William Baker

**William Baker** (*Sandman*) is a mutate.

## Relationships

* Floyd Baker (father)
* Keemia Alvarado (foster daughter)
* Fred Myers (cousin-in-law)

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

**Body conversion:** William possesses the superhuman ability to convert his body into sand by mental command. The sand functions identically to, and appears to be, normal flesh. However, he can convert all or parts of his body into animated sand at will. His brain has attained subliminal awareness of all granulated particles of his body. Through conscious effort, he can affect the degree of molecular cohesion between the numerous adjoining surfaces of his particles and, thus, cause locomotion of discrete volumes down to the individual grains.

There appears to be no limit as to how long William can remain in his sand state. If he were to be rendered unconscious while in his sand state, he would remain in that state, although the relaxing of his control over his particles would cause him to become an amorphous pile of sand.

William's mind continues to function in astral form even when he has turned his head into sand and even when the particles of sand that compose his brain are widely scattered. The limit to how far the particles of his brain can be dispersed before he is unable to reassemble is not yet known.

* ***Superhuman strength:*** As a consequence of having a body composed of animated sand, William possesses phenomenal strength which enables him to lift up to eighty-five tons under optimal conditions.
* ***Density control:*** His radically mutagentically altered body composition and increased density enable him to compact or loosen the particles of sand that make up his form. Consequently, William can become as hard as sandstone or disperse his body so that he becomes invulnerable to physical attacks. A favorite tactic of William's is making himself slightly dispersed when an opponent punches him and then making himself rock-solid again, entrapping his opponent's appendage.
* ***Shapeshifting:*** He can change the shape of his sand-state body into any continuous shape he can imagine, including his forearms into weapons like hammers, spiked maces, and large fists or forming ram horns on top of his head, stretching, elongated, deforming, expanding, or compressing all or portions of his body at will.
* ***Sand blasts:*** He can project his sand particles outwards at high speeds and, when in the shape of a bulky object, with the impact of a large sandbag.
* ***Glass generation:*** More recently, William has learned some new tricks from the Wizard, including altering the formation of his sand particles and reshaping them into glass. This grants him the ability to reflect light and energy off of him.
* ***Reformation:*** William maintains mental control of the particles of which his body is composed of so that he can reform his scattered grains unless a substantial portion of his bodily mass has been isolated.
* ***Sand conversion:*** Apparently, William can also convert common grains of sand around him into constituents of his body to replenish portions he might lose track of during battle. In this manner, he can increase his overall size and volume or that of his limbs.
* ***Sand clones:*** Due to having such good mental control over his own molecules, he is able to create duplicates of himself, each one capable of acting on its own. The clones, should be they in agreement, are all able to fuse together into a giant sandman, about the size of an eight story building.
* ***Wall crawling:*** He is somehow capable of using his sand to allow him to walk up walls.

### Weaknesses

**Water:** William's weakness that makes him most vulnerable is water. Water can soften his sand granules, thereby making him unable to control them and having to wait for them to dry.

**Heat:** Temperatures of 3,400 degree Fahrenheit can cause his highly impure silicate composition to fuse into amorphous silicate, or glass.

**Soul molecule:** Over the years, Spider-Man has managed to discover that William's consciousness is located in only one grain of sand which holds his brain pattern and is responsible for commanding all the other grains of sand. With the proper instruments, it has be induced to it different ideas, making William change his form against his will. If that grain is separated from the others and isolated, William cannot recover his mass.

**Clone control:** William's clones can be influenced by his repressed and subconscious urges, such as when one of them killed Keemia's mother and her lawyer for getting a restraining order placed on him, while another killed a concert promoter who was trying to set up a concert on Governors Island, where he had been hiding himself and Keemia. They will even fight one another if they disagree.