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62 - Dazzler #1, Dazzler: The Movie, & Beauty and the Beast
119 Plays9 days ago
In this super-sized episode, the boys recap 5+ ears of Dazzler, including her pre-appearance history, her graphic novel, and her love story with The Beast! Come learn all about the origins of the Disco Dazzler and her brushes with real world and Marvel Comics fame.
Topics Discussed:
Boogie these suckers out. Why roller skates? Spider-Man! The X-Men! THE BLAZING LORDS weren't invited to the dance. Mischief rules. What if Carrie was popular? Enchantress' perfect disguise. Stevie Wildfire. A whirlwind recap of Dazzler 2-34. Jerk off BEFORE you draw. Nice Guys. "Oh wow!" Everybody has a Jarvis. Susan Twobooms. "The instruction manual to my body." GO SUCK AN EGG! Blimp Bloopers! Hugo Longride. Is Beast nude? DAZZLER DISAPPEARS! Rocker, the Horse-Man. Mr. Beast. "I've... never been told... to shut up". The Sizzler.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro & Dazzler History
11:40 - Pat's Email Corner
26:50 - Dazzler #1
51:41 - Dazzler #2-34
1:05:14 - Dazzler: The Movie
1:56:15 - Beauty and the Beast mini-series
2:54:08 - Pat's Deals n' Steals
3:00:49 - Goodbye!
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Transcript
Introduction and Setting the Stage
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Meet the Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Alkamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Jason. Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:47
Speaker
Patrick. Matt. How the H E double double bendy straws are you? Double bendy straws. Yeah. I didn't want to say hockey sticks. I don't like it. Yeah. You hate sports.
00:01:02
Speaker
I'm good. I hate sports and I love sucking.
00:01:07
Speaker
Welcome to mutant men.
Spotlight on Dazzler and Disco Era
00:01:14
Speaker
Oh, I'm good, Matt. I'm very excited to get into our content today. Me too. what We're talking... Guys, folks, friends, Romans, we're talking about... Countryman.
00:01:27
Speaker
I didn't want to. i You keep trying to get me to say things I don't want to say. Countryman. Say countryman. All right, we're talking about Dazzler today. The Disco Dazzler. Pat, what the hell?
00:01:40
Speaker
Wow, Matt, this one is gonna dazzle you. I should have said that before you announced the title. But yeah, yeah. Actually, everybody listen to Pat say that, then rewind.
00:01:55
Speaker
and listen to me go back and but and then when you get to this would note the you time time stamp when you because you want to skip it you don't want him to say it twice so you yeah yeah forward and skip this let's make this exactly 30 seconds so they can hit the forward 30 seconds we'll take care of that in post All right, so there's this type of music that they had once upon a time. It was called a disco. it it was It was a sort of dancey type music that kind of kind of combined the elements of funk and pop and a little bit of soul with the emerging electronica technology.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yes, in the use of synthesizers. Mm-hmm. So before disco, let's take let's take one step back from disco. Sure. Okay. So we started, i guess, the history of music, Western music anyway, is Gregorian chant, which was a sort of monotone. Everybody would sing the same exact note. You could change notes, ah ah but not at the same... They wouldn't make chords. So...
00:03:05
Speaker
And eventually they kind of invented the idea of polyphony, which is, you know, multiple people singing different notes or different things at different times. This sort of, they didn't really come up with chords until after they came up with the idea of stuff like round. So, you know, somebody would be singing in monotone and then somebody else would be singing something different in monotone. And I can't remember what that was called. Maybe just that's what's called. That's what poly polyphony is anyway. So after that,
00:03:32
Speaker
I thought you would fucking interrupt me at point. I wanted to see how far you would go. At least you'd get to Pythagoras. At that point music was pretty much that point, music was pretty much all religious. So then you basically get it kind of get into the invention of the mass.
00:03:49
Speaker
who And then disco.
Dazzler's Origins and Musical Influences
00:03:52
Speaker
i So it' its right before that point, though, the disco point in time, Kiss had debuted in Marvel Comics, right? This was a big deal.
00:04:04
Speaker
Well, it's its own complicated story that we've told parts of. If you want to dig into it, read a book. ah But the success of it made them say, hey why don't we do the inverse? Why don't we take a comic book character and make them a successful musician?
00:04:22
Speaker
Right. And so the idea of the Disco Queen was born in partnership with Casablanca Records, who were Kiss's record label at the time. So initially they said, i let's get Donna Summer two were play the disco queen will write a comic book based on her and she will tour the country as I think at this point it became Dazzler the disco queen it became the she was the disco Dazzler at this point the disco Dazzler that's what it is she said no right she said no she actually she parted ways with Casablanca and sued them so she she was out but in the meantime they were they were
00:05:06
Speaker
full steam ahead about this character gave it to john ramita jr because he was just the kid around the office at that time he loved going out to the discotheque so he was the their only thread to disco culture i'm pretty sure yeah This is when, yeah, he was like, I want it to be, his original ah image of Dazzler was Grace Jones. Grace Jones, yeah, yeah. And i want people to recognize at this point, because the race element is something people don't think about a lot with disco, but was like a huge thing, right? like So note that the two people they considered to be the disco Dazzler up to this point were black. Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
If you think about the controversy about disco and who and who it was who hated disco. And if you think about like the disco, the famous disco demolition night, there's a lot. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:58
Speaker
Who were the famous early pioneers of disco? Who were the people who hated disco? And then what who were the stars that made disco palatable for the public?
00:06:10
Speaker
There's a big race disparity there. and yeah We're not going to talk about it too much, but I do want to note it because of the Donna Summer, Grace Jones, and then what Dazzler turned into, I think, as part of the de-blackification of disco, ah because one of the things that was turning people against disco was racism.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah. you You don't have to say one the, I mean, it was a largely a pushback against black culture. Yeah. Uh, taking over the same thing happened to rap music. The same thing happened to rock music before that. Like it's just ah it's a pattern. Right. Which is, uh, American music. Why record companies would love to put white people in these. So that's why John Travolta was the Saturday night fever guy. And that's why, and the Bee Gees did the entire soundtrack. The next person to step up to the plate to play Dazzler when it was still going to be this multimedia enterprise was...
00:07:08
Speaker
bodeic bo bo derrick was like oh i want to play dazzler and by this time everybody at marvel every important person at marvel every important person at casablanca had given notes and at this point she was already a blonde white woman so yeah somewhere in the process somebody high up at one or both of these companies was like let's just make her white. its Everything's going to be so much easier. Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
But that meant they could make a movie because Bo Derek wanted to, wanted to play Dazzler. Disco does start to die ah again, mostly because of ah racial pushback, but Casablanca pulled out. They were no longer interested in making disco records the comic character still exists. And by this time they had done so much marketing that they just started popping her into other people's comics. They were like, Hey, we have none of the,
00:08:02
Speaker
external projects that we planned, but we've told everybody
Dazzler in Comics and Pop Culture
00:08:07
Speaker
she's coming. We need to put her in something. So suddenly she's in the X-Men, she's in the Spider-Man. She was in one issue of Spider-Man. And then a year later, maybe two years later, somewhere between one and two years later, they finally come out with Dazzler number one. It's very interesting because like you're saying, she had appeared...
00:08:30
Speaker
In looks like four comics. she I guess she was also in an issue of Fantastic Four. She had appeared in four comics up to that point as an actual character. But her the advertising campaign was so strong. Everybody knew who Dazzler was.
00:08:45
Speaker
And it had been going for years at that point. This was like late mid 70s that they had come up with the idea. Just real quick, as usual,
00:08:57
Speaker
Most but not all of what we're saying here is paraphrased from ah our favorite book, Marvel Comics, The Untold Story by Sean Howe. Yeah. And I mean, also the intro to I have the big Dazzler omnibus. There's a Marvel released a giant Dazzler omnibus like I think two years ago that has the those first two X-Men appearances and Spider-Man and then All of Dazzler in one big fucking, one big fucking tome. And then the Dazzler graphic novel and, um, uh, Beauty and the Beast, you treat paperback miniseries. Plus some what ifs, like what if Dazzler became Galactus or some shit like that?
00:09:41
Speaker
Okay, sure. Something weird. But yeah, I would highly recommend both books. Marvel Comics, The Untold Story and The Dazzler Omnibus. I don't know that i recommend the Dazzler Optimus. There's some real bad Dazzler comics and we will go through kind of at least my opinions about the entire series of Dazzler a little later. But i mean, that first issue ended up selling really, really well. Yeah. The marketing campaign worked.
00:10:13
Speaker
Sold over 400,000 copies, which is about 150,000 more than the other top selling books of the day. Yeah. yeah They gave it to Tom DeFalco.
00:10:27
Speaker
To write little a little, little Archie comic writing nerd named Tom DeFalco. Also, I think it's funny. Again, we talked about this with Firestar, but they gave it, they gave Tassler to Chris Claremont to introduce just every time they had one of these sales gimmick characters. z Yeah, yeah. it's Just like, Chris, you, you do it. Can you, can you like, you know, make the character?
00:10:54
Speaker
And here's something I'm actually not sure of. and do you I don't know if you know, but... ah I'll pretend I Did sales continue to do well on the Dazzler book? Yes. ran about 40 issues.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yes? Okay. You heard it here, folks. You it here first, folks. That's Pat Reaver certified. It did great. In my opinion, it did pretty well.
