Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 170. The Story of Boom Boom in Marvel Comics

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Ep. 170. The Story of Boom Boom in Marvel Comics · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello nerds, I am Megan from Vigilante Vibes and I am here
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  with another character breakdown of the underrated mutants of the
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  Marvel Universe. So today I can't believe I have
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  not discussed her before because I really like her as a
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  character. I want to talk about Tabitha
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  Smith AKA Boom Boom. Tabitha Smith first appeared in
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  Marvel Comics Secret Wars 2 #5 in 1985.
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  The character was created by Jim Shooter and artist Al Milgram.
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  Boom Boom has also appeared under different code names like
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  Time Bomb, Boomer, and Meltdown and has been a member of several
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  teams including X Force, The New Mutants, and X Factor.
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  Tabitha was born in Roanoke, VA. When she first shows up, she's
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  portrayed as a rebellious but otherwise typical teenager.
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  Her parents are divorced, and when her mutant powers kicked in
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  at age 13, their reaction was anything but supportive, as it
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  usually goes. But in this case, her dad
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  actually beat the brakes off her, which is not how it usually
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  goes, and that's really sad. That's when she runs away from
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  home, calls herself Time Bomb, and ends up crossing paths with
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  a Beyonder, A cosmic being. He takes her to Charles Xavier
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  at the School of For Gifted Youngsters, but Xavier brushes
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  her off because she's he's busy dealing with the Beyonder
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  himself. Apparently the Beyonder is a
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  problem. Feeling abandoned again, Tabitha
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  almost takes her own life, but the Beyonder stops her and
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  brings her along his cosmic journey.
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  Eventually, after a run in with the Celestials and at her
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  urging, he brings her back to Earth.
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  She ends up helping The Avengers ambush to beyond her and when
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  she realizes he felt betrayed, especially by her, she walks
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  away from the battle. It was pretty crappy, let's be
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  honest. Now homeless, Tabitha gets mixed
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  up with a guy named Maurice Tiger Antonini.
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  Things go dark when he threatens her and offs her best friend
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  Gina. She snaps, uses her powers, and
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  offs him. After that, a villain called the
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  Vanisher brings her into his group of thieves known as the
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  Fallen Angels. She officially takes on the code
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  name Boom Boom at this point. Eventually, she turns against
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  the Vanisher and brings in X Factor to stop him.
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  She sticks with X Factor after that.
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  One of her old teammates, Ariel, an alien, kidnaps the angels to
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  her home planet so the scientists could there can
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  experiment on them. But Ariel changes her mind and
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  helps them escape, which is OK. Once they are back on Earth, the
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  group splits up. Not long after, Tabatha gets
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  kidnapped by the Right, an anti mutant organization.
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  She escapes with the help of X Factor and other mutants.
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  Later, she joins The X Factor trainees to form a new team
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  called the X Terminators. They battled demons during the
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  Nastier invasion, and during that time, Tabitha talks Richter
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  out of taking his own life. After the Inferno storyline
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  wraps up, Tabitha, along with Rusty skids and Richter joins
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  the New Mutants. During her time with them,
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  Tabitha falls madly in love with her teammate Cannonball.
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  If you'd like to know more about Cannonball, just check out my
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  channel because I have a breakdown for him too.
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  While they're in Asgard, it's partly thanks to Tabitha that
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  they managed to foil a plot to assassinate Odin.
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  They also meet Cable, who starts mentoring the team, and under
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  his guidance, Tabitha starts gaining better control over
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  powers. She's later kidnapped by Strife
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  and the Mutant Liberation Front, but gets rescued.
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  Then the Extinction Agenda crossover.
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  The anti mutant nation of Genosha launches attacks on
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  mutants in the US and Tabitha, along with Richter, Wolfsbane
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  and Warlock gets captured and taken there.
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  The incident hits the news and her father is interviewed, still
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  voicing his disappointment in her.
