If I Was Black Tom

Background

Thomas Cassidy is an Irish born mutant with a knack from crime who is the cousin of the former X-Man Banshee. He is the long time partner in crime of the Juggernaut and the two have fought the X-Men on many occasions.

Description

Black Tom is a tall, well put together man (6' tall, 200 lbs) with black hair and brown eyes. Typically he wears a goatee.

His current costume is a black body suit with red ankle high "boots" with a black over coat with red trim on the sleeves and something like a large bat shaped "T" as its emblem.

Powers

Black Tom has the ability to project bolts of heat, concussive force or both simultaneously that he must project through a wooden medium such as his shillelagh which is unharmed by its use. There doesn't seem to be a specified limit to his powers but it is noted that he can melt metals with his heat blasts and can wreak "considerable havoc" with the concussive force.

He is immune to the powers of his cousins Banshee and Siryn.

If I Was Black Tom

One of the first things I would do is set up my house to have easily accessible pieces of wood in every room. With that done I would move to making myself a "side arm". Among my choices would be wands of various styles. There are tons of websites that sell ornately crafted wands. Some look pretty nice. I may keep a wand or two up my sleeve. I may make use of my own carving skills to make gun shaped carvings, maybe a variety of dragons or "laser guns". I even thought it might be cool to make wooden replicas of Iron Man's gauntlets. If nothing else I would wear a couple of rings carved from wood on each hand.

Another thing I would do is make sure all my bowls and plates were made of wood as well as my serving and baking utensils. That way I could use a low level heat blast to warm food in them. Possibly I could use the force aspect of the concussive blast to mix things or at least shake them up. Having said that I might make a number of hand tools out of wood that can make use of my blasts. Or I might just use chopsticks for wood burning and carving. With a lot of practice I may even develop laser-like precision in cutting using the powers.

I know that as with all energy blast powers I would like to see at how low of a level of output I could use the energy blasts. I would like to use the concussive element of the blast to push things with minimal damage to them and I would like to be able to use the heat element of it to warm a person or a room without burning them.

I might also find ways to use my powers for propulsion. A wooden paddle would be a great tool to push myself along in a canoe. I might use a wooden board to move along the water or on the snow by projecting force out the back of it. I might create a flying rig that lets me use the blast power that I can guide with my arms. Possibly a safety harness attached to some gauntlet-like arm rockets.

I might also take up kendo and become a swordsman. That way I could use the wooden practice swords in all kinds of cool martial arts way. That may lead me to playing local protector or at least trying to be useful.

Thanks for reading.