Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 141. Who is Blink in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 141. Who is Blink in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

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  Hi guys, it's Megan from Vigilante Vibes and I'm here
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  with another character breakdown and I am continuing my mutant
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  series, I guess you could call it.
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  And today we're going to talk about Blink.
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  Blink is a pretty underrated mutant in my opinion, and that's
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  what I'm trying to focus on in the series is a lot of
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  underrated mutants rather than the usual Cyclops, Jean Grey,
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  all that stuff. So let's talk about Blank.
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  Let's learn who she is and maybe someone will learn something.
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  If not, I just hope you enjoy this.
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  But before I get started, don't forget to like and subscribe so
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  you don't miss any of these character breakdowns or my
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  interviews or anything else I come up with.
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  Now with that said, Clarice Ferguson AKA Blink first
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  appeared in Marvel Comics Uncanny X-Men numbers 317 in
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  1994. Clarice Ferguson started out as
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  a shy, scared character who was terrified of her own powers.
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  The first time they showed up, she accidentally hurt someone
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  she cared about, and after that she swore she'd never use them
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  again. Which is fair, because her her
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  her powers are that, that would terrify me, but I'll I'll
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  explain what her powers are. But that changed when the alien
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  techno creatures known as the Phalanx invaded Earth.
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  They captured a bunch of young mutants later known as
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  Generation X, including Clarice, hoping to experiment on them and
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  learn how to absorb mutants into their hive mind.
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  While imprisoned, Clarice grew close to the other captives but
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  didn't see any way out. Luckily, a Rescue Squad that
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  made was made-up of Banshee, Sink, Jubilee, Emma Frost, and
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  even Sabretooth showed up. When the group was attacked by a
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  Phalanx being called Harvest, Clarice decided to step up.
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  She used her teleportation powers to cut off part of the
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  ship, and with Banshee's help, she managed to take down
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  Harvest. Unfortunately, the portal was
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  created also swallowed her, and it looked like she was gone for
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  good. In an alternate timeline called
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  Earth 295, specifically during the Age of Apocalypse, Clarice
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  had a very different life. Born with magenta skin, pointed
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  ears, and facial markings, her parents moved to the US when she
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  was 4, hoping doctors there could explain her unusual
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  appearance. But things took a dark turn when
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  Apocalypse took over America. Just a few short years later,
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  Mr. Sinister showed up at her house, off to her parents and
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  sent her to a mutant concentration camp known as the
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  Pens. While there she became friends
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  with Ileana Rasputin and had to endure twisted experiments by
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  the Sugarman and Dark Beast. That's when her powers kicked in
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  warping space and she picked up the nickname Blink from the
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  sound of her portal's made. Eventually Sabertooth and Weapon
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  X, who you may known as Logan, raided the camp.
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  They rescued her and Sabertooth ended up raising her like his
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  own daughter. When she got older, he trained
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  her to be part of the X-Men. After falling out with Magneto,
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  Blink decided to go after Apocalypse directly and launched
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  a solo mission to his base in Manhattan.
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  But when she got there, she walked into a full on war
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  between 2 armies, 1 led by the Holocaust and the other led by
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  Blastar and his crew from the Negative Zone.
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  Hoping she could find some unexpected allies, Blink opened
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  a portal jumped into the Negative Zone herself.
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  The trip between dimensions scrambled her memory, though,
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  and she ended up lost in this very strange world.
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  While there, she met a rebel leader named Amior who was
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  fighting to bring back a powerful figure named Annihilus.
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  Blink and Amor grew close and eventually fell in love, but
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  things took a turn when Blastar captured them.
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  That's when Blink found out the shocking truth.
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  Amure was actually a nihilist in AD aged altered form.
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  After escaping, her memory came back and she was able to stop
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  Blastar's invasion and return to her own world.
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  As for her powers, Blink can create teleportation portals by
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  warping space around the electromagnetic fields around
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  her. These portals let her instantly
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  move objects and people through other dimensions, reappearing at
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  a different spot in the world. Sometimes whatever she teleport
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  appears right away. Other times it stays trapped in
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  that strange in between space. So you can see how terrifying
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  that would be for a new mutant. For Blink, your mutant powers
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  start to activate and you're just teleporting places and
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  you're teleporting things that that's horrifying.
