Blob

Character biography

Origin

Fred J. Dukes was born in Lubbock, Texas and was a member of a circus sideshow. He went by the name of Blob during his stay with the circus. When Professor X sensed his Mutant power, he sent the X-Men out to locate Dukes. They discovered Fred at the circus demonstrating his abilities as a side-show freak. Fred was uninterested in meeting with the X-Men until he saw Jean Grey, and agreed to go along with them to get to know her. After submitting himself to a battery of tests, Professor X determined that the Blob was a mutant as he suspected. He extended Fred an invitation to be an X-man. The rest of the team didn't like him for his obnoxious attitude. He refused the invitation because he believed himself to be better and stronger than than the entire team. The Blob attempted to leave, but Professor X knew that he couldn't allow him to just walk out knowing their secret identities. The X-Men attempted to restrain him while Xavier tried to erase his mind of the whole ordeal, but despite their efforts he managed to escape. Fred had always believed himself to just be stronger than most other guys, however he now knew the true source of his abilities. Now knowing about his powers he was determined not to let anyone else tell him what to do. Returning to the circus he demanded that the other performers follow him as their leader. The Blob returned to Xavier Institute for Higher Learning with the rest of the circus folk and tried to take over. Under Blob's leadership the performers were able to assist in subduing the X-Men. Alone in the mansion, Xavier perfected a device that would amplify his abilities to control the entire crowd. He mentally instructed Jean to free the other X-Men, and they were able to get the drop on the Blob. He and the rest of the circus people were stopped by the X-Men and all of their memories of their encounter with the X-Men were erased. Blob and the other performers went back to their dull lives, none having any recollection of the events that transpired. Despite having removed the Blob's memories, Professor Xavier knew that one day the Blob may regain his memories of the X-Men and become a danger to the world once again.

Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Magneto soon recruits Blob to his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, restoring his memory. The Blob accepts the invitation, but leaves when he learns that Magneto has no real concern for the Blob's safety. He later teams up with Unus the Untouchable. The Blob also joined Factor Three. He briefly works as an operative for the Secret Empire, where he fights the Beast. With the reorganized Brotherhood, the Blob fights Professor X and the Defenders. He is reverted to infancy by Alpha the Ultimate Mutant.The Blob is later returned to adulthood, and fights the Champions.

Mystique's Brotherhood/Freedom Force

Mystique later freed the Blob from prison and recruited him into her incarnation of the Brotherhood. He becomes part of the plot to assassinate Senator Kelly, the event which leads to the apocalyptic alternate future of Days of Future Past. He witnesses the apparent death of Unus, then goes berserk and attacks Spider-Man and the Black Cat. He remains with the Brotherhood, becoming a special operative of the federal government when the Brotherhood is reformed as the government-sponsored Freedom Force. On the team's first mission, they help capture Magneto. Blob also participates in Freedom Force's capture of the Avengers for the federal government. With Freedom Force, he attempts to capture Rusty Collins, then battles X-Factor. With Freedom Force, he battles the X-Men in San Francisco, and later assists in the attempt to arrest the X-Men in Dallas,battling the New Mutants in Dallas as well. He battles X-Factor again,and with Pyro and Spiral he battles Daredevil in an attempt to capture a young mutant. He again attempts to arrest Rusty Collins, fighting the New Mutants again. He joins Avalanche and Pyro in attacking Avengers headquarters. With Freedom Force, he finally captures Rusty Collins and fellow New Mutant Skids. He helps to capture Cable, but is defeated by Cable and is defeated by Sunspot during an attempt to recapture Cable. With Freedom Force, he assists in thwarting a jailbreak from the Vault.

