Yeah, Dian goes unnamed in the story that relates how John Law became the Tarantula and Wes changed into the purple and yellow tights.  Thank Kirby for Matt Wagner and James Robinson!

Well, he only wears shorts, a cape, boots and gloves; so................

All-Star Comics #3 (Summer 1940) "Dr. Faversham"
Author: Gardner Fox
Artist: Chad Grothkopf
Inker: Everett E. Hibbard and Sheldon Mayer




"Well, gentlemen - as you know, I have no superhuman abilities - I'm just an ordinary fellow who doesn't like crime or criminals, so I invented the gas gun and adopted the identity of The 'Sandman' - thus equipped I do my best to aid justice!!"



Synopsis: Gathered together at an unspecified hotel, The Justice Society meet for a dinner Johnny Thunder has used his magical powers to inveigle his way into. Asked by The Flash what he intends to contribute for his share of the meal, Thunder responds with:

"An idea! - Suppose you each tell the most exciting experience you ever had? That'll entertain everybody!"

Those gathered - The Spectre, Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, Hourman, The Atom, and our very own Sandman, agree. As a result, this inaugural meeting of The Justice Society of America is presented as an anthology of tales a la The Canterbury Tales in which each hero supplies a story of their own recounting some remarkable recent adventure. In other words, there'll be no group team-up in this story. However, I think what we do get from The Sandman will be above-par for even in consideration of the improving quality of his recent adventures so let's get right into it:

Following his introductory remarks as transcribed above, our hero continues his narrative:

"One night less than a year ago I was driving along in the country in my natural identity as Wesley Dodds with Dian Belmont"

Alright, so let's confirm right off the bat that The Sandman has decided to share his secret identity with the rest of the team - including Johnny Thunder.

Moving on...

The Sandman recounts coming across a staggering man whom he estimates to be about twenty feet in height. Collapsing before the couple can reach him, Dodds confirms the giant's death as Belmont wonders what could have killed him. A broken hypodermic needle located in the man's pocket is momentarily their only clue though when Dodds returns to the city to inform the police of his and Dian's bizarre discovery, they learn of another gruesome discovery "miles away" from their own.

"Read all about it! Huge bag of human flesh found - with man's bones inside it!"

ugh!

The mention of a 'flesh sack' triggers something in Dodds' memory though for the memory, he is unwilling to divulge what. Racing to The City Hosptial as The Sandman, the crimefighter breaks into the safe and locates the confidential file of a Dr. Faversham.

"Now let's see - 'Faversham. M.D. noted for pituitary work. Banished from profession for daring experiments on rats. Vanished, leaving no trace!"



At this point, the police break through the barricade our hero has built up against the office door indicating that it might be time for The Sandman to take his leave - which he does by barreling through the time and departing out a window.

Returning with Dian back to the spot where they found the giant, the pair now locate only a large sack of flesh containing human bones. Detecting elements of brown-red mud which he identifies as coming from "the west shore road" The Sandman follows the trail. Along the way, the couple are horrified at the sight of a giant rat which is scared off by a similarly oversized cat - both of which drop dead soon afterwards.




Leaving Dian alone in the car with a gun to protect herself should the need arise, The Sandman follows the animals' footprints to a large house.

"The tracks lead here. I've a hunch that Faversham is inside..."

Spotted before he can gain entrance, a gunshot holds our hero at bay momentarily before he makes a daring attempt to reach the cellar - an attempt which proves successful.

Inside, The Sandman finds a terrified captive who reveals that Faversham has been experimenting on people like him for the insurance policies he's taken out on their lives. As for the animals:

"He experimented on those others! Loaded their pituitary glands with a secret formula - made them giants in a few hours! Freed them. They wandered about dazed. When the drug wore off, their skins were stretched but their bones weren't! They fell apart!"

And that explains the flesh bags with the human bones contained therein.



Crying out as Faversham appears behind the crime buster, The Sandman spins, narrowly avoids being shot at point-blank range, and decks the madman who collapses to the floor. Asking the man's assistance in waiting for the police and then testifying against the doctor when the time comes, The Sandman returns to Dian and fills her in on the details.



The chapter closes with Johnny Thunder wiping the sweat from hos brow and exclaiming:

"I'll have have [sic] nightmares tonight!"

The Sandman replies that he gets them still.



Thoughts: As historic as this issue is, its presentation isn't all that far removed from your typical anthology series of the time - these are self-contained stories bookended with appearances by The Justice Society whose main purpose at this point in time seems to exist so that superheroes can relax and take it easy amongst their own kind. That will change, of course, but at this point, it seems to my eyes to be more a Hall of Fame than Hall of Justice.

So with that in mind, you won't see much interaction between The Sandman and other heroes for a little while at least. Arriving alongside of Doctor Fate, the pair are greeted by a room full of sleeping hotel guests. Doctor Fate's reaction?

"I have a hunch The Sandman's been busy again!"

Sure enough, it's The Sandman who makes Thunder's acquaintance next confirming the young man's assumption that "he's the chap that goes around putting people to sleep!" to keep their meeting a secret. Kind of a jerk move on The Sandman's part, but it gives you the sense that these gatherings are perhaps not meant to be taken as seriously as these crimefighter's usual outings. Perhaps this is why Fox is so laid back about The Sandman casually declaring his secret identity before the team as he makes his introduction (though it's entirely possible that they already knew this detail beforehand courtesy of some as to some unchronicled previous adventure).



