Here's everything you need to know about Cannonball, the greatest leader of the New Mutants. Josh Boone's New Mutants has been in Development Hell for several years now, in large part due to the Disney/Fox acquisition. But it's finally coming out on April 3rd, and the House of Mouse recently released a new trailer.
New Mutants, of course, isn't the story of A-list heroes like Cyclops, Wolverine, and Charles Xavier. It features a number of lesser-known characters who will be familiar to comic book readers, but who - in some cases - have never actually made their way on to the big screen before. One of the most notable of these is Cannonball, a Kentucky mutant who has the potential to become one of the X-Men's greatest leaders.
In the comics, Cannonball possesses the ability to generate a powerful energy field around himself, that he can use to propel himself in flight like a human cannonball. Like most characters created by legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont, Cannonball has a catchphrase; he describes him as "well nigh invulnerable when I'm blastin'." The New Mutants trailer appears to hint that Cannonball's powers have been switched up a little, showing only shots of an energy field surrounding Cannonball's fists rather than launching him in flight. Still, for all the powerset appears to have been adjusted, Charlie Heaton seems to be a natural fit. Here's everything you need to know about Cannonball's story in the comics.
Cannonball And His Mutant Family
Cannonball is the oldest brother in a family of ten children. It's important to understand that, in the X-Men comics, the mutant gene can be passed down through family lines. The most famous of these is the Summers family, which includes brothers Cyclops and Havok, but frankly, the Guthrie's should be considered far more notable. As the oldest, Sam Guthrie was the first to hit puberty shortly after his father's death, and thus the first whose powers became active. Sam's powers triggered during a mine collapse - an understandably traumatic experience for the young mutant. Shortly after, he was approached by Charles Xavier and offered a chance to enroll at Xavier's School as one of the New Mutants.
Sam's brothers and sisters found their way to Xavier's School as well over the years, and the mutant scientists of the X-Men world were fascinated by it all. As Beast observed in the "Endangered Species" arc, the number of mutants in this family frankly borders on the miraculous; there's never been another family where so many siblings developed an active X-gene. Paige (aka Husk) is the most famous Guthrie after Sam; although Husk now lives on the mutant island of Krakoa, she appears to be less than comfortable with their isolationist philosophy and believes wholeheartedly in the importance of fighting for humans as well as mutants.
Unfortunately, over the years the Guthrie's have come to regret their association with the X-Men. Cannonball's mother Lucinda came to regret their association, feeling as though all her children were destined to fight on the battlefields of what she considered "Xavier's War." The worst was when Sam's younger brother Jay was brutally murdered by anti-mutant protesters. Lucinda was actually relieved when the Scarlet Witch unleashed a spell that depowered some 98 percent of the world's mutants, simply because she hoped the nightmare was coming to an end and that her remaining children wouldn't have to go to Xavier's.
Cannonball Has Always Been Destined For Greatness
Life certainly wasn't easy for the New Mutants, and after a number of tragedies - including their deaths and resurrections at the hands of an alien entity called the Beyonder - they decided to take a more aggressive approach to Xavier's Dream. Renaming themselves "X-Force," the New Mutants took on the time-traveling warrior named Cable as their mentor and leader. That was a controversial decision, given the rest of the X-Men considered Cable to be something of a terrorist, and at times it led to outright conflict between the X-Men and X-Force.
Cable prioritized mentoring Cannonball, who he claimed was a type of mutant called an "External," functionally immortal. He developed Cannonball as a leader, helping give Sam Guthrie the confidence to blaze his own trail. As relations between the X-Men and X-Force gradually smoothed out, Cannonball was approached by Xavier and offered the opportunity to graduate and become an X-Man. He is still the only member of the New Mutants to officially achieve this, even if the graduation did, unfortunately, result in a dramatic loss of self-confidence. More recently, Cannonball became one of the few mutants to serve as a member of the Avengers.
Cannonball's Love Life Has Been Chaotic To Say The Least
The X-Men franchise has frequently been described as the comic book equivalent of a soap opera, and even Cyclops has joked about how romantically involved the various X-teams can become. For Cannonball, his first taste of romance was actually a stolen kiss with Firestar, a young mutant who attended a rival school led by Emma Frost. He then moved on to Lila Cheney, a pop star who possessed the power of teleportation, and who drew the New Mutants into a number of cosmic adventures. Over the years, Sam has dated several of his teammates, most notably Boomer and Dani Moonstar.
Ironically, though, Cannonball finally found the relationship he'd always dreamed of when he left the X-Men and joined the Avengers. The Avengers were drawn into galactic affairs in Jonathan Hickman's "Infinity" event, and Sam wound up working with the Imperial Guard Smasher. The two began an uneasy relationship, and it blossomed into love and eventually into marriage. Sam decided to leave Earth altogether shortly after the birth of son, settling on the Shi'ar homeworld of Chandrilar. He and his family have recently returned as part of Jonathan Hickman's X-Men relaunch, with Sam's friend Sunspot leading a team to Shi'ar space in order to spend some quality time with him.
