When the skeleton of Alex Bow turned up in Springdale High, Fred Caskey was hired by Nathan Boder to break into the school and retrieve a strongbox containing information that could lead to Bow's killer. On his first attempt to break into the school, he encountered Speedball. The two fought and the cleaning staff working that night began to think the school was haunted. Caskey escaped and was told by Boder to try again. During this attempt he found the strongbox, but ran into the Masked Marvel yet again. As Caskey tried to escape, Speedball damaged his rope's feed line and Caskey became entangled. When the police arrived, Caskey was arrested and handed the strongbox to the police so that he himself would not be suspected in Bow's murder.
He was later broken out of prison alongside seven other of Speedball's earliest foes by Clyde, a man who planned to go by the name Rebound once he was able to give himself Speedball's powers. Clyde was a self proclaimed "Criminal Genuis". They planned to capture Niels the Cat who had been given the same powers as Speedball during the accident that transformed Robbie Baldwin into Speedball. It was through Niels that Clyde planned on gaining his powers. Speedball defeated eight of his foes with very little trouble.