Merge:Cannonball

Cannonball (Sam Guthrie) is a Marvel Comics superhero, associated with the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod, he first appeared in Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The New Mutants (1982).

Cannonball is a mutant who possesses the ability to fly at jet speeds while encased in an invulnerable force field. The eldest of a large Kentucky coal mining family, Cannonball is one of few X-Men from a southern, rural background and has maintained the values of civility, hard work, and a strong commitment to his beliefs throughout his career as a superhero. Several of his siblings are also mutants and have joined X-Men-related teams, including his sister Paige, brother Jay, and sister Melody.

Cannonball was a founding member of the X-Men's junior team The New Mutants. He joined The New Mutants' later incarnation X-Force, serving as second-in-command and field leader. He joined the X-Men, becoming the first member of a secondary team to "graduate." His tenure was complicated by clashes with superiors and he eventually rejoined X-Force. He is currently a member of the X-Men once again.

A "salt-of-the-earth", honest, well-mannered and responsible young man, Guthrie is a natural leader. Guthrie is a fan of science fiction, especially the works of Robert A. Heinlein.

Origin
Sam Guthrie was a young boy attempting to help out his family, by working in a coal mine, after the death of his father. Given the dangerous nature of this work, Sam found himself trapped in a collapsing mine shaft. While trying to rescue his fellow worker, a friend of his father's who had introduced him to the job, Sam subconsciously activated his mutant ability and used it to escape with him. This incident led to Sam to be found by Donald Pierce, who used him in a plot to attack the New Mutants. Sam eventually came to his senses and turned against Pierce. Professor Charles Xavier saw the good qualities inside Sam and asked him to join his New Mutants. Cannonball left his large farming family in Kentucky to join the team. In later years, several other Guthrie kids would be revealed to be mutants, including the future X-Man Husk.



New Mutants
In 1983, the New Mutants were granted their own monthly series and Cannonball remained with the team for its entire existence, forming close friendships with his teammates, Wolfsbane and Sunspot and a rivalry with Danielle Moonstar who along with Cannonball was the team's co-leader.

Cannonball saved the life of international rockstar Lila Cheney, whom he became romantically involved with. Due to the nature of Lila's career, their relationship went slowly. After an adventure in Asgard, the New Mutants found themselves under the guidance of a new teacher, Magneto. The mutants did not stay under the care of Magneto, as Sam and Danielle decided to move the team out from under Magneto's thumb.

During his time with the New Mutants, Sam's team found themselves merging with the X-Terminators. One of the new members, Boom Boom, had a romantic relationship with him.

X-Force
Cannonball and the other New Mutants left the X-Men's supervision and joined forces with the mysterious War Hawk Cable to become the hard-edged X-Force. Cable made Cannonball Second-In-Command of that team. It was early during this time that Sam was impaled and killed by the mutant Sauron during a clash with an incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. However, only a few minutes later, he was miraculously alive again. It was revealed that Cable had chosen Sam to lead the New Mutants initially because he suspected Cannonball to be an External - a particularly rare type of mutant who is virtually immortal. Cable had come to train Sam to fight Apocalypse, another External who, in Cable's future time, had conquered the world. This aspect of Cannonball may have been retconned, as it has not been brought up in many years. Selene once claimed that Cannonball was not an External, though she is not a particularly trustworthy source and no alternate explanation has been given for his surviving the wounds Sauron had inflicted. His immortality was recently brought up as the reason he survived 3 gunshot wounds to the chest in New X-Men #28, so his status as an External hasn't been completely forgotten by Marvel writers.

X-Men
In the mid 1990s, X-Force re-established ties with the X-Men and Cannonball accepted an offer to join the latter team. During this time, he was also a supporting character in Wolverine's own comic. Cannonball's character seemed regressed during this period. He played the role of the inexperienced rookie of the X-Men, despite the fact that he had been training under Xavier and Cable for many years and had been the team leader of the New Mutants and X-Force, when their mentors were absent. During this time, Cannonball even defeated the Superman-like Shi'ar agent, Gladiator in single combat--a feat no X-Man has ever matched (indeed, only the Hulk and Thor can claim an equal victory). Eventually, he felt uncomfortable with mutants outside his peer group.

During his time with X-Men, Cannonball found his relationship with Tabitha strained. It was so strained that Tabitha turned to Sam's best friend, Sunspot, for "support". Sam returned to the X-Men, for a brief period until he left the team to help his ailing mother. During his time with the X-Men, he also infiltrated the presidential campaign of anti-mutant candidate Graydon Creed, using the alias "Samson Guthry". Despite the rather transparent alias, Sam was able to remain undetected until Creed was assassinated on the eve of the election.

Cannonball rejoined X-Force, now independent of Cable and operating in San Francisco. Cannonball eventually became team leader again, after the injuries sustained to Siryn. The team eventually found a new mentor, by the name of Peter Wisdom, who introduced the team to the world of espionage. During this time, Sam and Tabitha had gotten back together. After Wisdom's alleged death, Sam led the team again and attempted to continue Wisdom's crusade. Eventually, Sam and other members of X-Force had to fake their deaths.

