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| As a young boy Karl Lykos went with his father on an expedition to Tierra del Fuego near the Antarctic Circle. Along with them on the journey were a physician, Dr. Andersson, and his daughter Tanya, who was about the same age as Karl. |
| At one point during the trip Tanya became lost, and Karl found her in a cave being attacked by gigantic pteranodons, a form of flying reptile from the age of dinosaurs. (In actuality, these pteranodons were from the Savage Land, the tropical region in Antarctica where prehistoric creatures still live. Apparently, the pteranodons had travelled to Tierra del Fuego through natural subterranean tunnels.) Karl drove the pteranodons off with his walking stick, but not before he was severely bitten. Traumatized by their experience, neither Karl nor Tanya remembered the pteranodons, and Dr. Andersson used his medical skills to save Karl's life. Grateful to Karl for saving Tanya's life, Dr. Andersson allowed Karl to live with him and Tanya after Karl's father died. |
| In a way that has never been explained, the pteranodon bites somehow changed Karl, apparently altering his genetic structure. Karl discovered that he needed to drain life energy from other living beings to survive. His first unintentional victim was his dog Jager, whom he drained of energy simply by touching him. Karl kept his condition a secret, even after he found himself forced to drain energy from other human beings. However, he killed none of them, merely leaving them temporarily weakened. |
| After treating the wounded X-Man Havok, Lykos began using his equipment to drain life energy from him. However, this was the first time that Lykos had ever siphoned energy from a superhuman mutant, with a result that he had never experienced before. The energy triggered his metamorphosis into a creature that resembled a half-humanoid pteranodon, who retained his human intelligence and ability to speak. However, the transformation distorted Lykos' personality, turning him evil. Hence, Lykos took the name Sauron, after the arch villain of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. |
