Serving under the unsuccessful Nazi regime, Otto Kronsteig turned from a brilliant scientist to a fugitive from the War Crimes Commission. He fled to Latveria where he took a new master, Doctor Doom. Together, Kronsteig and Doom built a device Doom intended to use on his hated enemies, the Fantastic Four. The invention was meant to shrink them out of existence, but first it had to be tested. Doom, paranoid others would try to usurp his position, made Kronsteig his first test subject.
Kronsteig shrunk through universes until he landed on a world controlled by the Shaper of Worlds. There Kronsteig had the chance to live out his dream of a Nazi victory with himself as the Fuhrer. All was proceeding according to plan until the Hulk landed in the middle of his fantasy. Determined to make the Shaper send him back to his one true love, Jarella, Hulk joined the war against Kronsteig's forces. The Shaper refused to have his reality fail because of the man-brute, and from the recesses of Kronsteig's mind, he found a solution to deal with the Hulk.
An unrealized experiment to create a Nazi super soldier, equal to the heroes of the allies, the Shaper of Worlds transformed Kronsteig into Captain Axis, a mountain of a man, to pit against the Hulk. Axis did his best to oppose the Jade Giant, but Kronsteig never figured on opposing a foe as powerful as the Hulk. Once he believed his dreams would come to an end, they did, and he reverted back into a frail old man as the rest of his fantasy quickly unraveled before his eyes. The Shaper transported Hulk off-world before he departed to pursue other ventures, leaving Kronsteig behind.
