A genius, the Mad Thinker became obsessed with probabilities, developing massive computers to determine the outcome of future events. With these machines he began working with various criminal gangs in New York City. He was able to predict precise moments in time where the police could be thwarted while chasing his clients. He was able to predict things like when a hot dog vendor would impede a foot chase, to where pipe mains would burst making a police chase impossible. So skilled was the Mad Thinker, he could even predict something as weirdly specific as a organ-grinder's monkey setting fire to a deserted shack where incriminating evidence was held. Establishing himself in the criminal underworld and earning the trust of many of New York's gangs, the Mad Thinker then set for higher aspirations, namely the conquest of New York and then the world.