Blindfold (comics)

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caption=Blindfold.
Art by John Cassaday.
character_name=Blindfold
real_name=Ruth Aldine
species=Human Mutant
publisher=Marvel Comics
debut="Astonishing X-Men (vol. 3) #4 (mentioned)
"Astonishing X-Men" (vol. 3) #7(fully)
creators=Joss Whedon
John Cassaday
alliances=Young X-Men Xavier Institute
aliases=
powers=Telepathy, retrocognition, clairvoyance, and precognition|

Blindfold (Ruth Aldine) is a fictional character, a mutant in the Marvel Universe, one of the student body in the Xavier Institute. She first appeared in "Astonishing X-Men" vol. 3 #7 and was created by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday.

Fictional character biography

Blindfold is a student at the Xavier Institute. She was first mentioned by Hisako Ichiki and Wing before their confrontation with Ord. Hisako and Wing both said she had a big mouth because she had read Wing's mind and informed Hisako of his dreams of one day becoming an X-Man. Wing was upset, but Hisako told him not to worry, as she wanted to be an X-Man too, and that Blindfold was just lonely. In her first actual appearance, the Stepford Cuckoos led her to Emma Frost and the rest of the X-Men to warn them of the coming of the Danger Room entity.

When M-Day hit, she was one of 27 students to maintain her powers. She was excused along with Wallflower, Ernst and Gentle from Emma Frost's Battle Royale which determined who will train to be an X-Man.

Torn

When Emma Frost was suffering from a bad case of survivor's guilt, Blindfold was found by Hisako "crying" in a restroom. While trying to comfort Blindfold, Blindfold tries to convince Hisako that they are going "to lose another one." Wolverine, believing he is a defenseless child due to the manipulations of Cassandra Nova, barged into the restroom asking for help as a feral Beast followed him in. Hisako leaves Blindfold and hides with Wolverine, unfortunately Beast targets Blindfold and goes to attack her. Hisako powers up and scares the feral X-Man away but passes out from exhaustion. Blindfold then takes her to the infirmary because she believes someone was awake only to find the unconscious bodies of Colossus and Cyclops. Eventually Shadowcat makes her way back to the Institute and asks the girls to tell her everything they know. When Kitty leaves to find out who exactly is attacking, Cyclops manages to contact Blindfold and instruct her to give Beast a special box containing a ball of string. He also asks her to keep his mind safe from any sort of psychic attacks as he helps Emma. During the middle of the battle, Ord and the Danger Room entity interrupt and a battle begins between the X-Men, Hisako, Ord and Danger. Suddenly S.W.O.R.D. beamed the team, Danger, Ord, and Hisako into a spaceship headed for the Breakworld. Blindfold was last seen watching them along with a few other students and commented that not all of them will come back.

Quest For Magik

Blindfold, during an evening of storytelling, relayed the history of the deceased New Mutant Illyana Rasputin to her fellow classmates. Her story emotionally bothered some of them as Blindfold began including aspects that both recently happened and were about to happen. She explained that the demon lord Belasco reclaimed the realm of Limbo by defeating its previous mistress, Amanda Sefton. Belasco cast her out of Limbo and began searching for a way to bring back Illyana Rasputin from the dead. After saying this Blindfold and the other students were themselves attacked by demons from Limbo sent by Belasco. She continued to assist the students with advice throughout their time in Limbo, telling certain students when and how to react to their situations, especially concerning Pixie, who she declared "must not fall". She survived the final battle and was returned to the mansion with the rest of the students.

Blinded by the Light

Cannonball is given knowledge of the plans of the Marauders and implies that Blindfold is second on a list targets for elimination by them and the Acolytes, orchestrated by Mr. Sinister. Blindfold speaks to the New X-Men saying that whatever is supposed to happen to her can be prevented by Elixir. She grabs his hands, touching the black part of his skin that represents death and the gold part that represents life at the same time. ["X-Men" (vol. 2) #201] A large energy transfer of black and gold follows, and she is incapacitated, though the New X-Men are both confused as to what she meant and unsure of whether she is dead or merely unconscious. Right as Pixie goes to get help from Shadowcat, the Institute is attacked by Exodus and his Acolytes. After examining her, Exodus states that Blindfold is dead and she is no longer a priority to them and they continue on to look for Destiny's Diaries in the mansion, but in spite of this she does not 'smell dead' to X-23, and Prodigy theorizes that Blindfold's precognitive abilities forewarned her of Exodus' coming and so she used Elixir's powers to put herself in a death-like sleep. Shadowcat subsequently operates on Blindfold, who finally awakens to speak further cryptic predictions about the X-Men's handicapped situation, saying that soon Hellion, Pixie, Nightcrawler and someone else she can't recall will be hurt. ["X-Men" (vol. 2) #203] .

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Her predictions were soon proven correct when Lady Deathstrike mortally wounds Hellion, Scalphunter seriously injures Nightcrawler and Pixie injures herself by blindly teleporting the team from the Reavers. The other person Blindfold mentions but does not recall is Forge, who was injured by Bishop; or perhaps Professor X.

Divided We Stand

Blindfold has a nightmare in which one of her future teammates is killed by Donald Pierce. She meets up with Rockslide and tells him of her premonition of the soon-to-be-formed team and mentions the death of one of their future teammates, though Santo appears to take little heed of it, being more interested in the team uniforms she saw. As predicted, Cyclops arrives at the cafe and offers Santo a place on the team, but also revealing that he did not wish to recruit Ruth. However, Santo refuses to join the team unless she is allowed to as well, noting that Ruth's vision included her on the squad as well. Cyclops concedes, and Ruth takes her place on the squad. ["Young X-Men #1"]

Cyclops orders Ruth and Ink to bring in Dani Moonstar, who is apparently a member of a new Brotherhood of Mutants. However Ink betrays Ruth and delivers both girls to Donald Pierce, who is revealed to be impersonating Cyclops. Eventually they are freed and Ruths prediction comes to pass and Wolf Cub is killed. She then relocates to San Francisco with the rest of the Young X-Men and leaves the team.

Mannerisms

Blindfold has a unique speech pattern. It includes the odd insertion into her sentences of words of politeness, including "please", "thank you", "you're welcome", and "pardon". She's also been known to oddly insert the words "yes" and "no" into her sentences.

Given that she is both a telepath and a precognitive, she often answers questions before they are asked and responds to comments before they are spoken aloud. As a result, she tends to turn what would ordinarily be a two-way conversation into a monologue. While she does not always do this, it may be assumed that she is allowing the other person or persons to say what she already knows they will say out of politeness' sake.

Powers and abilities

Blindfold is psionic, but the full extent of her abilities is unknown. She has been shown in "Astonishing X-Men" using telepathy and "New X-Men" to sometimes psychically sense events when other telepaths apparently did not, such as Belasco pulling everyone inside the mansion into Limbo. During her appearances in "Astonishing X-Men" she used telepathy, and in her most recent appearances in "New X-Men" and "X-Men", she has been said to be a clairvoyant retrocognitive and precognitive mutant, meaning that she is able to see past, present or future places or events. Her blindness is part of her mutation in the sense that she has no eyes, but rather has skin where eyes would normally be.

References

*"Astonishing X-Men" vol. 3 #4, 7-8, 15-18
*"New X-Men" vol. 2 #23
*"New X-Men" Issue #37-40