So let's get into this one:

A giant twenty feet tall collapsing before the eyes of Wesley Dodds and Dian Belmont is one hell of an opening. There have been darker moments during The Sandman's run thus far; stories suggesting greater menace than one might be accustomed to; and moments of creepiness; but this is the first to read like an out and out monster film. Giant rats, sacks made of flesh filled with human bones, kidnapped science slaves faced with the promise of a fate worse than death locked away in the cellar - some really chilling stuff here. There was a time where the mere presence of a twenty foot man would have come as a welcome relief breaking through the tedium of bland hoodlums doing whatever bland hoodlums do stories Fox had settled into a rut with, but taking that idea and adding these elements really elevates it to something memorable. In fact, it was my memory of this tale which convinced me that while the quality of those early Sandman tales might not be maintained for long, the future still held some remarkable stuff hence going forward with this thread.

The explanation for those sacks of flesh with the bones is what stuck out in particular - it's the sign of a clever writer when an author takes an already interesting idea such as the twenty foot giants and expounds upon it to the point of theorizing just what would happen to such a body in death. Even Fox resisting the temptation of having Dodds fend off the giant rat with his gas gun and instead letting the more surreal display of having a giant house cat take its place as the natural predator of the animal take its place pays off in spades - a bit of adventure might have made for something more colorful to happen, but it would also have assuaged the readers sense of terror in seeing our heroes so helpless against a monstrosity they'd "need an elephant gun to kill".

Back in June, MWGallaher suggested that once The JSA enters the scene, The Sandman's "wanted by the police" angle might get dialled down. That's entirely probable - especially in light of this tale ending with The FBI Chief wanting to see them all next issue - but you won't find any indication that our mystery man's on better terms with the law in this entry, at least. No less than four officers break down the door he's barricaded himself behind in the hospital office threatening to shoot should he not surrender and The Sandman certainly doesn't seem to doubt their promise given the way he barrels through them and flees. Still, I think when you have characters such as The Spectre palling around with Johnny Thunder and J Edgar Hoover (in this universe, at least, a "swell guy" according to The Flash) then one should expect a lot of softening to these characters' harder edges sooner rather than later.

Not much else to share about this one - I would have liked to have seen Dian Belmont do more than just faint - but a great introduction for new readers to The Sandman.  Speaking of introductions, I like the simplicity of The Sandman's own in this tale where he describes himself as "just an ordinary fellow who doesn't like crime or criminals".  None of the early suggestions that he's an athlete looking for an outlet for his abilities and desire for thrills - just an ordinary fellow.

Who happens to come across giant men and rats during his midnight drives.  I like it.

Ha!  Excellent point!

For the record, I don't mind The Sandman sharing his secret identity with the likes of Doctor Fate or Green Lantern - I mean, his idea of protecting his secret identity is to ask Dian to keep her head down as he parks Wesley Dodds' car right in front of the police station he's about to barge into as The Sandman so why be so reticent here - but man, trusting Johnny Thunder with his real name?  What's up with that?

I would have preferred something along the lines of:

[The Sandman looks out amongst the gathered heroes and begins to speak]

"One night less than a year ago-"

[His eyes glance over at The Spectre who listens intently]

"I was driving along in the country-"

[Turning to his left, The Sandman's gaze falls upon that of The Hourman]

"in my natural identity-"

[Suddenly, a crashing noise directs his line of vision towards Johnny Thunder who's running around frantically after swallowing his cutlery]

"uh... in my natural identity of, uh..."

[Doctor Fate has retrieved the cutlery and a shrieking Johnny is now struggling with a lobster clamped to his nose]

"of... Bruce Wayne.  That's right - Bruce Wayne.  Capital B, lowercase r, lowercase u..."

"I don't know much about orchids, but I was almost certain the Abrides Farmerii doesn't live except in a wild state."

Um, that sounds like a guy who knows a lot about orchids to me, Wes.

It's too bad that this one got so muddled that it ended up wasting such an arresting and memorable gimmick. I noticed also that Nogales #2 refers to himself as Pedro Nogales. Now sure, in real life, both he and the broker could both have the common given name "Pedro", but a good writer would not normally sow such confusion when that's not a part of the story, so Fox was obviously being sloppy here. (It's pretty common for Golden Age writers to neglect to establish full names for incidental characters--or even for the primary antagonist--but failing to do so can often lead to these kinds of slip-ups.)

Also, there's no explanation for why the orchid appears from nowhere on the broker's corpse at the start of the story. It's the kind of thing that we'd see covering up for an artistic blunder in a plot-art-script process, but surely these were drawn from full scripts, so that's yet another blunder in a story with plenty to go around. I'm as baffled as you are about the inconsistent depiction of Carla's father. Maybe the production was interrupted, and the artist turned in the first few pages, then picked in up again some time later, finishing it without remembering what he had drawn?

It is worth noting that a gas-poisoned orchid is well-suited for a man with a gas mask to handle, so The Sandman's gassing of the cop is presumably cautionary, not reckless intervention, but Fox can't say so directly at that point in the story without giving away the secret too early. Also notable is the implication that Carla is something of a "man-eater", sweet-talking the older broker and seducing Bill, making it feel as though she should have been complicit in her father's schemes somehow, but that didn't turn out to be the case.

With only ten issues of ADVENTURE COMICS remaining for the gas mask era Sandman, it finally seems to be falling into the kind of Weird Menace story I like. Here's hoping the storytelling gets a lot more disciplined and coherent!