John Wraith was part of Team X along with Wolverine, Sabretooth, Maverick, Mastodon, and Silver Fox. Wraith was a powerful teleporter, capable of getting the team out of sticky situations after their job was finished. He had a penchant for explosives, arming himself with shaped charges. Like the other members of Team X, he was given an artificial age suppressant so he was likely much older than he looked. His time as a secret agent and a member of the Weapon X program has left John somewhat paranoid. His house is a veritable death trap, as is the yard around it - John trusts no one. This is well illustrated by his memorable introductory (?) scene: as an apparently harmless gentleman sitting on a New York subway, he is accosted by several members of a teen gang, who threaten him. He throws something which bounces off of the chest of the gang leader. When the leader asks "What was that?" Wraith replies, deadpan, "That was a copper-jacketed .45 ACP hot-load with a depleted uranium core swimming in mercury. It leaves an exit wound the size of a deep-dish chicken pot pie, and the next one will be considerably faster." He was thereafter undisturbed.

He made a habit of keeping his skill a secret from his compatriots as well as his foes, using it only sparingly and if no one was looking directly at him -- unless it was absolutely vital. The only time when his fellow Team-X members found out about his powers was when they went up against Omega Red. John was backup on that mission that Wolverine, Maverick, and Sabretooth ran in Germany to collect a carbonadium synthesizer, and when that trio burst out of the target compound with Red in pursuit, John stalled him with his gun until the others got away. Unfazed, Omega went to wrap John up and tear him to pieces, but John teleported to safety at the last second, with only Wolverine and Omega Red seeing this. There is also a certain animosity between him and Sabretooth. He's about as violent as his fellows from the Weapon X program, but a lot more merciful and doesn't enjoy killing innocents while on a mission, which puts him at odds with people like Sabretooth. Sabretooth, once languished for quite a time in John's basement with several shaped charges strapped to his chest. Unless he had a really good reason to, Sabretooth wouldn't lift a finger to help John.

Years later, John had tracked Wolverine and the rest of his old teammates down because it seemed that there was a problem with the age suppression factors given to them by Weapon X, as one of their number, Mastodon, had suddenly aged quite rapidly and been reduced into a pile of ooze. With their help, John discovered a list of termination candidates from the Weapon X project. They recognize themselves on the list plus a man named Aldo Ferro, who they know is a big time mafia chief, Il Topo Siciliano. They track Ferro to his secluded island where they discover Maverick guarding him. Maverick soon changes sides when Ferro, a.k.a. Psi-Borg, reveals that he was the one who used his psi-powers to speed the false memory implantation of the Weapon X subjects. After this fiasco, John hung out with Wolverine for a month or two, but then vanished.

Wraith was later re-recruited into Weapon X by the "Director" and his mission was to recruit Maverick as well. However, Maverick fought back and Wraith was shot and then gutted by his partner Sabretooth, for his failure.