Junkpile was a member of the X-Men and an ex-member of Xi’an Chi Xan’s Lawless in 2099, when his disagreements with Xi’an made him turn on his fellow teammates. Since Xi’an had come back from Saigon with visions of peace between human and mutantkind, Junkpile felt that he had strayed from his destiny. Junkpile believed that mutants were born with the power to do what they wanted, and to try to work for peace with weaker humans would degrade them. So that when the Synge Corporation thought Xi’an had murdered their founder, Noah Synge, Junkpile gave them enough information to raid Xi’an’s gathering and kill him. But the assassination failed, and Junkpile was forced to fight his ex-teammates and kidnap an injured Xi’an. As Junkpile had installed a psionic jammer that kept Cerebra out of his head, Serpentina wasn’t strong enough to hurt him, and Timothy Fitzgerald couldn’t use his powers properly, taking Xi’an’s body was easy. After returning to the Synge Corporations headquarters with Xi’an, Junkpile later stopped Krystalin from killing the corporation’s new head, Lytton Synge, and then fought the X-Men that had come to save Xi’an and clear his name. Serpentina attacked him impulsively, and he killed her by shoving her face against the wall, which galvanized the rest of the X-Men to attack him. But none of them were strong enough to hurt him until Xi’an appeared revived and used the disintegrating power of his left hand to disable Junkpile. And though Junkpile threatened that if Xi’an didn’t kill him, he would come after him, Xi’an believed he would eventually see his mistake and return as a friend, and so let him live.
After the X-Men left, Desdemona Synge, Lytton’s sister, sold Junkpile to an Alchemax Bioshop. But while he was drugged and restrained on the way to the bioshop, La Lunatica, a psychic vampire who had escaped from the Theatre of Pain, hijacked Junkpile’s truck and freed him. Luna was on the run and needed Junkpile’s help against the Theatre. She later convinced Timothy Fitzgerald, soon called Skullfire, to keep her from the Theatre’s trackers, as well. But she lied to Skullfire, and surprised both him and Junkpile by bringing them together and asking for their combined help. The two fought at first, but Luna convinced them to put aside their differences to help her. Soon, the three met up with Xi’an, who forgave Junkpile his betrayal, as Xi’an’s old criminal personality had resurfaced. Following Xi’an, they left to track down the mutant savior, Driver. They found him in a hidden garage in the middle of Sulphur Springs Valley, Arizona. After breaking into his garage, the Driver captured them and attempted to upload Junkpile’s personality into his database, where he kept outcast mutants in order to revive them in the future when humankind would accept them. But the leader of the Theatre of Pain, Brimstone Love, appeared and stopped the transfer. Freed, Junkpile attacked the Driver to exact his revenge, but the Driver used the neurotechnology in his head to activate his car, Nitroburn, and drove it, intangible, through Junkpile, disrupting his mechanical circuits. His body immediately began to pull scrap metal towards it in order to heal him, but the Nitroburn had created a sort of seizure in his systems, and Junkpile was unable to control the healing process. Soon, Junkpile’s mutant power pulled the Driver’s database apart, killing the uploaded mutants. Once Xi’an had agreed to Brimstone’s offer to join the Theatre, he healed Junkpile’s body in order to extend his suffering, and Xi’an, Brimstone, and the X-Men left him in the wreckage of the Driver’s garage.
Later, President Doom extracted Junkpile from the slag that was left, and ordered Morphine Somers to rebuild him. Somers and Doom then offered Junkpile a place in the new S.H.I.E.L.D., and the authority to operate independent of any security force, answerable only to Somers or Doom. Junkpile accepted, and was sent to the Theatre of Pain to shut it down. He arrived at the Theatre with a pair of canine robots called his Junkyard Dogs. But after destroying much of the Theatre’s security, and distracting them enough for the X-Men’s Cerebra to slip away from their notice, Brimstone Love appeared and defeated him. The Theatre discarded Junkpile into a waste dump and left him there for the solvent drain to release industrial solvent, liquefying him. The Theatre later dropped Skullfire in, and the two were forced to set aside their differences again to find a way out of the waste disposal center. Skullfire soon found the remains of Junkpile’s Junkyard dog, and drained the last of its battery to convert into a blast of energy that he used to blow a hole in the side of the disposal center. The two escaped in time to find Luna wearing another obedience collar, and she attacked Junkpile before Skullfire burned her collar off with his powers. But Junkpile was unconscious when the rest of the X-Men and their former leader, Xi’an, brought down the Theatre, and Doom appeared to offer them, and the victims of the Theatre, sanctuary in Halo City.
