Not much is known about Avery Banks’ early life. He has only revealed bits and pieces of it to a select few, but from what can be stitched together, he was born in the Pre-War city of Camden, New Jersey, to working class parents shortly before the Great War. When the bombs fell, he was shielded from complete annihilation, but was exposed to high amounts of radiation and mutated into a ghoul. Little is known about his life during the interim, but by the late 22nd century, he was living in the Detroit Wasteland, working as a scavenger. Tension between different scavengers and scavenger groups was common at the time, and the threat of violence is what eventually led Banks to leave area.