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  Although Tabitha and Richter are stripped their powers, they
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  managed to escape. Unfortunately, Wolfsbane is
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  turned into a mutant slave and Warlock does not survive on the
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  run. In Genosha, Tabitha and Richter
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  meet Jubilee. The two clash at first because
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  of their similar personalities, but they eventually make it to
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  the Genosha Citadel where the X teams regroup to defeat the
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  villain Cameron Hodge. Back in the US, Tabitha spreads
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  Warlock's ashes over the grave of his best friend, Doug Ramsey.
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  If you are interested in Doug Ramsey, I highly recommend
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  checking out the current events. X-Men Age of Revelation.
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  I always want to say Revolution, but it's Revelation.
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  It's pretty good so far. The New Mutants, now led by
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  Cable, transform into X Force, a more aggressive team.
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  During this period, Tabitha acts on her feelings for Cannonball
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  and the two start dating. Despite questioning the team's
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  more violent direction, she sticks around and rebrands
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  herself as Boomer. One of their early missions have
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  them battling the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in the Executioner
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  Song event, which is like, it's a good event.
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  I really dug it. The X-Men suspect X Force of
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  trying to assassinate Professor X and goes after them.
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  Boomer ends up getting defeated by Rogue and taken for prisoner
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  by X Factor. After X Force is jailed,
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  Cannonball is allowed to pick one teammate to fight alongside
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  the X-Men, and he chooses Tabitha.
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  During the mission, they find out that Rusty and Skids have
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  joined the MLF in a battle. Skid breaks Tabitha's jaw.
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  Afterward, Cannonball's ex, Lila Cheney shows up to give her
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  blessing to the couple. Things got serious when
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  Cannonball takes Tabitha to his family farm for a vacation.
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  There they end up facing the Games Master and the Upstarts
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  and team up with the New Warriors to take them down.
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  Things get rough when their base is blown up twice.
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  With nowhere to go, the team moves into Xavier's mansion.
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  Soon after, Cannonball joins the X-Men full time and his
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  relationship with Tabitha cools off.
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  Feeling lost, Tabitha spends most of her time taking care of
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  a seemingly brain damaged Saber tooth, even confiding in him.
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  The rest of the team tries to stage an intervention.
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  It all blows up when Sabretooth reveals he's actually been
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  faking it, tricks Tabitha into freeing him, and then brutally
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  attacks Psylocke during his escape, nearly taking her out.
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  Completely crushed by guilt, Tabitha goes home to see her
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  father. They start to make amends, but
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  during the battle involving Sebastian Shaw and the
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  Holocaust, her father gets critically hurt.
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  The weight of it all pushes Tabitha to reinvent herself
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  again. She changes her code name to
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  Meltdown this time, comes up with a new costume and gains
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  better control over powers and adopts A tougher, more confident
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  attitude. She really shows us off when she
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  faces up against the BLOB, threatens to off him, and uses
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  her time bombs to blast both his eardrums.
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  While Cannonball is off with the X-Men, Tabsa gets closer to
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  Sunspot and they have a very short fling.
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  Cannonball eventually finds out he's upset at first, but ends up
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  making peace with both of them and even rejoins the X Force
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  later on. The High Evolutionary
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  temporarily shuts down all mutant powers.
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  Tabatha and Cannonball nearly rekindle their relationship in
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  the meantime. The sudden loss of powers really
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  hit Cannonball hard. It made him realize just how
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  little they'd actually been doing to help mutant kind
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  lately, so he reached out to Pete Wisdom.
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  The two of them came up with a plan to bring X Force back, but
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  this time as a covert strike. Team Meltdown, along with
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  Warpath in Bedlam, agreed to join in on this new mission.
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  They all moved into an old, abandoned Hulkbuster base in
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  Nevada and went through intense retraining both in combat and in
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  using their powers more effectively.
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  Tabitha in particular learned how to shape the explosive
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  energy of her powers into controlled guided streams, and
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  she also got a crash course in computer hacking and digital
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  espionage. This new version of X Force took
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  on the shadowy fights that no one else even knew were
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  happening, dealing with enemies like flesh grown stormtroopers,
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  mutagenic bioreactors, and assassins who literally carried
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  the mutant gene for murder. Things got especially intense
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  when they faced the last group and Tabitha almost lost Sam,
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  who's Cannonball. That shook her up enough to
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  admit that she couldn't stand the thought of losing him, and
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  the two of them ended up getting back together.
