BIOGRAPHY - Page 3
As Mystique and Destiny had predicted, the time came when the government passed a Mutant Registration Act, making it illegal to use mutant powers openly. Having already placed themselves on the side of law & order, Blob and the Brotherhood found themselves positioned to arrest the outlaw X-Men for violating the Act. In Dallas, Texas, Blob literally got the drop on the X-Men as Avalanche launched him skyward, sending Blob plummeting down on top of Wolverine and trapping the Canadian. No physical force could move the Blob, although the telepath Psylocke tried to use persuasion on Fred instead. Eventually, Wolverine got the leverage to pop his claws, sending Blob into the air and vulnerable to a blow from Colossus.
The X-Men and Freedom Force were forced to work together when an entity called the Adversary unleashed a chaos wave on Dallas, creating time shifts that summoned entities from other times to the city. Blob showed some character growth as he worked honorably with the X-Men when necessary. After Spiral tried to teleport to the top of Eagle Plaza and was explosively rejected, Rogue made the effort to catch her safely. The force affecting Spiral still would’ve driven them both into the ground if Blob hadn’t used his squishy stature to cushion their fall. Blob also showed 
how deeply Mystique had earned his loyalty in their time together. He recognized Crimson Commando was gunning for her job and warned his boss to look out for the new soldier. He also physically pulled her to safety when her foster daughter Rogue and the X-Men were caught in the Adversary’s devastating spells, trapping them inside Eagle Plaza. Freedom Force were forced to watch via video as the X-Men apparently sacrificed their souls to empower the final magical spell which banished the Adversary. [Fall of the Mutants crossover]
It took some time for Freedom Force to leave Dallas, and they were forced to field numerous assaults by those who mourned the X-Men. Magik of the New Mutants attacked them in order to get at Forge, whom she blamed for her brother Colossus’s death. [New Mutants (1st series) #65] Cyclops of X-Factor learned too late that his estranged wife Madelyne had also been with the X-Men when they died, and he came to Dallas looking for answers on the whereabouts of their lost son. Blob and Freedom Force thought they could push Cyclops and Marvel Girl around due to the Mutant Registration Act, but Cyclops was not fooling around. He proved to have enough power and control over his optic beam to focus it with laser-like intensity, piercing Blob’s impermeable flab. Destiny gave Scott Summers a lead just to get rid of the myopic Cyclops. [X-Factor (1st series) #30-31]
In private, Blob showed no loss or remorse over the X-Men’s deaths, despite fighting by their sides at the end. [Captain America (1st series) #339]
The Mutant Registration Act kept Freedom Force very busy in the weeks that followed. They took the Alliance of Evil into custody in Manhattan, while imposing on X-Factor to finally register under the law before the deadline. Their old target, Rusty Collins, refused the Act in civil disobedience, but submitted to custody for going AWOL from the Navy. [X-Factor (1st series) #33] An anti-registration movement known as the Resistants caught the Commission’s attention. Freedom Force crafted a sting operation to catch them alongside the new Captain America and Battlestar. The plan to follow them back to their base flopped due to John Walker’s manic violence. [Captain America (1st series) #346]
Meanwhile, Blob and Pyro were sent on a solo mission in upstate New York to locate a newly 
identified young mutant. The evil mutants threw their weight around as federal officers and intimidated the locals with threats and displays of their power. At it happened, Daredevil was passing through and tried to protect the mutant girl Amanda. Blob was overconfident against Daredevil, who first blinded Dukes with a strike to the eyes, then lured him into position for Amanda to drop the town bell on his head. [Daredevil (1st series) #269] Freedom Force also had missions unrelated to the Act, such as the genuinely ironic operation to rescue Senator Kelly from drug runners in Mexico. The Brotherhood had truly come full circle. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #41]
Throughout his time with Freedom Force, Blob also became noticeably larger. Early in his career, Fred Dukes was an admittedly obese man, but essentially still held realistic human proportions, standing under six feet tall. The mass-shifting tricks Mystique encouraged him to try when they first met seemed to open a door towards the evolution of his mutant powers to another level. Blob increased dramatically in stature, growing to eight feet tall and gaining hundreds of pounds of pure mass. His mass-shifting talents gave Blob greater control over his density, as well as genuinely superhuman strength above and beyond anything he demonstrated in the past.
