Black Tom Cassidy, or Thomas Samuel Eamon Cassidy, is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He’s usually depicted as an enemy of the X-Men, and of his cousin, Banshee. Take a look below for 24 more fun and interesting facts about Black Tom Cassidy.

1. While Black Tom Cassidy has fought against the X-Men multiple times, he has also clashed with Deadpool a few times.

2. He’s a mutant who can manipulate, bond with, and project energy through plant life.

3. Black Tom Cassidy is capable of issuing concussive blasts with a wood object, usually a shillelagh.

4. He was the black sheep of a prominent Irish family.

5. He secretly raised Banshee’s daughter, Siryn, of whose existence Banshee was unaware and conscripted her into his criminal gang.

6. Black Tom Cassidy was a longtime criminal partner of the super-strong villain Juggernaut, until Juggernaut’s reformation.

7. The character was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum. He first fully appeared in Uncanny X-Men #101.

8. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is the cousin of Sean Cassidy, who’s also known as the Banshee and is a member of the X-Men. He was also once the only friend of the Juggernaut.

9. He has a rivalry with Banshee, mainly because he won both Cassidy Keep, their estate, and the family fortune from Tom in a game of dice.

10. Banshee and Black Tom Cassidy were rivals for a woman named Maeve Rourke, whom Banshee ultimately married and had a daughter with.

11. While Black Tom Cassidy was serving time in prison, he met and befriended Juggernaut.

12. The X-Men initially clashed with Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut at Cassidy Keep. He and Juggernaut were involved in many schemes.

13. On one occasion, Juggernaut sought to share his power with Black Tom Cassidy, in essence creating two Juggernaut-like beings.

14. After being shot by Cable, Black Tom Cassidy was taken to France, where doctors grafted a wood-like substance onto his wounds, healing him and allowing him to channel his bio-blasts directly through his fists.

15. When the X-Men encountered Black Tom Cassidy as part of the Brotherhood, he had become fully plantlike from a genetic virus that spread over his body.

16. Black Tom Cassidy lost his powers during M-Day. He fought Excalibur, using technology to replicate his powers, but was defeated and turned in by his friend and former partner, Juggernaut.

17. He has shown great remorse for the death of Squid-Boy and claimed that his secondary mutation had affected his mind.

18. Black Tom Cassidy has the ability to generate blasts of concussive force or heat by using wood as the focus for his power. Following genetic engineering, he can channel the energy directly through parts of his body that were grafted to a wood-like substance.

19. When Black Tom Cassidy underwent a Secondary Mutation, the mutation naturally recreated and improved upon the plant powers he used to have artificially.

20. From his Secondary Mutation, Black Tom Cassidy got the power to grow to immense size, have superhuman strength and regenerate damaged or destroyed body parts with great speed.

21. With the Secondary Mutation, Black Tom Cassidy eventually got the power to mentally control all plant life within his vicinity, distribute his consciousness among the plants he controlled and drain the life force of organic beings.

22. Since M-Day, Black Tom Cassidy has demonstrated that he can still use his bio-blast and can still control most plant life.

23. Since M-Day, he has also demonstrated that he can form energy barriers using his shillelagh to deflect young Scott’s optic blasts.

24. Black Tom Cassidy is highly resistant, if not immune, to Banshee and Siryn’s sonic screams, and they are similarly protected from his bio-blasts. This type of genetic immunity is similar to Cyclops and Havok’s sibling power defunction on each other.