Frequent readers of this column (there are a few of you…right? Right?) as well as of Jim Trabold’s Marvel Handbook know that the holy grail of comic books for me as a kid was the first volume of Marvel’s New Warriors. I loved the characters, the conflict, the gorgeous art, the multi-layered storylines…but as I developed a fledgling interest in writing, more and more I came to appreciate the writer of the book, Fabian Nicieza (if I may digress for a moment, one of the highlights of my comic geek life was when Fabe, during his brief period of editor of the revamped Acclaim Comics, saw a letter I wrote decrying the cancellation of New Warriors that was published in Marvel Vision and sent me a letter of thanks and free copy of X-O Manowar…but like I said, I digress).
Well, New Warriors wasn’t the only book about a team of teenage super-heroes Fabe was writing back in the early nineties, there was also a little title called X-Force.
Now, this may cause a bit of confusion, given what the name X-Force has come to mean since those simpler (yet continuity-heavy) days of yore; allow me to clarify. This was an X-Force that came before Peter Milligan and Mike Alldred’s x-static (oy, puntastic) work in unique commentary on the nature of celebrity, super-heroes and mortality. This was before Warren Ellis had Pete Wisdom take the gang under his wing in an ill-fated attempt to craft a cool para-military mutant book. This was even before Jeph Loeb and John Francis Moore took a group of young mutants on a never-ending roadtrip. And this was after Rob Liefield’s out-of-proportioned, big guns/big boobs/big shoulderpads Cable-fest that was the very first permutation of X-Force.
No, for a brief period beginning with the X-Cutioner’s Song and ending with the Age of Apocalypse, Fabian Nicieza, along with Greg Capullo and later Antonio Daniel (who would both go on to modest Spawn fame) crafted a compelling book about the ultimate disenfranchised group (young mutants) out in the world on their own for the first time. These were kids who had grown up outsiders, but had always Xavier, Magneto, or Cable there to steer them in the “right†(read: adult) direction. But now they chose to explore the world for themselves, find their place, and for a kid like myself, who was trying to do the same, these characters, older enough than me to be cool, but young enough that I could relate to them, were like close friends.
And the aforementioned path came about not just because Fabe wrote it that way, but because in X-Force #19, “The Open Hand, The Closed Fist,†one of my favorite stories of all-time, Cannonball, X-Force’s de-facto leader at the time, stood up to his original mentor, Professor X, and told him it was time for X-Force to become what they would become:
“It’s about your dream, ain’t it, Professor? It’s about whether we’re gonna use the open hand—or the closed fist! Well what d’you want from us, sir? You took us in—you set us on this road—then you left the wheel in someone else’s hands! Magneto’s, for cryin’ out loud! So he drives us, this way an’ that—an’ finally abandons us on the side of the road. An’ a new driver comes along. Maybe not the safest driver around…but he got us back on the road again—just not the same road—but we felt we were headed in the right direction. An’ now Cable’s dead, but guess what, Professor—we’ve learned how to drive the car by ourselves! Are you ready ta let us do that?â€
I never read the first run of New Mutants. I didn’t know Sam Guthrie, the awkward farmboy. To me, what I just wrote, that was Sam Guthrie—that was Cannonball.
As I continued to read X-Force, Cannonball quickly became one of my favorite characters. He was a true hero in every sense of the word, but more than that, a character who you wanted to like. He was one of the nicest characters in comic books in a time of anti-heroes and bad boys. But when it came down to business, he stood up for what he believed in. And that was the core of the Cannonball character: a commitment to doing the right thing that was on par with the likes of Superman and Captain America. Sam Guthrie has manners that are second to none, a sense of respect and of decency…but it doesn’t matter if you’re Professor Charles Xavier, a man who is like a father to Cannonball, if you’re standing between him and what he feels is right, he will tell you with a passion.
After that classic issue, Cannonball led X-Force for a scant six issues before Cable made his return from the “dead.†But the neat thing was that even Cable, uber-tough guy/man of mystery supreme, had to take a step back and admit just how competent a leader Sam had become. Cable slowly slid back into the role of mentor to X-Force, but it was acknowledged the Sam was the leader in spirit, and Cable was now hitching a ride with the kids, not vice versa.
And so it continued for two years…until the Age of Apocalypse hit. When X-Force and the other x-titles returned from hiatus, Fabe had sadly departed (en route, eventually, to the aforementioned Acclaim gig). Loeb or Moore (forget who came first) took over the book with the art of Adam Pollina (which was dynamic, to say the least, but nothing I particularly cared for). My disappointment over Fabe’s departure was relieved by a revelation in the first post-AOA issue of X-Force: Cannonball was becoming an X-Man.
It was honestly like seeing your kid graduate high school, I was so excited. If any character deserved a shot at the big-time, it was Cannonball. I couldn’t wait to see the youthful energy Sam would inject into the premiere X-Team; I figured with his combination of endearing kindness tempered by the man of conviction he’d grown into, he’d become a darling of x-fans everywhere.
Something went wrong. The Sam who joined the X-Men was not my Sam. Somewhere during the Age of Apocalypse, Cannonball had apparently regressed about five years in character development. He was in awe of Cyclops, scared of Wolverine and all “aw shucks†around Storm and Rogue. Allow me to reiterate: this is a character who told off no less than Professor X himself when he felt he was right; no way does even Cyclops force him to back down from what he believes in.
