Space Commander Wallace Cotton is the only surviving member of Shark Cell 1, a special ops team working with the legendary Drop Corps in Unexplained Region 17R. The team's mission was to locate and disassemble a marauding band of Big Jims who had claimed UR17R as their own, in violation of the Grab Everything Act ratified in the early 1970s.

Cotton and two other covert Smallonauts were the only survivors after a midnight raid on the Shark Cell 1 camp, a brutal plan executed by the Jims but orchestrated by a then unknown cyan clone named Gax (see: Dread Space Pirate Gax, The).

Gax kept the three Shark Cell captives as pets for many years, forcing them to clean unspeakable things and prepare the many disgusting snacks he demanded. As Pirate Gax grew his modest gang of thugs into a criminal empire he was all the while being waited on by captive ASA agents.

Cotton and his fellow prisoners, Trimble and Viola, took advantage of a rare opportunity and escaped Gax's pirate gang, but in doing so they marooned themselves on aberrant asteroid HVA Smug Bunny (see: Never Let Computers Name Things). While stranded on asteroid HVA-SB, Agent 3rd Class Andrew Viola was destroyed by a native fire breathing herb.

Cotton and Agent 1st Class Chuck "Buzz" Trimble were rescued some years later by the ASA Prosperity 8 during one of that ship's many navigational misadventures.

Upon his unexpected return to civilized toy society, Cotton completed his Advanced Academy training and took command of the ASA Marble. That ship was destroyed in a wild, one man attempt to save Buzz Trimble, who had been recaptured by Gax. After using the Marble as a battering ram and failing to rescue Trimble (who remains missing and assumed disassembled), Commander Cotton was reassigned to Trinket 19.