Accompanying his friend Brian Falsworth to Nazi Germany just prior to the outbreak of World War II, Roger Aubrey became a captive of the Reich upon war breaking out. He was subjected to experiments conducted by Colonel Dietrich, and was shrunk to a height of 12 inches. Brainwashed, he returned to the U.K. as Dyna-Mite, to become a member of the Crusaders, a group of Allied superheroes who each unwittingly owed their powers to the Nazis; unknown to the team, their ally Alfie was a German agent, and the group had been formed with the intention of discrediting the Invaders and assassinating King George VI. After encountering that other team of heroes, Alfie's villainy was exposed by Roger, and the evil plan was thwarted. Colonel Dietrich was subsequently captured and forced to reverse the process which shrank Roger; Aubrey then took on the new identity of the Destroyer (recently abandoned by Brian Falsworth), and went behind enemy lines to continue the fight. At some point he was exposed to the variant of the super-soldier serum which had enhanced Brian's physical prowess, which would retard his aging and keep him fighting fit for decades after the end of the war.

Once the war ended, Roger joined Brian and several other heroes in secretly forming a covert group, the V-Battalion, dedicated to preventing anyone like Hitler from ever again threatening the peace of the world. When Brian died in a car crash in 1953, Roger offered to take on the identity as a tribute to his lover, but was denied by Brian's father Montgomery. Instead he soldiered on as the Destroyer, leading the V-Battalion into the 21st century. He recently was forced to re-evaluate his aggressive position after being temporarily killed, and handed over the Battalion's leadership to the more moral hands of Jim Hammond. When the Thin Man revived the Invaders, Roger became wary of his true goals, and began to investigate. He called on the group for assistance against the forces of Baroness Blood, during which fight he came to accept Joseph Chapman as a worthy Union Jack successor to Brian. Following this, Roger and his ally Hammond confronted the Thin Man, and effectively deposed him as leader of the Invaders. Soon after Hammond apparently died fighting the forces of Axis Mundi, and Roger resumed leadership of the V-Battalion.