As a brilliant young medic training to be a physician in World War II, Frederick Willheim met his bride to be. He began to date a beautiful nurse named Anna and after just a year they were married.

As the war ended, Anna suffered two miscarriages due to complications from an unknown neurological disease. Frederick devoted his life to finding a cure and to saving her life. Together they moved to the United States when Frederick's research was awarded funding from the government.

No one knew that Frederick had become obsessed and was keeping Anna's brain alive in a jar while her body decomposed.

Meanwhile, his research for the government involved the cybernetic simian program that would eventually produce Cy-Gor. As Cy-Gor neared completion, Willheim's health deteriorated and he suffered a stroke. He eventually died of dehydration and Cy-Gor escaped.