Last Updated on Sunday, February 08, 2004

Vale was an astronomer and physicist who detected the approach of Superman's rocket ship to Earth. He was able to witness its landing and after further research was able to steal the remains from its crash site on the Kent farm in Smallville. He was able to learn a fair amount from the ships computer banks, in fact his tampering activated the psionic reordered that revealed to Superman that he was an alien from the planet Krypton. Vale believed that Superman was the scout for a larger invasion force and to this end he used the badly injured petty criminal John Corben to create Metallo using a fragment of Kryptonite. Frustrated by Vale's schemes Metallo killed his creator and attacked Superman on his own. Superman later placed Vale's entire lab in orbit to keep the potentially incriminating evidence safe. It could be assumed that he later transferred the lab's contents to the Fortress of Solitude.