 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
| Tabitha Smith | |
|---|---|
 Tabitha Smith on the cover toWeapon X #11. Art by Georges Jeanty. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Secret Wars II #5 (Nov. 1985) |
| Created by | Jim Shooter (writer) Al Milgrom (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Tabitha Smith |
| Species | Human mutant |
| Team affiliations | Fallen Angels X-Terminators New Mutants Underground X-Force Nextwave X-Men |
| Notable aliases | Time Bomb Boom-Boom Boomer Meltdown Firecracker Mutate #35 |
| Abilities |
|
Tabitha Smith is asuperhero appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics, commonly in association with TheX-Men and related titles. Created byJim Shooter andAl Milgrom, the character first appeared inSecret Wars II #5 (Nov. 1985). She then appeared as a member ofX-Force and later as a member ofNextwave.
Tabitha is mentally able to create variably-sized yellow orbs of pure energy that explode with concussive and destructive force. Since her first appearance, she has used a number of different codenames, includingTime Bomb,Boom-Boom,Boomer, andMeltdown.[1]
Created byJim Shooter andAl Milgrom, the character first appeared inSecret Wars II #5 (Nov. 1985), in which she and theBeyonder are the primary characters. She next appears as a main character in the 1987 limited seriesFallen Angels. This led to her becoming a supporting character in theX-Factor series beginning with issue #11, which then led to a co-star role in theX-Terminators limited series. Following this series, she appeared inTheNew Mutants, initially guest-starring as a member of the X-Terminators, and eventually becoming a member of the titular group.
The team then becameX-Force and she remained a member of the team for most of theX-Force series. Sometime later, she appears as a member ofNextwave throughout theNextwave series. WriterWarren Ellis said that he picked Boom-Boom to be in Nextwave because Boom-Boom is his favorite superhero name in the history of comics for its sheer oddness and silliness, and he loved it when she was inUncanny X-Men whenJoe Madureira was the artist.
"I wanted a character who could blow things up," he said of his choice of Boom-Boom. "I was also looking for a team structure where the women outnumbered the men. I liked herwhite-trash criminal background, which had uses in the plot set-up. But mostly I wanted a character who could blow things up. I mean, these are characters who no-one at Marvel had any use for, and I could have been stopped at any time, Jen. But a skinny-ass blonde mutant with akleptomaniac streak had both plot and entertainment value to me. Especially when played against the others."[2]
Tabitha Smith was born inRoanoke, Virginia and is depicted as a rebellious but normal teenager, and the daughter of divorced parents, in her first appearance. Hermutant powers manifest at age 13, and her parents immediately show their disgust, with her father even beating her. Running away from home, she gives herself the alias "Time Bomb" and meets the cosmic entity known as theBeyonder. He brings her toCharles Xavier, headmaster of theSchool for Gifted Youngsters, who ignores her to combat the Beyonder.
Living on the streets, Tabitha becomes involved with Maurice "Tiger" Antonini and, after he threatens her and murders her friend Gina, she uses her powers to kill him. Then, the villain known as theVanisher recruits her for his band of thieves, called the Fallen Angels, and she officially takes on the codename "Boom-Boom." She eventually betrays the Vanisher, calling in the help ofX-Factor, with whom she stays afterward.[3] Tabitha's former teammate in the Fallen Angels, the alienAriel, kidnaps the Angels and takes them to her home where they are experimented on by her planet's scientists. Ultimately, she is unable to go through with the plan and helps them escape.
