
Blink
(Clarice Ferguson)
Context
Blink was a 1994 throwaway Marvel mutant, who was quickly killed off. However, something about the character design worked right, and there were cries for her return. This was sort of achieved with the Blink from another Earth (Earth-295 rather than Earth-616 ), who was still alive and looked about the same.
Earth-295 Blink appeared in 1995, and by 2001 she both had her own Limited Series and a starring role in a new series, eXiles (not to be confused with the Ultraverse Exiles).
This profile was done early in the run of eXiles, and covers issues #1-16 (though Roy later updated the History section). It includes S P O I L E R S about this interesting book.
Background
- Real Name: Clarice Ferguson.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: Victor Creed of Earth-295 (unofficial adoptive father, aka Sabretooth).
- Group Affiliation: EXiles, former member of the X-Men of Earth-295.
- Base Of Operations: Mobile through dimensions.
- Height: About 5’6” Weight: About 120 lbs.
- Eyes: Solid green, yellow or white. Hair: Magenta
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Powers and Abilities
Blink can create spatial warps, which she manifests as slivers of crystalline material. These can be thrown as javelins to warp someone away, or simply used to open a portal. Doing several teleports in quick succession will fatigue her.
Blink is fast, highly acrobatic and accustomed to surviving in rough circumstances and in combat.
History
A Clarice Ferguson with a warping power, very similar to Blink, existed on Earth-616 for a time. Something went wrong when she discovered her powers, and she swore to never use them. She was contacted by the X-Men when the Generation X team was assembled. However that was during the time when the techno-organic entities called the Phalanx were attacking the Earth.
Earth-616 Ferguson used her powers to save the youths that would become Generation X. She then apparently sacrificed herself to warp herself and a battleship full of Phalanx entities away forever.
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This is the age of Apocalypse
While the Earth-616 Blink is believed dead, she had a near-perfect parallel in a very different timeline . She lives on Earth-295, generally called the Age of Apocalypse. In this timeline, Xavier never assembled the X-Men, since he died before his time. Thus, there was no one to stop Apocalypse at some key points, and he took over much of the Earth. Apocalypse then applied his chilling credo of survival of the fittest.
Humans were pitted against mutants, to determine which race would survive to be ruled by Apocalypse. The Earth-295 reality is well documented since at one point it overwrote Earth-616’s timeline/ This occurred after Earth-616’s Legion travelled back in time and killed his father Charles Xavier.
Like many mutants born into the Age of Apocalypse, Blink was taken away from her home as a child. She grew up in a miserable hell called the Pens, where she was subjected daily to medical experiments and alterations to her genes. Traumatised, she would have lifelong nightmares about the head geneticist of the Pens – Mister Sinister.
Mister Creed
Salvation arrived in the form of Victor Creed aka Sabretooth. In this reality, Sabretooth a rough yet humane hero and a mutant freedom fighter. He raised Blink as he would have his daughter. Aspects of their rapport resemble the Wolverine/Kitty Pryde bond on Earth-616.
Under Creed’s watchful eye, Blink became a member of her world’s X-Men. For many arduous years they fought the war against the monstrous demigod Apocalypse.
Earth-295’s Bishop, due to his time-tossed nature, realised that the Earth-295 timeline was currently off. It wasn’t supposed to overwrite Earth-616’s. Based on this, the X-Men’s plans became to erase their nightmarish timeline using the M’Krann crystal and restore Earth-616.
The heroes successfully destroyed their universe and restored the two timelines to their correct position. Howbeit, some were thrown through the cracks of the multiverse. Four (X-Man, Holocaust, the Sugar Man and the Dark Beast) ended up on the restored Earth-616. And at least two, Earth-295’s Blink and Sabretooth, were caught by the entity called the Time Broker.
EXiles
Blink was one of a small number of youths from threatened timelines who were assembled by a halfling-like being called the Time Broker. The Broker told them that he wanted them to act as troubleshooters to repair damaged timelines.
He also said that by helping they would help salvage their own timelines and prevent horrible events. In Blink’s case, helping fix realities was supposedly preventing a paradox that would result in her ceasing to exist. The youths accepted, and the team was called the EXiles.
During the EXiles’ missions, it became clear that they would often confront versions of events from the X-Men’s history. This meant versions of people they knew, since most EXiles were tied to the X-Men of their worlds.
During one such mission where it became necessary to kill a version of Jean Grey. As a result, fellow EXile Mimic asked Blink to take the leadership of the EXiles. Clarice was the only one who had no close relationship to a parallel of those X-Men, having grown up on the most different timeline.
Blink performed well despite the harrowing events during that mission, and kept a co-leading role. She and Mimic eventually became lovers.