After the Inferno crisis, X-Factor rescued a number of mutant infants from Nanny and the Orphan-Maker. Freedom Force took custody of these babies, with the promise of reconnecting them with their extended families or otherwise finding good homes. [X-Factor (1st series) #40] Rusty 
Collins had been released into X-Factor’s custody pending his military trial, but Freedom Force was dispatched when word reached them of mutant pyrotechnics threatening Manhattan. It was actually magical fires from Asgard, but Destiny told her team apprehending Collins was best for their future interests. During a showdown with the New Mutants (Collins’ new team), Blob shot his mouth off too much. He intimated that Rusty’s military trial would be rigged to force him into government service like Freedom Force, and also let it slip that the government had its own plans for the mutant babies. Now Freedom Force HAD to take Rusty and his girlfriend Skids into custody, for reasons of national security. [New Mutants (1st series) #78, 80, 82]
Freedom Force was soon sent on an ill-fated mission to defend the Muir Island research center from an attack by Reavers. Blob was having fun at first, but Reese and Cole used a gun to turn the earth beneath him to quicksand, upsetting Blob’s footing and leaving him trapped. In the fiasco which followed, both Stonewall and Destiny were killed. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #254-255] While Mystique took bereavement time to mourn Destiny’s loss, Blob, Pyro and Avalanche chose to act as free agents. Super-heroes around the country were being attacked by unfamiliar foes during the Acts of Vengeance, and Congress was considering a full Super-Powers Registration Act. The trio tried to bluff that they were acting under federal authority to arrest the Avengers at their base, starting a fight with the team. Blob’s mass-shifting abilities worked both for and against 
him this time. He countered Vision’s own ability to alter his density, trapping the synthezoid’s hand in his chest, despite the Vision becoming intangible. However, Doctor Pym used his Pym Particles to shrink the Blob, inadvertently causing the super-massive Dukes to break uncontrollably down through the pavement with the size and speed of a bullet. [Avengers (1st series) #312]
Blob was eventually retrieved, but Mystique was furious at her men for acting without orders and jeopardizing their pardons. Blob and Mystique had grown closer during their time together, but the old belligerent Blob started to resurface. A recent string of embarrassing defeats against Pym, Daredevil and others made him question whether Freedom Force was even a good gig anymore. He balked at the idea of being sent after the Hulk at this point, but Mystique got his attention by mentioning the Hulk was now smaller and weaker in his gray form. Sure enough, the now larger 
and stronger Blob easily took a hit from the Grey Hulk. However, this Hulk was also more cunning than the brutish Green Hulk, and he began ripping at Blob’s flesh, pulling the elastic tissue to its potential breaking point. Blob leapt up and rubber banded towards the Hulk, but getting his feet off of the ground was a poor choice, and the Hulk soon bounced him to defeat. [Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #369]
The Blob became increasingly difficult to manage. During a riot at the Vault, Freedom Force was sent in to contain the escaping super-villains. More than once, Blob complained to Mystique about how he sympathized more with the criminals than their Avenger allies. [Avengers: Deathtrap – The Vault] When Freedom Force was ordered to detain or recruit Firestar, the Arms of Salvation intervened and arranged to kidnap Mystique. Unsupervised, Blob and some of Freedom Force’s more vicious members planned to accidentally kill Firestar while rescuing Mystique. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #82-86] The Mutant Liberation Front abducted Skids and Rusty 
from government custody, and Freedom Force only got the rogue operative Cable as a consolation prize, when he was injured trying to stop the MLF. Blob was ready to torture Cable for information and was barely deterred by Crimson Commando. Cable managed to escape before Dukes changed his mind. [New Mutants (1st series) #88-89]
Freedom Force continued to lose members as Spiral danced away and Mystique was reportedly assassinated. For their final mission, Crimson Commando led Blob, Pyro, Avalanche and Super Sabre for an extraction mission to the Middle East. A German physicist named Reinhold Kurtzmann was pursued in Kuwait by the invading Iraqi military, who wanted to add nuclear capability to their arsenal. Kurtzmann’s safe house was bombed out when Freedom Force arrived, and Super Sabre’s recon turned up nothing. On his way back, the speedster was decapitated by the cutting wind of Aminedi, an Iraqi mutant soldier. Desert Sword fell upon the surprised Freedom 
Force, injuring Avalanche and cutting off Commando’s hand. Only Blob was on his feet to face them when they emerged from their concealing smoke. Blob’s constitution allowed him to draw Desert Sword’s attention as the other members of his team rallied their strength. Avalanche created a fissure to shake up the battlefield, but it left him and Commando separated from Blob and Pyro.
Desert Sword dropped Kurtzmann near Blob and Pyro, so Commando yelled at them to make their own way to the extraction point. It was a fiasco. Avalanche and Commando were battered further by land mines at the airfield, leaving Commando on the brink of death. Half of Desert Sword fell upon the fleeing Blob and Pyro, so Dukes directed Johnny to burn Kurtzmann to death. Freedom Force’s orders were technically “Liberate or Terminate,” to keep Kurtzmann out of enemy hands, but Blob’s initiative would essentially spell the end of Freedom Force. Avalanche got the badly wounded Commando to their escape copter, but the Iraqi military’s search made the skies of 
Kuwait City a hot zone. Their escort reached Pyro by radio, learning Kurtzmann was dead, the mission was a failure and Pyro had no idea where in the city he and Blob were. To save Commando and avoid capture himself, Avalanche made the call to abandon his teammates, leaving Blob and Pyro to the mercies of Desert Sword and the Republican Guard. [The Killing Stroke crossover]