Formerly one Temple Baldry, a dying scientist who devised a creative method of escaping his end. Baldry created "modules," tiny hexapedal robots that shared one mind... and then downloaded his own mind into them. Capable of replication, the modules can, within moments, convert any available mass into new modules, identical to their progenitors and likewise joined in the one mind. This gives them the ability to geometrically increase their numbers at a mind-numbingly speed. Temple Baldry became the Modular Man, a being with thousands of bodies.

As the Modular Man, his computerized intellect is limited by the number of modules in existence. When their numbers are in the handful, he is no more than a dumb animal, running on an animal's instincts. On the other end, in sufficient numbers, his mind can equal and even surpass what it was in human life. As such, the Modular Man made it his goal to convert as much of the planet into modules, into himself, as possible, so as to attain maximum intellect and mental power, and never mind that those pesky humans on its surface might object. This put him in opposition with the science-hero [[Tom Strong]], who eventually destroyed Baldry by destroying every existing module, in the 70s.

However, the blueprints for the modules had somehow found their way onto the Internet, and a pair of twin teenagers built one in the late 90s. The lone module quickly began replicating, and in short order it and its brethren reached critical mass for the Modular Man's mind to re-emerge. And lo, he was reborn. This time, however, Tom Strong managed to point certain facts out to him: The world's governments would never allow him to keep growing. Once he reached a certain mass, a certain level of risk, the nukes would come flying and damn the consequences. Yes, he'd eventually be reborn again, the day another unsuspecting sap builds a module, but he'd just be destroyed again as well.

Tom Strong offered an alternative to this futile cycle before the science-criminal: Venus... the planet. His modules could reach it by means of Strong's flying saucer. Unpeopled, the planet would be a world where he could replicate and grow unchecked. The Modular Man accepted the deal. On the second planet from the sun in the Sol system, he covers an entire world's surface, an ocean of modules from horizon to horizon.