Dr. Stephen Beckley was the son of Colonel Jack Beckley of the United States Air Force.

Stephen's parents were angry when Jack went out to the South Pacific as a naval aviator; Jack was unaware that his fiancée was then pregnant with his child. Her family sent her to Florida to have the baby, which was then put up for adoption. Returning as a highly decorated hero; Jack married his fiancée and they had two children, Stephen and Rosemary.

John became a powerful figure in naval intelligence and developed his own top secret intelligence agency, the Bridge.(John was known as the Superior.)

John traced his father and told him he was his son.

But his father, not knowing the truth, said he had only one son. The vengeful John determined to destroy the Beckley name and arranged an airplane accident in which Colonel Beckley would die.

Stephen Beckley had become an astronomer and astrophysicist. Stephen and Ann Beckley were also the creators and heads of the Edmond Project, a joint effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to investigate comets and related phenomena.

Stephen Beckley piloted a spacecraft that encountered an apparent comet.

When Beckley's spacecraft entered the tail of an unknown comet and the heat of the comet vaporized Beckley's craft as well as Beckley himself.

However Beckley's molecules were gathered up to try and reconstruct his body.

Max's technological devices do so in such a way as to bestow upon Beckley various superhuman powers.(max is an alien, who met Dr. Stephen Beckley. Max’s spacecraft unintentionally vaporized Dr. Beckley and his ship. However, Max was able to use his advanced technology to reconstruct Beckley's body from his molecules, giving him superhuman powers in the process.)

Searching for his missing wife and child, Beckley encountered and nearly defeated the Hulk. Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four, saw Beckley battling the Hulk on television and went to see him in person

The news media dubbed the newly superhumanly powerful Beckley "Comet Man." Richards aided Beckley in controlling his power of self-teleportation by giving him a "psi-amplifier" device.

Beckley then learned about his older brother John, who was now the Superior, from SHIELD