Blink

Origin

The origins of the young mutant called Blink stretch back to the Victorian era and the vast machinations of the immortal mutant Apocalypse. After leaving Egypt, Apocalypse traveled the world, spawning innumerable offspring. The descendants of Apocalypse called themselves Clan Akkaba and, through the ages, challenged each other in contests to attain the title of “fittest” according to Apocalypse’s beliefs. The fates of this often contentious group were guided by Apocalypse’s servant Ozymandias. After a conflict with Dracula left the Clan Akkaba nearly destroyed, Ozymandias decided to revitalize the Clan himself. He hired a prostitute called Miss Ferguson to have intimate relations with the catatonic Fredrick Slade, one of the only surviving members of Clan Akkaba. Fredrick possessed a form of teleportation, which he passed on to his great-great granddaughter, Clarice Ferguson.

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. Little has been revealed about Clarice’s early life. Her powers manifested when she was a teenager and did so quite tragically. When she first used her powers, she was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, she found herself in a pool of blood. At the time, she vowed to never use her powers against another living being again.

Creation

Blink was created by Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira and first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #317 (although she already appeared on a computer-screen in X-Men #36 one month earlier). This was the Earth-616 version of the character, who apparently sacrificed herself at the end of the Phalanx Covenant. This sacrifice for a new team of mutants mirrored 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 first appeared in X-Men Alpha (1995). 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.

Character Evolution

Earth-616: Marvel Universe

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, which terrified her. Therefore, she spent most of her time huddled up with a fifth 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.

Earth-295: Age of Apocalypse

This version of Blink is a mutant from Earth-295, the alternate reality known as the Age of Apocalypse. Clarice was born with odd pigmentation, resulting in purple skin and pink hair. When she was four, her parents moved her from their native Bahamas to Miami, in hopes that the larger population would result in a larger amount of mutants. They never got to see if they were right, as soon after the megalomaniac despot Apocalypse conquered the city. Clarice’s parent’s and brother was killed, but since Clarice had obvious mutant traits from birth, she was spotted by Apocalypse’s henchman Mr. Sinister, and was taken in for studying.

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 the X-Man, Morph.

Major Story Arcs

Earth-616: Marvel Universe

The Phalanx Covenant

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 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. Before attacking Harvest, however 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.

The After Life

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

It’s found that Blink didn’t die, but was trapped in a dimension slightly separate from her own reality. Her screams of pain were heard by Selene. When Selene decided to form her Inner Circle, Blink was one of the first she recruited. Having taken a ship out to sea to the spot where Blink had fought Harvest, Selene reached into the air. Her hand disappeared. She then pulled Blink out of nowhere, still wearing the same clothes that the Phalanx had wrapped her in. She had joined Selene’s Inner Circle; a personal army of deadly mutants who had either been raised from the dead or had deathly powers. Alongside Caliban, Eli Bard , Mortis, Senyaka, and Wither, she had been groomed into a teleporting mutant who uses her powers to kill. Blink transported the attack on Utopia (the X-Men’s offshore base in San Francisco Bay), seemingly with former members of the Hellfire Club as their intended target. Having mastered her teleportation powers, she led Cypher & the Hellions, along with dozens of other resurrected heroes & villains.

Gently, Selene told Blink that Emma Frost had heard her screams, and let her die. It seemed to connect with Blink’s memory of Frost holding Husk back, preventing her from rushing to Blink’s aid. Disoriented and frightened, Blink believed Selene. After only a few weeks of being under Selene’s tutelage, Blink had begun to use her powers to kill. Her determination and strength had grown incredibly, so she was capable of leading Selene’s army to attack the X-Men. Blink and the Inner Circle were dispatched by Selene to look for the mystical Knife in Utopia, in order for Selene to complete her ritual into becoming a goddess. When Blink teleported them to Utopia, she was immediately recognized by Emma Frost. During the battle, Blink and Senyaha were fighting Angel, Senyaka ensnaring him with his coils and Blink using her spears to obliterate his wings. After successfully finding the knife, Blink teleports them to Selene with a captured Warpath. Blink was shown among the other Inner Circle watching Selene kill Eli Brad with the Knife. She and Thunderbird were ordered to keep an eye on Warpath, but failed when Vanisher came and saved him. When Selene finally achieved her goal of becoming a goddess, she orders her Inner Circle to get her more souls to absorb. Blink teleports all the zombie mutants and former mutants to Genosha. Blink and Domino fight each other in the final battle in Genosha. Domino tries to shoot at Blink, but she easily avoids her shots by using her teleportation powers. Vanisher plucks Blink out of teleportation and holds her while Angel slashes her with his wings. Blink then flees Genosha with Mortis.

