Knight Terrors: Wesley Dodds And Batman Have More In Common Than You Think

The Sandman has a long history in DC Comics and Knight Terrors has brought back the frightening detective as its story's dream empowered Batman.

Knight Terrors is DC's latest event. It's focused on a villain named Insomnia and his quest for the Nightmare Stone. Empowered by the Lazarus Rains in Lazarus Planet, he attacked Doctor Destiny, the Dream Stone's former bearer, and used his power to put the world asleep, adrift in their nightmares while he retrieves the Nightmare Stone's power. Only a few heroes can oppose him at this stage. Deadman is possessing Batman's unconscious body and he's resurrected Wesley Dodds specifically to deal with Insomnia. A classic hero of the Golden Age, Dodds is a character with a rich history and he's well-known to DC's hardcore fans.

Wesley Dodds was the first Sandman, a gas mask-wearing detective of the Golden Age. A founding member of the Justice Society of America, Dodds often felt like a throwback to the pulp heroes that had ruled crime fiction before Superman's ascent. In this way, he was quite similar to Batman and they paralleled each other in their early years. In fact, Batman and Wesley Dodds are very similar and this says a lot about the crucial role Dodds is playing in Knight Terrors.

Wesley Dodds Is A Golden Age Great

DC's Golden Age comics are the best. Without characters like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Black Canary, and Green Arrow, superheroes would look very different, if they even existed in a recognizable form. The pulp heroes that transitioned from fiction magazines to comics in the Platinum Age, before Superman's arrival, played a large role in shaping DC's early superheroes, and Sandman was the best example. Wesley Dodds held all the hallmarks of a pulp hero. He was a wealthy socialite, clad in a fedora and trenchcoat, had a gimmick weapon a la Doc Savage's hypodermic guns - in Dodds' case a sleep gas firing gun, and was a brilliant detective with a variety of skills. His stories were pulpy mystery yarns, and he scratched a different narrative itch than DC's other Golden Age heroes.

Wesley Dodds joined the Justice Society, firmly enmeshing himself in the brighter superhero world. Looking at those old comics, it's easy to see Dodds as an anachronism. Surrounded by the bright, primary-colored heroes of the Justice Society, Dodds already felt like a throwback. Wesley Dodds didn't really ever seem to fit in with the Justice Society, and he never got his own Golden Age title, although he did have a running feature in Adventure Comics. The success of heroes like Superman and Batman caused DC to change Dodds in order to fit in with the brighter-colored superheroes that had taken over the comic racks.

Marvel and DC exist to service fans, and in the Golden Age that meant superheroes. Wesley Dodds wasn't a superhero or a pulp hero, but a combination of the two, somewhat like Batman. However, unlike the Dark Knight, Dodds wasn't enough of a superhero and DC modified the character to give him a boost. The company removed the gas mask, the fedora, and the trenchcoat. In their place was a yellow and blue, more traditional superhero costume. It gave Dodds a sidekick, too, Sandy the Golden Boy. The Sandman had become a superhero. It's impossible to gauge fan reaction to an event that happened almost eighty years ago, but this was a huge change for a character. Back then, major superheroes didn't modify their costumes to this extent, and their stories didn't change in this way. Later, when the Justice Society was brought back in the Silver Age, Dodds was back to being the gas mask-clad detective, so it's safe to assume that the change wasn't popular with everyone. Sandy also returned but was almost immediately placed into suspended animation and kept there until the '90s.

Wesley Dodds wasn't as popular as the other members of the Justice Society during their Silver Age return. Sandman didn't gain superpowers like the other members of the Justice Society, so he was basically a senior citizen when the JSA became a big name again. He still made many appearances with the team but was one of the members killed by Extant during Zero Hour, his days at the top of the superhero game long over. However, he would soon get a new chance at stardom.

