Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)

Boom-Boom
Name	Tabitha Smith
Current Alias	Boom-Boom
Aliases	Tabby, Tab, Meltdown, Boomer, Firecracker, Time Bomb, Mutate #35, Nancy Forrester Z-list celebrity blonde, Doctor Madame McSplode
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	X-Force; formerly Hounds, Utopians, X-Men (New Charles Xavier School member), X-Men, Nextwave of H.A.T.E., The Underground, Genoshan Mutates, New Mutants, X-Terminators (founding member), X-Factor (trainee), Fallen Angels, Beyonder (associate)
Relatives	Marty Smith (father), Amanda "Mandy" Smith (mother), Wanda Jo Bialowsky (step-mother)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Height	5′5″ (1.65 m)
Weight	122 lbs (55.34 kg).
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Blond
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Roanoke, Virginia, USA
Personal Information
Identity	Secret
Citizenship	American Krakoan
Occupation	Adventurer, former student, thief
Base of Operations	Krakoa, Pacific Ocean; New Tian, California; New Charles Xavier School, Alberta, Canada; Utopia, San Francisco Bay, California; Camp Verde Reservation, Arizona; Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, Salem Center, Westchester County, New York; Murderworld; Adirondack Mountains, New York; Ship; Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire; X-Factor Complex, New York City; Beat Street Club, Manhattan, New York City, New York
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Jim Shooter, Al Milgrom
First	Secret Wars II #5 (August, 1985)
First	Secret Wars II #5 (August, 1985)

 Guess I just needed to blow something up. I feel better now. 

—Meltdown

History

Boom-Boom

Origins

Teenager Tabitha Smith had not gotten along with her parents for most of her life. Her powers emerged when she turned thirteen and entered puberty. Aroused by Bret McAllister, she accidentally blew the roof of her school's lunch room.

Her parents were appalled. Resentful towards her father, Marty Smith, Tabitha put a small explosive ball of energy in his food. In retaliation, her father beat Tabitha severely. Somehow, learning there was a school for mutants in New York's Westchester County -- which was, in fact, Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, headquarters for the hero teams X-Men and New Mutants -- Tabitha ran away from home, journeying there by train and giving herself the code name Time Bomb.

Near Washington, D.C., a train was wrecked, on a whim, by the cosmic entity calling itself the Beyonder. Thinking he was a mutant, Tabitha accompanied The Beyonder. The Beyonder abandoned her, but returned and took her to Professor Xavier's school. The X-Men and New Mutants attacked the Beyonder, who escaped, and Tabitha, frightened and bewildered by witnessing the attack, left. She was later found by the Beyonder, who brought her to a distant planet that he called "World Complex Headquarters" of the alien Celestials. There, threatening to destroy the universe, the Beyonder fought and seemingly defeated a number of Celestials. However, that planet was not truly the Celestials' headquarters and the Celestials allowed the Beyonder to "defeat" them, presumably in order to observe him in action.

Terrified, Tabitha demanded that the Beyonder transport her back to Earth and leave her alone; the Beyonder complied. Back on Earth, Tabitha alerted the Avengers about the Beyonder. Summoning him, Tabitha led him into an ambush by the Avengers and other costumed champions, before fleeing the scene. The Beyonder, who had regarded Tabitha as his only friend, allowed the Avengers to defeat him.

X-Factor Trainee

Making her way to Los Angeles, Tabitha, calling herself Boom-Boom, encountered the mutant criminal known as the Vanisher, who made her a member of his gang of thieves, the Fallen Angels, and taught her how to steal. Believing that the Vanisher treated her badly, Tabitha alerted X-Factor to his presence, as she believed the group to be mutant hunters. When two members of X-Factor arrived, Beast and Iceman, Tabitha changed her mind about turning in the Vanisher and used her "time bomb" power on the Iceman, who she flirted with as a prank. The two heroes pursued and caught up to her in their costumed identities. Tabitha agreed to leave the Vanisher's gang and live at the X-Factor Complex instead.

Upon learning that Emma la Porte was being transferred to a New York hospital, to undergo further treatment for the severe burning he was responsible for, Rusty Collins, a fellow X-Factor trainee, cut a deal with Masque, a dangerous member of the Morlocks, where he would sacrifice his looks to Masque's whims, if Masque restored Emma's face to beauty. Boom-Boom, Skids, and Artie Maddicks accompanied Rusty to the hospital, where Boom-Boom destroyed a wall to escape, and they brought Emma to The Alley. Masque held his end, but when Emma learned of the deal, she insisted her looks not come at such an expense. Rusty and Skids fought Masque and he undid his morphing of both Rusty and Emma, before retreating back into the sewer tunnels.

