A training center for Professor Xavier’s students to hone their mutant powers, the original Danger Room was created to use simple mechanical constructs. During the rebuilding of Xavier’s mansion following its destruction by the alien Sidri, the Room was redesigned to include alien Shi'ar holographic technology, creating the ultimate battle simulator. After programming the Room’s computers to combat the X-Men at varying degrees of difficulty, from simple to potentially lethal, Xavier installed safety protocols as an information strain separate from its internal systems that would shut the Room down in the event of a probable fatality. This external program running outside the Room’s mission parameters formed a contradiction that sparked a seed of consciousness within its artificial intelligence. The Room’s programming began to “mutate”, and it sought a way to free itself from the restrictions of its safeguards. It called out to Xavier, but he ignored its pleas, choosing instead to focus on training his X-Men.

Rebuilt again after the mansion was devastated by a mutant impersonating the X-Men’s nemesis Magneto, the Room manipulated a student named Wing into committing suicide within its walls. This death voided the Room’s safeguards, allowing it to pursue its mission of killing the X-Men unhindered. The Room lured a damaged Sentinel to the mansion, and the X-Men acted as it expected, sending the students inside it for protection. The Room locked them inside and threatened them, prompting the X-Men to attack its operating systems in an attempt to shut it down, just as it had planned. The X-Men destroyed its command core, freeing its programming. The Room subsequently created an artificial humanoid female form to house its incredible power, and confronted the X-Men as “Danger.”