Art by Andrea Sorrentino
- Name: Eva Bell
- Code Names: Tempus
- First Appearance: All-New X-Men #1 (November ’12)
- Powers: Time Manipulation
- Teams Affiliation: X-Men
About
The poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelly is a staple of 11th grade English classes because it hits on the most universal of themes, the unrelenting power of time. Who was once the king of kings, the most powerful pharaoh in Egypt’s storied history, has been reduced to rubble. Even the mightiest among us is a slave to the power of death, our legacy eroded by the sands of time. To stop that, to catch time in a bottle, to hold onto life, that is a power not lightly wielded. Eva Bell never expected life to amount to anything grand, never thought she would leave much of a legacy, but fate gave her one of the most stunning gifts. Her X-gene bore the ability to control time itself, and the gave her an impact far greater than she ever dreamed.
It started simple for the Australian-born mutant, she was drug out to a club with a girlfriend of hers, both looking to meet a cute guy. She started chatting with someone she had met but her overprotective brother had different ideas. The two boys began to fight over Eva and she screamed out wishing everything would stop, if just for a moment. A one block radius froze around her, nothing was moving, time was standing still, and Eva Bell’s wish turned into a nightmare.
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Marte Gracia
Twenty hours later she was surrounded. City officials were frightened by this new dangerous mutant and would take every step necessary to prevent her from endangering anyone. Suddenly a group appeared before her, terrorists and escaped prisoners, they offered her safety but only if she trusted them. Eva looked into the red glowing eye of their leader, she knew her old life was over, she knew she would have to live on the run. The blonde woman next to the leader, prim and proper, helped Eva to turn off the temporal field she had created and Eva braced herself. Her first action as an X-Man was to run for her life against a world that fears and hates her.
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Marte Gracia
She started to make her home in the X-Men’s new base, the abandoned Weapon X facility. She dyed her hair and took the name Tempus, trying to fit into this new world she had found herself a reluctant member of. She began to bond with some of the young recruits to Cyclops’ mutant revolution, like Triage and Goldballs, but more and more she felt homesick. She was able to convince Cyclops to let her visit her home, to let her mother know she was safe, and the leader relented. Her mother was overjoyed to see Eva safe but their reunion was cut short by a group with a mission. The Avengers had come knocking.
As she stared the sentinel of liberty in the face, Eva reminisced about primary school. The younger Miss Bell admired Captain America more than anyone else in the world. She empathized with his isolation, with him losing everyone he loved and becoming a stranger in a strange land. She thought of him as the bastion of good, the champion of right. This stood in stark contrast to the man who led an army to her mother’s doorstep. Tensions were boiling over, Eva wasn’t even sure what this standoff was all about, but Hawkeye had an arrow aimed right at Cyclops’ head and the Avengers leaped into action. Almost instinctively, Tempus made that split second last for hours. She reassured her mother that she would be safe and teleported away with the rest of the X-Men, proving herself by holding back the strongest fighting force in the world.
Art by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend
Tempus’ skill improved mission after mission. It didn’t matter if she was battling Mindless One’s in Limbo, infiltrating a SHIELD base, or battling Sentinels, Eva was quickly proving to be the star of Cyclops’ mutant revolution. The recruits were dropped off in Tabula Rasa, the hyper-evolved patch of land in Montana, with a mission to just survive. It didn’t take long for the native fauna to assert territorial domination and the young X-Men were split. Eva’s stress got the best of her and lost control of one of her time bubbles. It blinked her out of the alien jungle and left Goldballs wondering what had happened to his friend. She returned just in time to save her fellow recruits from some aggressive natives but something was different. He clothes were in tatters, her hair was twice as long, and she looked years older. The Stepford Cuckoos, nosey as ever, read her mind but Tempus swore them to secrecy. After that moment, Eva smiled less. Her joy was caught somewhere in time, but Eva didn’t want to burden her friends with her problems.
Art by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend
Eva was haunted by her errant trip through time. The nightmares flooded her mind, and the whispers from her teammates did little to soothe matters. She remembered Tabula Rasa and she remembered flying to the war-torn world of Killraven, the dusty west of the Rawhide Kid and the neon of 2099. 2099 she couldn’t forget. That’s where she trained with Illyana Rasputin, Sorceress Supreme. It is where she married Danny, where her daughter was born, where she spent seven wonderful years. But vivid in her mind was the day that beast attacked the Sanctum Sanctorum. The once and future Magik tried to fend off the demon but was lethally wounded. Eva’s heartbeat raced. Her breathing quickened. With her dying breath, Illyana told Tempus that Hank McCoy must stand trial for what he had done. Mournfully, in terror and in grief, Eva closed her eyes and unconsciously wrapped the time stream around herself.
