If I was Cannonball

Background

Sam Guthrie is a mutant who first manifested his powers in his early adolescents who first used it to free himself and a number of other miners from a cave in. Ever since he has essentially been on one X-men derived team or another over the years.

Description

Samuel Guthrie is a tall thin man with blond hair and blue eyes. He's had a variety of costumes over the years which have mostly been variations on the uniforms warn by the Students of the Charles Xavier 's School for Gifted Children. There was however the time when he dressed more like a world war two pilot even including the aviator's goggles.

Powers

Cannonball's primary power is the ability to generate a thermal chemical reaction that provides him thrust to fly. To protect him during flight his body generates a "blast field" a personal force field that protects him from harm.

Initially he could only project the thrust along his legs permitting him to fly in a straight line and he couldn't stop until he taxed his flight power or until he hit a large enough object that could resist his momentum. The blast field lasted long enough to protect him from the consequences of crashing and it extended to anyone he was willingly carrying in flight with him.

Now he can fly with great agility as his ability to direct his motion is a function of his will as well he can stop and start at will. He can even direct his thrust from anywhere on his body permitting him to use it as a sort of energy blast attack. His force field can even be called up at will and extended to protect a small group of people standing around him. He has enough control over his blast field that he can use it trap a target in it. It can be used to absorb kinetic force directed at it which can then be used to enhance the power of his blows or to increase the force of his impact with a target or even increase the duration of his flight.

The upper limit of his power varies by the writer currently handling him but he can lay waste to an area of several city blocks by impacting with the ground starting from a high altitude. His top speed used to be 150 mph but now it seems to be closer to the speed of sound. His maximum range is unknown but it would seem to be that he can fly for hours without needing to land or rest.

It is possible that he is immortal after a fashion. He is believed to be an External a member of a specific group of "immortal" (there are ways of killing them) mutants but since the concept was introduced it hasn't been pursued so I'm not including it as part of his power set for this posting.

If I was Cannonball

I won't lie to you. The whole appeal of these powers for me is the fact that while your flying you leave a contrail like a rocket. I would spend hours learning how to do sky writing and sky drawing. I'm serious the sky would be my canvas but more realistically I would spend so much time pretending to be a rocket or that I'm a "space man" with a "rocket pack".

There's at least one obvious way to make a living as a living reusable missile but I'm not going down that route. I'd rather defend the homeland at home than abroad. I'll lay down my life to protect my country but I won't lay it down just to make somebody's political career from my country or from another one. As a consequence I may join an international aid organization and like with my post of having Wonder Man's ring I would protect them to let them get to places where they would otherwise be attacked by someone.

You know as I think about this power I can't help but think that I would never really find out how much damage I could do. Frankly I would be far too afraid to smash face first into anything that up until having the power would readily crush me if I tried to punch through it. It takes a lot of courage to fly head first into something at 150 mph. When Sam Guthrie first used his power he was saving lives so he didn't really have time to think about it. It would have to be that kind of situation for me to first try it too. Or at least some kind of adrenaline charged situation like me being uncontrollably angry and I'm only concerned with breaking something.

Now when I think about it this would be a power where I would be inclined to take up a Robin Hood role. This would be an awesome power for dramatic break and entry. Smash into people's private vaults and then fly off with the take and redistribute it among the needy. I might even get a costume made to hide my identity and to give people something to focus on.

HMM now I'm thinking how good of a power this would be for fighting fires. Smash into the ground from a high altitude and let the shock wave create a vacuum that would put out the fire or at least portions of it. If the power can be used to demolish several city blocks in one strike then imagine how large and powerful the shock wave is and how much of a vacuum and ergo how large of a fire that can be tackled.

Thanks for reading.