Franklin Storm was a successful surgeon with a wife and two young, vibrant children, when on the way to a Medical Society dinner in his honor his car slid off the road, severely injuring his wife. Though he remained unhurt, he was unable to save his wife on the operating table despite all his talent as a surgeon. From that day on his life went downhill. He began drinking and gambling; and once he had wasted all his money away, he turned to a loan shark to pay for his habits. But when the loan shark returned for payment, Storm was unable to repay, and the man threatened his life and the lives of his children. Storm couldn’t bear the thought of his children being taken from him, and he struggled with the man until the loan shark’s own gun went off and killed him. At Storm’s trial he said nothing in his own defense and he was given twenty years to life for manslaughter, leaving his children without a father or a mother.
Years later, his children grew up to become the Invisible Girl and the Human Torch, half of the renowned Fantastic Four. But Storm remained in prison, refusing to even tell his children where he was being held. Until one day he escaped and Susan Storm caught sight of his face in the newspaper. She was shocked, but refused to tell her team what had happened. Later, during an escape from the Mole Man’s underground tunnels, Susan caught a piece of shrapnel from an explosion and was hospitalized. The doctors explained to her team and her love, Reed Richards, that nothing could be done for her as the only surgeon capable of saving her had broken out of jail and his whereabouts were unknown. But though he knew that exposing himself meant returning to jail, Storm appeared and offered to perform the surgery on his daughter. Hours later, Storm emerged from the operating to announce that he had helped just in time and Susan was in stable condition. He then gave himself up to the police who took him back to jail.
When the Skrull race revived their champion, the Super Skrull, he came after Franklin Storm with a plan to defeat the Fantastic Four. The Skrull found Storm in jail and impersonated him, then had him beamed into space, back to the Skrull homeworld. Then, when Storm’s children came to visit him, the Skrull declared that he had given himself all the powers of the Fantastic Four in the prison laboratory, and broke out of jail, calling himself the Invincible Man. But Reed Richards was skeptical and soon uncovered the Skrull plot. He threatened the Skrulls with a fight to the death with their champion and soon aimed an atomic weapon at their homeworld, forcing them to return Franklin Storm.
The Skrulls did return Storm, taking their champion back home in the exchange. But when Storm arrived on Earth he back away from the Fantastic Four and threw himself on the floor. The Skrulls had affixed an explosive to his chest, and rather than harm his own children, Storm covered the bomb with his own body, taking the full force of the blast upon himself. The damage soon killed him, but before he died he apologized to his children and expressed regret that he hadn’t been there for them. He explained that he had finally found his courage at his last moment, and would die with his pride in himself and his valiant children intact.
