Dazzler (Marvel Comics)

Dazzler (Alison Blaire) is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, often in association with the X-Men. She first appeared in ''Uncanny X-Men'' #130 (February 1980).

A mutant with the ability to convert sound vibrations into light and energy beams, Dazzler was developed as a cross-promotional, multi-media creation between Casablanca Records and Marvel Comics until the tie-ins were dropped in 1980. The character was created by a committee of Marvel staff, principally writer/editor Tom DeFalco and illustrator John Romita Jr. She starred in a self-titled series in the early 1980s which lasted forty-two issues, a Marvel Graphic Novel titled ''Dazzler: The Movie'', a four-issue limited series co-starring The Beast titled ''Beauty and the Beast'', and later joined the cast of ''Uncanny X-Men''. She has also featured in other Marvel teams.

The character is considered a gay icon due to LGBT readers, particularly gay men, enjoying her disco aesthetic, popstar stage persona, and strong-willed characterization.

Halston Sage portrays Dazzler in '' Dark Phoenix''.

Creation

Dazzler was conceived in early 1979 as a joint venture between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group that had achieved considerable success with notable disco acts including Donna Summer and Village People. Accounts differ as to which party made the first move; in 1986 Louise Simonson would tell ''Amazing Heroes'' that Casablanca approached Marvel; however, in a 2011 blog post Jim Shooter would credit the idea to Marvel employee Alice Donenfeld and based on the success of The Archies, who later pitched it to Casablanca supremo Neil Bogart. Bogart was enthusiastic, not only wanting to produce music 'by' the character (who initially had the working name of 'Disco Queen') but also launch it with a half-hour animated special featuring numerous Marvel characters. Marvel began shaping the character; Shooter assigned the development to Tom DeFalco (who, like Shooter, had experience working at Archie Comics), Roger Stern, Roberta 'Dickie' Mackenzie and John Romita Jr. while continuing to oversee the project himself. Shooter recalled that DeFalco pitched the name 'Evelyn Free' (a pun on "evil and free") for the character's civilian identity before the group decided on Alison Blaire. At this stage much about the character was in flux; Romita Jr. initially designed her as African American, heavily based on singer/actress Grace Jones with a costume inspired by the skin-tight and revealing eveningwear he had seen on women at New York nightclubs; her name was changed, first to Disco Dazzler and then to simply Dazzler at the suggestion of Stern; and initially her powers were to be an ability to make people tell the truth. DeFalco objected to the latter, feeling it was "not very interesting for a comic book". Instead he successfully suggested that as her name was Dazzler light-based powers made more sense. Casablanca held final approval over the character at this stage, and vetoed some of Marvel's ideas. DeFalco would recall that the numerous delays led the creative team to believe disco "would be dead" before Dazzler's debut as the various parties hammered out the initial story, which DeFalco and Romita turned into an origin story

Meanwhile, the multimedia side of the project changed several times. Shooter had produced a pitch for the TV special that had impressed Bogart so much he wanted to turn it into a live-action special with many stars he had under contract (including Cher, Donna Summer, Kiss, Lenny and Squiggy, Robin Williams and the Village People) to appear as Marvel characters. However, soon afterwards Casablanca struck financial trouble, and Bogart was forced out of the company. Instead filmmaker John Derek showed interest in Dazzler as a potential film vehicle for his wife Bo, who were looking to build on the success of '' 10'' with studio Filmworks. As such the comic character was redesigned to more closely resemble Derek herself, becoming a white blonde, requiring Romita Jr. to redraw the work already done on the comic. The artist was unimpressed with the changes to the lead character. According to DeFalco, the Dereks' involvement in the project ended after the poor reception of their vehicle '' Tarzan, the Ape Man''

