Christopher Smith's father was a a Nazi death camp commandant. Driven by this shame, Christoper began fighting for peace. Chris killed anyone who fought against peace.

Mentally unstable, Chris began to believe that the people he killed where trapped inside his helmet giving him advice. He worked for Checkmate for a while, but was eventually dubbed too extreme even for them.

Chris was announced dead in the original fight against Eclipso.

His soul, however, lived on in purgatory, and made an appearance in Day of Judgment helping a group of heroes return to Earth.

Enter Mitchell Black, a surgeon recruited by a secret organization and turned into Peacemaker. Black worked for L.A.W. (Living Assault Weapons), The for a short time. He was shot through the chest by Prometheus in Infinite Crisis.

But he returns to aid the newest Blue Beetle, Jamie Reyes. Though he claims he is Mitchell Black, we later learn that he is actually Christopher Smith somehow returned. he explains that a year earlier, while fighting Intergang, he found himself in a pyramid that happened to be the same one in which the original Blue Beetle Dan Garrett found the Blue Beetle scarab. In that Pyramid, Chris came into contact with technology from the alien race THE REACH. Chris accidentally downloaded the database that was missing from the Scarab that Jamie had.

Chris worked with Jamie for a while, fighting super-villains and the Reach in El Paso, Texas. Eventually, Chris was implanted with a Scarab himself, and was subsequently aproached by a yellow ring during the Sinestro Corps Special War.

The Reach explained that the scarabs were a hive mind, and that because of that and the fact that they are feared by all the worlds that come into contact with them around the universe, the ring assumed Smith could instill great fear. The Reach activated the scarab and combined it with the ring, hoping to exchange the hybrid (calling itself The Infiltrator) for stewardship of Earth once Sinestro won his war.

Jamie, with the help of a Green Lantern, separated Smith from the Scarab, thereby allowing the ring to see Smith instead of the Scarab.

Smith then cut the Scarab from his own spine.