BIOGRAPHY - Page 3
The current team, along with Lila Cheney, left for their new base at Camp Verde, Warpath's old reservation. In their first mission, Cannonball led X-Force up to Greymalkin, Cable's old space station, to stop SHIELD and War Machine from stealing their futuristic technology. Around the same time, some members of the team were kidnapped by the Externals, who found that they weren’t as immortal as they thought when one of their own died of the Legacy Virus. Wanting to study Sam’s genetic structure for a possible element against the deadly disease, they blackmailed him into delivering himself for the lives of his friends. Bound by the promise he earlier made never to interfere in the matters of the Externals, Sam stayed behind, while the rest of X-Force rescued the others and also made it pretty clear to the Externals that it was a two-way deal from now on. [X-Force (1st series) #20-23]
About a month later, Cable returned to the team, telling them how the time-stream had spit him out in his own time of 3999 AD. While they weren’t sure if they needed Cable anymore, the teenagers and especially Sam were still relieved to have an “adult” back to help them deal with the pressure, especially as Cable had realized that he had to do more for them than just treat 
them as soldiers and be straight with them. Immediately after, X-Force encountered Magneto and his new servant, the powerful Exodus. Cannonball and Sunspot followed Magneto’s invitation to Avalon to ask him to help their brainwashed former teammates Rusty and Skids. With the exception of those two, they chose to stay with Cable though. [X-Force (1st series) #25]
Weeks later, a mysterious new mutant called Reignfire decided to reform the MLF. He recruited long-time members, Forearm, Tempo, Reaper and Wildside, as well as two new members, Moonstar and Locus. After they attacked and kidnapped NSA adviser, Henry Peter Gyrich, X-Force tracked them down, with devastating results. Moonstar was revealed as Mirage, somehow back from Asgard. In the final battles, Tempo quit the MLF, Feral defected to the MLF, Reaper was apparently killed, and Sunspot and Locus disappeared in one of her space/time teleporting flashes. [X-Force (1st series) #26-28]
Feeling like he needed a vacation, Sam and Boomer left the team to visit his family farm in Kentucky. Introducing her to his family showed that Sam was serious about Tabitha. While there, they were kidnapped by Siena Blaze, a member of the mutant-killing Upstarts. In their latest hunt, the Gamesmaster had sent the Upstarts to capture all remaining members of the old New Mutants and Hellions teams. In the course of this hunt, the Upstarts encountered both X-Force and their allies, the New Warriors. While Siena Blaze captured Cannonball, Boomer, Empath, Karma and Moonstar, Shinobi turned in Firestar and her boyfriend, Justice. In the final battle with the Gamesmaster himself, it was Cannonball’s sister, Paige, who saved them when all seemed lost. She manifested transitional bodimorphing abilities and won in a battle of wills with the Gamesmaster, convincing him to free them all. After this was over, Sam and Boomer returned to the Guthrie farm, along with Paige, to continue their vacation. [X-Force (1st series) #29, 32-33, New Warriors #45-46]
A few weeks later, Cannonball was peacefully visited by the Externals, Gideon, Saul, and Absalom, seeking guidance, because he was prophesied as the one to save the Externals from extinction. The Externals seemed to be especially vulnerable to the Legacy Virus and one of them 
– dying – had had a precognitive vision of Sam somehow being the key to their salvation. Actually, each External added some element to their circle – wisdom, fortitude, patience, ferocity, despair, guile, corruption and opportunity. Cannonball apparently represented hope. Sam gave them a wise speech on a man's mortality and that it didn’t matter how long a person might live, just what they do with their time. The Externals left, more confident in their place in the world as immortal mutants. Boomer was touched by this speech as well, understanding that she didn’t have to be afraid of Sam outliving her for centuries when it was only their time spent together that mattered. [X-Force (1st series) #37]
Sam and Boomer then returned to the team in time to help battle the Phalanx. X-Force soon moved to another base in New York, the psychotic gamesman Arcade's former Murderworld, after their friend and ally, Prosh, cleaned out Camp Verde to facilitate a trip to the stars. [X-Force (1st series) #39-41]
