Timeslip (comics)
| Timeslip | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | New Warriors #59 (May, 1995) |
| Created by |
Evan Skolnick (writer) Patrick Zircher (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Rina Patel |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | New Warriors |
| Abilities |
Ability to send consciousness through time Time travel Time manipulation |
Timeslip (Rina Patel) is a fictional mutant character, a Marvel Comics superhero and the last addition to the New Warriors before the cancellation of their original series. Timeslip first appeared in New Warriors #59 (May 1995) and was created by Evan Skolnick and Patrick Zircher.
Fictional character biography
Origin
Rina Patel is an Indian mutant, born with special, superhuman abilities. Initially her only known special ability was to completely swap her current consciousness with her consciousness from any other point in her life, past or future.
As a college student, Rina was seen "time-swapping" to when she was four years old as an escape from studying. At the same time, her four-year-old consciousness was time-swapped to her college-age self, causing the child version of herself to panic. Suddenly Rina's current self was ripped to another time, a bewildering vision of herself in a superhero outfit talking with the New Warriors in their Crashpad headquarters. The short episode passed, and a confused Rina decided to pay little heed to the strange future that seemed to be in store for her.[1]
In her next appearance, Rina once again time-swapped to her own near future and found herself holding what appeared to be a dying Speedball/Robbie Baldwin in her arms.[2]
Concerned for Robbie's welfare, Rina began making concerted efforts to contact and warn him of her frightening future vision. However, Speedball did not take her warnings seriously, assuming she was a "super hero stalker" of some kind. Ultimately Rina found Carlton LaFroyge (Hindsight Lad) and convinced him of her sincerity and special abilities by pushing him out of the way of an oncoming truck. This involved Rina warping time so that she seemed to be moving super-fast, an ability she had not previously realized she had.[3]
Trying to help Rina (and her warnings) be taken seriously by the New Warriors, Hindsight Lad designed a superhero costume for her, dubbed her Timeslip, and arranged for her to meet with the team while showing off her time-warping abilities.[4] Even after this demonstration and Rina's impassioned warnings, Speedball was still dubious about her predictions, while the rest of the team did not know quite what to make of her. However, Timeslip's persistence convinced the Warriors to keep her around as they tried to figure out how to prevent her future vision of Speedball's death from coming to pass.
Over time it became clear that Timeslip's visions always came true exactly as she saw them, and Robbie's apparent death was no exception. When the Sphinx appeared and, brushing the Warriors aside, killed Speedball in cold blood. He died in her arms, just as she had foreseen.[5]
However it was ultimately revealed that the Speedball who died in Rina's arms was in fact an exact duplicate who had been created in the year 2092. This advanced biological construct was designed to take Robbie's place as a sleeper agent, tasked with preventing a deranged time-hopping villain, Advent, from rewriting future history to his liking. The Sphinx purposely killed this Speedball duplicate because "he would have failed" to stop Advent.[6] This brutal and seemingly senseless act of murder set in motion a chain of events that drew Rina into the New Warriors team and allowed her to stop Advent herself, saving the future and the rest of the New Warriors.[7]
Timeslip remained with the team and was instrumental in preventing the Dire Wraith queen Volx from detonating a device that could have eliminated the special powers of thousands of superhumans. However, in helping to contain the blast, Rina seemed to lose her own special abilities, perhaps permanently.[8]
Civil War and after
Rina Patel was one of the former Warriors whose secret identities and home addresses were "outed" on a New Warriors hate site,[9] a backlash from the latest incarnation of the Warriors' involvement in a catastrophe that was the catalyst of the Marvel Comics publishing event known as Civil War. After being "outed", Rina was shown on the run from an angry mob, part of a growing anti-New Warrior (and anti-superhero in general) movement in the United States in reaction to the catastrophe.[9] Oddly, Rina was wearing her Timeslip uniform underneath a trench coat as she fled from the mob. Why she was garbed in her uniform when she is supposedly powerless, and would presumably wish to keep a low profile given the negative public opinion of superheroes, is unknown.
Rina has been identified as one of the 142 registered superheroes who appear to have joined the Initiative.[10][11]
Rina was recently seen celebrating the Holidays in San Francisco with the X-Men and other mutants still remaining after M-Day, again wearing her Timeslip uniform.[12]
Powers and abilities
Initially, Rina Patel could exchange her consciousness with her past or future self. Eventually she was capable of limited time travel, and also employed her abilities to simulate super speed by slowing time around her, much like the Flash's enemy, Zoom.