created within the sleeping dreams of the people of the world and accessed through the Dream Stream. The otherwise unnamed Sandman was assisted by two monsters called Brute and Glob, who really appeared to have stepped out of someones nightmare. He sported a kitschy red & yellow costume that hearkened back to Kirby's earlier Fourth World/New Gods designs.

Intended as a one-shot issue, The Sandman #1 proved popular enough to return for five more issues beginning in May 1975, however only Kirby himself actually returned to the feature with its last three issues. The character was later, retroactively given the alter ego of Dr. Garret Sanford, who was a psychologist doing sleep research at UCLA, and who was called on to apply his knowledge to superhero work when the president of the U.S. went into a coma-like sleep state. Sanford subsequently became guardian of the Dream Dimension.