Vance Astrovik was born in Saugerties, New York. He was visited as a teenager by an alternate, time traveling version of his future self, Major Vance Astro of the Guardians of the Galaxy, an astronaut who had volunteered for an experimental space flight and consequently been lost in space in cryogenic suspension for a thousand years. The elder Vance Astro convinced his younger self to not become an astronaut, and in the process, sparked the premature emergence of the younger Vance's telekinetic powers. Due to the vagaries of time travel in the Marvel Universe, this did not create a paradox, but instead made the Guardians' future world into a parallel timeline, to which they later returned. Although Major Vance Astro had not had a chance to fully develop his psionic power in his time in NASA, the younger Astrovik now had the opportunity to hone his power. Astrovik soon became the costumed crime-fighter Marvel Boy.