Publishing history

Marvel had planned to release the 34-page Dazzler comic as part of the ''Marvel Comics Super Special'' series, which generally dealt with media adaptations, while some thought was also given to releasing it as a black-and-white magazine. After Casablanca and Filmworks both withdrew, Marvel shipped the concept around other record labels and film studios without success. While this was happening, Dazzler had appeared in other titles to build anticipation. The character had debuted in ''Uncanny X-Men'' #130 ( dated February 1980) as an ally of the X-Men, and subsequently guested in issues of ''Amazing Spider-Man'' (#203, April 1980) and ''Fantastic Four'' (#217, April 1980). Due to the character still being in flux while these issues were produced they featured some inconsistencies - Richard Gagnon of ''Amazing Heroes'' noted the character was considerably more streetwise in her ''X-Men'' appearance than she would be for most of her subsequent appearances, while in the ''Spider-Man'' guest spot Dazzler fired beams from her eyes due to DeFalco having to tell Marv Wolfman to simply take pot luck over which of the three potential variations in powers Casablanca were mulling over at the time would be finalised.

''Dazzler'' (1981-1985)

Rather than simply have the work done go to waste, Shooter decided to repackage it as an ongoing comic series. DeFalco would write additional exposition and other material to turn the 34-page one-shot into two 22-page single issues. As Romita Jr. had moved on to other projects an uncredited Walt Simonson provided the art for the new pages. In order to make the debut still something of an event, Shooter decided it would be Marvel's first ongoing series that was exclusive to the direct market - i.e. sold only to specialist comic stores, rather than also to newsstands - a model used by several smaller independent publishers. This also made the comic non-returnable for retailers. Given a healthy promotional push, the first issue - dated May 1981 - was a resounding commercial success for Marvel, with around 400,000 copies sold to stores - around double the number of most of the company's best-selling titles.

With the Romita Jr. material running out midway through the third issue (which also featured work from Alan Kupperberg), Frank Springer became the title's new regular artist. The first issues contained a plethora of Marvel's finest as guest stars as a legacy of the book's origin as a one-off special, and the pattern was kept up for the early issues of the title to support the new character's sales - ''Dazzler'' #3-4 featured Doctor Doom; #6-7 guest-starred Hulk; #9 saw an appearance by Quasar; and #10-11 saw Dazzler cross paths with Galactus. Some of these appearances drew criticism due to the unsubtle way many of Marvel's established heroes were in awe of the newcomer. After issue 6 DeFalco left the title, partly due to his growing editorial commitments at Marvel and partly because he was disagreeing over the direction of the series with Springer, who wanted to draw more on romance comics than traditional superhero fare. ''Dazzler'' #8 also saw another talent added to the book, with Bill Sienkiewicz contributing the first of what would be a number of covers for the series.

DeFalco's replacement was relative newcomer Danny Fingeroth, initially working from his predecessor's outlines. Fingeroth would also write Dazzler's first appearance in alternative universe anthology title ''What If'', contributing a story that was based on the Galactus storyline from ''Dazzler'' #10-11. Issue #17 saw the start of a short stint by the X-Men team-member Angel as a suitor; Fingeroth would admit this was an attempt to draw readers to the series, which had not kept up its early sales. As with other guest appearances, Angel's behaviour in his ''Dazzler'' appearances drew mixed responses, with Gagnon describing him as "boorish". ''Dazzler'' #20 introduced the villains Doctor Sax and Johnny Guitar, named by Fingeroth after the Jack Kerouac book and the Nicholas Ray film respectively, while #21 was an extra-sized issue exploring the fates of Alison's parents; Fingeroth felt such human interest was an important part of a superhero series' appeal to readers. It also featured another unusual attempt to make the title stand out - a photo cover of model June McDonald posing as Dazzler. The following issue saw Fingeroth also leave the title; Springer briefly wrote and drew the title, before scripts by Shooter and Ken McDonald. Despite a change of direction that saw Dazzler change from a singer in New York to an aspiring actress in Los Angeles (which also saw the much-derided original costume finally dropped for a series of leotards) the series' fortunes failed to improve, and from #31 the title switched to bi-monthly publication. ''Dazzler'' #32 saw Mike Carlin take over for an ultimately short stint as writer, and shortly afterwards Geof Isherwood started art duties on the title.

In an attempt to draw more attention to the series Shooter, Springer and Vince Colletta

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