BIOGRAPHY - Page 4
Blob and Pyro were forced to serve as bodyguards to the local commander for the next several months. Eventually, Toad arrived to barter for them. Having recently enhanced his powers and ambitions, Toad wanted Blob and Pyro for his new incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Blob helped Toad with his recruiting as they unlocked the alter ego of Dr. Karl Lykos. By force-feeding him the lifeforce of his own girlfriend Tanya, they engineered the resurrection of Sauron, the Pterodactyl Man. With the addition of Phantazia, their nefarious quintet petitioned Masque and the Morlocks for an alliance as well, beginning a network of evil mutants. Masque accepted, provided that the Brotherhood’s first target was Cable and his new X-Force team. Toad was more than willing to comply, but the attack turned into something of a fiasco. Masque was killed, Sauron was believed dead as well, and X-Force’s one assumed casualty, Cannonball, returned to life as an apparently immortal mutant. Blob only escaped thanks to the sensory-distortion powers of Phantazia. [X-Force (1st series) #5-9]
Further efforts by Blob and the Brotherhood to make a name for themselves also faltered. Sauron recovered and alerted his teammates to a ship of X-Patriots from Genosha seeking asylum in the United States. The Brotherhood tried recruiting them but was repelled by the new government-sponsored X-Factor. Blob had his first fight with Strong Guy as 
Guido quickly learned the traditional means of beating Fred Dukes by pulling the ground out from under him. [X-Factor (1st series) #82] Next, the Brotherhood attempted to add the dimensional teleporter named Portal to their roster. He refused to help them, though Sauron did place him under hypnotic control for a time. However, Spider-Man, Darkhawk and Sleepwalker teamed up to rescue Portal from the Brotherhood’s sway, leaving them with nothing. [Darkhawk (1st series) #19-20, Sleepwalker #17]
With time, the Brotherhood became a bit directionless, unable to carve out a place for themselves in the mutant hierarchy. When Magneto returned and established his Acolytes, he made overtures to Phantazia, but otherwise dismissed and ignored his former subordinates’ attempts at notoriety. [X-Men Unlimited (1st series) #2] When Pyro contracted the Legacy virus, the Brotherhood found sanctuary with Empyrean, a media scientist and mutant whose abilities could salve the effects of Legacy on others. Blob and Empyrean did not get along, due to Fred’s belligerence and coarse nature. It was a bittersweet reunion when Avalanche and Commando sought them out at Empyrean’s private island in the Florida Keys. Blob was still angry over being abandoned, and 
Pyro felt even more betrayed than Dukes because of his personal friendship with Avalanche. [X-Men (2nd series) Annual #2] The Brotherhood had a handful of encounters with the X-Men while using Empyrean’s isle as their base of operations, but the group no longer had a clear goal or any sense of unity, and quietly disbanded. [X-Men: Time Gliders #1-4]
Mystique had resurfaced since the fall of Freedom Force and had plans to take revenge on Legion for the murder of Destiny. Blob was a freelance villain now, and Mystique reached out to him and Avalanche to act as distractions to keep X-Factor off her trail until the deed was done. Blob attempted a hijacking at JFK International Airport when he caught the attention of Strong Guy. During a fight on the tarmac, Guido struck Dukes with enough force to rip him up from the ground, taking chunks of concrete with him. In the process, Blob exposed damaged electrical wires to leaking jet fuel and, well… boom. [X-Factor (1st series) #107]
The Blob’s next employer was the Deviant tinkerer and favor-broker named Sledge. Like Mystique before him, Sledge helped Dukes expand on his knowledge of his powers. Through mass-shifting, Blob demonstrated new traits that increased his elasticity and resilience. He went on a job to acquire Nimrod technology from a Project: Wideawake facility, but the force known as Onslaught reached the tech first. Instead, Blob ran into the female members of X-Force, casing the facility with similar intentions. Despite his boost, Blob was unprepared for X-Force’s new wild card, 
Meltdown, and had to be extracted by his partner, Mimic. [X-Force (1st series) #52] Blob and Mimic continued working together and provided back-up for another associate of Sledge named Risque, who was seducing an X-Force member named Warpath for the tinkerer. [X-Force (1st series) #60] When Gloria was too slow to deliver, Blob and Mimic attacked Warpath themselves. They forced her hand and Risque turned Warpath over to Sledge, but Blob and Mimic were arrested by Operation: Zero Tolerance. [X-Force (1st series) #65]
Blob drifted for a while after that, getting into a bar fight with the mercenary Maverick in Manhattan. [Maverick #5] After the worldwide threat to mutants posed by Operation: Zero Tolerance, however, Blob saw the need to reform the Brotherhood of Mutants for safety in 
numbers. He recruited Toad, Post and Mimic, and even saw fit to break Professor Charles Xavier out of maximum security where he had been incarcerated since Onslaught. Xavier had lost his telepathic powers in that ordeal, but he was willing to give the Brotherhood combat training like he once did for the X-Men. Another consequence of O:ZT was its leader Bastion exposing Cerebro to Sentinel nano-technology, causing Cerebro to become a sentient mutant-hunting entity which targeted Xavier and the Brotherhood. Blob secreted them away at the abandoned Alcatraz prison for a time, before both Cerebro and the X-Men found them. The Brotherhood and the X-Men teamed up to defend Xavier from Cerebro, but Xavier and the X-Men were separated from Blob’s group before the final battle where they defeated Cerebro. [Hunt for Xavier crossover]
