Flint Marko

Flint Marko, also known as The Sandman, is a super-powered criminal operating throughout the New York City area. He has the ability to transform his body into a sand-like substance, which he uses to commit various crimes, most commonly robbery.

Appearance
Floyd is tall, standing at 6'04" and has a well-muscled physique. He can alter his size using his ability, and his altered form weighs in around 260 lbs.

He has brown eyes and dark hair, which appear as they did before becoming the Sandman.

Personality
Flint is confident and resourceful, and tends to be quiet and observant in most situations. However, he also tends to be unobservant and a has bad temper. He is not adverse to violence, but he has traditionally never liked leading with it.

He loves his daughter Keemia, but is unable to see her, something that infuriates him. He has tried to contest this in the past, though his status as a criminal has basically taken away any chance he could have had for visitation rights.

It has been noted that after becoming Sandman, his temper has worsened and he has become more aggressive and violent.

Background
Flint was born in 1980 to Floyd and Loretta Marko in Queens, NY. His father was killed in a carjacking when he was an infant. As a child, impoverished, he learned how to steal and, as he grew older, he learned to use his size to get what he needed.

His favorite pastime as a child was going to the beach, where he would work on making detailed sandcastles, which the tide would inevitably wash away. He became determined to build something that would last.

He grew up bullied and learned to fight when he was young. A particular enemy was a boy named Victor and, in the 8th grade, When Victor threatened a friend of his, Flint beat Victor so badly that he needed to be hospitalized. He was suspended from school, but it earned him a reputation.

In high school, Flint joined the football team. He proved to be talented and even started dating one of the cheerleaders, named Marcy. He was being eyed by colleges and things were going well--until he was approached by bookies associated with the mob, who offered to pay him a considerable amount of money if he threw the championship game. He did so, though his coach quickly put two and two together. Flint would be expelled from school. He took revenge, savagely beating his coach.

This, in turn, got him sent to juvie, where he met Aleksei Sytsevich. The pair grew to watch each others' backs and, after they got out, began committing petty crimes in an effort to earn enough money to get by. In time, they earned quite a reputation as thieves and muscle for various operations around New York City.

He began seeing Marcy again in 2009 and they had a daughter together in 2011. However, Flint's violent and unpredictable life eventually caused Marcy to distance herself and their daughter soon after. Flint tried for years to get shared custody, to no avail.

Spider-Man
In September of 2016, Flint and Aleksei attempted to rob an armored car, but were stopped by Spider-Man, who left them tied to a streetlight with webbing. The two managed to get out on bail and attempted another robbery--and were stopped again by Spider-Man.

This time they went to prison for 90 days. When Flint was released, he discovered Marcy and daughter had moved to California--and that he was forbidden from seeing either of them, by court order, as he was a repeat felon.

Becoming Sandman
In December of 2015, Flint began pulling off a series of robberies by himself, in an effort to get enough money to maybe bribe a judge, or at least go to California and confront Marcy. But after two successful robberies, he was stopped once more by who else but Spider-Man.

However, this time, he managed to escape police custody en route, leading to a manhunt. He fled to Montauk, where Aleksei was supposedly laying low. While there, an unknown sequence of events occurred that led to him becoming exposed to strange, extradimensional energies that dramatically warped his physiology, such that he found he could turn his body into a sand-like substance and manipulate each grain to shape any form he desired.

Rematch with Spider-Man
After spending two weeks learning to control his powers, Flint returned to New York City and began a crime spree, eventually once again crossing paths with Spider-Man while robbing a bank in Midtown Manhattan. The pair fought, but Spider-Man discovered he could little to damage or even slow the criminal down. Spider-Man was forced to flee the scene after nearly being buried.

The newspapers began to refer to Flint as "The Sandman", and he continued his crime spree. Several days after his last Spider-Man encounter, he had set his sights on an armored car that was said to carry priceless gemstones on loan from the Smithsonian. He attacked the car while it was crossing the Queensboro Bridge, only for Spider-Man to once again interfere. The pair fought hard, but falling rain began to make him slow and clump. In an effort to evade capture, he began pushing cars off the bridge, forcing Spider-Man to focus on saving them and allowing Sandman to flee.

The jewels having evaded him, he immediately went to work on his next caper--robbing an art gallery in Queens. In the afternoon of January 8th, 2016, he went for it. However, things went sideways when Spider-Man showed up and set off the museum's sprinklers, forcing Sandman to flee, pursued by police.

In an effort to get some leverage, he used his powers to abduct an entire school bus and perched it precariously high up at a construction site. He postured to the police, but was distracted by high school student Jessica Jones, who was on the bus. Spider-Man would catch up to him soon after, leading to an all-out fight at the construction site. While Sandman had the upper hand at first, Jessica did her best to help Spider-Man out and, together, the pair managed to outsmart him and encase him in quick-drying cement.

Incarceration
He was taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. and sent to their superhuman containment facility known as '''The Raft. '''He was still in custody as of late August, 2016.

Defenders Volume 1

 * Chapter 1 - "The Accident"

Aleksei Sytsevich
Flint and Aleksei (who he just calls Alex) have been tight ever since meeting in juvie, and they have spent years watching out for each other ever since. Alex is one of the few people that Flint really trusts and more recently they have found they have a shared hatred for Spider-Man.

Spider-Man
Flint hates Spider-Man. Time and again, the annoying wall-crawler has busted him, and Flint has blamed him for being the main reason he lost any chance to see his daughter, and is determined to get revenge on him.

Notable Items

 * Striped Green Shirt: It's his favorite shirt.

Abilities

 * Boxing 
 * Professional Criminal
 * Streetwise

Body Conversion - Sand
Flint has the ability to convert his body into a sand-like substance through willpower. 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 to how long the Sandman can remain in his sand-state.
 * Density Control: His radically mutagenically altered body composition and increased density enabled him to compact or loosen the particles of sand that make up his form. Consequently, the Sandman can become as hard as sandstone, or disperse his body so that he becomes invulnerable to physical attacks. A favorite tactic of his is making himself slightly dispersed when an opponent punches him, and then making himself rock-solid again, entrapping his opponent's appendage.
 * Reformation: The Sandman maintains mental control of the particles of which his body is composed so that he can reform his scattered grains unless a substantial portion of his body mass has been isolated.
 * Sandblasting: He can project his sand particles outward at high speeds and, when in the shape of a bulky object, with the impact of a large sandbag.
 * Sand Conversion: Flint can 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 could increase his overall size and volume (to some as yet unknown limit), or that of his limbs.
 * Shapeshifting: He can shape his sand-state body into any continuous shape he can imagine, including his forearms into weapons like hammers, spiked maces, and large fists; forming ram horns on his head; stretching, elongating, deforming, expanding, flattening, or compressing all or portions of his body at will; slip through small openings, etc.
 * Superhuman Strength: As a consequence of having a body composed of animated sand, the Sandman possessed phenomenal superhuman strength, able to lift a school bus into the air and move it with seemingly no effort.

Heat
Temperatures of 3,400 degrees Fahrenheit can cause his highly impure silicate composition to fuse into amorphous silicate (glass).

Water
The Sandman's weakness that makes him most vulnerable is water. Water can soften his sand granules and, therefore, he cannot control them and has to wait for them to dry.

Trivia

 * His favorite band is Earth, Wind, and Fire.