[3] Little to nothing was known of his origins or true identity until, over fifty years later, the Mad Thinker's first name was revealed to be Julius in the pages of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev's Infamous Iron Man #2.
The Fantastic Four were lured away from New York just before a meteorite struck the city and briefly knocked out electrical power, including the Baxter Building's defense systems.
He trapped the Fantastic Four in the lower quarters of the building but was eventually caught after being stopped by an unforeseen factor: the building's mailman, Willie Lumpkin, who on Reed Richards' orders rang a bell at 4 pm, activating a circuit breaker built into all of his devices.
[13] He allied with the Puppet Master again and with Egghead in their attempted blackmail of the United States government using a laser-firing satellite and a giant android called "Gargan-Droid".
[16] The Mad Thinker then took part in the Black Lama's contest of super-villains, but was defeated by Iron Man.
He instead escaped prison, and sent Gargantua against Wonder Man and the Wasp in an attempt to forestall the proposed Super-Powers Registration Act.
[25] In the final issue of the series, the answer to the riddle was revealed: the Mad Thinker's nephew had accidentally gained uncontrollable superpowers from his lab, killing his mother in the process.
[volume & issue needed] When Spider-Man's dimwitted enemy Rhino had an operation that made him a genius, he broke the Mad Thinker out of jail so he could join his crime syndicate.
[volume & issue needed] He has built a device to amplify the Puppet Master's power so that they can escalate a battle between the two rival factions in the Super Hero Civil War.
[volume & issue needed] In exchange for not being connected to the crimes on Yancy Street, Reed has the Mad Thinker double-check his calculations concerning the potential effects of not supporting the registration of all superheroes.
[33] MODOK Superior was able to revive Mad Thinker and the other Intelligencia members where they began to formulate their plans after their predicted shatter of the superhero community.
[34] During the Time Runs Out storyline, Mad Thinker was at some point contracted by Doctor Doom to be part of his attempts at uncovering the truth behind the Incursions.
[35] As part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel," Mad Thinker appears as a member of The Hood's incarnation of the Illuminati.
[36] Sometime later, the Mad Thinker appears in La Paz, Bolivia where he is surprised by Doctor Doom in his version of the Iron Man armor, who offers him the chance to turn his life around in exchange for a device he used in a robot.
Mad Thinker now has elasticity, Lumen can become invisible with the side-effect of distorting the perception of the environment around him if he loses control of his invisibility, Goodfire has a blue fiery plasma form which she can't turn off and can also fly in this form, and Smash possesses super-strength and enhanced durability while sporting gold-colored skin.
He has an eidetic memory and can rapidly organize and correlate vast amounts of information and perceive non-obvious patterns.
In addition to his own achievements he has stolen much of the secret technology of Reed Richards, back in the incident when he took over the Baxter building.
She is a rejected applicant of the Baxter Building's think tank who sought revenge and removed portions of her brother Bobby's brain to increase her own intelligence.
[44][45] In a parody issue of What If?, Spider-Man defeats the Mad Thinker by debating philosophy, boring the observing Uatu.
[48] Working out of Solocorps Labs, he approaches Bruce Banner in disguise and exploits his desire to be rid of the Hulk, using a machine to drain and weaponize his gamma energy.