Chad Channing was a mutant in the year 2099, when an accidental meeting with Reed Richards freed him from the government’s suppression of his mutant powers, giving him a whole new life as the sole mutant hero of the time. As mutants were identified and given suppression meds to keep their powers from manifesting at puberty, Chad lived a normal life until he met Richards. But the man who was Mister Fantastic gave him placebo suppressors to fool the government and trained him in what it meant to be a costumed superhero.

Together with Reed, who used a robot Thing body which he transferred his brain into to fight, Chad fought the creatures that the government’s Sentinels weren’t prepared to battle; creatures such as the 20th Century Mole Man’s mole people, whose inbreeding had created bizarre Mole Man-like hybrids. But things weren’t all excitement and glory for Chad, whose school grades were failing, his girlfriend was exhausted with his excuses for being late, and his parents were constantly worried about where he was at night. And after one of his fellow students, O’Hara, was shocked to see the tattoo on his arm that marked him as a mutant, Chad brought up his complaints to Richards. He questioned if the world might not have been better with Sentinels patrolling the streets instead of unlicensed superheroes.

Then, flying on the way to his girlfriend, Keshia’s, house, Chad came across a rampaging robot that a pair of Sentinels were putting down. With a complete disregard for human life, the Sentinels fired away at the robot, letting it fall among the people, and tear up chunks of buildings that rained down all around. Chad leapt into the path of the fight, using his telekinetic powers to move people and debris out of the way, saving the surrounding crowd. Once the danger was over, Richards appeared in his Thing suit, and Chad admitted that he was wrong. He realized after the fight that robot sentries could never replace caring, human protectors.

Shortly afterwards, both his parents and his girlfriend explained to Chad that they weren’t angry about his lateness, and his father showed him that he trusted Chad to bring his grades up before the next report card. Chad ran back to Reed and told him about what they said, satisfied that he could continue his life of crime-fighting, while still keeping his normal life together.