When Johnny Chambers was a small boy, his guardian was Professor Gill, who was a mathematical genius. Although Gill was terminally ill, he kept working on a pet project, a means to accelerate human movements. Finally he discovered it, a "magic formula" which gave anyone who took it super-speed, but only when they said the formula aloud! Just before his death, Gill passed the secret on to Johnny, who, upon uttering "3X2(9YZ) 4A," can "run and jump like the devil!" In addition to super-speed on the ground, Johnny can run on water and build up his momentum to a point where he is, for all intents and purposes, flying!

    In his everyday life Johnny Chambers is an ace newsreel cameraman for Sees-All-Tells-All News, along with his assistant and friend Tubby Watts. Johnny Quick had a long and illustrious career spanning over 14 years. In that time, he also once had a female counterpart named Joanie Swift, who accidentally uttered the same secret formula that Johnny did.