Not much is known about Nicholas Travis’s past, but what is known is that he idolized Tony Stark in college, and he likes softball, and hang-gliding. At some point he was hired by Tony Stark to work at Stark Universal, and during his time there, Tony started to see that Nicholas had great potential as an inventor. Nicholas has an understanding about nanotechnology that Tony called thought was extraordinary. He even thought of him as the son he never had. So Tony made Nicholas Stark Universal's new head technologist. Eventually Tony came to him and revealed not only his secret as Iron Man, but also that Tony decided to make Nicholas the new Iron Man. At first he tried to turn it down, but after Tony lost his temper, and threatened his career, Nicholas reminded Tony that he idolized him in college and claimed that if this is what being a “hero” is like, then he wanted no part of it. Tony then came to his senses and decide to ask Nicholas to at least try a training program to see if he was ready, to which he agreed, as it was just training. After two days of simulations, they decided it was time for hands-on training, and went to a testing facility. Nicholas then donned a new suit of nanotech armor. Using a boot camp demeanor, Tony trained Nicholas into getting used to the armor’s flight capabilities. After some re-tweaking, they moved onto fire training. After Nicholas failed the test, Tony claims that it’s not working out, but then Nicholas retorts Tony won’t let it work out, that there’s a part of Tony that needs to be Iron Man, then he walks away claiming that if Tony gets a fresh perspective on reality, he can give him a call. Some time later, Nicholas approached Tony, and said that he didn’t want the Iron Man situation to ruin their friendship, but was afraid that he didn’t know if he was the guy Tony wanted him to be. After Tony said that they need to talk later, as this was an important day in Tony’s business career, the security alert went off, and they were approached by the Ultra-Dynamo. Nicholas them retreated to retrieve the nanotech armor. He then battled the Ultra-Dynamo, and won by disintegrating the Dynamo armor. Tony them realized that he misjudged Nicholas and himself. Tony decided to officially name Nicholas Travis his true successor as the new Iron Man.