Growing up in the South, Roadblock was not known for being tough. As a child, he was both a member of his church choir and a boy scout. But what surprises people most about Roadblock is learning that he dreamed of becoming a gourmet chef. He was working as a bouncer -- an easy job thanks to his immense size -- to earn money to attend the Escoffier School in France when an Army recruiter convinced him the Army could train him to be a chef. He joined, but found Army cuisine to be appalling. Even so, he took well to Army life and transferred to the infantry. Roadblock became an expert with the M-2 Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun, a weapon that was often found mounted on a tank, and few soldiers could even lift. Early in his career, Roadblock served at the Army's Ranger School, assisting instructor Conrad "Duke" Hauser in training exercises. During this time, he encountered Eric "Short-Fuse" Freistadt, who would later go on to be Roadblock's teammate despite washing out of Ranger training.

    Roadblock joined the G.I. Joe team in 1984 along with Duke, making his first appearance at the funeral of the Joes' commander, General Flagg. Cobra Commander sent a Cobra Rattler jet to buzz the proceedings to test out its capabilities. As the jet approached, Duke and Roadblock appeared and shot the Rattler out of the sky with their firearms. On his first assignment, Roadblock was part of a team of Joes sent to track Major Bludd and the Baroness through Europe after Bludd brought the injured Baroness to a renowned hospital in Bern, Switzerland. As the other Joes kept the hospital under surveillance, Duke and Roadblock set up a makeshift command post in a sidewalk cafe. While Duke kept in contact with the Joes, Roadblock found time to criticize the restaurant's cuisine, and did so again after following the Cobras to Lucca, Italy. After a brief battle, Roadblock and Clutch captured Cobra Commander. Duke, Roadblock and a small group of Joes brought the Commander to a remote plateau and set up a temporary base to hold him there. Unfortunately, the Commander escaped with the help of Storm Shadow, but Roadblock and Gung-Ho managed to stop the ninja. Some time later, Roadblock and a team of Joes battled Cobra agents in the Florida Everglades.

    Roadblock made his first trip to the small nation of Sierra Gordo as part of a small team sent in to rescue American scientist Dr. Adele Burkhart. The Joes made their way through the country's dense jungles and infiltrated the bunker in which Burkhart was being held. They made a quiet entrance but were discovered on the way out. They fought their way through the bunker's defenses and barely escaped into the jungle. The team traveled directly from Sierra Gordo to New Orleans, where a large group of Joes were investigating Cobra activities in the Gulf of Mexico. After a fierce battle against Cobra hydrofoils, the Joes were tricked into setting off an explosion that aggravated a fault line beneath the ocean. The resulting quakes forced a huge piece of the ocean floor above the surface, creating an island. The Joes attacked the Cobra forces occupying the island, hoping to push them off before Cobra's lawyers had the island declared sovereign land. The tide of battle turned in the Joes favor, but the disappointed soldiers had to give up the fight when Cobra Island was granted sovereign status just moments before they would have been victorious. Soon afterward, Roadblock joined nearly the entire G.I. Joe team in an invasion of the Cobra-controlled town of Springfield and later headed to Sierra Gordo to help capture one of Cobra's Terror-Dromes.

    Months later, Roadblock returned to a war torn Sierra Gordo. He joined Hawk and Psyche-Out as the three Joes made their way into the nation's capital to see that the U.S. ambassador returned home safely and that all important records at the U.S. embassy were destroyed before revolutionary troops could arrive at the embassy. While the Joes made their way through the crowd of looters inside the embassy, Roadblock noticed a man about to set an American flag ablaze with a cigarette lighter. Roadblock stepped forward and aimed his .50 caliber machine gun at the man's head, then "politely" asked him to stop what he was doing. The man thought that Roadblock was crazy, since more valuable things were being stolen. "Nobody ever died for a typewriter," Roadblock responded. The man decided not to call Roadblock's bluff and left the flag alone. The U.S. ambassador was not pleased by Roadblock's actions. Eventually, the Joes blew up the embassy and escaped with the ambassador to head back home. But as the Joes' vehicle approached their transport plane sitting on the runway, it unexpectedly took off, hijacked by Dreadnoks. The group fled into the jungle where they were guided through by the leader of the counter-revolution, El Jefe. They survived a battle with enemy troops thanks to an unlikely rescue by Destro, who helped them all in exchange for a deal to supply the counter-revolution with weapons and vehicles.

    A short time after his mission into Sierra Gordo, Roadblock and the rest of the Joe team took part in the Cobra Island civil war, fighting alongside Serpentor's forces against Cobra Commander. The unexpected death of Serpentor forced the Joes to return home in failure. When Hawk and General Hollingsworth headed to the Pentagon to discuss the defeat with the group of generals that oversaw the Joes, Roadblock went with them. When the three men arrived, the generals had them arrested and claimed that Hawk and Hollingsworth had acted against orders and that the generals were not responsible for the invasion. It was a lie, but the corrupt General Malthus was unwilling to accept the blame. As the three men were being transported as prisoners, Roadblock broke free and escaped into Washington, D.C., even as the Joes onboard the U.S.S. Flagg were taken into custody. Hours later, Roadblock arrived at the front door of Dr. Adele Burkhart's home in Georgetown, asking for help. Burkhart remembered Roadblock as one of her rescuers and agreed to help. With the doctor's assistance, Roadblock gathered together the remaining members of the Joe team and organized a mission to rescue Hawk and Hollingsworth. The assault that followed not only saved the generals, but simultaneously exposed Malthus and cleared the Joes' names.

