10 Awful DC Superheroes Who Were Successfully Reinvented

1. Sandman

In the seventies, The Sandman was a superhero named Garrett Sanford who, along with two living nightmares Brute and and Glob, protected children's dreams from nightmares. He can enter the "Dream Stream" at will, which he can also control, to an extent. He can also put people to sleep using his sand.

It was later revealed that he can only actually leave the Dream Dimension for one hour per day. Because of this, he turned down full membership in the Justice League. He largely used the powers to protect children's dreams from nightmares that would be too intense, as well as ensuring that they had some nightmares, to deal with their anxieties in a safe environment. So, this was basically your school psychologist, dressed up as a superhero, hanging out in your dreams.

To make it even creepier, he almost exclusively helped the dreams of a specific boy, Jed Paulsen. If you don't think that's an awful idea, you have a real weird relationship with your school psychologist. Garrett Sanford eventually committed suicide, due to his alienation in the Dream Dimension.

How He Was Fixed

When Neil Gaiman began writing the title, he revealed that the real Sandman is Dream himself, Morpheus, the personification of the concept of dreaming. Without him, literally, actually dreaming would not exist. He is the creator of all you have ever dreamt, sibling to Death, Desire, Destiny, Delirium, Destruction, and Despair.

The series begins with Dream's nearly century-long imprisonment by a man that tried to capture Death. This leads to a power vacuum, as well as other world-wide problems. Brute and Glob were, evidently, among the escaped nightmares.

Gaiman revealed that the Dream Dimension in which Garrett Sanford was imprisoned was, in fact in Jed Paulsen's mind the entire time. Brute and the Glob, his seemingly harmless sidekicks, had kept him imprisoned there until he killed himself, in an attempt to take over the Kingdom of Dreaming, until his suicide. They'd even done the same to Hector Hall, before Morpheus was able to catch up with them and fix the situation after being released.

The character of Sandman propelled both Neil Gaiman and Vertigo, the "adult" publishing arm of DC, into prominence in the early nineties. The book even briefly outsold Superman and Batman (though Spawn still leads the charts... it was the nineties).

Gaiman's Sandman is not only one of the best-selling comics of all time, but also an absolute watershed moment in comic book history, redefining forever what serious comics looked like. The idea that Sandman was once a fourth-tier DC superhero is mind-boggling, and truly shows what a great re-invention can do. If you have not read Sandman, I highly recommend it.