Stonewall (Joint Venture)

Fred Dukes, AKA "the Blob" is a mutant supervillain and regular nemesis of the X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

Early life
Frederick Dukes was never small. A naturally heavy child whose genetic disposition towards obesity was not helped by stress-related eating disorders due to mockery from the other children at school, and his own cruel father. Only his mother seemed to accept and love him for who he was.

From an early age, Fred wanted to be like his grandfather, the World War II hero known as Stonewall. Unfortunately, he was perpetually overweight and always out of shape. In addition, Fred was a weak child despite his size, unable to even throw a punch properly, and thus was often the victim of vicious beatings and humiliation by his peers. His nickname, "the Blob", caused him no end of pain and shame. Eventually, Fred reached a low point when his father destroyed all of Fred's war II memorabilia in a fit of rage over what he percieved to be his son's "laziness".

Suicide attempt
Finally, Fred ran away from home, dropping out of high school and disappearing from the face of the earth. Morosely, he attempted suicide, by stepping out in front of a speeding truck. The driver had no time to stop.

However, when police and paramedics arrived on the scene, all they found was the truck, with a giant dent in it, and the driver, dazed, bewildered, and concussed, but unharmed.

Fred had fled the scene in terror after destroying the truck he had hoped would destroy him. It was not until later in his life that he understood what happened.

Carnival Freak
Fred, believing his powers made him a freak, saw no choice but to take a job with a traveling carnival as their sideshow strongman. There, as part of his act, he was shot with bullets and cannonballs, beaten, hit with speeding vehicles of all kinds, and had heavy objects and animals dropped on him. Each time he would emerge from the carnage unscathed. Billed as "The Human Blob" because of his invulnerability, Fred found himself able to support himself, but with his sense of self-worth well and eroded to nearly nothing.

A Faustian Diet
Eventually, he reached a low point again and decided that if he couldn't kill himself conventionally, he'd drown himself instead. The carnival was performing in California's East Bay Area, not far from the Golden Gate Brige. However, before he could jump, Fred was approached by a mysterious entity who revealed the truth to him: that he was a mutant, born with amazing genetic potential that the stranger could help him unlock. If Fred agreed to join him, the mysterious man promised, he would give him a life -- and a body -- worth being proud of. With nothing left to lose, Fred accepted, returning to the carnival.

As his life returned to its normal routine, however, Fred noticed something. The more injuries he shrugged off, the more of his body fat would burn away. Eventually, after surviving the inside of an Iron Maiden for one show, Fred stepped out, and while he was still massive, his body had become a wall of solid muscle.

Fred was baffled, but elated. The stranger had come through for him. When the mysterious man came again, introducing himself as "the Mutant Master" and offering Fred a job as one of his sbordinates, Fred agreed, eagerly -- and perhaps a bit too swiftly.

A Show of Good Faith
Before he could be let in to the Mutant Master's organization, Fred would have to prove himself by "severing the ties" to his old life. The big mutant thought he had already done that, but he agreed nonetheless. He returned home, to a place he had not seen in nearly ten years, and in cold blood and with no remorse, killed the father whose taunts and accusations had haunted his every nightmare for a decade.

When his mother got home from work, Fred was already gone, leaving Dylan Dukes' lfeless body behind. Fred reasoned that killing his father would alienate his mother from him, so there was no reason to kill her too. Reluctantly, the Mutant Master conceded the point, as his goal was not the extermination of homo sapiens, but its subjugation. Fred became a member of Factor Six, again subverting the Master's expectations by taking his grandfather's name for his own, and becoming the second Stonewall.

Factor Six
At first, Factor Six was starting small -- robbing from businesses with mutant-unfriendly practices, killing people who persecuted mutants on the street, and bringing down through brute force those who declared themselves enemies of mutantkind. As Stonewall, Fred finally thought he was doing some good in the world.

What Fred did not realize, however, was that Factor Six's actions were causing them to become notoriously feared and hated, and thereby, causing that fear and hatred to spread towards the rest of mutantkind. He failed to notice, in his righteous fury (unconsciously fueled by deliberate manipulation by the Mutant Master), that Factor Six had stopped merely targeting anti-mutant businesses and organizations, and spread to rob and terrorize almost indiscriminately.