Art by Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo
When she opened her eyes, Eva was confronted with a prehistoric world. She couldn’t muster the strength to create another time bubble, but Tempus was desperate to get back to her family. As luck would have it, the only evolved creature in the time before man heard Eva’s cries and the mutant looked upon the face of Morgana Le Fey. The sorceress took Eva back to her home, intent on using Tempus to return to the prime timeline. She tried to tell Eva that whatever future she came from no longer existed, but Eva only thought of her daughter’s smile. Eva slipped out of the time stream and floated further and further towards the world of 2099, but what she returned to was very different than the world she left.
She rushed to her home but found that someone else lived there, they had never heard of Danny or Eva. Confused she went to the Sanctum Sanctorum only to find that it had a new master, Tony Stark. Stark explained to Eva that the time stream is a fickle thing, that there were limitless futures and the one she experienced was gone. He opened the multiverse to her, if only for a glimpse of the infinite. She could have been an agent of SHIELD, a soccer mom, the next Magneto, an animal rights activist, a world leader, or just a nobody. All those infinite worlds, parallel lives, wiped away by the unrelenting force of time. The good Doctor told her that her story had not been told yet, none of these lives were her, not yet anyway. It was time to go home and create her story. She created one last time bubble and saw her friends in Tabula Rasa. The guilt of losing her family weighed heavily on her heart but Eva knew she had a role yet to play here.
Art by Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo
Though it took some time after his death, the last will and testament of Charles Xavier was discovered and She-Hulk brought it to the attention of the X-Men. In it, Xavier revealed that he had long been manipulating the mind of a mutant named Matthew Malloy, potentially the most dangerous reality warper in a long line of dangerous mutant reality warpers. Concurrently, Matthew’s dormant powers reemerged and he was unable to control them, destroying a small town and attracting the attention of SHIELD. One crashed helicarrier later, Cyclops reached out to Matthew, spiriting him away from the chaos and heavily armed soldiers. Magneto went after him, fearing that Cyclops would want to enlist the mutant as his nuclear deterrent, but was unceremoniously sent back to the Weapon X facility. Eva was terrified at what Scott might do and pledged to find a way to change it.
Art by Chris Bachalo, Antonio Farela, and one of the army of inkers on Uncanny #29
Against her classmate’s wishes, she traveled back to the early days of The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and opened her mind to Charles himself. Xavier was horrified by what Eva showed him but he couldn’t bring himself to kill Matthew. Eva was fed up with the hypocrisy that she had been fed by the supposed leaders of the mutant race ever since she joined it. She knew Xavier wasn’t a saint, that Beast was carelessly playing god with time, that Magneto was never for any cause but his own, and that Cyclops was ruining his people’s reputation over a nervous breakdown. She was done listening to these men pretend their hands were clean and told Xavier to do what he knew needed done. After showing him her future, Eva took Xavier to the moment Matthew’s parents met and the Professor made sure they would never date, much less make a life. She returned Charles to his time and let him know what she thought of him before returning to her time, now restored. Charles proved Eva right by wiping his mind of the day, his hands would stay clean.
Art by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend
Galvanized by this, Eva made a beeline to Scott Summers. She told him just how reckless he had been, how he didn’t deserve to be the leader of men that he was. Tempus told her former teacher, the man who had saved her all those years ago, he had to clean up his act or she would make sure his parents never met. Then she lept into the time stream. She returned to keep her promise to Magik, Beast stood trial in front of the mutant race but got off with no consequence. Eva told him just how important his next choice would be and disappeared. Time had destroyed these pillars of the mutant community and she wanted no part in that world anymore.
Art by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend
Must Read
Eva was one of the breakout stars of Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men and that was never more apparent than in a pair of annuals centered on her. This story focuses on her journey through time and the gut-wrenching losses she experienced. Modern master Andrea Sorrentino beautifully illustrates Tempus’s struggle to find her way home and Bendis keeps the pace quick. Everything enjoyable about Eva can be found in the 2014 annuals for Uncanny and All-New on Marvel Unlimited.
Art by Andrea Sorrentino
Ranking
I really like Eva and I am bummed that she hasn’t come back since Secret Wars. She has a great power set, cool design and an attitude that is needed in the X-Men. If Goldballs didn’t exist she would be the best addition to the mutant world that Brian Michael Bendis ever created. Right below Goldballs we have Xorn, and as much as I talked about him last week, I would trade his return in Uncanny for Eva in a heartbeat. That places Tempus firmly as the new number 15 in the Xavier Files.
Tempus was requested by Thomas from Patreon who also has contributed to Xavier Files. Thanks for the request. If you want to cut to the front of the line, like Thomas has, we have a Patreon if you want to support it and get a line cutting reward for just a $1 pledge. We just hit our first goal and just need $7 for me to start reviewing every X-Book each week. Oh and we also have exclusive physical items so check those out!
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Next week I celebrate 1 year of Xavier Files and I tell you why Cyclops wasn’t right. See you then!
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Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
