The Sandman #1

Jed Walker is having a terrible dream. A lone man is lost in the surf, several yards from the shore of Dolphin Island. In his hand he clutches a hideous doll. Battered by the unmerciful ocean waves, the man sinks beneath the surface of the sea. From the Dream Dome, the Sandman has been monitoring Walker's dream, and commands the boy to awaken. Walker bolts out of bed. Believing his dream to be true, he races outside, into the storm, in hopes of rescuing the man before he drowns. Walker's grandfather, Ezra Paulson, follows. Soon enough the pair encounter the drowning man and pull him from the sea. Despite their best efforts, the man dies, on shore, passing the horrid doll onto Walker. Before he dies, the man calls the doll a "Werblink". Though Paulson despises the abominable figurine, the lonely Walker looks on the Werblink as a friend. Soon, the two are inseparable.. One night, Walker dreams that the Werblink is pursuing his grandfather. Alerted to Walker's nightmare, in the Dream Dome, the Sandman enters Walker's dream, rescuing the boy from a fall into a deep chasm. Upon awakening, Walker relays the nightmare to his grandfather. Comforted by his grandfather, Walker falls back asleep. Paulson removes the Werbling from Walker's pillow, and in a fit of fear-born rage, smashes the doll to pieces, in his workshop. Carrying the shattered figure out into the night, Paulson buries the Werbling, to hide his insane act from his grandson.

Visiting a veteran's hospital, on the outskirts of Tokyo, Doctor Kaufman, an American, marvels at the advances Japanese doctors have made in brain surgery. The chief surgeon, Doctor Masugi, says they owe it all to General Electric. The squadron head of a kamikaze unit in World War II, General Electric was all but killed in an attack on Allied forces. Japanese surgeons replaced the majority of General Electric's head with the most advanced electronic technology of the day. In the intervening 30 years, regular upgrades were made, giving General Electric an astonishing computer "brain". When not being studied by other doctors, General Electric spends his hours, in therapy, building Werblings. When Kaufman moves in for a closer look at the Werblings, General Electric flies into a rage and attacks the doctor. Doctor Masugi calls for the military police to restrain General Electric. As the men are under orders not to damage General Electric's invaluable head, they cannot bring their weapons to bear. General Electric escapes through a window. A week later, every child in Cape Kennedy is suffering from a similar Werbling nightmare to Walker's. Alerted to this four alarm nightmare, the Sandman exits the Dream Dome, and enters into the waking world. The Sandman finds himself aiding in earthquake rescue efforts, but his presence is looked on with suspicion by local authorities. When one of the officers draws down on him, the Sandman uses dream sand to put the man, and his partner, to sleep.

The Sandman finds Walker holding the broken Werbling, recently unearthed from it's burial ground. Walker has also been found by a quartet of ex-Nazi German soldiers. They attempt to forcibly take Walker with them, but the Sandman intervenes. The conflict comes to a quick end, however, when one of the soldiers rams the Sandman with his jeep. Holding Walker and the Sandman captive, the Germans turn the pair over to General Electric. With the aid of the Germans, General Electric has planted explosives all around the nation's capitol, and once Walker's Werblink is electronically linked to all the others, the charges will detonate. Thus will General Electric take his revenge against the country that wounded and deformed him, resulting in his becoming a freak. Searching the Sandman for weapons, one of the German's finds the hypersonic whistle in the Sandman's glove. Blowing the whistle puts all the Germans to sleep, while also summoning the Sandman's aides, Brute and Glob. With the Germans fast asleep, Brute and Glob release nightmares to torment them in their slumber. General Electric takes Walker at gunpoint, and orders the invisible Brute and Glob to show themselves. Taking the Sandman's whistle, Glob turns it up to it's highest frequency and blows. The hypersonic waves shatter General Electric's delicate electronic "brain", killing him. With Walker rescued and General Electric's threat ended, the Sandman, along with Brute and Glob, returns to the Dream Dome.