X-Corporation
After X-Force's dissolution, Cannonball joined several of his former teammates and former members of X-Force and Generation X, in the Paris, France branch, of Professor X's international mutant task force X-Corporation. His time with the X-Corporation wasn't a pleasant one. Enroute to one mission later found to involve the Weapon Plus program, his teammate Darkstar poked fun at him for eating a sandwich that would have rather distasteful consequences for "everybody who went out without an umbrella in downtown Beauvais". This moment of levity at Cannonball's expense did not last, as on that same mission, Darkstar died. At the funeral of Darkstar, Xavier gave Cannonball a note, with the whereabouts of Lila Cheney. Sam decided to take time away from the X-Corporation, as the strain of his life began to get to him.

Return back to basics
While away, Sam rekindled his romantic relationship with Lila Cheney for a time. Sam couldn't find peace with his life so he was asked by Storm to join her X-Treme X-Men, a group of X-Men operating outside of Professor X's leadership. During his time with Storm's team, Sam found himself having a reunion of sorts with former teammates, Sunspot and Magma.

He and his teammates rejoined the central X-Men, after the events of Planet X. Sam eventually got injured on a mission and once again decided to break for some peace. He used the time to work on his own farm, that he bought with his X-Corporation paychecks. While on the farm, Sam found himself teaming up again with Cable and reformed X-Force against the threat of the Skornn.

Recently in the Cable & Deadpool title, Sam and former X-Force teammate, Siryn, went in search of Cable with the mercenary Deadpool, who could track the missing man via a unique teleportation bond the two shared. Deadpool derisively refers to Sam as "Cannonballs".



Sam has once more joined the active roster of the X-Men, whose team is co-led by Nightcrawler and Bishop. He has already participated in helping the 198 and fighting the Shi'ar Death Commandos. In the first part of The First Foursaken story arc, Cannonball went with the X-Men to Central Park, where they fought the Foursaken, who then captured the X-Men and sent them elsewhere. After escaping, Cannonball accompanied the X-Men to Africa to help Storm. Cannonball is currently in Rogue's team in X-Men #188.

Ultimate Cannonball
Ultimate Cannonball was reimagined in the Ultimate universe as a member of Emma Frost's Academy of Tomorrow, a somewhat more pacifistic alternative to the X-Men. He is the newest member and has been seen in action thus far in situations such as assisting his peers to help Polaris escape imprisonment after they had discovered she was falsely arrested. Currently his powers seem to be virtually the same as his mainstream universe counterpart.

Other versions

 * In What If?, Cannonball stayed in Asgard? Sam, among several members of the X-Men and the New Mutants, decided to stay in Asgard. He eventually married Kindra and eventually became the new King of the Dwarves, after Kindra's father death.


 * In Age of Apocalypse, The Guthrie family was known to be a mutant terrorist family. Cannonball was a member of the Elite Mutant Force, Sinister's personal strikeforce, alongside his Elisabeth, a.k.a. Amazon. He and his sister were particularly violent towards the prisoners of Sinister's breeding pens, like their superior Havok, whom Cannonball was loyal to. When the Elite Mutant Force was taken over by Havok due to Prelate Cyclops' betrayal, Cannonball fought the Bedlam brothers, who sided with the older Summers brother. Cannonball and Amazon survived and eventually reunited with Husk and Icarus, and together they set out to fulfill Husk's revenge against the X-Men.


 * In Amalgam, Cannonball was merged with Wally West (the Flash) from the DC Universe, by Doctor Strangefate. He was also merged with Legion of Super-Heroes member Wildfire to form the character Cannonfire. As this character he was a member of the Legion Of Galactic Guardians 2099.


 * In the Mutant X universe, Sam was drawn as a very overweight mutant while his sister had an ugly appearance. The two would constantly insult one another. Due to his increased weight, Sam couldn't stay in Cannonball mode for long.


 * Cannonball had no House of M counterpart because he was traveling through realities with Siryn and Deadpool when the change wave occurred. However, Wolverine did beat up a young blond man for his motorbike, which was called the 'Cannonball X'.

Powers and abilities
Cannonball possesses the ability to bodily generate thermo-chemical energy and release it from his skin. This energy is used as thrust to cause his body to be propelled through the air, like his namesake, at great heights and speeds with considerable maneuverability. He can control his speed and direction through sheer act of will. At first he could only release this energy from his feet and legs, but now he can fire it from almost any part of his body, to a wide variety of affects. This energy also manifests itself as an impenetrable and virtually indestructible "blast field". He can use this blast-field to: function as a personal shield or extending it to encompass others, shape the field around another person to imprison them, or absorb outside kinetic impact into his own energy supply, and then re-channel it to increase the bludgeoning power of his blows or create explosive shock waves upon impact. For example, in the final episodes of 90's X-men Cartoon series, Cannonball flew head on to stop a freight train and derailed it without effort.

His power levels have varied over the years - but at his peak, he has been able to defeat the Shi'ar Imperial Guard leader, Gladiator, and devastate several city blocks by plummeting to the ground from high altitude. It has been theorized that Cannonball may be one of the Externals, and therefore immortal (although evidence for this is somewhat questionable).

Appearances in other media

 * Cannonball made a small appearance in the original X-Men animated series along with his sister Paige Guthrie . The episode was titled Hidden Agenda. The episode featured Rogue learning about a new mutant that has been making waves in her hometown. However, his appearance caused a violation of continuity, as Cannonball had already made a cameo appereance, already employing his mutant power, and with blond hair.
 * In the 2001 X-Men: Evolution animated television series, he appeared infrequently as one of the New Mutants and was voiced by Bill Switzer.
 * He is an exclusive hidden character in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse video game for the PSP. His powers in the game revolve around his "blast shield," in the form of rushing attacks, powered punches, and shields.