Cannonball
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| Samuel "Sam" Zachery Guthrie | |
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| Gender | Male |
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| Age | Unknown |
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Sam Guthrie, better known as Cannonball is a mutant associated with the X-Men.
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[edit] Statistics
Identity: Secret
Affiliation: Currently X-Men, formerly X-Force, New Mutants, X-Corporation, 198
Relatives: Thomas Zebulon Guthrie (father, deceased), Lucinda Guthrie (mother), Paige Guthrie, Joshua "Jay" Guthrie (deceased), Jebediah Guthrie , Melody Guthrie, Lewis Guthrie, Joelle Guthrie (sister), Elizabeth Guthrie, unnamed sister, (siblings) Lucas Guthrie (paternal uncle), Ray Jr (adopted brother)
Base Of Operations: Xavier Institute; formerly Salem Center, Westchester County, New York
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 181 lbs (82.1 kg)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond
Unusual Features: Sam's eyes have a greyish tint
Citizenship: American
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Adventurer, former student and coal miner
Education: College Graduate
Place of Birth: Cumberland County, Kentucky
[edit] History
Sam Guthrie was a young boy attempting to help out his family, by working in a coal mine, after the death of his father. Giving the dangerous nature of this work, Sam found himself trapped inside the mine. To rescue his fellow workers, Sam discovered his mutant ability and use it to escape with a fellow co-worker. 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.
Cannonball remained with the New Mutants 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 rock star Lila Cheney, with whom he became romantically involved. 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 the 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.
Cannonball and the other New Mutants left the X-Men's supervision and joined Cable's team, the hard edged X-Force. Cannonball rose to the rank of second-in-command. Some time later, Cable revealed that Sam was an external, a long-lived and nearly immortal kind of mutant. Cable trained him to battle Apocalypse, another external who in Cable's future time, had conquered the world. Selene once claimed that Cannonball was not an External, though she is not a particularly trustworthy source.
X-Force re-established ties with the X-Men and Cannonball accepted an offer to join the latter team. During this time, he regressed acting as an 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.
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. En route 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.
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. 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, 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. When Rogue was given command of a field team, she picked both Cannonball and Iceman, who began working more closely together. This team was infiltrated and betrayed by several Marauders and Iceman and Cannonball were sent to recover missing volumes of Destiny's diaries. Cannonball was captured by Mr. Sinister who tried to erase his mind, but timely assistance from Iceman allowed the two to escape. Cannonball subsequently healed from his injuries.
After the breakup of the X-Men after Messiah Complex, Cannonball has been targetted by the Young X-Men as one of the former New Mutants seemingly aligned with the Hellfire Club.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
[edit] Powers
Cannonball is an Alpha-Level mutant.
Thermo-Chemical Energy Field Propulsion: 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, but now he can fire it from almost any part of his body, to a wide variety of affects.
Blast Field: 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.
Metahuman Durability: possesses metahuman durability due to the energy field which forms over his body.
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 (Kallark), 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).
[edit] Abilities
Cannonball does not seem to possess any extraordinary telents.
[edit] Strength level & Weaknesses
Cannonball possesses the normal human strength of a young man of his age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise. However, when he uses his powers to apply thrust beneath him, the force thus generated enables him to bear aloft over a ton of weight in addition to his own.
Cannonball doesn't have any extraordinary weaknesses.
[edit] Appearances in other Media
[edit] X-Men: The Animated Series
Sam Guthrie played a small role in X-Men: The Animated Series. The X-Men and anti-mutant forces competed for a role in Sam's life.
[edit] X-Men: Evolution
Sam is one of the New Mutants at the Xavier Institue, first appearing in the second season. His tendency to crash into things is somewhat of a running gag, and he demonstrates a skill at motocross racing, almost beating Wolverine in a race once, until his bike hit a rock when he wasn't paying attention, and he crashed. In the final battle against Apocalypse, Sam did not participate in any of the actual fighting. Instead, he accompanied Rogue in her part of the mission to find Dorian Leech so that she could absorb his powers and use them to stop Apocalypse. Sam's only significant role was flying her into the Sphinx where the fight was going down.
[edit] X2: X-Men United
Sam's and his sister, Paige's names appeared on the list of mutants that Mystique scrolled through on William Stryker's computer.
[edit] Paraphernalia
Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.