Fallen Angels

After Beast wouldn't believe her about Cyclops talking to himself, Tabitha had set off another of her "time bombs" in the X-Factor laboratory as a prank and Beast and Iceman pursued her through the headquarters. Another member of the Fallen Angels, Ariel, used her powers to enable Tabitha to escape X-Factor headquarters through a broom closet. After meeting Sunspot and Warlock, the group was joined by Siryn and Jamie Madrox, who Tabitha also developed a crush on. The group teleported to the Valley of the Flame, on Dinosaur World, where they were joined by Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur. Tabitha was teamed with Gomi the majority of the time, a fact she resented. After all of the mutant's powers, temporarily, went out-of-whack due to Chance, Ariel suggested that they all leave and teleported them to the Coconut Grove, her home planet. The inhabitants of the Coconut Grove and the leader, Unipar, captured the Fallen Angels, intending to use them as experiments to continue their evolution, but the Angels worked together to defeat them and return home.

Boom-Boom returned just in time to witness The Right soldiers kidnapping the children of X-Factor. Tabitha stowed away on their transport and followed them to their hide-away, where she rescued new recruit, Rictor and recognized The Right's Commander as X-Factor's PR man, Cameron Hodge. Tabitha and Rictor were immediately recaptured, however, until X-Factor arrived and rescued them.

Living on Ship

After their defeat of Apocalypse, his ship crash landed on their Complex. X-Factor began living on Apocalypse's sentient Ship, that had a barrier only mutants could enter, and Caliban left with Apocalypse. After the children were given Christmas gifts as donations, they decided to give them to the children who lost their homes during X-Factor's battle, a situation Boom-Boom had trouble dealing with. While sleeping, X-Factor and the kids were attacked by Ship, still under the control of Apocalypse, until Rusty freed its consciousness and X-Factor expelled a bomb. Ship, now able to speak, asked to join them. Ship had complete control over every part of its structure and could fashion rooms, weapons, and vehicles as needed from various storehouses and parts it had. It was also able to design and run training programs for X-Factor, as well as make living quarters and workshop areas for them. While playing around on Ship, the students ran into Beast, who was going over old photos of X-Factor in their teens and revealed their origins, as the original X-Men and students at the School for Gifted Youngsters. After Iceman was tricked and seduced by Infectia to allow her on Ship, Beast attempted to warn Iceman. Due to Beast's lack of intelligence, Iceman couldn't understand him and the students had to keep her from kissing Iceman. When the Xartans and Lord Zano, in Avengers disguise, attacked X-Factor, the children were protected by Ship, but later aided X-Factor. After finding out that they were going to be sent to a private school, Marvel Girl and Iceman took the kids shopping for clothes, where they were attacked by the Alliance of Evil. After defeating the Alliance of Evil, Freedom Force showed-up and ordered Rusty and X-Factor to register, to which X-Factor accepted. Rusty however turned himself into the Navy and refused to register.

X-Terminators

After seeing Rusty off at a Naval base, Tabitha, Skids, and Rictor were enrolled in Phillips Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. After a cold reception from the other students of the academy, the students were awoken in their dorms by Takeshi Matsuya (Wiz Kid), informing them that Artie and Leech had been kidnapped by demons. After leaving the dorms, the students rescued Rusty from his prison and began the search for Artie and Leech. After stopping to get new outfits, Rictor suggested the name X-Terminators for the group, to honor X-Factor, and the group was attacked by demons, kidnapping Taki. Following a mental image from Artie, the X-Terminators battled an invasion of demons. After being captured by the demons, the X-Terminators were teleported to Times Square, where the New Mutant Magik was opening a portal to return her teammates from the demon infested dimension of Limbo. The demon N'Astirh kept the portal open using ten kidnapped mutant infants, one of them being Nathan Summers, as the points of an inverted pentagram. The infants provided strong focusing beams of power because of their purity and openness to use them as natural, living conduits who could not block the flow of power, and who would not know how to shut it off.

Artie and Leech freed the X-Terminators and they battled the horde of demons that flowed out of the portal. After Cannonball rescued Rusty and Skids, the team joined the New Mutants in rescuing the infants being used to keep the portal open, where Tabitha was reunited with Sunspot and Warlock. Rusty suggested that the X-Terminators rescue their teammate, Taki, while the New Mutants continued to free the infants and disrupt the pentagram. After rescuing Taki, Tabitha joined the New Mutants as they began searching for the demonic Magik.

While searching for the Darkchilde through-out the city, Tabitha and the New Mutants witnessed Magneto, the New Mutants new headmaster, and the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club meeting with N'Astirh and lost all trust in him. The New Mutants, Boom-Boom, and Rictor found Darkchilde battling the demon, S'ym, at the same time her brother, the X-Man Colossus, appeared. Colossus was shocked to see his Little Snowflake in such a state and Darkchilde was embarrassed and teleported away, taking the young heroes with her to Limbo, where she finally decided to stop running from her responsibilities as the ruler of Limbo.