Following two successful team-ups with theNew Mutants,[4] Tabitha and some members of the X-Terminators,Rusty Collins,Skids, andRictor, join the group.[5] During her time with the New Mutants, Tabitha falls in love with her teammate,Cannonball. When the team is transported to the mythical realm of Asgard, it is partially through Tabitha that the team is able to foil a plot to killOdin. There she becomes close friends with the wolf-princeHrimhari.[6] They encounter the man known asCable,[7] and when he starts to mentor the team, Tabitha gains greater control of her powers. Tabitha is captured byStryfe and theMutant Liberation Front but is rescued.[8]
The New Mutants team, under the continued tutelage of Cable, is reformed intoX-Force.[9] The team undergoes a revamp, employing new, more aggressive methods. During this time, Tabitha acts on her crush on Cannonball, and the two have a relationship. Although she questions the team's new methods, Tabitha sticks with the team, rechristening herself "Boomer." She battles theBrotherhood of Evil Mutants alongside her new team in one of their early missions.[10]
Following an attempted murder ofProfessor X, mutual distrust places X-Force in conflict with the X-Men and X-Factor, and X-Force is apprehended.[11] Cannonball arranges for the team to be temporarily released so that they can help take down their arch-enemies, theMutant Liberation Front.[12] Among the MLF are two of Boomer's former X-Terminators and New Mutants teammates, Rusty and Skids, who breaks Boomer's jaw.[13] After X-Force's names are cleared, Tabitha is confronted by Cannonball's ex-girlfriendLila Cheney, who gives the couple her blessing.[14]
In the meantime, the sudden power loss really hit home for Cannonball, as to just how little they had been doing lately to help mutant-kind. He got back in touch withPete Wisdom, and together they devised a plan for reactivating X-Force as a covert strike team. Meltdown, along withWarpath andBedlam, agreed to enter into this new arrangement, and they took up residence in an abandoned Nevada Hulkbuster base for extensive retraining for martial combat and the use of their powers. In particular, Tabitha learned how to direct the explosive force of her power into streams of guided energy and was also heavily trained in computer hacking and manipulating digital information.
WhenCable discovers hints regarding the existence of a revampedWeapon X program, one designed to use mutants to hunt down and intern other mutants, he creates an organization to investigate the program and the existence of its internment camp, Neverland. He dubs the organization "the Underground" and invites Meltdown to join his elite group. Ultimately, Cable's Underground group is joined by Weapon X agentBrent Jackson, who hopes to stage a coup against the project's director and has formed his own resistance group with fellow agentsWashout,Marrow,Wild Child, andSauron. Jackson betrays the Underground team, however, after the coup is successful and alters/wipes their memories of the events.[15]
Tabitha is one of the few mutants who retain her powers after the events ofM-Day.[16]
Shortly afterward, after an initial period of wild arrogance, Tabitha mellows out and settles back into her earlier more bubbly personality, developing a tendency to use chat room-like shorthand when speaking out loud, such as "OMG," "ZOMG," and "OH NOES!" She also begins to start saying "Tick, tick, tick—BOOM!" when using her powers. Tabitha grows her hair long, eschews her codename, and re-appears as a founding member ofNextwave, a new off-beat and more than slightly satirical superhero team featured in an eponymous comic book series created byWarren Ellis andStuart Immonen. TheHighest Anti-Terrorism Effort, or H.A.T.E. (a subsidiary of theBeyond Corporation) formed the team. Tabitha Smith's new team includes other second-string characters taken from Marvel limbo, includingMonica Rambeau,Elsa Bloodstone,Aaron Stack, and a new characterThe Captain.[17]
Tabitha moves to San Francisco to help with the X-Men's new relocation plans, and resumes using the codename Boom-Boom. While shopping in San Francisco, she confronts the mutant Nuwa.[18] Forced by theBeast to confront Nuwa through research, instead of strength alone, she discovers - using a thinly veiled parody ofMySpace andFacebook[19] calledFaceSpace - the true nature of Nuwa's sedation powers, then nullifies them by consuming large quantities ofcaffeine.[20]
Tabitha is later kidnapped, along with Surge and Hellion, by theLeper Queen and her Sapien League. The Leper Queen attempts to inject her with a modified version of theLegacy Virus, a virus that had been cured years before and afflicted mostly mutants, when the members of X-Force arrive to try and save her. After Cyclops refuses to wait long enough for Wolverine and Domino to kill the Leper Queen, they are sent through time to help Cable, leaving the Leper Queen and Tabitha all alone.
