WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for X-Force #1, by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Dean White, VC's Joe Caramagna and Tom Muller, on sale now.
In the world of Marvel's X-Men comics at the moment, it's a time of unprecedented cooperation among mutantkind. Combining their forces onto the island nation of Krakoa and declaring themselves their sovereignty to the world, the X-Men opened their doors to all mutants no matter their history of antagonism or criminality.
In the pages X-Force #1, this meant that one of the X-Men's former foes, Black Tom Cassidy, is now an integral part of the island's security system. Even though the X-Men experienced a crippling loss in the issue, the comic still proved why Black Tom is the right mutant to put in charge of Krakoa's defenses.
Black Tom Cassidy was never a big name in X-Men comics, but he's been a villain since he was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum. As the dastardly brother of the Irish X-Man Banshee, Black Tom always came across as a petty crook, who was elevated to higher ambitions through his increasing mutant powers. Initially, he merely had the somewhat lackluster power to project energy beams through wood, like the shillelagh he often kept at his side. While certainly better than no powers at all, those abilities paled in comparison to the heavy hitters of the X-Men.
Black Tom saw greater success as a villain through his longtime partnership with Juggernaut. The unstoppable force of nature may have worn a helmet that made him resistant to his half-brother Charles Xavier's mental manipulation, but Juggernaut was still more than vulnerable to the more insidious manipulations of Black Tom himself. By hitching himself to Juggernaut's coattails, Black Tom managed to come quite close to actually defeating the X-Men a few times, but the two friends didn't always work together.
While Black Tom's powers increased over time, those changes were not necessarily seem for the better. His mutation enhanced his relationship with wooden materials far beyond simply projecting energy through them. After a botched attempt to give himself wood implants, he eventually became wooden himself and turned into a sort of living tree.
While he eventually regained his human form, Tom's plant-manipulating abilities were put to use on Krakoa. Since the island itself is sentient, Black Tom's abilities gave him a unique bond with it that connected him to the island and all of its surrounding plant life. The subsequent connection meant an expansion of his field of awareness to include the plankton and kelp in the surrounding sea and the bacteria and spores floating in the air itself. In total, Black Tom's plant-based awareness gives him a 25-mile radius of acute sensitivity to all that enters and exits the island nation.
Black Tom's connection to Krakoa and its defense systems proves to be so advanced that Tom becomes alerted to an invasion before even the resident psychics Jean Grey and Charles Xavier himself. After warning Xavier that they have been too lax with Krakoa's security measures by allowing refugees to enter at will, the mutant is somewhat vindicated when a band of mercenaries parachutes into Krakoa and attacks it from the inside. Armed with psi-resistant helmets not dissimilar from his former ally Juggernaut's, it is Black Tom's peculiar niche alone that bypasses their defenses and allows him early detection.
Although those warnings about trusting refugees were rebuffed in light of his own criminal past, this attack on Krakoa may serve to promote Black Tom's legitimacy as the foremost security force in the mutant nation. Even if the X-Men failed to take Tom's advice and save their leader, the role that Black Tom serves is the most important one he's had in his lengthy history in the Marvel Universe, even if Xavier isn't around to defend him at the moment.