Sandman

History
Wesley Dodds born a “Jewish-Catholic” in the 1910’s to wealthy investor Edward Dodds and his wife Marina. In 1917 when he was still a child his mother died while his father was away fighting in WW1. Wes spent his youth with his father travelling the Orient and there learned herbalism, martial arts, and origami. After college he wished to become a writer but with his father's death Wesley became the manager of his vast estate and to manage and maintain it he became an investor and businessman.

The Dreams
Sometime before 1938 Dream of the Endless was imprisoned on Earth and prevented from performing his duties. The universe in an attempt to right itself gifted many with his power including Wesley Dodds. Dodds became plagued by extremely vivid dreams of murder and criminal activities that would not allow him rest. Dodds built a laboratory in his town house basement accessed behind a bookcase door, there he revised his “Orient Teaching” of Martial Arts and most importantly Herbalism by developing a formula for sedative and hypnotic gasses. He then bought several kinds of gas masks and created the identity the Sandman for himself and pursued the criminals that haunted his dreams. The Sandman's dreams often compelled him to pursue the most violent of criminals, such as the Scorpion, Dr Death, and the Butcher. Each time, he left the defeated criminal with a poem enclosed in a bit of origami.

In an early case, he encountered Lee Travis, a college chum, in his guise of the Crimson Avenger. The two initially fought but eventually joined forces against the Phantom of the Fair, who haunted the 1938 World's Fair. Travis gave Dodds a gun design that the Sandman ultimately perfected as his gas gun. The Sandman then started his career in earnest, first confronting the Tarantula, a serial murderer.

Later that year, Wesley met socialite Dian Belmont daughter of District Attorney Larry Belmont, at a local ball and the two became lovers and by the end of the year she deduced and discovered his dual life, at first it dampened their relationship she soon accepted it and partnered him in his mission by providing information stolen from her father and even being a “get a way driver”. The two remained together till the end of their lives.

World War II
At the start of Americas involvement in WW2 President Roosevelt wished to rally the greatest the Mystery Men together to protect America’s front and raise public spirit while the government focuses on the war, naming it the Justice Society of America. Taking notice of the Sandman he asked Dodds to be a founding father (Wesley was also a founder and charter member of the All-Star Squadron). In mid-1941, he took part in the case that the JSA prevented Ian Karkull from murdering individuals destined to occupy the White House over the next 50 years. The culmination of this case was the destruction of Karkull and the exposure of the assembled heroes to the chrono-energy stored in Karkull's body. As a result, the Sandman has aged much more slowly than normal humans.