C&C Application
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Zoe
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: morgana006
IM: zmpeccadillo
E-MAIL: morgana007 @ gmail.com
RETURNING: Yep! Just one: gatewhatgate
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Flint Marko, the Sandman. Also William Baker (in the comics at least. He’ll never go by it but might recognize it)
FANDOM: the Spectacular Spider-man cartoon
CHRONOLOGY: During his final episode, “First Steps.” Before he starts the oil tanker job.
CLASS: Villain - the robbing banks and shady jobs type, not the murdering or secretly manipulative type.
SUPERHERO NAME: Sandman
ALTER EGO: Flint Marko. Super-criminal.
BACKGROUND:
The world of Spectacular Spider-man is pretty much modern New York. The main difference is that science and engineering is a bit more advanced - things like cybernetic arms, advanced technological illusions, genetic engineering, personal flight have been invented. For the most part they aren’t in common use, but the technology seems rather accepted.
Unlike the comic book Marvel universe, alternate dimensions and magic aren’t commonplace, and so far the only superhero appears to be Spider-man (with the exception of Colonel Jupiter but that didn’t turn out so well). So while superpowers are accepted and seen, anything more than weird science or the occasional alien suit aren’t seen or heard from.
Flint Marko is one of those people with superpowers, although not at first.
Flint and his partner Alex O’Hirn were a couple of crooks working under the Big Man (not that they ever met him - “no one meets the big man”). “The Big Man Of Crime” ran all of the criminal activity in New York, and any job done by his ‘boys’ would give him a cut.
Marko and O’Hirn’s crimes started to get foiled by the brand new friendly neighbourhood Spider-man, drawing the Big Man’s attention to Spider-man and generally pissing Flint and his partner off. Flint and O’Hirn fight the Spider-man a couple of times before they get their respective powers, including once when teaming up with the Shocker (who was awfully condescending to them).
The Big Man and Hammerhead come to a realization that when Spidey’s distracted by supervillains he’s not getting all up in their business. So they strike a deal with Norman Osborn, giving him guinea pigs that he can experiment on and turn into supervillains. Osborn gets his experiments, the Big Man gets his distractions, and everybody wins!
Persuaded to be one of those guinea pigs, Flint Marko is transformed into the Sandman with the help of Hammerhead and Doctor Otto Octavius - later Doc Ock. He gets a fancy new sand body! While initially displeased at his sand body, Sandman quickly gets over it when he realizes this gives him the power to rob banks and get the big score with no one to stop him.
And for a bit it works, but when Spider-man foils his crimes yet again it makes him angry enough to try to squish the bug. Spidey manages to stop Sandman by encasing him in cement, after discovering that Sandman’s fluid body isn’t easily stopped by force.
Somewhere along the way he gets out of the cement and into a jail cell, where he stays until the recently villainous Doctor Octopus orchestrates a break out. Doc Ock has an idea - take a bunch of villains that were beaten by Spider-man and have a team-up! So he creates the Sinister Six: Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Shocker, Electro, the Vulture and the Rhino (previously Alex O’Hirn - after Flint became Sandman he went solo, but he was totally cool with teaming up with his old partner O’Hirn after the other man had gotten a rhinoceros themed super suit thing, also courtesy of Doc Ock and Hammerhead).
The Sinister Six fight the Spider-man once but he manages to get away. Sandman mentions he’s doesn’t care about revenge - he just still wants the big score. Still, Spider-man has prevented the acquisition of the big score enough for him to be willing to pound that Spider-creep. A second confrontation with Spidey only ends with the Sinister Six’s defeat and temporary disbanding.
He’s not there until the next season, when the “Master Planner” (really Doctor Octopus) orchestrates another jailbreak and reforms the Sinister Six, replacing Doc Ock and Shocker with Mysterio and Kraven. Instead of throwing them all at Spidey at once, they’re put into pairs, with Flint teaming up with Rhino just like the good ol’ days. Spider-man uses the winter weather and a hose to freeze Sandman solid, but luckily for Marko, the Master Planner retrieves him before the cops arrive.