    In the next few years, Roadblock participated in many more important missions. He met the original G.I. Joe while battling Cobra in Manhattan and protected the Eastern European nation of Wolkekuckuckland from invasion by Cobra forces. He and a group of Joes later teamed up with the Soviets' October Guard on another mission into the jungles of Sierra Gordo. While battling Cobra forces there, Roadblock was injured and temporarily blinded. With the help of the Guard's Sergeant Misha, he fought his way out of the jungle and both Americans and Soviets barely made it out of the country alive. While still recovering from his injuries, Roadblock participated in the biggest Joe operation yet -- the Battle of Benzheen -- helping to free the middle eastern nation from Cobra's occupying force. During the fighting, several Joes lost their lives. In the years that followed, Roadblock defended Joe headquarters from a Cobra invasion, freed the town of Millville from Cobra's control and journeyed into space with the Joe Star Brigade to once again join forces with the October Guard. Roadblock played a major role in the Joe team from his arrival until the team was disbanded. His good nature, his sense of honor and loyalty, and his prowess on the battlefield made him one of the team's most vital members.

    After the Joe team was shut down, Roadblock left the military to once again pursue a career as a chef. In the years since then, he became somewhat of a celebrity, authoring a number of books. In 2001, the G.I. Joe Team was reinstated by the government in reponse to Cobra's return to the United States. Duke brought in many of the older Joes to help train and lead a batch of new recruits and Roadblock became one of the team's highest ranking field commanders. He took part in a number of missions including the battle against Cobra troops in Washington, D.C. and the fight against a Cobra BAT rampaging through downtown Chicago. He also took some time out from his duties on the Joe team to start his own cooking show on cable television in California called "Kiss Your Mama Home Cooking". When the network's parent company -- owned by Tomax and Xamot's Extensive Enterprises -- decided to close down the show, a group of Dreadnoks attacked Roadblock during the show. He eventually defeated them and also helped boost the ratings for his show, which was renamed "Cooking with Kung-Fu Grip".

    Roadblock later returned to the Joes and was part of a convoy of vehicles escorting a group of young children who turned out to be clones of the original Serpentor. The Joes' convoy of vehicles was unexpectedly attacked by the forces of the revived Serpentor, known as The Coil. The main vehicle was torn to pieces and Serpentor arrived to liberate his brothers inside. When new Joe recruit Daemon tried to stop him, the former Cobra Emperor grabbed him by the throat and snapped his neck, killing him, as Roadblock and Daemon's friend Firewall looked on in shock. As she mourned the loss of her friend, Firewall looked to Roadblock for support, seeing him as a kind of big brother. The remaining Joes were taken prisoner and held on Cobra Island until an invasion force arrived to battle The Coil. The battle was won, and the Joes headed home, later having a ceremony for their lost teammates.

    Some time later, Roadblock took part in a disastrous mission into the Cobra-infiltrated town of New Moon, Colorado. After a surprise Cobra attack, Roadblock and the rest of his team barely made it out alive before Cobra used planted explosives to level the town. The Joes were blamed for the incident and all those involved were arrested by the cabal of Generals known as the Jugglers, who began to take control of the team to reign it in, if not disband it altogether. Roadblock was eventually released along with his teammates, but they did not return to the Joe team. Eventually, G.I. Joe's roster was cut down to only a dozen Joes. After the remaining team members stopped a plot by Cobra to unleash the weapon known as the Tempest, and defeated a new threat, the Red Shadows, the military again disbanded the team.

    One year later, the Joe team was reformed with a smaller roster of active members, including Roadblock, under the command of Joe Colton. Roadblock joined the effort to stop terrorist Vance Wingfield's plot to cause the crash of many orbiting satellites into populated areas. After the first satellite crash in Chicago, Roadblock, Scarlett and Shipwreck rushed to the scene to assist rescue workers. Roadblock then helped rescue Scarlett from Destro's submarine, which resulted in the supposed death of Snake-Eyes. He then joined the other Joes on a mission to recover Snake-Eyes' body after it was stolen by the Red Ninjas, and discovered they had somehow revived him. During the attack on the Joes' headquarters by the Phoenix Guard, Roadblock was temporarily blinded by an enemy flash grenade and thrown into one of the Joes' own holding cells. He soon regained his sight and helped defeat the invaders, but not before they had injured some Joes and killed many members of the base support staff. Following the incident, Colton ordered the Joes to go on leave to recover from their ordeal.