00:11:19
Speaker
I mean, it must have done okay to continue... But before we start diving in to our our Dazzler books. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:11:31
Speaker
I actually want to talk about something really important to me. And it is the state of American politics. See, I think that recently we've divided.
00:11:41
Speaker
Divided. Damn it. Matt, that sounds weird. that sounds Really important. Can you hold that thought? we have to get to Pat's email corner. We've got to find this waiting alt-right piano player. Every time I try to talk about politics.
00:12:02
Speaker
If you recognize the song, you know that it is time for Pat's email corner. Whoa, so it's been so long. missed our email. It has been a little while for us, Matt. We got four emails today. You ready? We're going to go through Okay.
00:12:19
Speaker
okay First one being from Ink Master. Ink Master says, hey, hey, Pat, Matt is actually completely correct about old English being almost completely unintelligible to modern English speakers.
00:12:33
Speaker
I don't think so. You might be able to catch the occasional word if you know what you're listening to is supposed to be English. But if you heard an example of English without someone telling you that's what it is beforehand, you probably wouldn't know what you're hearing is English.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. To use Matt's example, here's the opening of Beowulf in the original Old English. You can't even pronounce that first. No, yeah, that's not how that sounds. Oh, would let me read it. yeah i know you can't pronounce the first word. Okay, go ahead.
00:13:04
Speaker
where We Gardena in Geardagum. P.O.D. P.O.D. Sininga. Brim. Gifrunon. Who. Oh, uh.
00:13:17
Speaker
Apilingus. Ellen. Fremedon. Apilingus. Ellen. Fremedon.
00:13:28
Speaker
Do not perform apolingus. Please do never, never perform apolingus. I said I can read it, not i speak it. But yeah, that's easy to understand. Okay, tell me what if he goes on. He says also the belt that Colossus is wearing around his neck is actually called a choker. While they're not not part of the BDSM scene, they're also not exclusive to BDSM. And there are plenty of people who just wear them for fashion, especially in the goth and punk scenes. Okay.
00:14:00
Speaker
Okay. um Yeah, we were just making fun. Wearing a choker isn't so isn't exclusive to the BDSM community.
00:14:12
Speaker
Although we are about to launch into a ah bondage era. That's true. I also love this Inc. signs off saying, trying out different sign-offs, Inc.
00:14:24
Speaker
Aw. cute Up next, the old email Michael. report i think Also, hold on. Before we get off the old English thing, I think it's so cute that you ah you pronounced the thorn as a P. Because it kind of looks like a P. I was going back and forth between P and B because it's line the the loop is right in the middle of the line.
00:14:50
Speaker
Thank you. I'm pretty cute. it's like ah it's it's It's like a TH. h Okay, go ahead. Email Michael also wants to sound off on episode 59. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that you're not better than a Jim Pooper joke because nobody is because that joke is fantastic. It's fantastic. You find it fantastic. You find it to be a fantastic joke. You're like, ooh, the construction here is so elegant.
00:15:14
Speaker
Having said that, Matt calling him Dim instead of Jim was also extremely good. Thank you. I don't know. We're not going to deconstruct that one? No, I don't know if you noticed that. I think as soon as I said you were weren't better than you were better than that, I decided that all my...
00:15:34
Speaker
dim duper things would also be as dumb as they could possibly be for that episode hmm oh is that it when you're when the dumb things are reflected back to you you were being dumb on purpose Okay.
00:15:50
Speaker
But that one's actually true. But that's actually true that time. But this time, that's actually true. It's not always. That time is true. Email Michael goes on. Says, you brought up the question of whether Peter Parker knows Conan the Barbarian from the Marvel comics is a plot hole or not because Conan actually existed in this world.
00:16:07
Speaker
It's true that Conan did exist on Earth 616, same as Peter Parker. However, Conan the Barbarian's origin was as the main character of novels by Robert E. Howard in the nineteen fifty s Peter Parker would absolutely be the kind of nerd who would read novels about real historical person. Conan the Cimmerian, like how people now read about historical warlords. So there's no continuity problems there as far as I'm concerned. Okay, so email Michael is saying, yes, in this world, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Cimmerian was real.
00:16:41
Speaker
But Robert E. Howard wrote a bunch of like fictionalized versions of Conan.
00:16:49
Speaker
Who was an actual historical figure in that world. It'd be like like like King Arthur or something. Which we don't yeah know that King Arthur was real, but we think he probably was.
00:17:00
Speaker
Analogy. ah Up next we have Vio. Wait, we came up with a
Debates and Fan Interactions
00:17:07
Speaker
nickname. Vio da Gama, I believe. Daughter of da Gama.
00:17:14
Speaker
Vio da Gama. Fiona Gama says, prefer... Oh, very good. Then she starts, specific subject lines. Dear Matt, tell Pat, I was...
00:17:26
Speaker
or i should say the subject line with pat's email quarter response to request for comment on crisis protocol team oh very good then she starts i prefer pacific subject lines dear matt tell pat i was well People are doing this a lot.
00:17:43
Speaker
Dave, why are people doing this? This past All right. I was listening on the Kulan Goth episode. I am, as I am on every episode because I find you boys delightful. ah Where you asked me to comment on Weapon Jason's Crisis Protocol team with the Crimson Dynamo and the Winter Soldier.
00:17:59
Speaker
I think it seems like a pretty neat team. Side comment, I dig Crimson Dynamo, especially because Paul McCartney wrote that one song about him and Magneto. As a thank you, Jack Kirby drew a full page of Paul and his wife being attacked by Magneto. It's pretty sick. Wait, what? I need to look that up. All right, yeah, pause.
00:18:20
Speaker
Vio, I did not know about this. I have to say fucking ah Paul and Linda McCartney put out the hands down best post Beatles album in ah Ram Ram is a fucking great album, but come on, man. ah George, ah George Harrison's.
00:18:41
Speaker
I think it's better. I think George Harrison wrote a few better songs. individually Okay. All right. I think Ram as an album is on all things. it Must pass. Successor to the Beatles.
00:18:52
Speaker
I think actually, you know what? I fully, fully agree. I don't think All Things Must Pass is a better album than Ram, but there are there are songs on All Things Must Pass that are better than anything on Ram.
00:19:03
Speaker
Strong Beatles opinions, mutant menace pod at gmail.com. Let us know. Just so you guys know, just so that the listener knows, I'm still listening to Magneto and the Titanium Man by Paul McCartney right now.
00:19:14
Speaker
I'm marveling at the picture. This is so this is extremely Jack Kirby. Magneto has crazy eyes. He's got the crazy eyes back. Yeah. I miss Magnet his crazy eyes.
00:19:27
Speaker
Oh, beautiful. Okay, so what what else does Vio de get the game vo da Gama say? ah My current crisis protocol team I have settled on is Apocalypse and is Horseman. I really dig him and they are fun to play. I've attached photos of the ones I painted up. I made a fancy gold Apocalypse.
00:19:44
Speaker
Oh, cool. I like the gold Apocalypse. And then there's Ghost Rider and Iceman. This Iceman... Pretty sick. Fucking so rad. God. I love the shading. the This is... I'm so bad at painting things.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. This quality work. say Yeah. I'm so impressed. We... Me and you... We got to play this game. We got to play this damn game. i We do get some insight into the rules here.
00:20:13
Speaker
The game is just playing different capture the flag-esque scenarios with a team of your choice that fits a team size parameter associated with a picked scenario. Each character comes with a little stat sheet and you play them like you would in a tactical RPG video game.
00:20:27
Speaker
And there's a ton of characters available.
00:20:31
Speaker
Wow. Also, I hope you boys are well, and I'm sorry your mailbox got hijacked by Crisis Protocol comments. I am not. I am not. I'm fascinated. Again, feel this mailbox. I want to get an alert from Gmail that's like, you are completely out of space because – Of the crisis protocol images yeah yeah in your inbox. All the crisis protocol photos.
00:20:55
Speaker
h And stat cards. And I don't want to, like, go look them up. I want to know people's personal yeah crisis protocol teams. i Okay. One more email, Matt. And it is from someone we've already heard from. This is email Michael. Oh, hey, email Michael. With now episode 60 response.
00:21:14
Speaker
Okay. Hey, Pat, tell Matt I really appreciate how strictly my email. Michael follows the formatting rules, by the way. Very refreshing. He follows every rule. Everything we say follows to to the letter.
00:21:30
Speaker
Hey, Pat, tell Matt that while I appreciate his repeated assertion that Spider-Man is supposed to fight crime and not take photos, I can't help but think it's kind of missing one of the key points of the character, which is that he's not just Spider-Man. He's also Peter Parker, who is, in fact, supposed to take photos and do his job and make money. Like, that's a pretty important part of a lot of Spider-Man stories, that he's dealing with his two different lives and their two different sets of priorities and his difficulty balancing things so that he can do well at both.
00:21:59
Speaker
Can I take this one? Yes, please. I agree with you, email Michael, that he does, that he lives both lives, but he prioritizes the safety of others over his personal success. That's his whole thing is that he would be like, I don't, I want to take these pictures. I could probably make a lot of money on them, but people would get hurt if I just sat back and took photos.