Post-Necrosha

Blink is later seen in Europe attempting to revive Selene through black magic. She is interrupted by Emma Frost, who is brought along Doctor Strange, Blindfold, Husk, Warpath, and Pixie. The group attempts to reason with her, and later subdue her after she attacks. After defeating the rest of the team Emma attempts to reason with her and keep her from teleporting away. Blink believes that Emma and the X-Men left her and purposely never rescued her. Strange is able to magically free her from Selene’s dark influence, leaving Blink with the memories of the murders she committed. Emma wants to make amends with her for failing her in their first encounter, but Blink teleports away to an unknown future.

The Newer Mutants

Blink eventually meets the newest incarnation of the New Mutants squad when the team, formed by Cable, is sent to capture her. She was freed from Selene’s control.

Krakoa and S.W.O.R.D.

Clarice joined the Krakoa nation and later was recruited by SWORD, along with other mutants with similar powers.

Earth-295: Age of Apocalypse

Age of Apocalypse

After a heated discussion with Magneto, Blink went into Apocalypse’s headquarters to prove herself, and ended up witnessing a battle between Holocaust and Blastaar‘s forces. When Blink tried to follow Blastaar’s forces in the hope that they would be allies against Apocalypse, something strange happened and Blink ended up on a rock in space, without her memory. To make matters worse, a mysterious man was pointing a gun at her head. Luckily Blink remembered some fighting skills Sabretooth had taught her and managed to hold her own against the stranger. The stranger and Blink felt a certain attraction to each other, and stopped fighting. The stranger introduced himself as Ahmyor, a rebel who wanted to overthrow Blastaar and restore Annihilus to power. Blink decided to join Ahmyor to stop Blastaar. Blink’s powers were useful to help Ahmyor’s forces defeat Blastaar’s, and Blink began to fall in love with Ahmyor. A few days later, Ahmyor’s forces were captured by Blastaar’s, and it was revealed that Ahmyor was actually a human form of Annihilus with amnesia. With his memory returning, Ahmyor was starting to turn back into Annihilus. As Blastaar prepared to have Ahmyor executed, Blink decided to save him and used her last few quivers to save Ahmyor. With Ahmyor turned back into Annihilus, Blink was able to return to Earth. By the time she had returned, Blink had somehow regained her memory, possibly from the adrenaline.

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

Blink found herself being pulled from her reality just moments before the Human High Council sent nukes over Northern America (at the end of the Age of Apocalypse storyline). She ended up in a desert landscape, and the first person she met here would be Nocturne, who she would be close friends with. There was also Morph, and Blink immediately ran up and hugged him, but Morph didn’t even recognize her. Three other people were also present in the desert: Mimic, Thunderbird and Magnus and they soon began to realize that they all were from different realities. What are the odds? 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.

Blink was given a device called the Tallus, and thus became team leader of the group that eventually became known as the Exiles, since she had the least trouble adjusting to the different realities. So the Exiles got sent to a new world and their first mission was to find their greatest leader, which they interpreted to be Charles Xavier. That however was very wrong as they became aware of after rescuing him from a prison. This worlds Xavier was evil and wanted to kill all humans. The mission ended with team-mate Magnus sacrificing himself to contain a bomb, and Blink became painfully aware that this new job was serious business. Blink soon developed a romantic relationship with team-mate Mimic. His attractions became obvious when he started staring at Blink’s butt whilst she was talking. Blink took advantage of the situation and kissed Mimic. During a time when the Exiles had some downtime, they checked into a hotel. After Blink had a nightmare about Mister Sinister, she teleported into Mimic’s room to spend the night with him.

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’ life force to stop him.

Back with Mister Creed

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.

Back Home

After many missions Blink was informed by the Timebroker that her task was completed and that she could go home and she was replaced on the team by Illyana Rasputin. She wasn’t actually sent home, but to the reality where Sabretooth was looking after David Richards. About twenty years had passed in this timeline, and David was now in full control of his powers. With Blink appearing out of nowhere, David thought she was a spy and read her mind to see whether she was or wasn’t. Unfortunately Sabretooth’s teachings hadn’t been enough and David was still evil. Not only did he mind control his friends like puppets, but he forced Blink to use her abilities to teleport humans into places where they died immediately, such as outer space. After a few days of the massacring Sabretooth killed David.

Blink Returns

As a result Blink was traumatized, since she had done things she would never have done if it was up to her. After Sunfire died she was put back as a member of the Exiles just in time for a mission where the Exiles were set against rivaling Weapon X team and told that only six of the twelve would move on. While fighting the invulnerable and infinitely more powerful Hyperion she managed to beat him by teleporting his own heat vision blast back at himself, effectively crippling him and exposing his spine. Weapon X member Gambit finished Hyperion off by charging up Magik’s Soul Sword and thrusting it into Hyperion’s exposed spine, killing them both.

