Dr.Randolph James was a classmate of Reed Richards in school and they became friends ,they stayed in contact for many years .Dr. James was married for awhile untill his wife died which made him emotionally hard and distanct .Years later Reed and the rest of the Fantastic Four went to see Dr.James for a visit and saved him from an explosion .As soon as they left a gang of thugs broke into the Dr.`s home looking for money and they beat him badly .After they left Dr. James call Reed for help but the Fantastic Four was battling Blastaar ,believing he was about to died he decieded to use his experimental Evolution-Accelerator to heal himself .When Reed returned to Dr.James house he saw the burglerized  mess ,the Accelerator destroyed and his friend transformed into The Futurist . Leaving the house The Futurist saw the thugs that beat him and transformed them into rats ,then he flew to the Baxter Building and saw the rest of the F.F. battling Blastaar .Blastaar noticed The Futurist and claimed that the Fantastic Four wanted to destroy them both because they feared their power.The Futurist put the Invisible Woman to sleep ,as soon as that was done Blastaar tried to open a larger portal to the Negative Zone .Telepathically sensing Blastaar`s evil ,The Futurist allowed Frankln Richards psychic blast to send Blastaar back home , then left to explore space .In space he was captured by theStranger and placed in The Stranger`s Labworld ,untill he and Alpha the Ultimate Mutant escaped .
