Astronaut Hank Henshaw was on board the LexCorp space shuttle Excalibur with his wife Terri and two other crew members when it crashed. At first, the accident was thought to have been caused by Superman who had created a solar flareexposing the crew to a fatal dose of radiation. With his body deteriorating, Hank transferred his consciousness into LexCorps mainframe, recreating himself as a cyborg in Supermans image. When Terri later died, a deranged Hank blamed Superman for her death, and became one of the Man of Steels fiercest foes. With Mongul, he orchestrated the obliteration of Coast City and became an intergalactic threat battling the Green Lantern Corps.