Born in the year 2977 AD of the alternate timeline Earth-691, Michael Korvac would be born in many forms over time, all of them powerful and dangerous. As an adult, he became a gifted “computer techno” (technician), but grew bitter due to his belief that superiors did not appreciate his abilities. When the extraterrestrial Brotherhood of the Badoon conquered Earth and its colony worlds circa 3006-3007, Korvac served the new Badoon regime as a willing collaborator, and was soon placed in charge of analytical computer systems regulating entire planets; however, his new masters worked him to the point of exhaustion. When he collapsed during a duty shift, the Badoon amputated his lower body from the waist down and replaced it with a computerized, hovering special system module, transforming him into a cyborg as punishment and in hopes of making him a more efficient worker. The vengeful Korvac used his new abilities to attack his masters and assimilate data from their computer systems, intending to overthrow the Badoon, but he was abducted by the outside forces in the midst of his rebellion.
The cosmic gamesman Grandmaster and the robot strategist Prime Mover transported Korvac to the modern era of the Earth-616 reality, where he served as one of the various pawns pitted against each others in a contest of champions. The Prime Mover’s pawns including Korvac, fought the Gamemaster’s pawns, the heroic Defenders, who ultimately triumphed. During the game, the Defenders leader Doctor Strange had bested Korvac, who later claimed he had allowed himself to be defeated so that he might secretly analyze and partially replicate the Grandmaster’s cosmic knowledge and power. Having accomplished this, the newly enhanced Korvac returned to the 31st Century Earth-691 and adopted a desolate planetoid as his base, transforming it into a high-tech wonderland. He then used his time probe (a time-spanning teleportation device) to accumulate resources and servants, such as his alien underlings Brahl, Dumog, Grott, Teju and Tork (also known as the Minions of Menace). Korvac devised a plan to force Earth’s sun to go nova in hopes of tapping its power, Korvac was opposed by his era’s leading heroes, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the legendary thunder god Thor, whom Korvac had accidentally transported from the past. Defeated by Thor and the Guardians, Korvac fled.
Returning to the modern era of Earth-616, Korvac found and entered the vast worldship of the planet-consuming cosmic being Galactus. Tapping into its central computers, Korvac assimilated knowledge and technology so advanced that he became a godlike cosmic being in his own right, and he remade his physical body into a flawless humanoid form. His transformation was more than just physical; the expanded consciousness that came with his new power gave Korvac a new outlook on his own life and all existence. No longer interested in revenge or power for its own sake, he resolved to become the benevolent ruler of the universe so that he might impose a just and peaceful order upon its chaotic inhabitants for their own good. Korvac relocated to Earth, where he lived quietly in the Forest Hills Gardens neighborhood of New York while he plotted his universal coup, using his abilities to conceal himself from other cosmic beings and major powers. As the seemingly human Michael, Korvac met, fell in love with and married model Carina Walters, not knowing that she was secretly the daughter of the Collector, one of the Elders of the Universe, a cosmic being who had detected Korvac’s threat and sent Carina to spy on “The Enemy.”