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  Blink's teleportation powers aren't just forgetting from
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  point A to B. She's learned to get really
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  creative with them. She can open portals and move
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  parts of her body or other objects through them, which lets
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  her attack enemies from unexpected angles or even send
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  their own attacks back at them. Once she opens a portal, it
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  stays open until she decides to close it.
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  She also fights using energy charge javelins.
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  For example, she can throw one at a specific part of someone's
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  body and teleport just that part, like a leg or an arm,
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  without moving the whole person. If she really wants to be
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  brutal, she can even close a portal while someone's still
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  halfway through it, which I'm sure you guys can see where
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  we're going with that and does not end well for them.
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  The bigger or heavier the object she's trying to teleport and the
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  farther it has to go, the more it drains her.
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  But she's figured out how to manage it by making a series of
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  short hops instead of 1 huge jump, which helps reduce the
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  strain. No one knows exactly how much
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  she can teleport before it knocks her out, but she's able
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  to move things as massive as 138,000 LB cannon without
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  breaking a sweat. On top of that, Blank is a very
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  skilled fighter, great at hand to hand combat and super agile.
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  She's also really accurate with her javelins, which she can make
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  from whatever's around her if needed.
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  She stores most of them in a quiver in her back and can
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  charge them with energy to open portals wherever they land.
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  Since living in the Crystal Palace, she stocked up on
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  crystal javelins and can open a portal there wherever she needs
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  to restock. Blank has a serious grudge
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  against Mr. Sinister because, you know, he offed her parents
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  and threw her into a mutant concentration camp when she was
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  a kid. I'd say that's fair, and she's
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  definitely no fan of Apocalypse either.
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  But who is besides, you know, us fans since he basically ruled
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  the entire world when she grew up.
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  Blink is one of the original members of the Exiles A-Team,
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  made-up of heroes pulled from different timelines and
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  realities. The original lineup included
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  Blink, Beast, Morph, Forge, the Panther, Polaris, and the Witch.
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  Over the years, the rosters changed a lot, but Blink and
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  Morph have stuck around the whole time.
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  Blink has also teamed up with the X-Men a few times,
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  especially Wolverine and Sabretooth, who in her timeline
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  basically raised her. She's also worked closely with
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  Ileana Rasputin. If you want to know more about
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  Ileana Rasputin, go check out my videos because I have a
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  breakdown of her too. As her world started to fall
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  apart, Blink basically slipped through the cracks of reality
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  and ended up in the Crystal Palace, landing in a weird
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  desert room. There she met a team of other
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  reality hoppers, Magnus from Earth 27, Mimic from Earth 12,
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  Morph from Earth 1O81, Nocturne from Earth 2182, Thunderbird
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  from Earth 1100, and a being called the Time Broker, who
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  turned out to be just a hologram made by a bunch of bug like
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  aliens known as the Time Breakers.
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  The Time Broker explained that they'd all been knocked out of
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  sync with time, the only way back to their own realities was
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  to fix the broken ones. But for Blink the stakes were
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  even higher. If they failed, she wouldn't
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  just get stuck, she'd stop existing completely.
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  Blink was given the Tallis, a kind of mission guide gadget,
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  and the group soon calling themselves the Exiles was sent
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  on their first mission to Earth 1815-A brutal world where all
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  superhumans have been wiped out. They were told to find their
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  greatest teacher, and everyone assumed that meant Charles
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  Xavier. But in this version of reality,
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  Xavier had gone full supervillain and was trying to
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  wipe out humanity. Turns out the real target was
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  Magneto. Mimic ended up killing Xavier.
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  Magnus died heroically during a mission.
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  After some rough decisions early on, Mimic stepped down as leader
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  and Blink took over. The two of them started leading
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  together, but eventually got romantically involved on another
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  mission to Earth 2600, a world where Sentinels had wiped out
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  all the mutants and superpowered people, the Exiles ran into.
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  Weapon XA second team created by the time Breakers for a dark
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  missions. This team includes Sabretooth,
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  Blinks, Father from Earth 295, Deadpool, Hulk, Spider, a really
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  creepy version of Spider Man, Storm, and Vision.
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  Blink was thrilled to see Sabretooth again, but their
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  reunion was cut short when they found out both teams had been
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  sent to kill a young boy named David Richards.