Boom-Boom is later seen during the events of "Utopia", amongst the mutants assembled inNightcrawler's chapel as they prepare to abandon San Francisco for the base that the X-Club has raised from the bottom of the ocean. She is among the first group of mutants teleported byPixie to the new base.[21] Boom-Boom was also one of the X-Men who defeated the invadingPredator Xs who attacked Utopia. Boom-Boom,Iceman, andColossus teamed up to defeat the first Predator.[22] She joined fending off Nimrod Sentinels attacks inX-Men: Second Coming.[volume & issue needed]
Boom-Boom returned in theMarvel NOW! seriesCable and X-Force, aiding her old X-Force teammate Domino in her infiltration of a S.W.O.R.D. base.[23] She remained with the team until its dissolution.[24]
Tabitha later appeared inAll-New X-Men as a member of the Utopians alongsideElixir,Karma,Madison Jeffries,Masque, andRandom, taking down unwanted visitors such asS.H.I.E.L.D.'s investigation team as they sought quiet refuge in the island ruins. S.H.I.E.L.D. asked X-Men for help on the issue, and after a brief fight and discussion, both teams came to an agreement and Tabitha's crew was relocated to New Charles Xavier School.[25]
Now a citizen ofKrakoa, Tabitha was accidentally caught snooping around in Sunspot's room byArmor and was informed of her excursion to extend Krakoa's citizenship to Beak's family. She was able to rescue Armor and friends from an ambushed cartel hostage situation.[26] She later led an unsanctioned mission to anti-mutant state Carnelia to extract a teen mutant who just awakened her power. It ended up withCypher needing to bring in reinforcements andMagik bailing everybody out.
Tabitha Smith possesses the ability to create variably-sized yellow orbs and spheres of pure plasma, fiery-like energy, which she calls her "time bombs." These "time bombs" explode with concussive force.[27] She can produce marble-sized energized "bombs" which have little concussive impact and which she uses for playing pranks. She has produced "time bombs" ranging up to the size of beach balls, which are able to destroy durable objects, including aPredator X and a futuristicNimrod.[28][29] Tabitha can also control the amount of time before detonation. Finally, she can mentally muffle the sound of the detonation. Under the direction ofPete Wisdom she learns to focus her power as streams of concussive force.[30]
Tabitha appears as a member of the NYPD strikeforce known as the Brotherhood.[37] Posing asKarolina Dean, she attacked and defeated theWolfpack.[38]
Tabitha is also shown inMarvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness #3 with her Nextwave team, all uninfected, to saveAsh from a zombified Power Pack. The entire team is "humiliatingly and ruthlessly dispatched off panel" moments later.
In the "heroic fantasy" universe visited byWolfsbane andWolverine inRahne of Terra andKnight of Terra (though Tabitha does not appear in the latter in any form), Geshem is an otherdimensional realm of medieval magic. The land is ruled by Queen Rain, a counterpart of Wolfsbane, and that dimension's Tabitha is her most loyal and trusted maid. Rain confides in Tabitha with her deepest secrets.[39]
InX-Men: The End, a series set ten to fifteen years in the future, Meltdown is once again a member of X-Force along with Warpath, Domino, Shatterstar, Feral, and Rictor when the team meets their end.[volume & issue needed] After their aircraft is shot out of the sky, (which X-Force barely survives), Meltdown is absorbed by the strange entity called Divinity, who uses Tabitha's powers against her teammates.[volume & issue needed] Not much later, though, Divinity is killed byApocalypse while Meltdown is still trapped inside him.[40]
In theX-Force: Shatterstar miniseries, Tabitha is still known as Boomer and she is seen as a part of Cable's rebel forces againstSpiral, in an alternate universe where Spiral has conquered and now rules Earth. On that Earth, Spiral has also killed most of that world's heroes and mutants. Together, the team eventually defeats Spiral. Tabitha also seems to have developed telepathic powers in this timeline.[volume & issue needed]
Tabitha Smith appears inMarvel Heroes, voiced byKari Wahlgren.[43]
Tabitha Smith appears in theWolverine versus Sabretooth motion comic, voiced byKazumi Evans.[43]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)