Fred's first real qualms about working with Factor Six came when the Mutant Master forcibly recruited Banshee, a former Interpol agent, through the use of a special implant that controlled his every move. Though he was forced to fight and wreak havoc alongside them, Banshee hated Factor Six, and made his distaste plain every chance he got. His vehement protests, while at first annoying to Stonewall, eventually started to make the big mutant wonder: Was he doing the right thing, or just spreading more misery around? Furthermore, did he care?

So it was that when Charles Xavier and Magneto rescued Banshee from Factor Six, Stonewall simply walked off the battlefield, abandoning the other mutants and their Mutant Master to thier own devices.

The Brotherhood
Not wanting to go back to the carnival or become a criminal again, Fred worked on getting his GED while supporting himself with a chain of jobs -- as a bouncer, a thug, a professional bodyguard -- that, while they paid for food and rent and education, and didn't erode at his self-esteem the way being a carnival freak had, made him feel boxed-in.

Furthermore, he had to change jobs literally every few months, because some mob of aggressive punks or other would figure out he was a mutant, ambush him in dark alleys or backroads, and try to gang up on him. Stonewall would always beat them handily, but every time word got around, people would dig for informatio and find out about Factor Six, and he was forced to pack up and move again. The repeating cycle of moving into and being run out of towns began to wear on him.

Eventually, as before, a deal with the devil presented itself. Fred found himself face to face with another mutant, Exodus by name, who promised him a home away from the people who hounded and hated him if he joined him. The choice gave Stonewall pause; last time he had listened to someone like this, his life had gotten better, but only for a short while. Nonetheless, he agreed, and joined Exodus' Brotherhood of Mutant Liberation, a more focused and proactive group than Factor Six.

Stonewall remains unsure of his place in the world, whether or not he fits in with mutant radicals, and even whether he wants to keep fighting the same battles day in and day out. But so long as Exodus provides a roof over his head -- in his orbital space station of Avalon -- and keeps cutting him checks that clear, Stonewall remains loyal. Because whatever else he is, Fred Dukes is, like his grandfather, a soldier of fortune at heart.

Powers
Superhuman Durability and Strength: Stonewall's body possesses a high degree of resistance to injury. His epidermis is coated with a layer of super-resilient skin tissues that are able to absorb the impact of rifle bullets, cannonballs, bazooka shells, and even torpedoes. Stonewall's skin is virtually impervious to physical injury; it cannot be punctured or lacerated by most known materials, nor can it be affected by frostbite, or any skin disease, due in part to the skin's great elasticity and toughness, and in part to the highly accelerated rate at which his skin cells grow and replace themselves. He also possesses enhanced strength, the upper limits of which are not yet known and may be further elevated by his natural invulnerability.

Gravitational Mass Allocation: Stonewall's main superhuman ability is to become virtually immovable at will, as long as his feet are in contact with a solid surface. He does this by bonding himself to the earth or floor beneath him by force of 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 sufficient force ere exerted to to uproot him, it would take the ground beneath his feet in an area corresponding to the radius of the field. Through intense concentration, Stonewall can extend the gravity field beneath him farther than five feet.
 * Immobilizing: By resting any part of his body -- a hand, a foot, or in some crass cases, sitting down -- on an opponent, Stonewall's gravity field can render someone trapped and unable to move, or even crush them outright. He has control over this ability to the point where he can pin an enemy for a long period of time without killing them.
 * Implosion: Through his control of his personal gravity field, Stonewall can weaken and destabilize any structure he finds himself in. When the structural materials reach the breaking point, they collapse onto and around Stonewall. His superhumanly durable body absorbs the brunt of this damage, and he is able to get up and walk away unscathed from the rubble of what once was his prison.

Weaknesses
Penetrable defenses: Stonewall's skin is invulnerable, but his orifices are not. His eyes, mouth, lungs, and ears can be affected by assaults on those specific areas. He can be blinded, suffocated, or affected by a sonic blast.

Chemical weaponry: Stonewall's skin is resistant to blunt impact, cutting, and piercing, but it is vulnerable to corrosive chemicals, extreme heat, and harmful radiation.

Unconsciousness: Despite his immunity to physical pain, sufficiently strong blows to the head will knock Stonewall unconscious, although the damage usually repairs itself fairly quickly.

Slow: For all his size and strength, Stonewall cannot move very quickly. He possesses good enough reflexes in close quarters, but his mobility is extremely poor.

Metabolism: The more energy Fred expends, either physically or through the use of his gravitational field, the quicker he exhausts his reserves. To maintain energy, he needs to ingest a high number of calories several times a day.