… but someone got to do it
The EXiles’ adventures were often draining and dangerous. They lost team member Magnus (the son of the Magneto and Rogue of his reality) early when he sacrificed himself. They later had to leave behind another of their own, T-Bird, who was in a coma and possibly brain dead. The EXiles also spent months as prisoners in a Skrull gladiatorial arena.
They then discovered that the Time Broker had a second group of people from threatened timelines at his service. These were called Weapon X and led by the Sabretooth from Earth-295, Blink’s adoptive father.
While Blink was overjoyed when reunited with Mister Creed, the two teams had very different tempers and methods. They couldn’t agree on their joint mission – assassinating Franklin Richards, who in that reality would grow up to be the tyrant of Earth.
Sabretooth broke away from his bloodthirsty team and fled with Blink and the EXiles. He chose to stay behind to raise Franklin and other kids, making sure he wouldn’t turn evil without having to kill him. Blink and the EXiles were then teleported away from this reality, once again separating her from Mr. Creed.
The accursed Richards
Uncharacteristically, the EXiles later managed to return to a previously visited reality – the one where Sabretooth had remained to raise Franklin. Blink joined Richards, Sabretooth, and other mutants in finally defeating the Sentinels who threatened the mutant population of that Earth.
Franklin, however, had secretly succumbed to his destiny. After the Sentinels fell, Richards mind-controlled Blink. He took her on a mission to first kill the humans who had controlled the Sentinels, and then to eliminate the rest of the “flatscans.”
Richards telepathically forced Blink to use her teleportation powers in various sadistic ways to kill non-superpowered humans for several days. That lasted until Sabretooth tracked them down and killed Richards. Afterwards, Sabretooth and Blink were both returned to the Exiles.
Timebreakers
Over time, the Exiles’ missions and the Time Broker himself became increasingly irrational. Now led solely by Blink, the Exiles hatched a plan to gain access to whatever place their missions originated from.
They succeeded in entering the Crystal Palace, an extra-dimensional observation post built by an unknown but long-gone people. An alien species nicknamed the Bugs had found the Crystal Palace, and in experimenting with it they had inadvertently damaged numerous realities. The Exiles had been gathered by the Bugs in hopes of repairing those realities.
To the Exiles’ horror, they discovered the reason for the increasingly nonsensical missions.
Titanomachia
The Time Broker’s second team, Weapon X, had been led by an evil version of Hyperion who died in combat with the Exiles. Like the other fallen Exiles and Weapon Xers, Hyperion’s body was recovered and stored in the Crystal Palace. Unknown to the Bugs, remnants of life lingered in Hyperion’s body and he eventually regenerated.
Once he had regained his full health, Hyperion broke free of his coffin and took over the Palace. He forced the Bugs to put the Exiles through various humiliations and stresses as the first part of his revenge upon them.
Hyperion seriously injured or killed several EXiles. But team member Beak used the palace to summon two heroic versions of Hyperion, who helped end the evil Hyperion’s menace.
Afterwards, the Exiles spoke with the Bugs and agreed to continue helping them repair the multiverse. However, this time members of the Exiles worked on both ends of the assignments, with advisors in the Crystal Palace relaying information and help with more efficiency than the Bugs had previously.
Description
See peekchur.
Personality
Blink is serious, intense and tries not to show emotions. She was raised to be a competent, disciplined fighter, not a foolish young girl. Still, she can be very sentimental. For instance she was childishly overjoyed when she discovered Morph and later Sabretooth were alive (it turned out this Morph was not the one she knew and didn’t know her from Adam, however) and was quickly attracted toward Mimic.
Since her main motivation during her formative years was to make Mister Creed proud of her, she prefers acting like an effective, strong team leader with nerves of steel.
Mimic taught Clarice almost everything about the X-Men and other supers from realities similar to Earth-616, since she came from a very different timeline. Blink also learned to adapt to luxuries undreamt of in her timeline. Thus, she now acts in that regard more like an ordinary Western teenager than a hardened survivor from a field of ruins.
Quotes
“What’s “coffee” ? I spent my life in a war zone. I haven’t had real toilet paper since I was in prison.”
“Of course we have a plan. ’Avengers Assemble‘.”
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
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Blink
Dex: 06 | Str: 03 | Bod: 05 | Motivation: Upholding good |
Int: 06 | Wil: 06 | Min: 06 | Occupation: Adventurer |
Inf: 06 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 05 | Resources {or Wealth}: 005 |
Init: 020 | HP: 050 |
Powers:
Warp: 18
Skills:
Acrobatics: 08, Martial artist*: 06, Thief (Stealth)*: 06
Advantages:
Expertise (Survival), Leadership.
Connections:
EXiles (High), Sabretooth of Earth-295 (High).
Drawbacks:
Exile (Involuntary), Creepy Appearance.
Design notes
The statistics assume than nearly none of the persons encountered in alternate realities has any HPs.
Source of Character: Marvel Multiverse.
Helper(s): MyHogan.com, Roy Cowan.