Sandman's Name Recognition Brought Wesley Dodds '90s Fame

While Dodds was always C-list at best, the name Sandman was another story. There were several Silver Age Sandmen at DC, including one created by Jack Kirby, that were more superhero friendly, but they all fizzled out. However, the British Invasion of the late '80s saw writer Neil Gaiman launch The Sandman. This wasn't a legacy hero, although Dodds did show up in the first issue, but a complete reimagining of the Sandman's mantle, playing more off the dream motifs that Kirby had introduced and focused on the incarnation of Dreams themselves. This story revealed how Dream's captivity was the source of Wesley Dodds' prophetic dreams, that drove his crimefighting, and his costume was even meant to be reminiscent of Dream in his full battle regalia. The Sandman became a massive hit and DC launched the Vertigo imprint to capitalize on the new mature comics craze. 1993 would prove to be a momentous year for Dodds, as he got a new series - Sandman Mystery Theatre.

Inspired by film noir and the pulp heroes of the Golden Age, Sandman Mystery Theatre ran for five years. The book followed Wesley Dodds and his girlfriend Dian Belmont through their gritty adventures in New York City. Of course, calling them "adventures" isn't exactly correct. Sandman Mystery Theatre was a hardboiled crime comic with an oddly gentle protagonist and it made a minor star out of Wesley Dodds. The character and his world fit perfectly into the Vertigo/Mature Readers side of comics, arguably better than he ever did as a superhero. Mystery Theatre played up his detective skills, and thrilled readers with grisly murders and pitch-black mysteries. It was Wesley Dodds' last big starring role before his return in Knight Terrors.

Sandman And Batman Mirrored Each Other In Odd Ways

Of all DC's original Golden Age heroes, Batman and Sandman were the most alike. Both of them were more indebted to pulp heroes than someone like Superman. They were mere men who took the law into their own hands, using their riches and skills to solve crimes that no one else could. They both used distinct looks and gimmicks to strike fear into their enemies. They were both seemingly characters meant to link the worlds of pulp fiction and superheroes, characters that were made for older readers than other superhero fare, at least at first in Batman's case. Both of them took on the trappings of superheroes more as time went on, with Sandman's costume and gimmick change finally fully taking him into the world that Batman inhabited.

That gimmick change itself was intended a way to make Sandman into Batman, but DC was no stranger to self-imitation in the Golden Age. Batman and his partner Robin became big business with kids, and so DC decided to do more Batman-esque characters. Sandman was one of these and his new sidekick Sandy the Golden Boy was inspired by Robin. Much like the Golden Age Green Arrow, Sandman became a Batman clone in one of the first revamps of any major comic hero.

This was easy because the characters were very much alike. Sandman and Batman were rich detectives who fought crime with gimmicks. The biggest difference was their costume styles and even that changed. From an in-universe standpoint, they operated in similar ways, gifted polymaths who investigated crimes that the police couldn't solve. They both had sidekicks and they were each considered the brains of their team, although Dodds never had Batman's tactical mastery. The Sandman Mystery Theatre years saw Wesley Dodds become darker than ever, his enemies becoming brutal monsters, which mirrored Batman's own darkening in later years.

Knight Terrors Lets A New Generation See What Wesley Dodds Does Best

Knight Terrors subverts DC's Batman tropes in a clever way. Batman is technically a part of the story, but he's actually piloted by Deadman, a ghost who possesses human bodies. This leaves the place of super-intelligent detective open. While Deadman is no slouch in the detective game, he isn't on Batman's level. That's why Wesley Dodds is so perfect for this story. Basically the Batman of the Justice Society, he's known for his detective skills. He faced grotesque monsters in his adventures, and Insomnia's quest for the Nightmare Stone plays into Dodds and the retcons in the Bronze and Modern Ages that subtly changed the superhero. Batman is irreplaceable, but someone like Wesley Dodds can step up and fill a similar role.

Knight Terrors is a different kind of event, using Batman differently and lower-level DC legends like Deadman and Wesley Dodds to sell the story. DC seems to be using this as a way to bring Wesley Dodds back and will be debuting a new miniseries starring the aged hero soon. DC has big plans for several of its Golden Age heroes, but the ones for Dodds are the most tenuous. Jay Garrick and Alan Scott both have long histories and legacies to play off of. Dodds doesn't really have that and even his time as a solo hero in his own book ended twenty-five years ago. Using Dodds as a Batman substitute reintroduces him to a whole new audience, and Knight Terrors using Wesley Dodds as the story's Batman will show his new fans what the character is all about and why he still matters today.