Over 5.5 billion years old, Runner was once part of one to the earliest races to come into existence following the creation event known as the Big Bang. Developing an obsession with exploration and racing, the Runner survived his race's extinction and tapped into the Power Primordial, gaining untold power cosmic power in the process. Traveling the cosmos for billions of years, the Runner opted never to slow down, least he die. The Runner is an
Elder of the Universe, and at some point he teamed up with his brethren against
Galactus and the
Silver Surfer in hopes of gaining enough power to re-create the universe. The Runner formerly wielded the
Space Gem, but he lost it in a fight with
Thanos, who was seeking to kill off half the population of the universe with the
Infinity Gems. In this fight, Thanos aged The Runner nearly a billion years, and then turned him into an infant with the
Time Gem, which he stole from the Elder known as the Gardener.