Blink
Blink is a comic book character that first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #317
Blink is a mainstay member of the Exiles. She is from an alternate reality known as the Age of Apocalypse. Though she retired for a certain time, she is serving the present team in an unofficial leader status while pretending to be as inexperienced as her teammates.
Overview
The first appearance of Blink was in Uncanny X-Men #317. This was the Earth-616 version of the character, who apparently sacrificed herself at the end of the Phalanx Covenant. This reflected events in Uncanny X-Men #94, where Thunderbird died on the team's second mission while Banshee tried desperately to save him. The Earth-616 Blink wasn't actually given a codename since she hadn't officially joined any teams, but was known as Blink due to the sound made by her teleportation powers. She has since been brought back and officially given the name Blink.
Unlike most characters in the Marvel Universe, the character of Blink whom most people associate with is from an alternate universe. This version of Blink originally appeared in X-Men Alpha. That issue was the start of the Age of Apocalypse, and featured the Earth-295 equivalent of the character. She proved to be extremely popular with fans, and therefore was introduced as a core member of the Exiles.
As such, the majority of this page is dedicated to the Earth-295 Blink who has had a longer history, while the Earth-616 Blink is featured first.
History: Earth-616
Origin
Clarice Ferguson was a young, inexperienced mutant who was targeted as a member of the next generation of mutants by the Phalanx. The technological alien race couldn't absorb mutants, and had decided to kidnap and experiment on young mutants. They stole Professor Xavier's list of new mutants, which included Clarice. Along with Husk, M, and Skin (who would become founding members of Generation X) she was entombed within the Phalanx as a test subject on the assimilation of mutant tissue.
The Phalanx Covenant
By the time she had been kidnapped by the Phalanx she had already experienced the first traumatic awakening of her power. She recalled how much blood there was, and swore that she would never use her powers again. She was a teleporter, who could move matter in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately she couldn't control her powers, and they terrified her. Therefore she spent most of her time huddled up with a 5th mutant who comforted her. What she didn't know was that the 5th mutant in the prison cell wasn't a mutant; he was a Phalanx operative who monitored the children, and prevented them from attacking the Phalanx operative known as Harvest.
When Harvest appeared, Clarice resisted him by turning her power on him. Her teleportation skills weren't complete and therefore her power caused Harvest to fracture. As he cried out in pain, the secret Phalanx operative pulled at her which broke her concentration and saved Harvest. M had seen through the Phalanx's ruse, and began to plan their escape. With the help of Jubilee, Synch, Banshee, Emma Frost and Sabretooth they finally managed to escape their prison cell.
Free from the cell, they discovered that they had been kept imprisoned on an old freighter ship. Harvest and the Phalanx under his control continued to attack the children and X-Men. In an effort to save the others, Clarice ran back to confront Harvest. She had already caused him pain the once and she was determined to stop him once and for all. She teleported away a large section of the ship's hull, separating herself from the other young mutants. Attacking Harvest, her powers flared out of control. Harvest was destroyed, but by the time Banshee reached Clarice she had already began to disappear. Her fingers vanished as Banshee desperately tried to cling on to her hand. Clarice died saving the others from the Phalanx.
Clarice was briefly seen in the Casino of Erebus. Both Hercules and Amadeus Cho made a journey to the underworld, which resembled a casino. It was explained that there were many different appearances of the underworld, but all were essentially the same place. Therefore, famous deceased characters from the Marvel Universe appeared including Cypher and Blink.
Resurrection
In the preview for the Necrosha cross-over, Clarice was seen and identified as Blink. She had joined Selene's personal army of deadly mutants (many of whom had also been raised from the dead). Alongside Caliban, Eli Bard , Mortis, Senyaka and Wither she was introduced as a teleporting mutant who uses her powers to kill.
During the preview she lead the attack on Utopia (the X-Men's off-shore base in San Francisco Bay), seemingly with former members of the Hellfire Club as their intended target. Currently, it remains unclear how Blink has been resurrected from the dead. However, he brief appearances seems to indicate that she has been in Selene's company for some time, and that she has plenty of experience of killing with her teleporation powers.
