An enormously powerful entity, he is often portrayed as a supervillain, but sometimes takes the role of a reformed outlaw or reluctant hero.

He grew into a weak-willed adult, made bitter and lonely by his mother's death, and full of fear and hatred of what he regarded as a deeply unfriendly world.

One day, Reece accidentally activated an experimental particle generator, which bombarded him with an unknown form of radiation, later revealed to be energy from a dimension containing the Beyonder.

[8] The day after the accident, the president of Acme Atomics fired Reece for his carelessness, not even knowing his name after his twelve years of work there.

When Reece found himself unable to affect the statues, he dropped his wand in shock, allowing Mister Fantastic to grab it.

The Watcher transported the Molecule Man to confinement in an other-dimensional world where time passed at an accelerated rate.

[9][10] Believing himself unable to escape, Reece created a humanoid construct to serve as his companion and, through unknown means, endowed it with consciousness.

However, Reece found himself sent to Battleworld, the planet created by the Beyonder, as part of the small army of criminal superhuman beings that were to engage in the first Secret War.

Impressed by the charismatic dictator Doctor Doom, Reece agreed to help fight the superheroes also brought to Battleworld.

But the Molecule Man exhausted himself fighting the Beyonder, who unleashed an immensely powerful blast of energy to destroy Reece and his allies.

The blast ripped open Earth's crust in the area of the Rocky Mountains, and would have caused incredible planet-wide instability if not for Molecule Man's power.

[16] His foes appearing to have been defeated, the Beyonder proceeded with his new plan to find fulfillment by using a complex machine to transform himself into a mortal being with his full power.

Molecule Man and his allies found the machine, and Reece, believing they could not take the chance that the newly reborn Beyonder would not someday destroy the multiverse, decided to kill him while he was vulnerable.

[17] The injured Molecule Man and the Silver Surfer, uniting their power temporarily, repaired all the damage done to the Earth, restoring the mountains and the part of the crust that the Beyonder had destroyed.

[18] Reece was briefly merged with the Beyonder to take part in the creation of the complete Cosmic Cube being known as Kosmos.

[21] The now generally benevolent Reece accidentally releases his "darkest aspect", which takes separate form and attacks Kosmos in search of revenge upon the Beyonder, and it extracts and fights this part of the whole in a more than three-dimensional battle.

After it defeats the Beyonder, Kubik and the original Molecule Man stop it from delivering the death blow, as this would also kill the peaceful Kosmos.

Samson convinces Owen to display his affection more openly, whereupon the latter decides to repair areas destroyed by recent terrorist activity in Marsha's honor, including rebuilding Mount Rushmore with the addition of her own likeness, which his girlfriend apparently finds touching.

[24] A series of disappearances in the small town of Dinosaur, Colorado, causes Norman Osborn's "Dark Avengers" to visit the area.

[31][32] After Peter Parker and Miles Morales free Molecule Man, he defeats Doom and gives the power of the Beyonders to Mister Fantastic, who recreates the multiverse with his son Franklin Richards.

[34][35][36] Owen Reece originally had the ability to psionically manipulate molecules for a variety of effects, such as force field generation, energy blasts, and hyperspace travel.