Blob and the Brotherhood tried to remain together afterwards as a team of mercenaries. They were hired by Mystique as muscle to locate the missing robot known as X-51 from a government scrap dump. X-51, the Machine Man, reactivated during their stand-off with U.S. armed forces, leading to a three-way conflict. Inhabited by Sentinel nano-tech, X-51 used an innovative new attack on Dukes. By increasing Blob’s immovable gravimetric anchor effect, X-51 caused nearby objects to fly towards Fred, entombing him until he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. That 
mission flopped, and the Brotherhood didn’t get paid. [X-51 #1-2] When they were in the process of planning a raid on the Deterrence Research Corporation, the Brotherhood was struck by the High Evolutionary’s worldwide de-evolution ray, costing Blob and the others their powers. By the time the X-Men turned off the satellites’ rays weeks later, the Brotherhood had scattered and disbanded. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #379-380]
After getting his powers back, Blob tried to stay out of mutant brotherhood and politics by just getting back into an old-fashion armored car robbery. He ran into Spider-Man, however, and the 
wall-crawler trapped his old foe by cracking an entire web-cartridge on Blob, leaving him immobilized for the police. [Amazing Spider-Man (2nd series) #11] Taking the appropriate cue, Blob quickly rejoined the next incarnation of the Brotherhood. He was working for Mystique again as they returned to their roots with a plot to assassinate Senator Kelly, now actively running for President. [X-Men (2nd series) #106] Naturally, the X-Men stood in opposition to the Brotherhood’s way, but surprisingly it was one of their own, Pyro, who sacrificed his life to defend Senator Kelly and change his mind about mutants. With tragic irony, a human gunman shot and killed Kelly as a “race traitor” anyway, once he changed his stance on mutants. [Dream’s End crossover]
Not long after that, Magneto was preparing for all-out war against humanity from his revitalized mutant homeland in Genosha, calling for any mutants willing to stand by his side. Blob and Random were taken down by Cyclops and Wolverine as they infiltrated Magneto’s camp. [X-Men (2nd series) #112]
Next, Blob was captured and recruited by Banshee and his new venture, the X-Corps. Operating out of Europe, X-Corps had international jurisdiction for police action in response to mutant threats. With the help of Multiple Man, Banshee crewed an entire support staff across multiple offices for the X-Corps. Blob joined Avalanche and other former members of the Brotherhood in a deal similar to the old Freedom Force model – clemency for various crimes in exchange for their cooperation and employment. Service was compulsory, however, for Banshee had custody of the telepathic illusionist Martinique Jason, and used Mastermind to mentally impose order and keep Blob and the others in line. They received splitting headaches if they attempted aggressive action outside of mission parameters.
Even with this psychic leash, the former Brotherhood members did not get along well with the X-Men when they came to observe Banshee’s operation. The militant aggression did not sit well with Xavier’s dream of peaceful co-existence, and belligerent actors like Blob continued to provoke old X-Men like Iceman, even if he couldn’t act on it thanks to Mastermind. In fact, Mystique had already infiltrated Banshee’s operation without his knowledge weeks ago, posing as a new mutant named Surge. Posing occasionally as a Multiple Man, she gained access to Mastermind’s control 
rig, freeing Martinique to act on her own when the time was right. Once Madrox spread himself thin with too many duplicates, Mastermind seized control of a renegade contingent of dupes. Mystique freed Blob, Avalanche and Fever Pitch from their restraints, slit Banshee’s throat, and arranged the murder of several of his loyal X-Corp officers. The X-Men helped regain control of X-Corps and Blob was taken down by M, Husk, Jubilee and Stacy X, but the venture ultimately proved to be a public relations disaster. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #401-406]
Blob became listless after that, losing his motivation. When Sabretooth went rogue from Weapon X, the program harrassed Blob and Avalanche as Creed's former associates. They were tortured by their former teammate Sauron and others for a time and then abandoned, tied up in a warehouse without a second thought. [Weapon X (2nd series) #4] Avalanche and some others reformed the Brotherhood without Blob, further damaging his self-confidence. Fred Dukes sought out the famous therapist Sean Garrison for advice. For his own reasons, Garrison secretly used his pheromone powers to provoke Blob into attacking the X-Mansion again. The various training squads were present for their Field Day ceremony and rallied to defend their civilian friends and family in attendance. New Mutants squad leader Prodigy organized psychic students into attacking Blob’s weakest point, his mind. [New X-Men: Academy X #14-15]