Talking Dazzler Part One: So Bright This Star

Welcome, welcome, welcome!  So, today we’re going to take a long, hard look at the first two issues of Dazzler here.  And some of you might wonder why in the world anyone would want to poke and prod at Dazzler with a fine-toothed, Stan Lee–shaped comb.  You’d be right to ask.  I’d be wrong to answer.  But I will! And I Won’t drop pages from the issue because I want you to see it in your mind’s eye and then go read the actual comics.

This article is the answer.  Well, part of it.  The rest of it is simply love.  I love Dazzler, I always have.  It is such a corny, goofy, whimsical, and strange book that I am drawn to it, and have been since I was a kid.

Just keep in mind that is it corny and goofy and so on.  Because wow, is it.  So let’s see what we end up with.  Outside of rug-burns and a questionable taste in our mouths.  Well, and love in our hearts.  We’ll have that, always.

Dazzler #1 (written by Tom DeFalco and drawn by John Romita, Jr.) hit in 1981, after the character was introduced across two issues of Claremont’s X-Men and a short bit over in Amazing Spider-Man, written by Marv Wolfman.

Keep in mind that date.  1981.  It will be important soon enough.

The book starts off with a splash page of Dazzler, sans eye make-up, running down an alleyway.  Already the book makes me question myself.  We’re told two things right up front:

Thing the first: A limo (described as “sleek,” drawn as a four-door Caddy) screeches to a halt and a bunch of thugs run out of it.

Thing the second: Dazzler has been pursued by these guys since “she left the disco.”

Wait, what?  So she left the disco and these goons jumped in a car and drove after her?  She’s on foot, not even be-skated (Dazzler had magnetic skates that attached to her shoes.  No, really) and they have been chasing her in a car and are just now catching up?  I grew up in New York, traffic isn’t that bad, guys.  I swear.

Anyway, Dazzler blinds them.  Uhm, yeah.  That should not be a shock to you.  That’s what she does.  Dazzler is a mutant who can convert sound to light.  Over the years that will get more and more interesting.  Mostly after her book is cancelled.  At the start, though?  She had a small FM transistor radio and tended to turn it on to power up.  We’re actually told, this time out, that the radio is playing some Pink Floyd.

I dunno, that made me laugh.  Just the thought of Floyd powering up Dazzler.  Maybe it’s because I can see Rodger Waters doing a Disco Duet with Dazzler, and I crack up.  Maybe because Scissor Sisters’ cover of “Comfortably Numb” is on right now and it happens to be a disco version of a Floyd song.  I don’t know!

Uhm, regardless.  Dazzler blinds these guys.  “Dazzling” them, get it?  And then Spider-Man comes down and does the mop up.  Dazzler wanders away depressed, though.  WHY?

Because she has no money, no singing gigs, and no friends.  Welcome to the Mighty Marvel Method!  This was how you made people care.  You make the characters sad sacks clawing their way up to the top.  I’m not saying it doesn’t work, all right?  I’m just saying it made me expect Aunt May to come by with some Disco Wheatcakes.

And then we have to wonder about the disco, don’t we?  I mean, in the 80’s in New York, disco was dead.  We’re often shown clubs with punkers, and badly drawn Marvel ideas of punkers at that, but apparently they’re all grooving to disco.  I do not know what drugs they have in the Marvel Universe (MGH, I guess), but I want some.

Anyway, so Dazzler (Allison Blaire for those that care, which means you because I know you care – right?) calls the X-Men because she’s lonely.  Then she indulges in a flashback.

Have you ever done that?  I don’t think I have.  I’ve never sat down and gone “Wow this is harder than it used to be, you know back when…” and replayed whole incidents from my youth.  I feel like I’m missing out.  Maybe after this I’ll go have myself a flashback.  To writing this column.  It’ll be short-term, because my budget doesn’t include Romita, Jr., see.

During the flashback we encounter the first time Dazzler sang in public and discovered her powers.  She sang at a school dance thing and some thugs, again with the random thugs!, busted into the school and…

They did what?  Never mind.  They just did.

So Dazzler blinded them.  Think about that.  In a gym full of all of her peers, she blinded everyone.  Everyone chalks it up to an electrical mishap, and gee how lucky, but we see the thugs in an ambulance with bandages over their eyes.

OH MY LORD!  Dazzler literally blinded everyone in her school, didn’t she?  Kinda makes the whole “Uncle Ben got ganked ’cause of me” shtick seem like weak sauce, doesn’t it?  There’s an entire graduating class somewhere out there: blinded.  Except for one person.  HOW LUCKY!

And then we cut to Asgard.  That’s how Dazzler operates.  You just cut to random things sometimes.  You hold on tight and hope to hell it adds up later.  It generally kinda does, in strange ways.  So when we cut to Asgard, home of the Norse Gods, like Thor, and I ask that you just hold your head and squirm in your seat and ride this one out.

It seems the Enchantress has found that a mystic portal will open up soon, and if she can get there she will master untold power.

So we cut again.  This time we see the Beast bounding around and making trouble as he races to a phone!  It’s an emergency!  Why?  Uhm, he saw a possible gig in the paper for Dazzler.  Yeah.

And then we cut to audition time.  Dazzler and Enchantress are auditioning for the same gig.  Yes, you read that right.

Dazzler. And. The Enchantress.  Auditioning.  Same gig.

At which point all I can do is quote the book:

Enchantress:  Speak thy choice, mortal!

Stevie Wildfire (club owner): Enchanty, you are the finest specimen of womanhood I’ve ever laid eyes upon.  You can have my car, my house, me even… But Dazzler, your voice makes it all happen.  You get the gig.

Dazzler: Far out!

Enchantress: Never have I been so humiliated!  Unthinking, unspeakable swine! Choose another over me? Over me?

Stevie Wildfire: Gosh! Lookit what she’s doing to my wall… just by pointing at it!

All right, Stevie – can I call you Stevie? Thanks. Look, when someone named The Enchantress blows up part of your building by pointing a hand at it (and she does blow up a huge hole in the wall) you don’t just say “Gosh!” you say “What the hell is the Avengers’ number?”

The Enchantress, of course, swears vengeance.  Which is why Issue #2 is twice as funny and bizarre as this one.  For seriously.