00:22:23
Speaker
That's the thing is we, we've only been criticizing him in scenes where he, all yeah yeah All he wants to do is take photos. and then doesn't want to He doesn't want to fight crime. He just wants to take photos.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, exactly. That's not who we know. And then we get a um a bit of smarm. And frankly, it's refreshing because email Michael was trying to be nice for a little while there. Oh, yeah. he says...
00:22:55
Speaker
But I'm sure Matt could do a much better job of being both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and therefore he's in a great position to judge the deliberately flawed fictional character created for the entertainment of comic book readers. You bastard.
00:23:08
Speaker
Supposed to write emails, email Michael. I, you know, I think I could do a better job at Spider-Man than Spider-Man. This is, this is the new, could you win a fight with a bear?
00:23:20
Speaker
Or could you could you, could you balance Peter Parker's life? We all, yeah. but At 40 years old, I got figured out. yeah i I think I could do it. I think I could be, yes, I think I could live a better Spider-Man life than Spider-Man. Well, because one of the things I'd stop doing is fucking oppressing drug dealers and poor people.
00:23:42
Speaker
you hear ah Yeah, I guess, ugh. yeah you know you hate this argument about Batman and Spider-Man that they're actually tools of like the fascist that yeah they're actually just cops but I i feel it so hard these days let's you let's close out Pat's email corner on that bitter note
00:24:10
Speaker
See, he just he surprises me with it, but he listens to you when you ask for it. Yeah, it's because you're always trying to stand on a soapbox, Matt. Damn it. Well, you know me, completely apolitical.
00:24:24
Speaker
I would get back on my soapbox. But first, Pat, I what what I have to do right now, actually, is I got to ask you. Use the rules. you anything X-Men related this week? I'll tell you what, Matt. i went to my yeah little local little local little free library.
Creative Insights and Humor
00:24:44
Speaker
am I saying that right? the The little ah boxes that people set up that you can leave and take books from. Yeah. i Just perusing through, i found did you know Grant Morrison wrote a Fantastic Four run in like 2001. What the hell?
00:25:01
Speaker
i know. i had idea. Grant Morrison wrote this. Well, it wasn't Tony Morrison. Yeah. Grant Morrison. It's called Fantastic Four. One, two, three, four. oh I was i was vaguely aware of this. Yeah, I've never read. This was just sitting in there. I've never read it either. And I believe I'm about to because this looks fucking rad.
00:25:25
Speaker
The art is by Jay Lee. And it's just like giving it a flip here. Yeah. really good very early 2000s like very heavily shaded and uh everything's got a bit of a dark sheen on it but yeah yeah yeah yeah it looks rad and yeah i just found it for free i gotta pop a book in there now that is rad that's awesome what about you matt did you do anything x-men related this week Um, mostly I've been recovering from this road trip. So like, uh, is there any X man that sleeps a lot and gets a lot of allergy headaches? Hmm.
00:26:07
Speaker
The blob. Maybe. Yeah. So I've been I've been very much like the blob this week. um he He looks and listen, justice for blob, but he looks like he's constantly got a ah runny nose.
00:26:23
Speaker
um Yeah. No, other than that, not really. i don't think I did much. That was X-Men related this week. Patrick. Yeah. Yeah, Matt. What? What's up, bud?
00:26:34
Speaker
How about I continue to relax and take a whole load off while you read me all about. Read me all about. Read me all about this, Pat. Read me all about Dazzler number one.
00:26:46
Speaker
Read me all about it, folks. Dazzler number one. So bright, Miss Star. All right. Not off to a great start.
00:27:01
Speaker
Tom DeFalco, writer. We just saw Tom DeFalco, Matt. Remind me where? ah He wrote the Firestar miniseries. That's right. You go on so you go to you go to Chris Claremont to introduce the sales gimmick characters. You go to Tom DeFalco to write them. Exactly.
00:27:19
Speaker
ah John Romita Jr., penciler. Alfredo Alcala, inker. Glynis Ween, colorist. Joe Rosenletterer. Louise Jones, editor. and Jim Cooter, editor-in-chief. All right. so you So this this John Romita Jr. art is not very John Romita Jr., by the way. it it It is not really representative of the John Romita Jr. we're seeing over in X-Men.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is also, this is released December 2nd, 1980. The cover date is March, 1981. So we're stepping a few years back. This is a bit earlier in John Romita Jr.'s career, but yes it's very just, don't know, comic book-y.
00:28:03
Speaker
ah Release date, if I didn't already say it, December 2nd, 1980. Cover date,
00:28:10
Speaker
A step back in time here, Matt. We're going back in time. We're going back in time. Picture this podcast two, three, four, five. What? Fuck. Six months ago.
00:28:22
Speaker
Picture this podcast in 1980. ah what would What would we have sounded like in 19? It might have gone a little something like this. yeah ah We open in res.
00:28:39
Speaker
With Dazzler running from a group of gun-toting gangsters chasing her down an alleyway. When she runs into a dead end, she slips some magnetic roller skates onto her sparkly rhinestone shoes and pulls out a miniature radio blasting a Pink Floyd song.
Dazzler's Story and Personal Challenges
00:28:54
Speaker
yeah she She then proceeds to use her transform sound into white powers to blind the street toughs and beat them all up until one accidentally shoots her radio. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
Gotta boogie these suckers out, she says. dude Okay. What? She's gotta boogie these suckers out. Immediate pause about boogieing these suckers out. Okay.
00:29:17
Speaker
Why does she need the ah disco ball roller skates? yeah She has them specially built so she can attach them onto shoes at any time. And they're covered in disco ball.
00:29:29
Speaker
Because disco does roller skates. I mean, this is all, I mean, it's all just so gimmicky, right? It is. It's very yeah Roller Girl from Boogie Nights. Everything about it is gimmicky. it's it's It's like everybody's trying to speak in this hip slang and all of it is fucking weird.
00:29:53
Speaker
Question two. Why is she putting on Pink Floyd? Her favorite disco band. What is... Later, she puts on Billy Joel. Like, like this.
00:30:05
Speaker
They keep trying to name like that must have been part of the edict. Right. Like, let's talk about real cultural stuff and name real artists. But Tom DeFalco is a fucking dork. So he doesn't know what good what good cool music.
00:30:20
Speaker
He doesn't know what good, cool music at the time is. So he's like, pink ah oh, she flips on Pink Floyd. and Pink Floyd, shine on you, crazy diamond. And then later when she's trying to relax, she puts on Billy Joel.
00:30:36
Speaker
And then at another point where she's singing a song, it's Elton John. like the Yeah. it's The modern analog here would be dancing to the national anthem.
00:30:53
Speaker
Jessica calls herself a child of the atom. We haven't heard that in a while. Oh, yeah. I do love that phrasing. Yeah. Do you think she's got an M on her ball?
00:31:06
Speaker
We find that these thugs were hired just to scare Dazzler for turning down a bad record contract. But now they're mad. Thankfully, Spider-Man was swinging by at the time and drops in to save the day. Yay, Spider-Man. Spider-Man is here. for of i think he's in, it's three pages, but he's in, i think, four panels. ah Yeah, yeah. Just for a moment. Not doing anything really distinct either. But he ties up, yeah, he ties up the ties up the thugs in one of his, like, web sacks from a ah street lamp. but Yeah, yeah. But then ties their car to the pull of the street lamp
00:31:47
Speaker
ah Back at her apartment, Alison Blair trades her dazzler uniform for a comfy robe and sulks about her life. She's got no money. Her singing career isn't working out. She's lonely. And her father is mad that she isn't going to law school.
00:32:02
Speaker
Judge dad. Judge dad. Her dad is clearly modeled on Charles Bronson. Which is funny because he's a judge. Yeah. is You're going to law school.
00:32:18
Speaker
Just like me.
00:32:23
Speaker
Them's the brakes kit. In desperation, she calls the X-Men who pause a danger room session to compete for who gets to answer the phone. It's very funny. It's very Sam and Max. It's so good.
00:32:39
Speaker
ah Storm wins and is excited to hear from Allison. Is she ready to give up her singing career to join the X-Men? But Allison is definitely not ready to give up. So she hangs up the phone, puts on some Billy Joel, and flashes back to the day her mutant power first kicked in. This is like three pages of just X-Men stuff. It like gives us all the X-Men's origins and like displays of their powers as if they're going to be characters in this story.
00:33:08
Speaker
They're not. Oh, no, absolutely not. We'll talk about this at the end of the issue, but what? what Yeah, they've they're here.
00:33:20
Speaker
They're here. The X-Men definitely exist here is the the point of these five pages. Jeez, yeah. um So this also, based on this Danger Room exercise, we can tell that this clearly happens between the Dark fit ah Phoenix and Kitty fighting the alien.
00:33:37
Speaker
Like it's right in that little chunk of time. Yes. Colossus says he's dating Elizabeth. Remember her? Yes. When Nightcrawler and Colossus met those girls in Central Park, it was Amanda Sefton and Betsy Wilford. Betsy Wilford.
00:33:59
Speaker
And Amanda kept dating Nightcrawler, but Betsy Wilford broke up with Colossus after she got kidnapped by Arcade. And she was like, I hate this. I don't want to date you. Which was, I think, before this. So, like, think he's maybe... Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker
Also, they're in the danger room and they mentioned that Angel should also be there, but Angel's not on the team at this time. Angel was. i They met up with Angel to get help.