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  Even though they pulled off most of their missions, it definitely
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  wasn't smooth sailing. Wisdom was apparently killed
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  during their first mission back in San Francisco, and more than
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  once their enemies tried to take them out with massive
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  explosions. The whole undercover team thing
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  ended up backfiring to a brand new group of mutants showed up
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  and people were more interested in fame and fortune than the
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  'cause they bought the legal rights to the name X Force, they
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  went public with it, got super popular super fast, and at the
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  time of the original team pound out and confronted them about
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  stealing the name the original mission behind it, it was
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  already too late. After that, it seems like the
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  original X Force quietly disbanded and pulled back from
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  their aggressive stance on mutant issues.
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  Sam and Tapsa went their separate ways too.
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  They're very, very hot and cold throughout their whole
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  relationship. Real friendship, They're whole
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  thing. They're very hot and cold.
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  Later on, Cable picked up on signs that a revamped Weapon X
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  program was back, one that was capturing mutants and locking
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  them up in a place called Neverland.
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  So he put together a new group to investigate, calling it the
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  Underground, and he brought Meltdown in as part of his Elite
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  team. Eventually they were joined by
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  Brent Jackson, a Weapon X agent who was secretly plotting to
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  overthrow the director of the program.
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  Jackson even formed his own little resistance group with
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  fellow agents like Washout Marrow, Wild Child, and Sauron.
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  But after playing off the coup, Jackson double crossed Cable's
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  team and had their memories of the whole thing erased or
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  altered. Not long after that, Cable found
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  out about a whole new threat to mutants, a monstrous creature
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  called the Scorn that could endanger the entire Earth.
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  He brought X Force back together to deal with it, and Meltdown
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  was one of the first people he called.
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  Both Cannonball and Sunspot were also involved in the battle, but
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  Tabitha didn't really express any lingering feelings for
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  either of them. Instead, she showed off a new
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  move with her powers. She was able to channel one of
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  her time bombs through Shatterstar Sword and directly
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  into an enemy's chest, Which was pretty dope.
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  After they defeated the Scorn, some of the team stayed together
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  and helped Cable run things in Providence, the island nation he
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  had created. Later, Tabitha helped them raid
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  the headquarters of the Black Box, only to find out that the
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  occupant was just a robot. She was also one of the rare
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  mutants who still had the powers after the whole M Day event.
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  It was kind of a big deal. If you don't know about it,
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  definitely check it out. After that, Tabitha seemed to go
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  through a bit of a personality shift.
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  At first she was acting super cocky and over the top and just
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  downright annoying. But eventually she chilled out
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  and returned to her earlier more fun and bubbly self.
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  She started saying things like OMG Oh my God or Oh no, kind of
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  like speaking in chat room lingo.
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  Like we all remember that time we all were there and when she
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  used her power she started saying things like tick tick
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  tick boom for a dramatic effect. She also let her hair grow long
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  and dropped her code name again, reappearing as part of Nextwave.
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  A quirky, slightly ridiculous superhero team featured in a
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  comic series by Warren Ellis and Stuart Eminem.
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  This team was formed by hate HATE which means highest anti
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  terrorism effort, a branch of the Beyond Corporation.
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  Tabatha's teammates were a bunch of overlooked or forgotten
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  Marvel characters like Monica Rambo who was you know, Captain
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  Marvel, ex leader of The Avengers, Elsa Bledstone, Aaron
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  Stack who's actually a machine man and a brand new guy called
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  the Captain. Everything seemed fine at first
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  but once Tabitha started poking around behind the scenes she
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  discovered that Beyond Corp used to be a terrorist group called
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  Silent and they were using HATE and the Next Wave team to carry
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  out their secret plans. Tabitha stole the proof and
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  showed it to Pulsar, the team leader, and Next Wave hijacked
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  the Shockwave Rider transport ship to break away from HATE.