History: Earth-295
Age of Apocalypse
For some time Clarice had to work in the Core, an enormous power plant, but when her mutant powers manifested she was brought to Sinister's twisted genetic researcher, the Dark Beast. He refined her powers, but was unable to experiment further as Sabretooth led a strike force in a raid on Dark Beast's labs, resulting in the freedom of the captives. Sabretooth adopted Clarice as his own daughter, and trained her to serve as a member of the X-Men. As she grew older, she began to act more on on instinct rather than direct orders (infuriating team leader Magneto), but her heart and skill proved herself as an valued X-Man. During her time as an X-Man she became very close friends with another X-Man, Morph.
When Blink returned, she started acting more mature, listening to Magneto more often. The time traveler Bishop appeared in the Age of Apocalypse and told the members of the X-Men that this timeline was never meant to have happened- it should have been Charles Xavier who formed the X-Men. Believing Bishop, Magneto worked out that to fix the timeline they needed a shard of the M'kraan crystal, a time traveler and a precog. While most of the X-Men searched for these items, most of them agreed that even if their world shouldn't exist, it was still their world and that they didn't want it to go away. Having heard that Holocaust was going to start another culling in Chicago, Rogue brought a team of X-Men to stop him. Sabretooth and Blink volunteered to come along, despite that it was something of a suicide mission. Sabretooth underestimated Holocaust and was defeated. When she saw the ravaged body of her foster father, Blink freaked out and took on Holocaust. While it would seem an easy victory for Holocaust, he underestimated Blink and was defeated by her rapid teleporting. When he was free of the genetic goo Blink had tricked him into falling into, the X-Men had all recovered and were ready for him. Holocaust had no option but to escape. Meanwhile, Blink was relieved to find out that Sabretooth was not dead as she had thought.
Exiles
A being calling itself the Timebroker appeared. He claimed to be made up of their collective subconscious. (It was later revealed that he was a holographic interface used by the alien race called the Timebreakers.) The Timebroker informed them all that they had become unhinged in time and would now have to work for him in repairing broken realities, or face horrible consequences. In Blink’s case she would never have existed.
One of the Exiles' hardest mission was in a reality where the Skrulls had taken over Earth. Out of all the Exiles, only Blink and Morph managed to escape the Skrulls, whilst the rest of the Exiles were put into a large arena to fight. By the time Morph and Blink had gotten past the Skrulls' defense systems and freed their friends, Galactus had arrived on Earth and was ready to devour it. In order to defeat Galactus, it took one of the Exiles's life force to stop him.
The Exiles met another group of reality-hoppers during a later mission, who called themselves Weapon X. One of the members of Weapon X was Sabretooth, from the Age of Apocalypse. Blink and Sabretooth filled each other in on what had happened to themselves but sadly they found out that their mission in the current reality was to kill a 6-year old boy named David Richards, since otherwise he would become a deadly mutant leader. The Exiles didn't want to kill an innocent 6-year old, and with the exception of Sabretooth Weapon X just wanted to kill him then keep going to their next mission. After a fight between the two groups Sabretooth made a deal with Timebroker so that he stayed behind to look after David and make sure he didn't grow into an evil person.Whilst Mimic helped Clarice get over losing Sabretooth a second time at first, the Exiles had to kill and evil Namor on one mission, who was Mimic's best friend in his native reality. As a result, he started to withdraw within himself.Blink noticed something was wrong with her lover, but couldn't work it out, and when she pressed him he pushed her away.
In the Exiles' next mission, they went to a world overrun by the Vi-Locks, which were the result of the Legacy Virus combining with Warlock's transmode virus. Before their big fight, Blink finally managed to get Mimic to say what was wrong: he wanted to go home. The Exiles business was too much for him and he wasn't sure if his feelings for Blink were entirely genuine. He realized that he did love Blink when she was infected with the techno-organic virus. Luckily she was able to be saved with a special serum.
New Exiles
Blink along with Nocturne and T-Bird had taken a break from the Exiles and were on vacation in Heather Hudson's home reality - Earth-3470.
Return to the Exiles
Her greater experience and leadership begin to show themselves slowly. On their first mission to a world where all mutants have united against the persecution of humans, it is Blink who suggests a viable plan of approaching the problem. When they are captured, Blink establishes a way for them to escape, and she is instrumental in exposing Magneto's duplicity.