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  Weapon X wanted to carry out the mission, but the Exiles and
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  Sabretooth refused. The teams clashed and Weapon X
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  was defeated. Sabretooth chose to stay behind
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  and raise David for himself to make sure he didn't become the
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  villain the Time Broker warned them about.
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  Blink was heartbroken to leave him again, but he promised
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  they'd reunite one day later. During a mission on Earth 8545,
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  Blank got infected by the Vilox virus, which is a fusion of the
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  Mutant Legacy Virus, which is the virus that killed Psylocke
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  and Ileana Rasputin, and it was merged with the Techno Organic
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  Transmode Virus. Luckily she was cured thanks to
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  a magical injection made with Asgardian God Blood, which is
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  wild. After that mission, the Time
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  Broker told her that she was being sent home and replaced by
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  magic from Earth 4210. The Talus passed to Mimic and
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  Blink was sent not home but back to Earth 2600 to be a Saber
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  tooth. But when the Exiles were sent to
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  Earth 312, things got worse. Mimic had secretly been infected
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  with a brewed egg back on another mission and ended up
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  killing their teammate Sunfire. In the aftermath.
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  The Time Broker brought Blank back to the team gave her the
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  talus again, and she resumed her role as team leader.
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  Blank and Mimic grew even closer as the Exiles kept taking
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  mission after mission, like the time they had to stop a rogue
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  version of Hyperion who had gone off script and tried to take
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  over the planet. They managed to beat him and
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  lock him up in the Crystal Palace, but he eventually
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  escaped and secretly took control of Time Broker.
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  After that, the team started getting sent on weird, confusing
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  missions, some of which didn't even make sense.
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  Things got worse when they ended up back on Earth 2600, and the
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  Talus gave them a shocking new mission to kill Mimic.
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  Blink flat out refused, and the Talus transferred to Sabretooth.
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  Then the team was warped back to Earth 295, Blink and
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  Sabretooth's home timeline, where they were ordered to kill
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  the world's heroic Magneto again.
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  The team refused and instead they used the powerful Macron
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  Crystal, which connects all realities, to jump back to the
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  Crystal Palace where they exposed Hyperion's manipulation
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  and beat him once and for all. They finally earned the Time
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  Breakers full trust. Not long after, the Exiles went
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  up against Proteus, a reality warping mutant from the Earth
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  58163. He ended up taking over Mimics
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  body. Blink did everything she could
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  to save him, but Proteus burned through Mimic, killing him.
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  When Proteus then possessed Morph's body on Counter Earth,
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  the team tricked him by putting a device on him that made him
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  believe he was Morph. Devastated by Mimics death,
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  Blink returned his body to his home world so his friends and
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  family could say goodbye properly.
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  During another mission on Earth 187319, the entire planet and
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  everyone on it was wiped out. The shock of that disaster
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  caused Blink to get pulled into a Crystal Palace's time stream.
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  There she met the Palace's previous caretakers who helped
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  her get back on the team. After helping stop Mad Jim,
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  Jasper's, and the Fury from threatening all of existence,
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  Blink decided it was time for a break.
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  She moved to her old teammate Heather Hudson's Peaceful World,
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  joining Nocturne and Thunderbird for some downtime.
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  Before leaving, she and Sabretooth helped Quinton Choir
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  from Earth 91172 recruit a brand new team of Exiles to take on
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  threats. After this, his world's heroes
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  were wiped out by the Hulk's Annihilation Wave.
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  Blink left Sabretooth in charge of the Exiles, said her goodbyes
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  to him and Morph, telling them that if they ever needed her,
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  she was just a portal away. See, she's such a good
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  character. She's like, she's such a good
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  character and she was such a big deal during the Age of
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  Apocalypse events. I do hope at some point they
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  make an Exiles comic run like a more modern 1 so we can get a
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  better look. Because it's like Blink falls
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  with all the underrated mutants of the world because the main
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  focus is on the big hitters, the X-Men or X Factor or X Force.
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  And it's like there's so many other characters that deserve to
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  have a limelight on them and Blink is one of them.
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  As usual, I have comics to check out so you can get to know Blink
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  even better, starting with Uncanny X-Men 3/17, all of the
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  Exiles, Astonishing X-Men by Scott Lobdell, and all of the
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  Age of Apocalypse. So thank you for sticking with
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  me through another character breakdown.
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  I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to like and subscribe
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  and have a marvelous day.