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  They turned on their former bosses and fought against the
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  bizarre WMDS that the Beyond Corporation was unleashing on
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  America. The first weapon, Fin Fengfum, a
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  giant lizard that crawled out from the underground and went on
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  a rampage. After stopping him and abscessed
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  North Dakota, the team headed to Illinois.
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  There, Tabitha took down Mack Mangle, a corrupt cop possessed
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  by something called the Ultra Samurai Seed.
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  When the metallic shell broke and left Mangle crushed, Tabitha
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  and Aaron started beating on him until Monica Rambo had to step
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  in. Next Wave was later attacked by
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  a group called the New Paramounts, made-up of old
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  school parody characters like Forbish Man, the Inedible Bulk
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  Charlie America. Forbish Man tried to mind
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  control Tabitha, but it backfired.
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  Apparently his powers didn't work on her because she has no
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  mind. Tabitha ended up killing him and
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  saving his team, her teammates. When they came to, she explained
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  what happened by saying the little guy did something to your
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  heads. I gave him the Explodo because I
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  am clever. So I guess she does have a mind.
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  Eventually the team exposed and took down the real mastermind
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  behind Silent. Later on, Tabitha moved to San
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  Francisco to help the X-Men relocation.
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  She started using her old cone name.
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  Boom boom again, the name we all know and love.
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  While she was out shopping, she ran into a mutant called Nuwa.
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  Beast forced her to handle the confrontation using brains
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  instead of just blowing things up.
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  So she did some research and uncovered Nuwa's abilities by
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  using a spoof of Myspace on Facebook called Facepace.
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  Turns out Nua's powers could be countered by stimulants, so
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  Tabitha downed a whole mess of espresso to block them.
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  After that, she got kidnapped along with Serge and Hellion by
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  the Leper Queen and the Sapien League.
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  The Queen tried to inject her with a version of the Legacy
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  Virus, one that was supposed to have been cured years ago.
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  When the X Force came to rescue them, Cyclops didn't want to
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  wait for Wolverine and Domino to kill a Leper Queen, so he sent
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  them through time instead, leaving Tabitha behind.
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  The Leper Queen told her that she had actually planned for
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  Wolverine to take her out, meaning take the Queen out and
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  to save Tabitha since Bastion wouldn't let her die in her own
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  terms. But with no one to stop her, she
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  shot Tabitha between the eyes and said the X Force had failed
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  them both. Right after X Force's mission in
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  the future was done, X-23 came bursting back in the time frame
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  and shot the Leopard Queen in the head before she couldn't
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  take out Tabitha. With the Queen dead, Boom Boom
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  was safe and X-23 collapsed from exhaustion as the team of HAMMER
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  agents raided the place. They gave Tabitha medical
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  attention, but took X-23 into custody.
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  One of the agents was secretly planning to sexually take
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  advantage of Tabatha before killing her, but Warpath showed
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  up just in time to take out the agents, saving her once again.
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  He brought her back to the X4 safe house to see if she could
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  remember anything else about her kidnapping.
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  Boom Boom was next seen during the Utopia Storyline storyline,
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  hanging out with other mutants in Nightcrawlers Chapel as they
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  prepared to leave San Francisco. She was in the first group
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  teleported by Pixie to the new island base.
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  The X club breezed in the ocean. Boom boom has also joined the
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  battle against professor XS monsters and attacked utopia,
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  teaming up with iceman and colossus to take them all down 1
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  by 1. So that is boom boom or meltdown
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  or whatever else you want to call her that is Tabitha Smith.
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  So like always, I have some comics for you to check out.
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  And like always a reminder, I have not read all of Marvel
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  Comics. I don't plan to.
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  So if you have any comics that you think I should check out or
• 18:02
  are a better representation of who Tabitha is as a character,
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  please let me know in the comments.
• 18:07
  So starting off X Force numbers 44 through 48.
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  Uncanny X-Men #328 X Factor Volume 1 #22 X force #49 to 50
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  and Leah Williams, ex Terminators.
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  You will have a lot of fun with that one.
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  So thank you for listening to this breakdown of Tabitha Smith.
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  I hope you learned a lot about Boom Boom and be sure to like
• 18:35
  and subscribe. So have a marvelous day.