On their second mission to free a machine-controller world taken over by Cerebro, she loudly voices her frustration about why the present version of the Tallus is so uninformative and non-helpful. The morning after defeating some sentinels, she blinks southward to obtain provisions for the team, only to discover they'd been captured by Cerebro's elite lieutenants (Ultron, Machine Man and Vision) when she returns to their campsite. She searches for them in the robot city. She finds Beast, Forge, the Witch and Panther held in suspension chambers, and sees that Polaris had apparently been dissected by this universe's Jocasta.
When Blink retaliates against Ultron, Machine Man, and Vision for doing this, she destroys Cerebro's remote unit in the lab. The three artificial beings then reveal their true benevolent nature to Blink as Lorna and the others are shown to be alive and well. The three, particularly Ultron (who is shown to harbor the mind of Hank Pym), reveal that they have been spending time preserving the consciousness of humanity while pretending to be on Cerebro's side.
While Panther, Witch, Polaris, Ultron, Machine Man and Vision distract Cerebro's primary robot forces, Blink takes Forge and Beast into Cerebro's primary memory core to disable it. When they discover that the complex has no oxygen as an anti-organic failsafe, Blink repeatedly teleports back and forth from the complex to the surface and back, bringing back large quantities of air with her. This gives Forge and Beast enough time to disable Cerebro and pave the way for the restoration of humanity.
Powers
Blink is a mutant with the ability to create teleportation portals that can move objects or groups of people short or vast distances. Her limit is not known, but she has teleported as far as from Earth to the moon. She uses her powers offensively by focusing her teleportation ability creating spears which she can throw with high accuracy. The spears will expand into portals at her will, teleporting all or a portion of an enemy or object, or merely stunning them and she usually keeps a quiver of spears on her back.
She is very skilled with her teleportation powers, and has on several occasions defeated much more powerful opponents by redirecting their own powers back at them. Her teleporting makes a characteristic 'blink' sound, hence her name.
She has proven to be a very skilled hand to hand fighter, and she is also very agile, though it's unknown whether this is a part of her mutant powers.
She also has purple skin, pink hair, green eyes without visible pupils and purple markings on her face.
Now that she is again a member of the Exiles, Blink is once more the wielder of the Tallus.
Characteristics
Gender: FemaleHeight: 5’5”
Weight: 125 lbs (57 kg)
Eyes: Pale green, with no visible pupils
Hair: Magenta
Unusual Features: No visible pupils, light magenta skin, pointed ears, and facial markings that resemble tattoos.
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Place of Birth: Cartusia, Bahamas,
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Adventurer, Freedom Fighter, Reality Hopper
Education: Grade school (some education with Magneto)
Known Relatives: Sabretooth (of Earth 295, foster father), Apocalypse (ancestor), Frederick Slade (great great grandfather), Miss Ferguson (great-great-grandmother), Chamber (distant cousin).
Alternate realities
Earth-33629
There is also a Blink on Earth-33629 that are with an alternate team of Exiles.
Earth-957
Another Blink exists in Earth-957 where she is an apprentice of the In-Betweener.Earth-1610
Blink has so far only made cameo appearances in the Ultimate universe.
Other Media: Television & Video Games
X-Men The Animated Series
Blink appeared briefly in an episode titled Bloodlines. The Age of Apocalypse version of Blink appeared in the two-part episode One Man's Worth as a member of Magneto's Mutant Resistance.
Wolverine and the X-Men
Blink is a member of Magneto's Acolytes in her term on Wolverine and the X-Men. She appears first assisting Magneto when going to the office of Senator Kelly. There she teleports Dr. Sybil Zane into oncoming traffic just as she reached for a phone. She was then used to teleport Magneto's other Acolytes to different MRD facilities spread across the nation to break in. She played a consistent part of Magneto's team throughout the series and towards the end, she took sides with Magneto's daughters and banished him from Genosha via the use of her javelins.
X-Men Legends 2 : Rise Of Apocolypse
Blink appears as a non-playable character in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. In the first mission (not counting the tutorial) the team but save Blink. After being saved Blink helps teleport the player between missions.
| Super Name: | Blink |
| Real Name: | Clarice Ferguson |
| Aliases: |
Blink Clarice |
| Publisher: | Marvel Publishing |
| Gender: | Female |
| Character Type: | Mutant |
| 1st Appearance: | The Uncanny X-Men #317 |
| Appears in: | 123 issues |
| Birthday: | |
| Died: |
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