Following this, the Exiles were soon embroiled in an inter-dimensional game of cat and mouse with the Proteus of the House of M reality. After hopping across several different universes, the team was eventually successful in trapping Proteus within the body of Morph, though tragedy struck when they lost Mimic in the process. Although Blink found herself grieving over the loss of her longtime lover, she continued on, and had several more adventures with the team, including a mission on a Earth conquered by HYDRA (where she was brainwashed by this reality’s Madame Hydra, aka Sue Storm, and where she was brainwashed along with most of her team into becoming a soldier of HYDRA). Blink also aided the other Exiles and the New Excalibur team in their fight against Merlyn, Mad Jim Jaspers and the Fury, even taking out the Fury in the process.

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

Blink returns into action in the new volume of Exiles. She is, once again, wearing the tallus, but is not leading this new team outright. She is pretending to have been freshly-pulled from reality like the other members as opposed to explaining to them that she is a veteran Exile.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 begins searching 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 fail safe, 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 and Abilities

Teleport

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.

Unarmed Combat

She has proven to be a very skilled hand to hand fighter, having honed her skills by training with Sabretooth. She is also extremely agile.

Equipments

Blink (Earth-295) wielder of the Tallus.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 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).

Other Versions

Earth-33629

In this reality, Blink is a member of the Exiles team who were created by the Grandmaster. This version of Blink comes from a reality where all six original members of the Exiles were brought together by the Grandmaster so he could take revenge on the real Exiles team for a mistake they made a long time ago. Much like her counterpart, Blink was a extremely skilled leader and remained with the team, defending her world much like her counterpart defended the multi-verse.

Earth-957

A What If…? universe where Blink survived the fight against Harvest. However, like most What If…? stories, there were dire consequences of the divergence from regular continuity. The Blink that existed on Earth-957 would have caused the end of the world, but ultimately became an apprentice to the In-Betweener.

Earth-1610

Blink has so far only made cameo appearances in the Ultimate universe.

Other Media

Film

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing portrays Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In the film, she is part of a small band of mutant survivors (which includes Bishop, Warpath, and Sunspot) in a timeline ruled by Sentinels. During the final battle, she is killed by the Sentinels, but is presumably resurrected after the timeline is reset and the Sentinel takeover of Earth never occurs.

Television

X-Men The Animated Series

Blink appeared briefly in the X-Men: The Animated Series episode “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.

The Gifted

Blink appears as one of the main characters in The Gifted, played by Jamie Chung. Her real name is changed from “Clarice Ferguson” to “Clarice Fong” to better represent her Chinese-American heritage. She debuts in the first episode, where she is pursued by a squad of Sentinels after her mutant status is revealed. She is rescued by members of the Mutant Underground (Thunderbird, Eclipse and Polaris), and later becomes part of their cause. Early on, Blink has trouble controlling her powers, which eventually causes Dreamer to implant a fake attraction to Thunderbird in Blink’s mind in order to properly motivate her. Her backstory is also gradually explained, and it’s eventually revealed that Clarice grew up in a foster home for mutant children who couldn’t pass for human. She eventually ran away from home as a teenager, and returned years later to find that her foster parents had apparently been killed by the authorities.

Video Games

X-Men Legends 2 : Rise Of Apocalypse

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 must save Blink. She was evacuating Genosha during Apocalypse´s attack but was knocked out and taken prisoner in front of Sabretooth´s eyes who then convinced the X-Men and the Brotherhood to rescue her. If the rescue team includes Toad, Blink will recognize him and engage in a special dialogue tree about how she was captured. After being saved Blink helps out by teleporting the player between missions.

Marvel: War of Heroes

Blink appears in several cards in the mobile card game. Her cards are:

• [Age of Apocalypse] Blink
• [Generation X] Blink
• [Pink] Blink

X-Men: Battle of The Atom

Blink appears as a support card in the mobile game X-Men: Battle of the Atom. Her cards are:

• Blink
• [Astonishing XM] Blink
• [Original Exiles] Blink
• [Selene’s Circle] Blink
• [Originals] Exiles
• Selene’s Inner Circle

Blink is also featured as a boss during the Nechrosa event.

Merchandise

• Blink was featured in ToyBiz’s Marvel’s Most Wanted line of figures.
• Diamond Collectibles released an Age of Apocalypse Blink bust as an SDCC exclusive.
• Diamond Collectibles released a figure of Age of Apocalypse Blink in their Minimates line as part of an exclusive two-pack with the Age of Apocalypse Sabretooth.
• Blink was featured in the HeroClix figure game.
• Blin was featured in The Classic Marvel Figurine Collection from Eaglemoss Publications.
• In 2019, Blink was featured in Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line as part of the Caliban Build-a-Figure wave.