New Mutants

After Limbo, the X-Terminators and New Mutants returned to X-Factor's Ship, with the mutant babies and Gosamyr. Due to her actions during the demonic invasion, Tabitha was expelled from Phillips Academy and, while the New Mutants returned home and X-Factor attended funerals, the X-Terminators found an Atlantean horn and accidentally called forth a giant sea creature. The New Mutants returned and, with the aid of Namor the Submariner, they defeated it. After the creature's defeat, X-Factor returned and the New Mutants began to live on Ship, merging with the X-Terminators as Professor X's mansion had been destroyed. Boom Boom developed a crush on one of the new members, Sam Guthrie (Cannonball). The all-new New Mutants team returned Illyana to her home in Ust-Ordynski Collective, Siberia, with her parents. On their return home, Mirage and Brightwind, her winged horse, became ill with a mystical fever. Unaware of how to save Mirage, Ship suggested that the New Mutants go to Dr. Strange to help her. After arriving at the Sanctum Sanctorum, the New Mutants were startled to learn that Dr. Strange was apparently "dead" and they were attacked by a possessed, inflamed Mirage and Brightwind. Mirage reasserted control and Dr. Strange, disguised as "Dr. Sanders", returned all that her body had damaged to normal. While returning Mirage and Brightwind to Ship, the New Mutants were attacked by Freedom Force (government-chartered mutant enforcers composed of former members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants), believing Rusty caused all of the flames. The battle between the New Mutants and Freedom Force awoke Mirage and Brightwind and Ship suddenly warped-off into space with X-Factor. After Rusty and Skids learned that the government never returned the infants to their parents, Dr. Strange teleported the remaining New Mutants to Asgard.

After arriving in Asgard, the New Mutants realized that they had been sent to the Negative Zone and Dani Moonstar left them. After being captured, by Dwarves, the New Mutants were released and joined them, due to Cannonball's relationship with Eitri, king of the Dwarves. As a member of the New Mutants, Tabitha followed the group under the leadership of Cannonball and, later, Cable. She also remained with the group as Cable transformed it into X-Force. During this time, she became enamored with Cannonball and the two developed a romantic relationship.

X-Force

During her time with X-Force, Tabitha underwent a series of progressive changes in attitude, growing more and more serious in her role as a costumed hero. For a short time at the beginning of her tenure, she called herself Boomer. Later, she changed her code name to Meltdown to better match her more drastic changes in looks and attitude. Eventually, Tabitha was forced to confront her past and deal with the broken relationships of her family.

When Cannonball was asked to leave X-Force and join the X-Men, Tabitha reluctantly let him go, knowing their relationship would end. She continued to adventure alongside X-Force, and briefly became enamored of her teammate Sunspot; however, when Cannonball returned to the team months later, the two resumed their relationship.

X-Force later agreed to be led by the British ex-government agent Pete Wisdom, who once again turned the team into an underground paramilitary force, at one point faking their own deaths in order to operate more clandestinely. After one adventure, X-Force survived being in the center of a Vibranium bomb explosion. The team decided to let the world believe them dead and to use this status to secretly infiltrate and destroy anti-mutant organizations around the world. After half a year of this hit-and-run strategy, they learned of a great underground complex where Wisdom's sister, Romany, was infecting people with alien DNA to alter the human race. In the final battle, X-Force destroyed the alien complex and was believed dead.

Tabitha and X-Force reappeared at a press conference for a new team calling itself X-Force, challenging the team (now X-Statix) in dispute for their name. During the battle, Tabitha was teleported by X-Statix' U-Go Girl and left high in the air above a busy freeway. As for X-Force, the heroes were ultimately forced to retreat and presumably disbanded shortly afterward.

Underground

When Cable discovered hints to the existence of a revamped Weapon X program, one designed to use mutants to hunt down and intern other mutants, Cable created an organization to investigate the program and the existence of its internment camp, Neverland. He dubbed the organization the Underground, and invited Meltdown to join his elite group. Ultimately, Cable's Underground group was joined by Weapon X agent Brent Jackson, who hoped to stage a coup against the Director and had formed his own resistance group with fellow agents Washout, Marrow, Wild Child, and Sauron.

With Washout's help and sacrifice, the Underground was able to infiltrate the Weapon X complex, ousting the Director, and nearly crippling the program. However, before the final defeat, Agent Jackson betrayed the Underground, turning Cable's psychic powers against his allies. Jackson captured the Underground members and altered their memories to erase everything they saw and learned about the program. Even so, Cable and the Underground escaped, aided by Weapon X's Marrow, and believed the program to be nothing more than a military cover story.

