10 Times Comic Book Villains Became Heroes (In A Big Way)

It's truly one of the great big Marvel injustices that Sandman didn't get to stay a superhero. In a way, it's a microcosm of the biggest problems that have affected Marvel's Spidey books over the last three decades. Characters went from evolving over a period of years, to existing in a weird temporal quagmire where everything eventually goes back to business as usual.

Still, that doesn't make Sandman's initial arc any less compelling. The character evolved from a villain of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four into an actual Avenger. Sandman! An Avenger! One of the greatest Silver Age Marvel villains ended up becoming one of the best Marvel heroes, and it's something that's not spoken about nearly enough.

But what set Sandman off on this path towards Avengers membership? Well, it was a couple of things. First was the character's unfortunate run-in with Hydro-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #217, which saw the two merge into the being known as Mud-Thing. The incident scarred Sandman, and following a heart-to-heart with the Thing, he decided to go straight.

A couple of team-ups with Spider-Man later, and Sandman eventually ended up joining Silver Sable's Wild Pack, and then the Avengers. Too bad the Wizard had to go ahead and ruin it by bringing back Sandman's old persona a few years later.