While on a routine job as an exterminator, a man was bitten by a cockroach and pursued it in anger into the sewers of New York City determined to kill the insect, there he was exposed to mutagen, and the DNA of the roach fused with his own, and thus Scumbug the roach man was born. The half man half insect soon came at odds with the TMNT and a mutant flat worm which simply called itself Wyrm, in the battle Scumbug and Wyrm were caught in an explosion and presumed dead by the Turtles, but later the mutant bugs resurfaced, with Wyrm feeding off of Scumbug, slowly killing the mutant Roach, but the arrival of new prey proved to be too much of a temptation for Wyrm and he ceased feeding on Scumbug in favor of fresh meat. Soon after Scumbug found himself in a threeway fight between himself, Wyrm and the TMNT who stumbled into the battle, but the fight ended abruptly when the alien arachnid known only as Toxzeem came into the fight and used his gun which offered only a "crystal death" to it's targets, shot Scumbug and Wyrm, instantly killing the mutants. The tabloid reporters who had watched the fight thought they were set for life with the remains of the two dead mutants, but after touching the crystallized Scumbug and Wyrm, the mutants shattered into pieces, leaving no evidence to the existence of Wyrm or Scumbug.