Which leads us to “First Steps”, in which Flint just wants the big score but keeps running into Spider-man. To complicate matters, Hammerhead is getting fed up with Sandman messing up jobs. He sends Sandman to fetch the “Urn of Morpheus” (bad-um tsh), and although Spider-man turns up for that job too, Flint actually gets away with the prize! Yay, success! Except when he meets with Hammerhead it turns out the Big Man has to get his cut and the Master Planner has to get his loaning-out-super-criminals fee. So, not such a big score after all.
I’m planning to pull him mid-conversation with Hammerhead, so he’s still fixated on getting The Big Score, but not flushed with success or ambiguously dead.
See, during that conversation, Hammerhead sends him after an oil tanker - he’s supposed to delay the boat long enough for Hammerhead’s men to extract the oil. He even has an entire beach to work with.
Except, you guessed it - Spider-man turns up! Man, what’s with this guy? Sandman forgets the job he’s supposed to do and immediately tries to squash him, inadvertently destroying the oil tanker in the process. Oil gets spilled everywhere and a fire starts. Oil + Fire = Explosion = not good at all.
To Spidey’s surprise, Flint doesn’t exactly want the crew to get dead and helps save them. He then saves Spider-man by throwing him away from the oil tanker and eclipsing it with his massive sand body and containing the oil tanker’s explosion.
He… dies? Or something? It’s really unclear. The point is that I’m taking him from before that happens; I just wanted to mention his possible heroic actions.
PERSONALITY:
Flint Marko really, really wants the Big Score. He’s primarily concerned with the money, and anything else that goes with crime is secondary with that. While Spider-man (or any hero) can frustrate him enough to want to pound the little creep, at the end of the day he’ll only go after them if they’re preventing him from getting his money.
Flint likes going solo, but he’s perfectly fine with teaming up or working for others. He’s worked with Alex O’Hirn, under the Big Man, and with the Sinister Six. This can backfire if their interests don’t coincide with his. And even if it’ll leave him with less money after a job, he’ll pay his cut and be disappointed. In the end though, everything leads back into trying to get the Big Score.
His obsession with the big score comes from a few things. First, it’s an easy ticket to a good life. It rarely occurs to him that there are legal jobs he can do that would pay well enough to put in into a life of ease. In his mind, all he really needs to do is perform ONE job, and then everything will be okay. It doesn’t really matter how many times he has to try for that One Job, eventually he’ll get it. It might also have to do with just wanting to actually succeed at his dream - in a way it’s about proving himself.
He’s a thug and a two-bit criminal, but he wants to be more than that. He wants to prove that he’s better than just some punk. That being said, he wants to be a bigger name in the criminal hierarchy, a tough guy that you don’t mess with. Civilian life doesn’t interest him. He enjoys being a crook. It’s a lot more fun to rob a bank than work at one 9-5.
While he’s not afraid to fight and will try to pound people who get in his way, he doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone. He’s not a killer. While he’s attracted to many aspects of crime, revenge, murder or destruction aren’t on that list. When he actually causes a lot of destruction and puts lives in danger, he’ll try to fix things. This means that sometimes he’ll help if people are going to get killed, especially if he’s to blame somehow. But he won’t go out of his way to be a hero, he’s way too self-centered and selfish for that.
He has a soft spot for children, especially vulnerable or bullied ones. Teenagers, not so much, but kids yeah. Have a kid on a beach and Sandman will become Sandcastleman. Not if anyone is looking, of course, and he’ll deny it if mentioned. He has to preserve his image as a tough guy. Still, he likes them and will probably be nice enough to the kids on the Network.
He’s not very book-smart but he can be rather clever. He makes use of his powers in interesting ways, even if sometimes they’re unimaginative. While sometimes he can do something really neat with them, a lot of the time he just makes sand fists or hammers or makes himself big. He doesn’t always think things through and his single-mindedness can blind him.