In an attempt to track down Sunspot, Sam ran Cerebro's mutant-detection system through Cable's Time Displacement Core, hoping to find Bobby at anyplace throughout space/ time. He succeeded, however, in a way he didn't suspect. According to the readings, Sunspot had been on Earth, in present time, ever since he disappeared. In fact, he was found by Cerebro at the same MLF base he disappeared from. Immediately after finding this out, the teleporting former member of the MLF, Locus, returned from wherever she came to help Cannonball and X-Force against Reignfire and the MLF. Arriving at the MLF's base, they discovered that Reignfire had begun slaughtering them, taking them down with his plasma fire. Confronted on Sunspot's whereabouts, Reignfire laughed, and removed his helmet, revealing himself to actually be Sunspot. Cruelly, he explained that Locus's time-travel abilities sent him forward in time, where he adapted his "new outlook on life" and then back before he disappeared to reform the MLF is the first place. After sending a message to Cable in Israel, Sam attempted to reason with his old friend, but to no avail. Cable soon arrived and, using Askani techniques, was able to force the Reignfire persona away and let Sunspot regain control. The MLF thanked X-Force, but stated that their goals hadn't changed. Still, for the moment, the two teams parted peacefully. X-Force returned to Murderworld, where Arcade found them and detonated explosives in their base, destroying it. [X-Force (1st series) #43, X-Men Prime]
They then moved back into Xavier's Mansion. A few weeks later, Cable and Xavier called Sam and X-Force in to discuss the future of X-Force. Cable explained that they were still going to do things his way, but they would be working with the X-Men more closely. After passing out new uniforms to the others, Xavier and Cable explained that Cannonball no longer had a place in X-Force. He had won his position as a full-fledged member of the X-Men. This complicated his relationship with Tabitha though, a relationship that was already somewhat strained as Sam (as well as pretty much everybody else) disagreed with Tabitha’s practice of looking after the seemingly lobotomized Sabretooth. [X-Force (1st series) #44]
Being a member of the senior team was a dream come true for Sam, but he felt anxious and somewhat out of place with the X-Men. Back with X-Force, he had been a competent field leader surrounded by friends. With the senior team, he felt and acted like a wide-eyed rookie, surrounded by his former idols. Soon after he’d joined the X-Men, Sam headed home to Kentucky, along with his sister Paige, now known as Husk, and several X-Men, to help and talk reason into his younger sister, Joelle, who had fallen in with a mutant-hating cult. [Uncanny X-Men ‘95]
Sam tried to talk to Xavier about his growing self-doubts, but the Professor, who was on the verge of turning into Onslaught, basically told him to shape up or get out. The other X-Men comforted Sam when they learned of Xavier’s harsh comment. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #334, X-Men (2nd series) #54]
In the meantime, X-Force witnessed how all the other Externals were slaughtered by the immortal Selene, who claimed that now all of their kind were dead save for her and one other (Candra). When X-Force was afraid for Cannonball, Selene derogatively told them that they needn’t worry. According to Selene, Cannonball wasn’t an External and they should ask their mentor Cable about how he came back to life and why he had lied to them about Cannonball’s status. Unfortunately, that riddle was never solved. [X-Force (1st series) #54-55]
Following the Onslaught tragedy, Sam along with Iceman went undercover and joined the campaign staff of Graydon Creed, who was trying to become US President on a mutant-hating 
ticket. Sam and Bobby were to find out more about Creed and stay close to him and regularly reported to the other X-Men, mostly through Jean’s telepathy. Sam stayed on even after Bobby left - after Creed’s thugs had beaten up his father for pro-mutant comments. In time, Creed began to trust Sam and talked with him about their parentages but, soon thereafter, Creed was assassinated by his own mother, Mystique. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #338-340] With the campaign at an end, Cannonball returned to the team.