Most of Shatterstar's life has been quite a mystery to us. So far, since New Mutants #100, we have known Shatterstar just as a warrior-born from one hundred years in the future. He was trained from birth to be a warrior and to fight for the entertainment of the masses in the world ruled by the insane Mojo V. Shatterstar was a member of the Cadre Alliance (a group of rebellous warriors on Mojo's world, seeking an end to the enslavery of men for battle entertainment). While facing defeat at the hands of Mojo V and his accomplice Spiral, the Cadre Alliance sent Shatterstar back through time and space to the current timeline in search of the legendary X-Men to aid him in the overthrow of Mojo V.

In his trip back through time, instead of finding the X-Men, he ended up finding X-Force, a group of mutants led by Cable, a man who was also from the future. Cable promised him that they would help him overthrow Mojo in exchange for his services with X-Force.

Shatterstar quickly proved his worth. He proved to be a very devastating and talented warrior, exceptionally skilled in the art of combat with his two double-edged swords. His mutant powers to resonate vibratory shockwave through the metallurgic properties of his sword makes him an extremely dangerous mutant as well. He tirelessly trains to keep himself in top physical condition, for it is the markesmanship of a true warrior in his eyes. But what he gains in being a warrior, both in mind and body, he loses in personal human emotions.

Shatterstar has often been associated with Longshot. Why? Well, for one, he has hollow bones and no white corpuscles. This is similar to Longshot's anatomy. His DNA also closely resembles Longshot. Then, a hint was also dropped before us in X-Men #11 when Longshot and Dazzler was thinking of naming their baby Shatterstar. Is it just pure coincidence, or is Shatterstar really related to Longshot?

Well, this is the Shatterstar we have known for the first 53 issues of X-Force. Then in X-Force #54, we are introduced to a new mystery as the NYPD recognizes Shatterstar as another man by the name of Benjamin. Later in X-Force #56, Shatterstar, while on a mission with Siryn to the Weisman Institute for the Criminally Insane, he experiences what he refers to as Deja vu, like he has been there before. He now feels that his waning warrior's edge (which began in X-Force #43 when Rictor took him to a night club party) could perhaps be related to this new mystery.

The big news to Shatterstar was when (X-Force #56) he was told by Gamemaster that he was, in truth, a human boy named Benjamin Russell and his entire life as Shatterstar was "nothing more than an empty fiction...Gamemaster's sick fantasy."

As the story continues in X-Force #59, Shatterstar, with the help of X-Force, begins to piece together his mystery. But before they could do anything, Shatterstar is abducted by two creatures from Mojo's world: Gog and Magog. Though it does not mention it in X-Force #59, they are now technically servants of Longshot (after Longshot overthrew Mojo I in X-Men #11). But their presence in X-Force #59, combined with the brief appearance of Longshot at the very end, hints that somehow Shatterstar is still connected to Mojo's world.

The story takes a turn in X-Force #60 as both Shatterstar and X-Force leader Cable was being held captive back on Mojo's world after God and Magog had brought them back there. Mojo shows them a scenes on television that he claims is what is going to happen one hundred years from that day, where Shatterstar was leading a rebellion and kills Mojo with a thrust of his sword. Shatterstar though still thinks of himself as Benjamin Russell from Boston, but Mojo hints that Shatterstar in fact did not and can not comprehend what had been done to him.

Finally, X-Force #61 rolls around, and Shatterstar and Cable had been digitalized by Mojo. Reenacting the events that was supposed to happen 100 years into the future, the results turned out differently as Shatterstar is slain by Mojo. As the other members of X-Force watched helplessly, Shatterstar was dying from his wound. Suddenly, Spiral appears, and she ends up helping X-Force rescue Shatterstar, her reason being that she did not want Mojo to continue siphoning the energy from earth (produced by the audience watching the show) that was making him unstoppable. Spiral, Longshot, and Siryn are digitalized by Spiral, and they rescue Shatterstar and Cable.

Spiral reveals all now once she brings them to the Weisman Institute for the Criminally Insane. She claims this "is where the life and death and life of Shatterstar begins anew." Telling Siryn to take them to the bedside of Benjamin Russell, Spiral says that Benjamin was a nobody: that is, when his mutant powers manifested, he fell into a coma, and was living only through artifical means. Other than that, he had no family, no life, but did have a role he was destined to play, of which Longshot knew what to do. Longshot reveals that there had been a way that his people could make people live on by transferring the body's "life essense" from one body to another. Longshot transfers what was the life essense of Shatterstar into Benjamin Russell, and after a moment, this miracle flourishes as Benjamin Russell/Shatterstar awakens.

At that moment, Mojo appears to kill them, but Spiral transports them immediately back to Mojoworld, and promptly tells Caliban to break the transmission before Mojo could come back. As a result, Mojo became lost somewhere in the transmission signal, and Shatterstar, once alive, then killed by Mojo, is now reborn in the body of Benjamin Russell, now forever linked with the past of a young man who has given him a chance to seek his path that he must choose.