00:34:28
Speaker
Like he. Am I am I misremembering? Yeah, I think it was like there's this span of time. Yeah. Where officially throughout Marvel Comics, Angel was on the X-Men, but in Chris Claremont's head. It was anytime he needed to be in the comic. They just went to see him out in l a or Nevada or wherever he was staying at the time.
00:34:52
Speaker
I think I think there was um i think i there was but between a little bit after um Dark Phoenix. I think he joined the team for a minute and then he left because he hated Wolverine so much.
00:35:09
Speaker
Right. So I think this was that during that time. It's okay. That's a very specific range of time. Yeah, we have like four X-Men issues that this could have taken place between. We keep hearkening back to this period.
00:35:24
Speaker
I know, I know. So much. I guess this is exactly when they were hitting their strides. So this is when they were doing all their like promotional tie-ins with everything else. Yeah, yeah. yeah ah Okay, so we're flashing back to Allie's past in junior high against her father's wishes. And in spite of a rash of terrible headaches, Allison got the chance to sing on stage at the Gardendale High Spring Spectacular. She's in junior high. She's singing at the high school spring spectacular.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yes. It's huge deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As she sang, her mutant powers sprang to life and lights started shooting off of her. Everyone in the crowd just assumed it was some sort of effect, but the whole thing was interrupted. We'll talk about it later because it keeps happening, but this bugs me.
00:36:12
Speaker
But the whole thing was interrupted when the Blazing Lords, a street gang, burst in and started hitting everyone with chains and bats. God, okay, what was the name of the gang that Rock and Redbone were part of? i how it was Satan's... Satan's Saints. Satan's Saints. How cool would it have been if it was Satan's Saints?
00:36:35
Speaker
that would have made That would have tracked. That would have made sense. These are guys who just burst into kids' hangouts. They're mad. They literally say, i you'll pay for not inviting us.
00:36:51
Speaker
They're group of street toughs that didn't get invited the high school spring dance. Do they go to this high school? Because if they do, then they are invited. Then they are invited. Unless the principal was like was like, made an announcement over the school speakers. Everybody except for anyone in the Blazing Lords.
00:37:12
Speaker
Hey, guys, no Blazing Lords at the dance this year, okay? You can come. Just don't do your Blazing Lords thing. This is so funny. what like i would like like Like, don't play the Blazing Lords game at the dance. Yeah, it's like a TikTok phenomenon. It's not a game, Pops. It's our lifestyle.
00:37:37
Speaker
Oh, that would be a cool... Not to get too far off track here, but that would be a very cool... teen trend is if they started pretending to be street toughs and like pranking school dances like a TikTok trend. Bursting into school dances and waving bats and chains around but like not actually beating anyone Why weren't we invited? It'd be like those that when...
00:38:01
Speaker
All those videos of the people, of like kids pretending to be little gnomes or elves or something and running through Walmart. Instead, they're like the warriors or whatever. And they walk snapping or clinking glass bottles together. School dances is probably dangerous, but I think support trends. I like mischief. Man,
00:38:23
Speaker
i support trends i like mischief man as As annoying as it is to see little kids, to see like teenagers do mischief, like when I see those TikToks, I'm like, now as an adult, I'm like, ah, those poor employees that have to deal with those annoying kids. But then. Oh, yeah, sure.
00:38:41
Speaker
I'm like. Fuck, I would have done this as a kid. Like, mischief is fun. It is. It's so... i did We did it as kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a blast. It was so good.
00:38:53
Speaker
And there's so much more clever than what I did. Like, I would take a trash can and and move and put it in front of somebody's front door or something. Yeah. Like, I like i didn't know what to do. The access...
00:39:05
Speaker
I want to cause mischief, but I don't know what to do. the The access that the internet provides have has forced kids to get really cerebral with their pranks. And it's it's exactly so much funnier than we would have ever been at that age. like i I remember filling a kid's mailbox with rocks. It's like, that's not very funny. Yeah, I got a hole in the bottom of somebody's backpack.
00:39:31
Speaker
ah These aren't good pranks. If we only had the internet to be like, yeah, pretend to be little elves and jump around. Make weird noises. To force you to escalate. I did do one good prank phone call where we called up ah we caught up a ah a hardware store. and i was like And I had somebody in the background going like, And I was like, hey, do you guys have any chains?
00:40:00
Speaker
Or like just a really sturdy rope? That's pretty good. i had to go I had to go into a Target once. it was shopping for props for a sketch a sketch where I played like a mugger. So i had I found the aluminum bats. Hey, Pat, you're always playing a mugger in sketches.
00:40:20
Speaker
am. Yeah, yeah. Is that like... Like you're mugging. Because I mug for the camera lot. Yeah, you're mugging for audience. Yeah, I Okay. I had an aluminum bat in my hand and I had to go up to an employee and ask if they had any ski masks. And she got a little freaked out.
00:40:38
Speaker
And I thought, oh, if I weren't being sincere, this would have been a great prank.
00:40:46
Speaker
ah Very good. All right. ah So the blazing Lords burst Allison lashed out, creating a light so bright. Everyone passed out and woke up temporarily blind.
00:41:00
Speaker
No one but Allison knew it was her. Whoa, man. Origin. What a good superhero origin. Yeah, it is. we hints sort Honestly, it's like a Carrie type situation almost like a river. But she's but she's popular. But she's he' popular. Yeah. What if what if Carrie was popular? What if Carrie was popular and ah the bad guys were the Blazing Lords rather than society?
00:41:27
Speaker
ah After that, she continued studying for law school per her father's wishes, playing in bands on the side and practicing her mutant powers. Okay. On graduation day, she announced to her father that she would be pursuing music instead of law school, and he turned his back on her.
00:41:43
Speaker
ah Aw. No daughter of mine. Now, two years later, she's feeling lost. So, there's a there's a scene here. there's ah There's a moment here where she's talking to her grandmother.
00:41:59
Speaker
Grandma Bella. Grandma Bella. Grandma beautiful. And she's like Oh, don't worry about her father. He hasn't been able to process his emotions since he... dot dot dot lost... dot dot dot your mother. And i was thinking, this is like the protagonist of the chair company.
00:42:19
Speaker
ah You're reading that Tim Robinson voice. He literally lost her mother the catacombs below it below City Hall.
00:42:30
Speaker
But yeah, clearly it's setting up a like, like she's not dead. She's lost. Oh, I didn't catch that. I thought she was just being sensitive.
00:42:42
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah i think I think because it's comics, you have to just be like, oh, they're they're trying to imply something here. Okay. You know comic books? You about comics man you know comics? you do you'd ever read ah Do you ever read comic?
00:42:55
Speaker
All right. a Cut to Asgard. Why? where are Why? i'm I'm sure this is important. Where some warrior fights his way to declare his love for the Enchantress. What? turns him into a tree.
00:43:11
Speaker
The end. That was that. There was like four pages of him fighting his way through warriors. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a double size issue that you got to fill it out. She goes to her magic fountain of forever to see an image of where some cosmic rift is about to occur. It's not even a double size issue. Over the universe. And it shows her a disco in Manhattan.
00:43:34
Speaker
Enchantress decides she will go there in disguise. Is this explained why there's some realm changing event taking place?
00:43:46
Speaker
Number one, no. Number two, at the table i can't wait to see what the Enchantress's disguise and fake name are. It can't be that she just wears her costume and calls herself the Enchantress because she says right here, I have to go in disguise. She sure does.
Crossovers and Rivalries
00:44:02
Speaker
Okay. Now we cut to the Avengers mansion where Beast. Why? Beast. Okay. I like him. He sees something in a newspaper that gets him all excited. He sees an opportunity that will allow him to meet someone he's all horned up for.
00:44:17
Speaker
Dazzler. Okay. and It fucking again. They do it. They do. It's four pages of like. ah Showing off all the X-Men's powers like, oh, the beast bounces around the hallway. The wasp shrinks. He runs into several Avengers. Yeah. and ah They even show Captain America and Iron Man just in the other room. In the other room doing some project and they talk about the relative differences in their strength.
00:44:46
Speaker
And yeah. And then Hawkeye runs in for one panel and they're like, put your bow and arrows away. Hawkeye, the archer, like fucking, what are you doing?
00:44:57
Speaker
So the plan for this, ah just like all the other characters that they made Chris Claremont introduce, the plan for this was to try to appeal to women, ay girls.
00:45:11
Speaker
And what I think they're thinking here is to say yeah Hey, girls, since you don't like comic books, why don't you try some of these other comic books that's what i'm enjoying this? I couldn't tell if this was all about we are going to get so many new readers.
00:45:32
Speaker
When we launch this disco dazzler comic book yeah that we have to introduce all our other comics to like get people to pick those up. Or if it was the very opposite, like, man, we don't have any faith in this at all. Let's put every character in it because I think it's probably more what you're talking about because they give intros to all the characters like they're trying to teach you about them.
00:45:55
Speaker
I think, well, this was stuck in production hell for, what, three or four years. It's probably both. At one point, it was probably for the former. At another point, it was probably for the latter. Like, we got to put every superhero in this thing so people buy it. And then later, they were like, ooh, people are going to buy this one. Make sure every time you introduce a superhero, they tell you everything about themselves.
00:46:18
Speaker
I think the inverse. I think... when they first came up with the idea, they were like, this is brilliant. It'll pull in so many disco readers and then we can introduce them to the X-Men and the Avengers. And then after Casablanca records pulled out, the movie got canceled. They were like, okay, good thing we have every superhero appearing in here because otherwise this would not sell.