Other Brotherhoods

After Freedom Force's dissolution, the Blob participates in other versions of the Brotherhood, including one led by Toad and another led by Professor X; the Blob takes over as leader of the latter when Xavier leaves. The psychic entity Onslaught later recruits Blob, vastly upgrading his powers and abilities. During this time, the Blob fights the various members of X-Force and is soundly defeated in each encounter. Months later, a powered-down Dukes joins the new Brotherhood led once again by Mystique, alongside Toad, Sabretooth, and the daughter of the original Mastermind. When Exodus recreates the Brotherhood of Mutants, Blob offers to join but is quickly dismissed by Exodus, who considers him useless. This is a major blow to Dukes's already weak self-esteem, for which he seeks the counsel of therapist Sean Garrison. After a session, Blob attacks the Xavier Institute, though he is defeated by the combined efforts of the New Mutants and the Hellions. He is then arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Post M-Day

Due to the Scarlet Witch's depowering of 90% of Earth's mutants, the Blob is one of the thousands to lose their power, though his epidermis does not shrink to compensate for his loss of mass, leaving him with huge folds of loose skin. The depressed Blob attempts to commit suicide, but his skin folds prevent him from cutting through to any major blood vessels on his throat or wrists. Someone that resembles the Blob is seen apprehended by the Thunderbolts and is seen in the Folding Castle's Detention Quadrant. Blob later resurfaces as a member of X-Cell, a group of depowered mutants that blames the government for the loss of their powers, attacking Mutant Town in defiance of the Decimation. After mistakenly getting into a fight with Rictor and Multiple Man and getting in a cheap shot on Rictor, he stole a car. With fellow X-Cell member Fatale, he attempted to flee, eventually hitting an open manhole (left open earlier in the day by Strong Guy and Wolfsbane) and causing the car to crash leaving Blob hanging from the car. When both of them ran afoul of Marrow, Blob was thrown from the car. Through unknown means, Dukes loses the excess skin and his fortunes turn in his favor. Now known as Freddie Dukes, he has become a weight-loss guru in Japan, and is to star in an upcoming movie filmed in San Francisco made by Kingo Sunen. However, he is also seen with Magneto and the High Evolutionary.

Powers and abilities

Powers

The Blob's mutant powers relate to the mass, strength, resilience and indestructibility of his obese body.

Gravitational Mass allocation : Blob's main superhuman ability is to become virtually immovable at will as long as he is in contact with the ground. He does this by bonding himself to the earth beneath him by force or will, which in effect creates a mono-directional increase of gravity beneath him. This gravity field extends about five feet in radius from his center of balance. Thus if there is sufficient power to uproot him, it would take the ground beneath his feet in an area corresponding to the radius of the field. Through intense concentration, the Blob is able to extend the gravity field beneath him farther than five feet.

Superhuman Durability : The Blob's body possesses a high degree of resistance to injury. The fat tissues that comprise the Blob's epidermis are able to absorb the impact of rifle bullets, cannonballs, rocket propelled grenades, and even torpedoes. The larger of these projectiles recoil from his body at one half the force of impact. The smaller projectiles embed themselves in his layers of fat tissue, enabling him to eject them by merely flexing his muscles. The Blob's nerve endings do not relay any tactile perception to his brain which are near the threshold of pain. The fat tissue of his epidermis is resilient enough to revert to its normal shape within second after deformation caused by impact. It is virtually impervious to physical injury. The Blob's skin cannot be punctured or lacerated by most known materials, frostbitten, or ravaged by any skin disease, due in part to the skin's greatest elasticity and toughness and in part to the highly accelerated rate at which his skin cells grow and replace themselves. His skin is somewhat less resistant to burning.

Abilities

The Blob is a formidable hand to hand combatant. Although he possesses no formal training, his great size coupled with his strength and resistance to injury render him a highly efficient and effective street fighter.

Strength level

The Blob is superhumanly strong and possesses sufficient strength to lift at least 70 tons.

Weaknesses

Projected energy attacks, like Scott Summers' optic blasts, have been seen to penetrate his skin. His eyes and the interior of his ears, mouth, nose are also vulnerable to injury.

It is not yet known if there is an upper limit to the Blob's ability to absorb impact. While he could easily survive a head-on collision with a bus traveling at a hundred miles per hour, even a highly ferrous meteorite fifty feet in diameter on top of him at terminal velocity, it is not known whether he could survive a collision with an object traveling at near light speed. Further, it is not known whether his skin's imperviousness to heat could survive the 11,000,000-degree heat at ground zero of a multi-megaton atomic blast.