20 years old explosive flight
citizen of the United States member of X-Force
unmarried
Go backMeeting Sam was virtually unavoidable. He's handsome, charming, polite, puppy-dog friendly, and flits between the X-Men and X-Force more often even than I did. When I first came to Westchester, he showed me the Institute's grounds. In the trees, he'd found the remains of what was probably the original farmstead. It's in the range of three hundred years old, though the wooden buildings more likely date from the last century, shortly before the Xavier family acquired the land and constructed the present mansion.Of the X-Men (and perhaps of all the members of all the teams I met and photographed), Sam seems to be the most comfortable with the communal lifestyle that the close quarters of team residences inevitably brings. He told me a little about the size of his family, but I suspected he was exaggerating. In any case, he treats most of those around him either as aunts and uncles, or as brothers and sisters, with the politeness (and occasional fussiness -- sorry Sam!) of an oldest child.
Though he didn't take offence at my cynicism regarding the sheer size of his family, he did insist that I come with him to meet them at their home in Kentucky. While not quite a choir by themselves, the Guthries are a houseful, and a friendly one. I was introduced to Sam's sister Paige ("Husk"), a shapeshifter with Generation X. Paige offered to pose for me, but Sam almost immediately interceded with the information that she wasn't eighteen yet, and I declined.
There are photos I took which for various reasons were never intended to be included in this collection, and one of them is worth mentioning here, because it's of Sam and Nathan Summers. Sam's father died six years ago in a mining accident, around the same time Sam's powers manifested. His joining X-Force brought him into Cable's orbit, and Nathan remains more of a father-figure to Sam than to any of the other kids. The picture was a gift from me to Sam, and it's with his permission that I mention it here.
I did photograph Sam on the trip to Kentucky, but the picture I chose is the one I took of him in the farmstead on the Xavier grounds he showed me when I first arrived.
Sinclair: Tell me why you do this?
Sam: I don't think I could not. It's like . . . I can do something that other people can't, which makes me different, but it makes me responsible for them, too. If I didn't do this, and people died, I think their deaths would be my fault, because I could have saved them. And I think that's why I can't seem to stay in one place. I get restless during "down time," and I start looking for things to do. Domino boots me out of the house if I get too bad, and that's probably what sends me back to the X-Men most often. Why I go back to X-Force is complicated. I miss them, a lot, because they were my family for a long time. And I end up spending a lot of time with Cable, on way or another.
Sinclair: Cable seems to think you're something pretty special. What do you think?
Sam: Cable understands a lot of things I don't. And a lot of the time he's right. But I'm not always sure that he's right about this. I think if I were as powerful as he says I am, I'd feel different, somehow.