Victor Stone was the son of Silas and Elinore Stone. His parents were scientists, who used their son as a test subject for intelligence-boosting experimentation. While the successful experiment granted Victor a genius-level intellect, he resented his parents for treating him more like a lab subject than a son. He was critically injured by one of his parent’s experiments.

Desperate to save his son's life, Silas used untested cybernetic enhancements to rebuild and reconstruct Victor's body. He succeeded, but didn't anticipate Victor's horror and anger at what he had done. He isolated himself from his former life as much as possible by moving to Hell's Kitchen. It was in this bad neighborhood that Raven found Vic and invited him to join the Teen Titans, as the superhero named Cyborg.