I’ve seen from random back issues that there were some nice moments to Cannonball’s tenure as an X-Man. When Onslaught hit, he was one of the first to figure it out, and afterwards, he took a far bigger role in the team. He had the guts to stand up to Gladiator, one of the toughest guys in the Marvel Universe, and took him down with his smarts. He befriended Marrow and stood up to Storm on her behalf. But these are only glimpses I saw, because I decided I’d had it with comics at this point and stopped reading for awhile. From what little I saw of Cannonball as an X-Man, he wasn’t living up to his potential.
Apparently the Marvel powers-that-be agreed with me, because Cannonball was taken out of the main group and moved back to an X-Force that was floundering sales-wise. From what I hear (again, wasn’t reading), this wasn’t a bad period in X-Force’s history. The “road trip†angle provided for some fun stories and some characters (Warpath, Moonstar, Meltdown) had their greatest periods of character development. But from what I gather, the old saying “you can never go home again†fit best in describing Cannonball’s second run in X-Force. The whole thing was attempt to relive a nostalgic period that could never be again because the characters involved had been fussed with beyond repair.
When I started picking up comics again on a regular basis a couple years back, I picked up one of the final “Counter-X†issues of X-Force out of curiosity and flipped through; I was disgusted. I saw a Cannonball who was ready and willing to kill, not for what was right, but because of some vague loyalty to Pete Wisdom. But as I looked closer, it was strange, I almost felt as if Sam Guthrie was speaking to me. I saw something in the murky art, portraying a Cannonball with a short buzz cut and more lines on his face than I remembered saying “I give up.†The vibrant character I remembered was gone, after years of misuse. The character was still alive to me, but not because he was shining brightly, more because he had lost his way, and his sadness was palpaple. Sam Guthrie had once been, in my eyes, a character with the most single-minded of purposes: do the right thing; staring at that panel, I saw a character who didn’t even remember what that was and who had no direction in which to go. A couple issues later, Cannonball and the rest of X-Force rocketed to a seeming mass suicide, but I bearly mourned, because the Cannonball I knew had died somewhere in the pages of X-Men years before.
But of course, that was not the end for Sam Guthrie. He resurfaced in Milligan & Alldred’s X-Force in a brief, funny and completely unexplained appearance. Part of me felt like I should be angry at the mockery being made of the character, but I just smiled; it just meant Cannonball was still out there, in a safer place, in limbo, waiting for the right writer to bring him back. When it was announced that he’d be appearing in New X-Men, I got excited…until I read the issues and saw Grant Morrison take not only Cannonball, but other old favorites like Siryn, Rictor and others and make them into nothing more than familiar names on unrecognizable characters telling dirty jokes because it was “cool†(my extreme distaste for Morrison’s butchering of old characters for his X-Corporation in-joke could fill an entire separate column). But I was still relieved when Sam survived the attack on Weapon XIII (or whatever), because again: he was still out there, just waiting for the right writer…and finally, that writer came.
Comic book fans either love or hate Chris Claremont. Some think he is a wordy fossil, other think he’s practically a writing deity. I’ve always liked X-Treme X-Men, but I’ll admit, there were some issues during “Invasion From Dimension X†where I was practically screaming “get on with it already!â€
But that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter, is that in X-Treme X-Men #24 (a comic that has become one of my favorite of 2003 already), after an absence of nearly a decade, the true Sam Guthrie, Cannonball, returned…and I have Chris Claremont to thank for it.
If you are a fan of the X-Men, X-Force, or just good art and good writing, go pick up X-Treme X-Men #24 (it is sure to still be available). It has heroism. It has real-life drama. It has a fun supporting cast. It has a love story. But more importantly, it is perhaps the single best issue I have ever seen when it comes to getting to the core of one of my favorite characters in comics.
Just as I fell in love with the character of Cannonball during a verbal confrontation with Professor X ten years ago, so did I rediscover that love in another conversation between the two one week ago. Indulge me once more, if you will…
“Cannonball? Samuel?â€
“Yeah, Professor?â€
“I know this is a hard time for you, lad, but we have to go. Rendezvous with the rest of the team at the French end of the Chunnel.â€
“There are still people to be found.â€
“No Sam—there aren’t. Jean and I have both swept the crash site telepathically. There’s telepathic resonance from Weapon XII’s death inhibiting our scans somewhat…but we’re both fairly certain we’ve accounted for all survivors. Given what we know of the circumstances of this incident, it’s no place for a mutant, especially an X-Man.â€
“I was a miner’s son long before I met up with you, sir. And miners don’t quit until everyone’s been brought home—the living and the dead. I’d like to stay.â€
“As you wish.â€
“That wasn’t the only reason, and Xavier didn’t need telepathy to intuit what it was. In the Kentucky mountains where Sam was born and raised, people lived by a code of honor. Regardless of whoever set these tragic events in motion, a mutant took most of the lives that were lost here. To Sam, it’s only right that another mutant do whatever’s necessary to help set things right.â€
Fabian Nicieza and Chris Claremont are two very different writers, but both tapped into the core of why I love Cannonball as a character: he’s a hero. Bottom line, end of the story, whether it’s being kind to a lady or risking your own life to save others, Cannonball does the right thing. And if you try to stop him, he will politely tell you to stand aside.
The prodigal son has returned. Thank you Mr. Nicieza and thank you Mr. Claremont.
