Early Cannonball is powerful, but watching him try to control where he's going is another matter.

Early Cannonball is powerful, but watching him try to control where he's going is another matter. He launches himself with that blast behind him, and his protective field lets him survive impacts that would wreck an ordinary person. Steering, stopping, and getting through a fight without smashing into the wrong thing take practice. The important qualification is that the protection goes with his blasting. Sam isn't walking around permanently bulletproof just because Cannonball is his name. You can see why he keeps explaining that he's protected when he's using his power. From the outside, a teenage kid launching himself straight into something looks like a terrible idea. Over time, the question becomes less whether he can hit hard and more whether he can use the ability without putting himself or somebody else in the wrong place. It's a straightforward power, but the early stories give him room to get better with it instead of pretending he arrived fully trained.