Julius Amadeus Reinheldt was born in New Jersey, within spitting distance of the Big Apple, on April 12, 1966. His childhood was pretty uneventful aside from a few important events. He never really knew his mother aside from fleeting memories of the first couple of years of his life. Of course, like most people, these memories are extremely hazy if present at all. The truth is that his mother suffered severely from schizophrenia and simply disappeared a few months before his third birthday. This left Julius to be raised by his father. His father was a factory worker in New York and worked long hours. This led to Julius not seeing his father too often, especially once Julius was old enough to be left home alone. During the day when his father worked, Julius was often left with the next door neighbor to keep him from getting hurt or somesuch.
Julius was a marginal student at best, his only area of excellence being art. While he barely scraped by in his other studies, Julius always passed his art classes with flying colors. His ability to work with clay and sculpt was particularly high. Following his love for art, Julius threw himself into those studies. So much so that he ended up failing just about every other class. His father was, to say the least, angered by the horrible drop in Julius's grades. He had wanted his son to become something more than he had, wanted him to excel in school and go to college. With Julius's grades, simply graduating high school would be questionable.
This all became moot one day, however, when something inside Julius changed. It happened his senior year of high school after a particularly intense argument with his father over grades. He had gone to his room to cool off when the world of art seemed to open up to him. In a daze, he walked back into the kitchen where his father was retrieving a beer and saw what could become of his father. It was at that moment that his power had decided to manifest. With his newfound power also came the desire, the drive to create with it. Like Sylar is driven to learn new abilities, Julius is driven to create with his art. He approached his father and raised his hands, the power coming to him as he touched his father's face. While confused, his father didn't initially fight Julius's touch, securing his doom. The first thing Julius did was to remove his father's eyes, his hands dipping through the now soft and malleable flesh to scoop them out in one smooth move. His father, of course, immediately panicked. Julius simply stepped back while his father stumbled around the room, confused and terrified. As Julius watched, planning his next changes, his father's wild movements knocked a large pan off the top of the shelves which struck him in the head and rendered him unconscious. Julius crouched beside his father's prone body, turning him over to face up and proceeded to remold his flesh. Unfortunately for his father, this remolding included the removal of any airway structure from his anatomy and quickly resulted in his death. Satisfied, Julius stood and left the apartment, content to let his art be found by what were sure to be the adoring masses. He ventured across the bay to New York where he decided to begin his new life dedicated to art. His father's death became a rather large mystery. The details of the case were never made public because of the condition his father's body was in. As for Julius, police searched for him but eventually came to the conclusion that he must have been kidnapped or killed by whomever had killed his father. To date, Julius is still listed as a missing person.
After the events of his father's death, Julius kept a low profile for the most part. For a long time he was homeless, living under overpasses, in alleys, anywhere he could get shelter from the weather. Luckily, he had had enough presence of mind to retrieve his art supplies and what little money he possessed. With these art supplies he was able to earn a little money here and there until he found a job at a butcher shop. It wasn't anything big, but it gave him a little money and the owner let him sleep in the small storage place above the shop. Between the butcher shop and his artistry, Julius was able to eke out a living and even put a little bit of money away. Over time, his artistry began to earn him more money until he was eventually able to quit the butcher shop and get his own small apartment from which to create. His true love, though, was art of a more secret and sinister variety. He focused mainly on vagrants and homeless for his endeavours once he realized that the police didn't have the same appreciation for his art that he did. Using his abilities, he remolded the bodies of these people, adding, removing, creating upon their bodies changes that in some cases had no right to ever exist on a human. These pieces of art were then released to the city once more so that people could discover and marvel at his work. Of course, most didn't live too long afterwards, their strange and sometimes horrible appearances resulting in responses of intense fear from the people that found them. Eventually his skill caught the attention of some people in the organized crime racket. They were a part of the Linderman group, though he never was completely sure who they were. They kept him in the dark a fair bit, telling him only what he needed to know to do the work they wanted. He was never sure how they located him, but they did. An agreement of sorts was made. The agreement was that in exchange for his services in giving new appearances (normal human) to people who needed them, Julius would be given a small living stipend and also be provided with a small studio to live and work in with a hidden basement lab where his less than legal activities could be undertaken. Naturally, Julius took this agreement. His work continued for a number of years, his creations occasionally whispered about in rumor. Of course, as with most things that don't mesh with expectation, most people believed it was just stories to scare people. The kinds of things that Julius did were simply not possible, they thought.
The Bomb affected Julius's life, as it did everyone who lived in New York. As luck would have it, he had been out of downtown that night, visiting some of the outlying parts of the city to look for new 'projects'. His home was destroyed in the blast, though his only regret was the destruction of some of his art that was there. For a while, until New York was declared safe again, Julius lived in New Jersey again, not too far from where he had grown up. He stayed there, keeping a low profile, until it was safe to return to New York. Upon returning to New York, he decided to set up shop in one of the areas that was in less repair. There he once again set up shop and began working on his creations. When the reality of Evolved was made public, Julius found himself receiving more people seeking his services. When the price was right, Julius helped these people find new identities. When the price was inadequate, they found themselves becoming new works of art if they allowed Julius to bring them to his laboratory.
