Clarice FergusonBlink

Blink was part of a group of mutants captured by evil alien race called the Phalanx. She helped save the others, but accidentally killed herself with her powers in the process. The immortal External and magician Selene resurrected her and told her that the X-Men had betrayed her, convincing Blink to fight against them. Blink later realized her error and rejoined Wolverine’s X-Men team.

The Blink of Earth-295 was raised in the Age of Apocalypse by Sabretooth, but became unstuck in time, exiled from her home reality. Recruited by the Timebroker, she and a team of fellow Exiles were charged with repairing the broken links in the chain of realities.

She is a mutant with the ability to create teleportational warps and carries a dagger and a set of javelins. Her mutant name refers to the “blink!” sound that occurs when she opens portals.

Harnassing Her Powers

Clarice Ferguson was a timid, scared child who lived in fear of her mutant abilities ever since her power first manifested, powers which caused her to hurt someone close to her. She promised herself that she would never use her powers again.

However, when the extraterrestrial threat of the Phalanx attacked Earth, they captured many “neomutants” (later known as the team “Generation X”) including Clarice. The Phalanx wanted to experiment on them to figure out how they could absorb mutants into their collective existence. Clarice befriended the other captives, but couldn’t see how they could escape. They were freed from their prison with help from a rescue team of Banshee, Synch, Jubilee, Emma Frost, and Sabretooth. Attacked by the Phalanx intelligence known as Harvest, Clarice took it upon herself to defeat him. After teleporting away half of the ship, only Clarice and Banshee could stop Harvest. Using her powers, she distorted the villain with her space¬-altering powers, but the portal swallowed her as well, apparently killing them both.

On Earth-295, during the Age of Apocalypse, Clarice was born with magenta-colored skin, pointed ears, and markings on her face. Hoping that American doctors might identify the cause of her abnormal physical characteristics, Clarice’s parents immigrated there when Clarice was four and settled in Miami. Apocalypse seized control of America four years later. Shortly after, Mr. Sinister came to Clarice’s house, killed her parents, and placed her in a concentration camp called the Pens. While there, she befriended Illyana Rasputin. Both endured frequent visits from the Sugar Man and the Dark Beast’s genetic testing. During his experiments, Clarice’s mutant warp powers manifested, and she adopted her codename based on the sound made as she opened warp portals. During a mission to raid the Pens, Sabretooth and Weapon X (James Howlett/Logan) saved a young Blink whom Sabretooth raised as his own. Once she was old enough, Sabretooth trained her to become a member of the X-Men.

After a falling out with Magneto, Blink attempted to strike at Apocalypse’s base on Manhattan. Upon infiltrating the base, she discovered the Negative Zone residents Blastaar and his army of Baluurians battling Holocaust and his army. Hoping to gain allies against Apocalypse, Blink jumped through a portal to her reality’s Negative Zone, but lost her memory due to traveling between dimensions. While there, she met Ahmyor, leader of rebels dedicated to returning Annihilus to power, and fell in love with him. After Blastaar captured them, she discovered that Ahmyor was actually Annihilus in a regressed stage of his life. Upon escaping captivity, her memory returned, allowing her to stop Blastaar’s invasion of her home world and return home.

Warped Wonders

Blink can create biomolecular displacement warps of various sizes by manipulating the electromagnetic fields of a particular area. By using these warps, she can instantly move matter from one place to another by passing through an unknown dimension and then instantaneously emerge in her own dimension at a certain distance from her point of departure. The matter that is being teleported sometimes returns, while other times it is held in stasis within the other dimension.

She can open a warp and transport parts of her body or other objects, allowing her to attack opponents from different positions simultaneously or even redirect an opponent’s attack back at them. Once a portal is open, it remains open until she uses her powers to close it. Blink can use her teleportation powers offensively by throwing a javelin at a specific area of an opponent’s body and teleporting it instead of the entire person. She can also close a portal before someone is finished passing through, severing a part of their body in the process.

The longer the distance and increased amount of mass that is being teleported, the harder and more exhausting it is for her to create a portal. However, she can make smaller “jumps” by opening one portal right after the other in order to reduce the physical strain on herself. Blink’s powers have not been fully tested and it is uncertain the amount of mass that Blink can teleport before losing consciousness. However, she has been known to be able to teleport a large cannon weighing approximately 138,000 pounds, while teleporting two other objects at the same time with no physical strain.

Blink is also highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and acrobatics, can throw javelins with great accuracy, and is proficient at making makeshift javelins out of surrounding material. Blink often uses her powers to imbue these javelins, carried in a quiver on her back, with energies to assist her opening warps. By throwing them at a desired area, she can open a portal around the javelin’s target. Since living at the Crystal Palace, she has created a supply of crystal javelins and by creating a portal to the Crystal Palace, she can replenish her supply.

Targets of Revenge

Mr. Sinister made himself an enemy of Blink when he murdered her parents and placed her in a concentration camp for mutants. The Blink of Earth-295 also hates Apocalypse, who had dominated her reality, making it the only one she ever knew.

Exiled Associates

Blink is a founding member of the Exiles, a group of heroes who have been displaced from different times, dimensions, and realities. Their roster consists of Blink, Beast, Morph, Forge, the Panther, the Witch, and Polaris. The team has gone through quite a few shake-ups over the years, but Blink and Morph remain the only original members. Initially, the Exiles were hired by Timebroker to repair busted realities.

As the Exiles’ leader, Blink wears the Tallus device, which the insectoid alien explorers used to communicate with the Exiles, specifically informing them what had to be done in order to save realities. At times, the Tallus would create a holographic image that was referred to as the “Time Broker” to communicate through. However, it was later discovered that the Tallus could create other holographic images as well and later often took the form of Heather Hudson of Earth-3470.