00:46:46
Speaker
Oh, boy. All right. ah What a man fucking mess. This isn't even the end of issue number one, Matt. And they they put a lot of these guys on the cover, too. They put Nightcrawler and iron Man and Spider-Man on the cover. and They sure do.
00:46:59
Speaker
They don't really have anything to do with the story here. They just wave. Okay. Okay.
00:47:09
Speaker
ah okay Beast shows up at Dazzler's apartment window. Creepy. Don't this. With the newspaper in hand. Yeah. Featuring a story that a singer took ill and a local disco is looking for a replacement.
00:47:23
Speaker
Allison shows up at this club numero uno. That's Spanish for number one, Matt. Just as Stevie Wildfire is wrapping up a state on fan auditions.
00:47:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm. just in time for us to find out that the Enchantress was the one who caused the singer to be sick, and she's also here auditioning. Enchantress. Enchantress outfit, calling herself the Enchantress. The Enchantress.
00:47:52
Speaker
Nice disguise. Enchantress is the frontrunner until Dazzler sings and gets the job. Enchantress is humiliated and infuriated, and she vows revenge.
00:48:05
Speaker
To be continued. Elsewhere, if you care. So, ah yeah, we're not going to cover any other issues of the actual Dazzler. Well, i will I'll run through all the like shit that happens over the next 30 issues or whatever. But um I a get so mad at the this this thing that happens with Dazzler over and over and over, which is she sings and she starts like sparkling and glowing, like lights start coming off of her.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yes. And everybody in the every audience or who she's auditioning for or whatever the case may be say, she's she's so beautiful and she sings so good. It's almost like she's glowing.
00:48:49
Speaker
That's not... normal right you've never for people to be like oh well that's physically impossible so i must be losing my mind and entire audiences think entire audiences that live in a world with superheroes and mutants and stuff go like wow she's so good at singing i must be hallucinating that she's sparkling and that light is glowing off the earth yes People have done this to... People do this in, like, every appearance of Dazzler ever. And it always blows my mind, like, why why they think we would swallow that conceit.
00:49:29
Speaker
She skates by real far this episode on people just assuming it's advanced special effects. Exactly. And, like, that's another thing. She's like, oh, people think it's... Sometimes she's like, oh, people think it's just lighting effects. Yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
but the fucking venues know it's not because they would have to set those up the guy who does the lighting is like i didn't do any lighting effects she must be a mutant right like the last the last page is a big splash page the end of this comic is enchantress swearing revenge on ah on dazzler for beating her in a singing competition Now what I want is a series where Dazzler keeps beating out supervillains in singing competitions because they can't really sing, but they exploited their way there and they band together to try to kill her. It's like this is how she puts her rogues gallery together. and she keeps just being ah better on American Idol than other fucking. That would be so much better than what actually happens in the Dazzler comics. I'll bet Matt do you why do you want to tell me about it you want me to tell you about it all right also yeah yeah Jarvis calls beast Mr. Beast oh you can't see that Jarvis that guy's that guy's bad news that guy's canceled um all right cue emails
00:50:59
Speaker
and with Mr. Beast. Yeah, I like Mr. Beast. Actually, Mr. Beast is giving. Mr. Beast, he's actually ah generous. Actually, instead of donating to charity, he forces poor people to fist fight for it.
00:51:16
Speaker
I'll give you eight Teslas if you can eat seven gallons of arsenic in one sitting. Take the cash equivalent. Whoever has the ugliest dick gets this PlayStation six. Whoever dies first wins one million dollars. Will you eat your own child? I'll give you a Nintendo switch for.
00:51:43
Speaker
All right. ah So I'll catch everybody up to speed on what's going on in Dazzler before we get to her graphic novel, her OGN. So, all right. So, Pat.
00:51:56
Speaker
I don't know what you get ask. Feel free to ask me some questions along the way. And yeah, yeah. to the This is all new to me. So that first issue um wraps up an issue, too, with every like every single superhero in the Marvel Universe shows up to watch Dazzler sing at this at this disco. Oh, yeah.
00:52:16
Speaker
um And they're all like in tuxes and stuff. Like like it's like like a ball. Yeah, Tom DeFalco forgot what this thing was. And... um and ah So when the Enchantress attacks, all the superheroes are there and then they they fight and win. And because she has so many superhero friends, they like intimidate this record ah producer, Harry S. Osgood, into signing her with to a record deal and like a promotional deal.
00:52:47
Speaker
Yes, exactly. ah Like, she goes to his office, he says no, and then every superhero appears and stands behind her with her arms folded. He's like, okay, fine! So, he sets her up with a band full of weirdos. Like, they're these supporting characters. The drummer loves to eat.
00:53:02
Speaker
All he does is eat. um Like, that's his whole personality. He eats stuff. And she's got a bodyguard named Lance Steele. Oh, boy. Yeah, I mean, he's just like... There's something fun about Lance Steele because they constantly have him being like this showing up as a tough guy. But then when actual things break out, he's like a coward and he runs and hides. And that's pretty fun, but um though. They kind of forget that after a while. And then he does start getting in fights and stuff, but he usually loses them. So that's fun. Over the next dozen or so issues, um Dazzler doesn't want to be a hero, but stuff keeps popping up.
00:53:41
Speaker
That makes her like have to get into costume and fight. Sure, that'll happen. So she fights Dr. Doom. She fights Nightmare. She fights the Hulk. She fights this new guy called Blue Shield who's like a a criminal who wants to be a hero. And so he's like, he's actually, I think Blue Shield's an interesting character and he's got an interesting character design and he's constantly bouncing but back and forth. but Like how do I provide for my family being a hero? Like I'm heroic, but it's like a Walter White. If Walter White had superpowers.
00:54:12
Speaker
Okay. and oh And the Enforcers. The Enforcers work for a villain named Techmaster, who has beef with Harry Osgood.
00:54:23
Speaker
um So he becomes like her first rogues gallery, like recurring nemeses. Also, this comic's a lot about her dating life. So she dates a doctor named Paul Jansen. He's got a secretary who hates her, and is constantly... like she She calls and the secretary's like, oh, he's not here. And then she's like, and Paul's like, has Dazzler called? And the secretary's like, no.
00:54:49
Speaker
it's just that. Just, yeah, just catty about it. Human Torch falls in love with her Beast falls in love with her. Neither of those really go anywhere. Eventually, she gets kidnapped by Marvel Man, a.k.a. Quasar.
00:55:03
Speaker
Okay, yeah, yeah. um and And Project Pegasus, where they want to like study her. um Yeah, yeah. And she, ah we ah found out in Secret Wars, absorbs Claw.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah. The sound man. She absorbed Claw. Yeah, yeah. Because they were also, doing they were doing experiments on her for her ability to turn sound into light. And they were doing experiments on Claw for being made of sound. and Yeah, yeah. And Claw...
00:55:35
Speaker
Is like, these guys are evil. They're holding me against my will. You've got to get us both out of here. They're torturing me. And then she frees him and he's like, I tricked you, sucker. And it's like, but you didn't. You were being honest. like You're like, yes, okay, you want to go get free to do villain stuff, but they did kidnap both of you and they're experimenting on you both.
00:55:57
Speaker
um And so she absorbs him and because she absorbs him, one of Galactus' robot assistants is like, look how powerful this woman is. She'll become Galactus' new herald.
00:56:09
Speaker
And she becomes the new herald of Galactus when teroc Terax runs away into a black hole. And Galactus is like the only person... who can survive a black hole is the light girl.
00:56:22
Speaker
So she sends her his new herald, Dazzler, into the black hole to get Terax. What about Dagger? She's a light wasn't thinking about Dagger.
00:56:35
Speaker
racist um So here, during the Galactus story, Danny Fingeroth takes over ah from Tom DeFalco. And he stops doing this parade of heroes and and villains. And he turns it into more of, like, an actual story. like Like, things... Story beats logically follow one another for a while. I'm not saying it's good, but it's way, way better. And he leans into the romance comic of it all. The...
00:57:09
Speaker
Dazzler's lonely and she wants a boyfriend thing. A little less galactic warrior, a little more boyfriends. So Paul dumps her because he's like, I can't take this. Your life is too crazy.
00:57:23
Speaker
um I think it and I can't remember if he knows she's Dazzler or if it's like. um you just keep disappearing and don't tell me what's happening. Like Spider-Man thing. The old Peter Parker, yeah. Exactly. She goes on trial for the murder of Claw.
00:57:41
Speaker
Oh. Which rules. And then she starts dating her and she gets... she she's found not guilty and she starts dating her lawyer, Ken, who has a curly red Afro and ah and a red mustache.
00:57:56
Speaker
is that ethical? ah She also, she hired, she, she hired Spider Woman to find ah her missing mother. Because she starts to believe that her mother might be alive.
00:58:09
Speaker
Her mother is lost, not dead. Yes. um The comic here also becomes like a lot more sexy. Dazzler's always fighting and teaming up with female characters. She keeps getting into situations where she's wet.
00:58:21
Speaker
Or she is or we're changing her clothes or her clothes get torn or she's showering or she's just laying her around her house in her underwear like a lot of that. This will segue smoothly into the graphic novel. Yeah. A lot of her is just like taking off her bra but from behind. Yeah. so yeah Yeah. So Enchantress comes back challenges her to a contest some kind of contest but she wins and Odin gives her a magic harp but that never comes back. Okay. Okay.
