William Baker was abandoned by his father at a very young age and he and his mother were forced to live in poverty. Baker turned to crime in order to make some money and eventually worked his way up to being a mob enforcer. Baker was imprisoned at a place called Rikers Island. Somehow Baker escaped and while he was on the beach he came in contact with sand that had been effected by a reactor experiment. Baker's body and the radioactive sand bonded and Baker's molecular structure was changed so that he could turn his body from its regular form to a sand-like substance. So of course, he named himself Sandman. He first encountered Spiderman while at Peter Parker's high school. Eventually Spiderman was able to defeat him with help from a vacuum cleaner. Sandman tried to defeat Spiderman several more times, including joining a group led by Dr. Octopus called the Sinister Six, but failed to defeat Spiderman every time.