Blink has also been known to ally herself with Illyana Rasputin and the X-Men, particularly Wolverine and Sabertooth, the latter of whom raised her on Earth-295.

Realities Bite

As her reality seemingly began to cease to exist, Blink found herself slipping through the cracks. After landing in the Panoptichron’s (aka the Crystal Palace) desert room, she was joined by Earth-27’s Magnus, Earth-12’s Mimic, Earth-1081’s Morph, Earth-2182’s Nocturne, Earth-1100’s Thunderbird, and the Timebroker, secretly a holographic image created by a species of insectoid alien explorers (the Timebreakers). The Timebroker told them that they were unhinged from time and must repair broken realities before they could return to their own realities exactly as they had left it. Unlike the other Exiles, as they soon called themselves, Blink would cease to exist if she failed to realign her reality’s disruption.

Blink was given the Tallus, a communication device that explained each mission, and the team was sent on their first mission to Earth-1815 where all superhumans had been jailed, executed, or aborted in an act of zero tolerance by humanity. Instructed to find their greatest teacher, Blink went along with the others’ belief that this was Charles Xavier. In this reality, he was a madman hellbent on exterminating the human race and that the order had referred to Magneto. Mimic completed their mission by killing Xavier. Magnus sacrificed his life saving the reality. Continuing to make poor choices based on their knowledge of their own realities, Mimic, the team’s de facto leader, turned over leadership to Blink based on her experience. Blink and Mimic worked together to lead the team and eventually began a romantic relationship.

While on Earth-2600, a world where Sentinels eliminated all mutants and advanced humans, the Exiles crossed paths with Weapon X, a second team the insectoids gathered for missions deemed too brutal for the Exiles: Sabretooth (Blink’s surrogate father from Earth-295), Deadpool (Earth-5021), Hulk (Earth-1029), Spider (Earth-15), Storm (Earth-23895), and Vision (Earth-10101). Blink and Sabretooth were overjoyed to find each other after everything they had been through, but this was short-lived when they discovered the Exiles and Weapon X’s combined mission was to kill a young David Richards. Weapon X discovered that the Exiles and Sabretooth refused to complete the mission, resulting in the two groups battling and Weapon X being defeated. Sabretooth stayed behind to raise David and save the world from destruction, ensuring that David wouldn’t turn into the monster the Timebroker claimed he eventually would become. Blink was heartbroken that she would once again be separated from Sabretooth, but Sabretooth assured her they would find each other again.

After battling the Vi-locks (victims of both the Legacy and techno-organic Transmode viruses) on Earth-8545, Blink was infected by the Vi-locks virus. She was cured with a newly developed immunity injection (based on the blood of Asgardian gods) before the infection became permanent. Once the Exiles finished their mission, Blink was informed by the Timebroker that she would be sent home and replaced with Magik of Earth-4210. The Tallus transferred to Mimic and instead of being returned home, Blink was teleported back to Earth-2600 with Sabretooth. When the Exiles were teleported to Earth-312, Mimic was overcome by an implanted Brood egg, which had been implanted while on Earth-2942, and killed teammate Sunfire (Mariko Yashida of Earth-2109). As a result, the Timebrokers had Blink rejoin the team and after the Tallus transferred to Blink, Mimic relinquished leadership over to her again.

Blink’s relationship with Mimic grew stronger as the Exiles undertook new missions, including defeating Weapon X’s renegade Hyperion (Earth-4023) on Earth-4400 after he defied the insectoids’ orders, instead seeking a planet to rule. Imprisoned in the Crystal Palace, Hyperion soon escaped, secretly usurping control of the Timebroker and sending the Exiles on vague, irrational, and sometimes nonexistent missions. When the team was teleported to Earth-2600 again they found Sabretooth, and the Tallus told them their next mission was to kill Mimic. Blink refused to follow the mission, and the Tallus teleported to Sabretooth instead. The Timebroker then teleported the Exiles, along with Sabretooth, to Earth-295, Blink and Sabretooth’s native reality. Refusing orders to kill Earth-295’s heroic Magneto, the Exiles used the reality-bending M’kraan Crystal (the nexus of all realities) to travel to the Crystal Palace, where they discovered Hyperion’s trickery and defeated him, gaining the insectoids’ trust.

Later, the Exiles battled Reality-58163’s Proteus, a mutant with reality-altering powers, who took possession of Mimic’s body. Blink was determined to save her lover, but Proteus eventually burned out Mimic’s body, leaving Blink with a need for vengeance. When Proteus took possession of Morph’s body on the Franklin Richards-created Counter-Earth, the Exiles stopped Proteus by placing a behavior modification device on him, making him believe that he was actually Morph instead of Proteus. Grief-stricken over the loss of her lover, Blink returned Mimic’s body to Earth-12’s X-Men for a proper funeral with his friends and family.

During a mission to Earth-187319, the entire planet and all its population were destroyed. The shock of the catastrophic event caused Blink to be teleported through time to the Crystal Palace where she met with its previous caretakers who transported her back to the rest of the team. After stopping Mad Jim Jaspers and the Fury from destroying the Omniverse, Blink decided to take a sabbatical and relocate to former teammate Heather Hudson’s dimension (Earth-3470) with Nocturne and Thunderbird. Before leaving, Blink and Sabretooth guided Quentin Quire of Earth-91172 to recruit a new team of Exiles from various alternate Earths to replace his world’s heroes who had previously been slaughtered by the Hulk-led Annihilation Wave. Leaving Sabretooth in charge of the Exiles, Blink said her farewell to Morph and Sabretooth telling them that if they needed her, they knew where to find her.