00:58:50
Speaker
Angel shows up. He becomes infatuated with her. He like flies to York. He moves back to New York just because he has a crush on Dazzler. He and Candy Southern broke up.
00:59:02
Speaker
He and Candy Southern broke up? Yeah, they broke up. ah That's a shame. Eventually, a love triangle starts between angel and Ken and dazzler Like at at during the day she's dating Ken, but at night she's flying around with angel and she's kissing.
00:59:23
Speaker
um, angel, uh, finds out about her mother and then he takes on, he like starts trying to find her, of whatever. The mother thing is permission or is this? No. Is he just trying to do a grand surprise that um you fucking boring you idiot.
00:59:42
Speaker
It gets so weird, dude. ah But the mother finds her creates a bunch of family drama like, oh is my dad actually my dad and bla bla blah, blah, blah, blah. It gets resolved when she sings a song about family and everyone cries.
00:59:56
Speaker
And every now she's got good relationships with everyone. Okay. ah she's hanging out with angel when the brotherhood of evil mutants attack him. Um, just because X-Men stuff, but Dazzler saves angel, like thwarts their plans. And so now rogue is like, I hate you and I hate you forever. And I'm going to kill you.
01:00:20
Speaker
This is rogue brotherhood of evil mutants. It's just destiny. Rogan. its Yeah. Yeah. Um, sisterhood of evil mutants. Ooh, very specific era. Once again,
01:00:32
Speaker
So Rogue comes after Dazzler and, oh and Dazzler meets her sister. Okay. Rogue comes after Dazzler and her sister a whole lot um until the time where the X-Men are presumed dead in space. Remember that? Yes.
01:00:48
Speaker
And so Dazzler's like, stop it. The X-Men are all dead anyway. And Rogue's like, fine, you're off the hook. i'll so I'll stop chasing you down because yes but now I don't care.
01:01:00
Speaker
Then the writing gets super weird and keeps shifting between Steve Grant, Jim Shooter, Frank Springer, who's the penciler for like the longtime penciler, Frank frank Springer, Mike Carlin, Danny Fingeroth. There's some other writers in here, too, for like 12 ish, 10 issues or so. It just keeps fucking shifting writers. And the book becomes kind of like a crime comic. Like every issue is about some um scheme.
01:01:26
Speaker
That she gets wrapped up in. Like so like she meets somebody. um And they. Are secretly doing some sort of crime. And then there's this long running.
01:01:39
Speaker
Story where. Her sister turns out to have a death touch power. Oh. And she accidentally kills a homeless person.
01:01:51
Speaker
So. Thank God it's a homeless person. ah i know. the fuck? I know, I know, I know. And then a cat. She kills a cat too. What? So Dazzler, so she's afraid. She starts getting blackmailed about it. Somebody has pictures of her killing this homeless person. Good.
01:02:08
Speaker
Dazzler. Turn in. Dazzler puts on a black wig. And then they get on a bus and start taking a road trip across the country to Los Angeles to escape the blackmailer.
01:02:21
Speaker
They also get attacked by Rogue a couple times on this trip. And she's trying to kill them. Now. Oh, and then they run into the other person who might have been her father. But is her sister's father because the blackmailer asks her to kill them. It's weird. This is very weird. Okay. But it's and it's very crime comic-y but bad. Kind of a bad crime comic. This is all over the span of 10 to 12 issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weird.
01:02:48
Speaker
and now her Now she's living in l LA. Her entire supporting cast is gone. ah The Eating Guy, Harry S. Osgood, Tech Master, all of them. The Blue Shield, Angel, Ken, Paul, all of them. Lance Steele, they're gone.
01:03:03
Speaker
Just her and her sister. Now she's living in LA with her sister. She meets a movie star named Roman Necoba. Necobo.
01:03:16
Speaker
who is trying to romance her and get her to starve star in a movie with him. Like she, he wants to tie their careers together. Um,
01:03:29
Speaker
Okay. This is some context we need. Yeah. She also meets Millie the model and Chili Storm at some point. The old Marvel characters. Sick. Yeah. And she saves a bunch of models from like ah a serial killer. I was a herald of Galactus and also i met Millie the model.
01:03:51
Speaker
So yeah, that's basically it. It's... It was like a superhero comic, then a romance comic, then a crime comic.
Genre Shifts and Hollywood Themes
01:03:58
Speaker
After what we are reading today, it'll become like a thriller comic for a little while written by Peter David. I think be Peter David, and it's not good. Oh, okay.
01:04:10
Speaker
Peter David usually is amazing, but at the yeah the last few issues of this are like they're more about like a super spy that she meets. Or a super, not a spy, a bounty hunter that she meets than they are about Dazzler.
01:04:24
Speaker
Sure. Sort of a sort of a change, of course, trying to trying to cash in and get a new comic line started. Yeah, it seems like a backdoor pilot kind of thing where, yeah, it's like she ends up.
01:04:38
Speaker
But that's later. Right now. Yeah, she's in l L.A. She she has a hit record record. She gets very famous very quickly, which... That's ah a good way to keep a low profile and stay away from your blackmailer. Dim Dupid seems to forget that she's super famous at the beginning of this graphic novel, but that is that is the status quo for her right now. She just got mega famous. Okay.
01:05:09
Speaker
And that brings us right up to... Marvel Graphic Novel number 12. Whoa. It's Dazzler the Movie. Dazzler the Comic. The Movie. The Comic.
01:05:23
Speaker
The graphic novel. The Movie. The Comic. um It is by James Blooper. Frank Springer. He's called James.
01:05:36
Speaker
I know, it sucks. Frank Springer and Vince Coletta. Lettering by John Morelli. Coloring by Christy Scheel. Editor, Ralph Macchio. Editor, James Glooper. Release date, July 10th, 1984. Cover date, October 1984. Do you have any other questions before we launch into this graphic novel?
01:05:54
Speaker
No. Okay. ah So... the okay The issue opens up. I just want to talk about this first panel first. It opens up with a full page spread of Dazzler looking straight at the audience doing...
01:06:12
Speaker
like Lying on her back. Jazzercise or whatever. Lying on her back. Her boobs like sort of falling out of her top. Yeah, yeah. and her legs. towards the camera slightly. Face towards the camera. Yeah, her her butt out and her legs fully stretched. So you can see basically just her whole body. Legs fully stretched 90 degrees up in the air.
01:06:34
Speaker
Yes. And it is like it is like them saying, hey, just... he just Just in case you don't realize what this is. Like, this is what the that this is what we're here for.
01:06:47
Speaker
Yes. This is sexy woman. Frank Springer is horned up. the Yes. The entire run of this graphic novel.
01:06:58
Speaker
he's ah It's a little uncomfortable. It's like I always think this when have you ever read The Wheel of Time? I haven't. No, but you've told me a lot about it. Yeah. So in the wheel of time, Robert, Robert Jordan gets so horny so often. And he's like, he's like, I think like a Mormon or something. Like he's a very religious, very like from some very conservative religious tradition.
01:07:27
Speaker
And the sexual repression just comes out constantly. Like people don't just fold their arms. They fold their arms across their breasts. um Yeah. Somebody's not just wearing a necklace. They have a brooch sitting like hung from a chain sitting between their breasts. People are always getting naked. content Like every female character is always naked. And it's like, dude, jerk off before you write.
01:07:53
Speaker
Like, go jerk off, then sit down to write. And I feel the same thing about Frank Springer's drawings. Just like, jerk off then come draw yourself. Just get get all that energy out. Get it out. Before you sit down at the table.
01:08:08
Speaker
yeah because we don't need to see this from you. This is embarrassing.
01:08:14
Speaker
So Alison Blair leads a crowded dance exercise class at the prestigious Los Angeles Health and Racquet Club. o When she starts to grow. Glow. she starts to grow. When she starts to grow. the bionic woman. What if all of a sudden they changed everything about Dazzler? When she starts to glow just a little, everyone that sees it dismisses it as her just being super hot. And a couple of men are bold enough to approach her after.
01:08:44
Speaker
There's a dude who's like, he's bald and he's got glasses and he's he's he's he's drawn to be pretty fucking ugly. Yeah, yeah. He's like a frumpy guy with a hot wife.
01:08:55
Speaker
And his wife is mega hot. And he's like, and he's like man, she's so beautiful. i wish I was with her. it's like, his wife. And it's like...
01:09:08
Speaker
and it's like And she's like, oh, if you said that about anybody else, you'd be sleeping in the kitchen. Why are you saying that about anybody? Your wife is too good for you. Yeah, this is like a this is like a sitcom husband. Just be grateful for what you have, bro.
01:09:24
Speaker
And other people approach her and they're like, hey you're incredibly sexy. And this is something that's going to really bug me throughout this. is She says, thank you. you Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of like, hey, women like it when you say this about them.
01:09:41
Speaker
Which, yeah, once we get past the graphic novel, I think there's some very strong pushback on. yeah And there's there's a lot of like. her internal dialogue where she's like, ah therere yeah I don't like that he said that to me, but he's just trying to be nice and I don't want to be a rude woman. because So I'm just going so i'm going to, and like like she's just constantly stroking the egos of men who are hitting on her. And it is Jim Stupid who is who is writing this and like fucking so clearly this is how he thinks women are. This is what he thinks the ideal woman is.
