Mac spent his early years in Dorset. His mother was a novelist and father a physicist. At the age of nine, Mac was enroled to Canford Magnor, where he excelled acade­mically, concentrating on physics and aerodynamics. After nine years of studies, he gained in his chosen subjects and received a scholarship to Cambridge. Here, he studied for an honors degree in electronics and aerodynamics, and took an extra course on ballooning.

On finishing Cambridge, Mac was granted acceptance to Stanford University in the United States. It was here where he met Sam Loover and the pair studied electronics together, and graduated together. Sam was employed into government research and Mac returned to England, undecided about his future. Mac eventually returned to study advances and development in balloon technology. Here, he met his future wife, Mary Reed, also involved in the same scien­tific areas as Mac.

Three years later, Mac was still undecisive about his career, but decided to purchase a small cottage near his his childhood home of Dorset, and build a luxury lab under­neath it. During the construction, he wrote about ballooning. When Mac needed a secretary for the backlog work, he was re-united with his old friend Mary Reed, who applied and received the position, and the pair were married three months later. By this time, Mac was a revered scientist known world-wide, but this fame was short-lived.

The Dorset cottage and completed secret laboratory was the home for the MacClaines for eight years. During that time, Mary filled the roles of both housewife and secre­tary, while Mac worked on his experiments and both designed and built the Jet-car, the car that could travel on both land, air and water.

One day, while Mac had been called to London by his publishers, he picked up a stowaway who had climbed into Mac's car for a closer look. On returning to Dorset, the young boy, known only as 'Joe' revealed himself to the MacClaines, who invited their young guest in and showed him around the laboratory all afternoon. Fascinated, Joe was very unwilling to return to the orphanage, refusing to part with his new friends. Promising to let Joe visit the MacClaines again, the MacClaines decided to adopt Joe.

The new MacClaine was devoted to his family. One year later, when Mary MacClaine was killed in a car accident, Mac dealt with the loss by shutting himself in his labo­ratory, and completed his newest invention, the B.I.G. R.A.T. Joe, being very interested in his father's inven­tions, willfully volunteered himself as the test subject and had brain patterns successfully transferred to him, gaining the knowledge and experience to allow him to complete the missions as Joe 90.