You can bet his arrival at the city will frustrate him and he’ll probably dislike the dog tags. He might live at the MAC for a few days, because hey - free roof over his head! But it won’t be long before he tries to pull a job (of the robbing of banks nature) and get his own place away from all of these heroes. He’ll stay in the city, because even if it’s a weird version of New York it’s still New York.
Oh, and unlike some villains who complain about Spidey’s snarking, Sandman tends to react to the jokes with even worse jokes.
POWER:
Sand body and manipulation (Canon):
Flint Marko’s body is made of sand. He can transform and shift his sand body in order to do all sorts of things such as: giant fists, hammer hands, flowing from place to place, going through vents, sand tentacles, etc. His sand body can basically turn into a sand version of whatever he can imagine. The only time the sand has colour and doesn’t look like sand is when he’s his human body and clothes (for some reason it’s always the same green striped outfit. Always.)
He can also absorb sand and manipulate it as long as it’s somehow connected to his body. The upside of this is that when he access to sand, like at a beach, he can absorb the sand and make himself huge, while also being able to manipulate the entire beach at a fight. He can add as much sand as he likes.
The downside of this is that he can also lose sand - if a part of his body is separated from the main one, it’ll suddenly just be plain sand unless he reabsorbs it. (Which mean that if he sends out a tentacle to attack, you can prevent it by cutting clean through it, just like an actual tentacle). So while he might be powerful at a beach, in a nice clean store he’s at a disadvantage.
While Sandman’s body can’t be harmed by the usual methods (you can’t really hurt a beach by stabbing it in the chest) and can be reformed regardless of what’s done (so if you blast a hole through him, he’ll be fine, he’ll just need to take a few seconds and refill it), it does come with its own weaknesses. Water is the primary one, as it makes his body muddy and difficult to control (although this is inconsistent - I’m going to say that it depends on how much sand he has and how much he’s prepared for it). He’s also affected by electricity and sonic pulses which actually hurt him. Presumably things like magic or earth-based powers (like earthbending) could also work.
Sorry for the TL;DR. ANYWAY: His body is made of sand and he can make all sorts of sand things with it but a hose is his kryptonite. So yeah.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
VOICE
Let me get this straight.
I get sent to some messed up version of New York with a nice clean record and no cops on my tail - and just so’s you know, that’s the only good news I’ve heard since that creepy computer broad got all grabby - but not only is the webhead here too there’s a whole… family of them freaks?
How many spiders does this town need? Jeeze, somebody has got to call the exterminator.
Aw, whatever. All I’m saying is they’d better not get up in my business, I got better things to do than deal with insects all day. That goes for the rest of you heroes too. Just leave me alone, y’hear?
Sandman, out.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Flint Marko sat incognito on a bench. Traffic went by and people walked past without a second glance at him. As he watched a businessman in a well tailored suit check the time on a watch that had to be worth a pretty penny, the temptation to go all Sandman and scare the bejeezus out of him and take that watch was almost palatable.
But no, he had to lay low for now. Everything was so familiar, but he still had no idea how this town worked. There was no Big Man to give him jobs and take a cut. This city had no Hammerhead or Master Planner. If he robbed that jewelry store across the street, would anyone care?
In a way it was appealing. He was tired of paying up to the Big Man or having people order him around. He didn’t want to wait to find out whose “territory” he was on before making a smash-and-grab. Who were they to tell him what to do anyway? He was the Sandman. He got more than enough power to deal with whatever punks had an issue with him. Besides, he could get in and get out within ten seconds flat, no problem.
Flint had gotten up and crossed the street before he even realized he was going to do it. He’d figure out how to get rid of the goods later. He was going to get some of that shiny, and no one was going to stop him. Not this time.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
He’ll keep the communicator inside of him where it’ll be safe. Wow, that sounds gross.
If you want, I can put a limit to how much sand he can absorb.