01:10:21
Speaker
It's about to happen here. Okay. So the first guy that hits on her is Eric Beal, a hotshot film producer who calls her sexy. She says thank you and promises her a successful career, which she rejects.
01:10:34
Speaker
um The second is Jim. ah Sorry. I mean, Freddie Stanachek, a timid incel who offers to buy her carrot juice. So timid incel is a very concise way to sum this up, but...
01:10:52
Speaker
the The drawing that we see, the the character that we see here is modeled off of young Jim Shooter. 100% looks exactly like him. ah Yeah.
01:11:04
Speaker
And his philosophy is the upsetting. like he Yes! He is talking... The way that you see incels talk on message boards, but it's coming off as charming, ah apparently.
01:11:23
Speaker
He does two things. One that's kind of charming, which is he's like, he's like, ah man, I'm so bad at talking to women. I'm so sorry. i just, I wanted to talk to you. And I, man, I'm screwing this all up. And like, that's fine. That's cute. Whatever. Maybe. And then the other. You need some charisma to pull that off.
01:11:40
Speaker
But the other thing that he's doing is this. Wow, I can't believe you talk to me. Everybody I talk to is usually so stuck up and such, such rude pieces of shit. And I fucking hate like, yeah he's like so hard to make friends because everybody else sucks. They're too good for me.
01:11:59
Speaker
I have trouble meeting good for me. I have trouble meeting people. And every time I talk to somebody, they think they're so cool and so tough and so, so hot. And it's like, yeah, of course you have trouble meeting people. You fucking hate people.
01:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, this is that. It was like, that's we just give people a chance. But ah you know that's so normal that everyone you've ever met, except for the hottest woman you've ever seen. That's so sweet of you. Yeah. Like this is that that fucking nice guy bullshit where it's like, guys, if you have trouble making friends or meeting women.
01:12:36
Speaker
maybe it's because Maybe it's because you are not giving people enough of a shot. Maybe it's because you are being somehow anti-social. This is what anti-social means. you are being You are setting yourself against all human beings. then you're like, why don't people like me? It's because you hate people.
01:13:02
Speaker
He offers her, is he he he proposes a juice bar date. i See, again, that's the part I think is cute. It's the... I knew you'd never, but, like, can I, you and could you please, like, can I, like, maybe buy you a carrot cheese? I like that!
01:13:20
Speaker
I like that! What I don't like is him just being, like... Man, every time I talk to a girl, she turns her nose up at me. And again, it's portrayed as sweet. So as soon as as soon as as soon as as Freddie asks, ah Eric Beal returns in a crazy fucking disco shirt.
01:13:41
Speaker
Crazy. It is. It's like the Western sh trim, but it's white with black polka dots. Insane. ah Maybe this is where they got the idea for the spot. The Spider-Man villain.
01:13:57
Speaker
He reveals that he just bought the club and and she works for him now. ah He demands an immediate meeting in private, but Allie rejects him in lieu of that carrot juice with Freddy.
01:14:10
Speaker
They have a nice date and they make out a little. ah So, so Freddie wins after all this. He gets the, yeah yeah this is so She does it to be nice. Like she's so clear throughout the whole thing. Like I'm not going to be your girlfriend. I'm doing this because I believe in you, not because I like you. Yeah. And even the kiss is like, she does it to boost his confidence. And that is fucking how Jim Shooter thinks that ah the ideal woman is. Like they make themselves a tool for the, for you to learn how to find a wife. Yeah. Yes.
01:14:52
Speaker
Yes. It's so fucking weird. It's how so he thinks a strong independent woman is written. It's like, Oh, she's not going to just fall for any guy, but she will use her sexuality to make men feel better about themselves.
01:15:06
Speaker
Also when they're kissing, he says, Oh, wow. Yeah.
01:15:12
Speaker
Don't do that, dude.
01:15:18
Speaker
Oh, man. um Dazzle returns home afterwards and turns on her stereo, letting her light shine as she gets nude in front of the mirror.
01:15:29
Speaker
Yep. It is. Okay. She starts talking to her reflection and like hating on herself. It's supposed to reflect her getting home, letting go being comfortable and kind of like letting the light out ah that she keeps hidden from the world all day. But she also gets nude and looks at herself in a mirror while she does it.
01:15:52
Speaker
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. yet I know we love to inform people when characters are nude. We cannot possibly list all the times someone is nude in this comic. these Dazzler specifically. We just have to mention it when it's plot relevant.
01:16:07
Speaker
yeah exactly Yeah, yeah. so Or, you know, at the very, like, the times that her, even when she's wearing clothes, her boobs are way, way out. Yeah, yeah. Is nonstop. And, like, the amount of times she bends over with her butt towards the pit, it's...
01:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, and her shorts are like riding up a little bit so you can see all the outlines. Oh my God. It's so, it's fucking. Yes, I did. Pervert shit. It's so weird. Yeah, it's so weird. The next day, as Allie reads about anti-mutant sentiment in the newspaper, Storm calls.
01:16:43
Speaker
She's worried about all this anti-mutant sentiment and wanted to check in knowing that Allie's powers are part of her show. She says she uses the word flaunt. You flaunt your powers. It's very passive aggressive. yeah It was very like, because, you know, you flaunt your powers on stage all the time.
01:17:03
Speaker
You know how you're so irresponsible and we keep warning you against it? I just wanted to make sure no one was killing you. Ali's got no time for that now, though, as it's almost time for her first ever L.A. show.
01:17:14
Speaker
We get some X-Men here. Kurt walks up the stairs on his hands. He does. why Why is he doing that? Also, also.
01:17:26
Speaker
Oh, no. We get a ah mohawked storm attending to the plants in her attic. um i don't think so. e She killed all those plants. Yeah, shit that's not. She doesn't do plants anymore.
01:17:41
Speaker
She hates plants. She hates plants now because she has a mohawk. Because Yukio wouldn't like plants. exceed Exactly. Fucking idiots.
01:17:55
Speaker
read Read a book. so So this is what you're talking about where the series and Jim Stupid diverge on her level of fame because this is her first ever show in Los Angeles. Right. And she is living in a shitty apartment and she has no money and she has no contracts and whatever. So up in Beverly Hills, an aging, balding, plump actor named Roman Necoba.
01:18:22
Speaker
Necobo? I'm pretty sure it's Nekobo because he he does some rhymes with it. Okay. He's awoken by his butler Ziggy at 7 p.m. Everyone's got to have a Jarvis. Everyone's got a Jarvis.
01:18:34
Speaker
in this In this book, in all these Dazzler comics, everybody has a Jarvis. z Yeah, yeah. Later, somebody else will have a Jarvis. In fact, Ziggy is doing some pretty intense stretches. It looks like he is getting ready to kick someone's ass. Well, because Roman-
01:18:52
Speaker
Because Roman is like, hey, ah ah man, I'm looking tubby. Do some calisthenics for me, will you, Zig? And so Ziggy just starts exercising for him in the background of all the panels. But he's fucking good at it. He's he he's like doing ninja warmups.
01:19:07
Speaker
So he rolls a young woman out of his bed, puts on a corset and a suit and a toupee, also dentures and contacts, um and demands Ziggy find him the contact information for Dazzler, a woman he apparently spent all of yesterday harassing.
01:19:26
Speaker
So this looks like an idealized version of older Jim Shooter. Oh, to me, this read as Ronald Reagan. This was like pre-president sort of dwindling film career Ronald Reagan.
01:19:46
Speaker
Okay, I think... um I don't think you're wrong. Also... um In when Dazzler's star was taking off in um in the in the comic, there was like a cutaway to her starring in a film with Robert Redford.
01:20:07
Speaker
oh So I think maybe there's a little bit of that here too. Maybe. Robert Redford stole still got the juice though at this time.
01:20:17
Speaker
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe maybe you're right. Maybe this is yeah this is supposed to be a person who has already aged out of their career.
01:20:27
Speaker
Or who is in the late stages of their career, but still trying to hold on to their youth. Yes, yeah, yeah. So... um And Hollywood hasn't quite figured out that they don't have it anymore.
01:20:42
Speaker
Exactly. these They've still got the facade up and it's kind of working. Yeah. So that night, Allison wraps up her show. The modest audience completely wrapped. Eric Beal watches from a table in the back with his assistant, Smythe, who has no hair whatsoever. No eyebrows, no hair, no eyelashes. Just, yeah.
01:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. When the show ends, Allison is suddenly swamped by paparazzi, asking her if the rumors are true. Is she really dating and making a movie with Roman Noboko? Nacombo.
01:21:13
Speaker
And they they're also like, did you used to be a porn star? Are you fucking this guy? i Like, they they ask you so many crazy questions. The mill is turning.
01:21:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oh, on the ah on stage, i'll sure she this is where she sings Elton John. She sings... um ah I'm still standing um I'm still standing very brutally butby but be which is at least like a danceable song that one's a little more upbeat oh ah we find out that the girl who left Roman Nekobo's room that morning was named Susan Two Booms Susan Two Booms
01:21:58
Speaker
loser week Loser League Susan Two Booms. She's dating. She's dating ah that cowboy. was the cowboy's name?
