Larry was born in North Dakota in 1927. He was an air force test pilot. He had a wife and two sons and what seemed like a perfect life as an American Hero and patriot, although he never liked to have the term "hero" placed on him. But he had a secret: he had to hide the fact that he was gay in a very homophobic time period. He had a lover, John Bowers, who was a mechanic who worked on Larry's planes. They were in love but the secrecy was difficult on their relationship. Larry was so close to being accepted on the Mercury Mission when during one of his flights he had an encounter with the Negative Spirit. In this incident, the Negative Spirit merged with him and caused the ship to crash. Larry was left with burn scars covering his entire body. In addition to this, Larry was possessed by the Negative Spirit. Larry also permanently gives off radiation that kills anyone any of his bare skin is exposed to. Over the next several years, Larry was tortured and experimented on by the Bureau of Normalcy. 

After a while, he ends up with a man named Niles Caulder, who is the one who gave Larry the radiation-proof bandages that allow him to have somewhat distanced contact with people. He lived in Niles' estate, called Doom Manor, with a group of metahumans helped by Niles Caulder, although it turns out Niles was also the one responsible for most of their "accidents" as well, but they don't find that out until much later. 

This group of misfits are far from a team of superheroes. They all have varying types of trauma that makes it difficult for any of them to get anything done. Most of the time when they save people, it is from a disaster they caused in the first place. Despite this, as more superhuman and/or nonhuman things happen around them, they are forced to attempt to put their "super" skills to use and work as a team to save themselves and the people around them, and most of the time they stumble through it rather successfully.