Fresh off his initial defeats of mainstay villains Vulture, Doctor Octopus, and The Chameleon, 1963's Amazing Spider-Man #4, entitled Nothing Can Stop...The Sandman would see Spider-Man's first encounter with the powerful titular foe. Sandman would not be easily beaten, as it took an unlikely weapon to temporarily put the sand-based villain out of commission.
Using the alias of Flint Marko, Sandman was an infamous career criminal wanted by several countries, who would escape prison and stumble upon an atomic research testing site. Unaware of the nuclear tests that were being conducted, Marko would soon find himself caught not by the police, but the impending nuclear explosion. Rather than perish in the blast, Marko's molecules would miraculously merge with the molecules of neighboring sand, allowing his entire body to take on the sand's distinctive qualities. Sandman quickly becomes an urban legend in New York City, which brings him into contact with the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Seeking refuge from pursuing New York City police following a series of bank robberies, The Sandman attempts to conceal himself in Midtown High School. However, Marko is completely unaware that the alter ego of his newfound wall-crawling foe, Peter Parker, is a student attending the same school. The two eventually come to blows and Spider-Man and Sandman's climatic battle takes the two super-beings down to the boiler room of Peter's high school.
Armed with the ability to mold his body into virtually any structure (most notably mallets, tidal waves, and spheres), as well as control sand itself, Sandman repeatedly gains the upper hand over the superhero. But thinking quickly, in a last-ditch effort, Spider-Man uses a king size industrial vacuum cleaner to swiftly consume everything that exists of his foe. Spidey even leaves the congested dust-bag containing Flint for the police outside Midtown's building.
Spider-Man's defeat of Sandman by way of vacuum cleaner is in a way par for the course for artist Steve Ditko and writer Stan Lee's version of the Marvel superhero. Teenage Spider-Man is not the seasoned superhero that would become defined in later decades, he is still learning the ropes. Later in his career, the villain Electro is defeated with an ordinary water hose, Doctor Octopus' glasses were blinded by webbing, giving Spidey the winning edge, and Spider-Man just barely reveals the Chameleon's identity to authorities, after a scuffle with police. There is not much finesse to Spider-Man's early battles and the first defeat of Sandman perfectly exemplifies that Parker is just a kid who only narrowly survives these encounters by the skin of his teeth.
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