Nextwave

Tabitha Smith in Nextwave

Shortly afterwards, Tabitha grew her hair long and eschewed her codename, reappearing as a founding member of Nextwave. The Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort, or H.A.T.E. (a subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation) formed the team. Tabitha Smith's new team included Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel, the leader of the Avengers), Elsa Bloodstone, Aaron Stack, and The Captain.

Tabitha stole the marketing plan for aircraft from H.A.T.E after discovering through theft that a former terrorist cell called S.I.L.E.N.T. morphed into the Beyond Corporation. They found the corporation’s marketing plan, which involved using H.A.T.E. and their own resources to product-test unusual WMDs on the American public. The biological weapon was revealed to be Fin Fang Foom, a giant lizard which clambered from underground and proceeded to wreck the building site.

After putting an end to the threat of Fin Fang Foom in Abcess, North Dakota, Nextwave moved on to Illinois. Tabitha managed to subdue Mac Mangel, a corrupt police officer who had been taken as a host by the Ultra Samurai Seed, with a time bomb. The Ultra Samurai metallic shell disintegrated, leaving Mangel crushed on the ground. Upon learning that he was a police officer, Tabitha and Aaron began to beat Mangel before Rambeau intervened.

The team were later attacked by 'The New Paramounts', a team consisting of Forbush Man, The Inedible Bulk, and Charlie America. Forbush Man attempted to use his mind control powers on Tabitha, but was shocked to find they didn't work on her as she apparently had no mind. Tabitha subsequently killed Forbush Man, saving her teammates.

Manifest Destiny

Tabitha relocated with the rest of the X-Men to San Francisco, and resumed using the codename Boom-Boom. On a shopping spree, she encountered Nuwa wreaking havoc on the local shopping scene. After researching Nuwa's weakness, Tabitha defeated her new enemy.

Leper Queen

Tabitha was later abducted by anti-mutant extremists, the Sapien League, alongside Surge and Hellion. Tabitha was held hostage by their leader, the Leper Queen, when the mutant strike force X-Force invaded her headquarters looking for the lost mutants. When X-Force were forcibly transported into the future by Cyclops, the Leper Queen, angry at not being killed by the team, shot Tabitha in the head. Arriving just prior to the shot, X-23 managed to prevent Tabitha's death by shooting the Leper Queen.

Cable and X-Force

Boom-Boom later aided her old X-Force teammate Domino in her infiltration of a S.W.O.R.D. base.

Utopians

Some time following the conflict between the Avengers against the X-Men, after which Utopia was abandoned, Boom-Boom formed part of the Utopians, a group of mutants that started inhabiting the ruins of the island.

The X-Men were reached out to by S.H.I.E.L.D. to investigate the island after a recon team went missing. The X-Men teleported to the island and initially engaged the Utopians. After talking it out and discovering the Utopians wanted nothing but to be safe and undisturbed, the X-Men offered them a place at the New Charles Xavier School, which they gladly accepted.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

Time Bombs: Tabitha can create balls of plasma, which she calls her "time bombs." These "bombs" explode with concussive force. She can produce marble-sized "bombs" which have little concussive impact and which she uses for playing pranks. She has produced "time bombs" ranging up to the size of beach balls, which, when they explode, can smash tree trunks and even metal objects. The amount of concussive impact depends on the size of the bomb she creates, and she can, at least to some extent, control the amount of time until it detonates. After training with X-Factor and adventuring with X-Force, she has learned increasingly greater control over the energy she generates. She can now muffle the sound of the detonation to a limited extent and generate explosive energy as streams that respond to her thought directions. Now possessing greater control over her powers, she can even reabsorb the energy of undetonated bombs and is no longer afraid to use her time bombs in nearly lethal ways.

Paraphernalia

Transportation

X-Men Blackbird, formerly Shockwave Rider, S.H.I.E.L.D I.P.A.C., Warlock, teleportation by Vanisher or Ariel.

Notes

• Tabitha's habit for changing codenames has led to allies issuing mocking comments, such as Machine Man stating she had about nine codenames and Elsa Bloodstone replying they all "sucked", or Sage telling her that she changed her codenames like others did their underwear, and including "Doctor Madame McSplode" in the list of ones Boom-Boom used during her career.

Trivia

• Boom-Boom is a FaceSpace user.
• At least in the pseudo-reality created by Beyond Corporation, Tabitha is a kleptomaniac.

See Also

• 363 appearance(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 13 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 23 minor appearance(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 19 mention(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 7 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 296 image(s) of Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 30 quotation(s) by or about Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)
• 1 victim(s) killed by Tabitha Smith (Earth-616)

Links and References

• uncannyxmen.net Spotlight On... Meltdown
• Wikipedia entry for Meltdown