01:22:10
Speaker
Porter Mack. Porter Mack. She's dating Susan Two Booms. reporter mac is dating susan tube The and Two Booms
01:22:21
Speaker
All right. um She dashes home to try to avoid the reporters, but when she walks into her apartment, Roman Nicobo himself is there waiting on her couch.
01:22:32
Speaker
He offers her the world if she'll just have sex with him, which she declines. He tries to force himself on her. Ugh. Until she screams, and then he tells her her career is dead as she storms out. Allie is shattered. Also, her fucking coffee table is shattered.
01:22:50
Speaker
Yes, yeah. He physically attacks her. He, like, slams her down. Yes. He, like, climbs on top of her. He forces a kiss on her. it It's... And I don't think Jim Stupid knows that he just turned Roman Nicobo from unlikable guy into a monster.
01:23:11
Speaker
there's There's two things going on here. Number one is... They're taking a look at the way things kind of work in Hollywood, saying like, hey, these powerful men will use their influence just to have sex with women and they will blacklist them.
01:23:28
Speaker
Yes. If the women won't have sex with them. Right. Good point. great Great point. Good. Good thing to draw attention to. But and also that's an open secret in Hollywood that we didn't confront until the last few years, which is super fucked up.
01:23:43
Speaker
But.
01:23:46
Speaker
That leads into the second thing that's happening here, which is we're about to get to know Roman very well. He's going to be a major ally to Allie through the rest of this graphic novel. Like, absolutely, Jim Stupid doesn't see this as a monstrous thing to do. It's like he points out that this terrible thing and then is like,
01:24:15
Speaker
I guess he fucked up. You know, he got a little too or not even that. He's just, well, we'll get there. But yeah, I mean, it's like it's like it's like this is respecter now. He's like, this is he went too far.
01:24:30
Speaker
But this is just what happens is almost what Jim Jim stupid saying. Like, exactly hey, yeah yeah this is bad. But like, he's still just a normal guy.
01:24:41
Speaker
ah this is still what normal guys do. Yeah, um it's it's really it's really disturbing. and like you can you can argue with that being a product of the time, but.
01:24:55
Speaker
You read the scene here and he's painted as a monster until. But yes, it's just accepted as what people do. He's not painted as a monster, though. That's the thing. He's painted as a jerk when he's being a monster. That is yeah my problem with it. He's like, it's like, it's like if somebody.
01:25:14
Speaker
um I'm saying anyone even at the time could look at this and say, yeah This is terrible. he's he's He's trying to force himself on her. He's trying to rape a woman. yeah yeah. Yet, it's treated like he just, he made a little too strong. He got a little too drunk and made a little too strong of a pass at somebody is what is what it's painted as. It's like like like as if he was in a, yeah, like as if as if they met in a club and he was like,
01:25:47
Speaker
he he very He too quickly said, hey, wanna go back to my place? And you're like, what a creep, but not like a not like a fucking Not like a ghoul-ish goblin should be in jail. It's complicated because it's painted negatively, but not negatively enough.
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah. The next day, Roman pulls up in a fancy car, offering they offering that they have a fresh start. Allie declines. He pursues, and she literally starts running down the street,
01:26:18
Speaker
when he When he fakes a heart attack, he's charmed. but She's charmed by this, I guess, and agrees to get coffee with him. He's like, oh, you did like – she's like, oh, my god, he's dying. And he's like, so you do care. so you do care, which is – and that's supposed to be cute. That's the thing, – He pulls up.
01:26:39
Speaker
you know he He assaults her. He leaves. He pulls up next to her as she's leaving her apartment the next day. and I'm like, terrifying. That's.
01:26:51
Speaker
And then she is trying to leave. She keeps like trying to nicely. He broke into her apartment, by the way. before Before he assaulted her, he broke into her apartment. like legends Yes.
01:27:01
Speaker
And then he gets out of her car out of his car and starts chasing her down the street. I thought. That was supposed to be terrifying for her, but it's not. She's just being smarmy and then ah and like sassy and cool about it and then falls in love with him a moment later. It sucks. So fucking weird. Such a a warped perception of how relationships work.
01:27:26
Speaker
Yeah. So she's even more charmed when he's impressed that she turned him down, making him want to work with her even more. She agrees to the movie and suddenly she's lost in a whirlwind of designer clothes, fancy houses and red carpets as she gains fame through the experience. She falls in love with Roman and the two become a hot item.
01:27:50
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. She just suddenly just falls in love with him. Right. yeah Like it's, it's that quick that it's like, oh, she's in love with him. And there's no, there's no, there's no like series of him doing charming things or being kind to her or showing it her that he actually is a good person. It's just, he continues being shallow and vapid and she's like, I love you.
01:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's him buying her all the nice things in the world. And then one day she's like, what if we kissed? And then they kiss. And then immediately the moment after she's like, I love you.
01:28:25
Speaker
You would think the point here is that Ali, Alison Blair is a shallow vapid. fame hungry. Yeah, she's i she is overwhelmed by the she's drunk on her fame.
01:28:42
Speaker
You would. Yes, that that is what it would seem to be implying here. But I don't think that's what well. Again, it's kind of what Jim Stupid is saying, but not really. But he's not necessarily saying it's a bad thing. Right. that Yes, exactly. Isn't it great? She's getting everything she ever wanted. Yeah. And Hollywood's a little fucked up. But if you play the game, you get the rewards. And that's what's happening for that. And it's like it is this sort of like both sides of like.
01:29:13
Speaker
it's It's great. OK. The movie itself is in trouble. No one wants to back a film starring someone that was seen hanging out with the X-Men. No one that is except for Eric Beal.
01:29:25
Speaker
hallally Allie's suspicious of his motives here. she She says that he's like a super creep because he asked her out and then bought the club that she worked at. Like she she tells that to Roman. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty creepy thing to do. That's creepy.
01:29:42
Speaker
But that is the sort of over, that's that sort of bombastic over expression like like hyper interest that Jim stupid's trying to paint Roman as being right but with Eric he had her had him buy a club to be like hey you said ah you're not allowed to go out with patrons well now I own the club so I can change the rules
01:30:13
Speaker
That is a thousand times, also creepy, but a thousand times more charming than fucking breaking into somebody's house and assaulting them and then showing up at their door the next day. And yet she thinks what Roman did was charming. She thinks what Eric did was so creepy. It's unforgivable. And it's like, what the fuck is your compass here?
01:30:34
Speaker
and the i the The point is there is done. There's no moral compass. This is about showing off ah Dazzler's butt. I know. I, I, I, ah yeah. All right.
01:30:48
Speaker
we're going to yell about this even more in ah as we keep going. But okay. So Roman is so happy about the movie getting made that she can look past it. She's doing this for Roman. And she consistently repeats, I'm doing this for you, not for me. yeah They try to celebrate, but Allie needs to come clean.
01:31:05
Speaker
She reveals to Roman that she really is a mutant. He says he already knows and he accepts her for what she is. And they tenderly bone down.
01:31:15
Speaker
We're suddenly in another whirlwind with Allie, this time one of romance. She and Roman visit the finest vacation spots and restaurants being seen together the whole time. She eventually moves into his mansion, and upon seeing herself in the mirror for a first time for the first time in a while, how? Did she go to the bathroom this whole time? I don't know. um She doesn't quite recognize herself.
01:31:37
Speaker
Her lavish lifestyle has changed her. She dismisses her maids, turns on the music, undresses, And starts glowing. She's again, she's just staring at herself nude in the mirror. as Yeah, it's supposed to be a parallel, but you haven't given us anything to chew on to for this to pay off.
01:31:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:59
Speaker
No time for that now, though. Roman bursts in on her naked ass and demands she sees the latest headline. The whole world knows she's a mutant. She's outraged, but he's thrilled he leaked this news himself. The publicity alone from such a landmark work of art, he explains, will make them legends.
01:32:17
Speaker
Okay. Okay. This is where I think I got my most confused about what the metaphor here is supposed to be because...
01:32:30
Speaker
he just outed her publicly. Like this is a real thing that's happening in contemporary news where, uh, in the queer community where, where gay people's,
01:32:44
Speaker
identities are being leaked to the papers. As soon as you find out someone's gay, even if you're their friend, that is worth so much money and it can destroy their career. You're talking about contemporary meaning at the time of this book. so Yeah, yeah. In the in the early 80s, that's the environment we live in That's also sort of the path that Claremont is going down, like his his strongest analog path.
01:33:07
Speaker
for how he's written mutants so far is the queer community, the gay people. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But this is, they don't address that at all here. It's just like, she's like, oh, I didn't really want that to to be out.
01:33:23
Speaker
And then they they they talk about how it'll be a huge deal. It'll be great publicity for the film. Right. What what gets clarified immediately after here, though, is Roman is like, you'll be the next Jackie Robinson.
01:33:38
Speaker
And then we think back to the conversations that Ali's had or the moments that she's had where they address the anti-mutant sentiment. Right.
01:33:48
Speaker
It just made the I don't think it's a metaphor that he's drawing. I think it's the source that... Jim Stupid is drawing from here is Jackie Robinson's integration into baseball. is this is just This is straight black and white race issue for him that he has one example of a famous person overcoming diversity for. It's just so muddled because like he's not a metaphor guy.
01:34:19
Speaker
We know that. And there's there's no subtlety to it. So this is the moment that I had to That I was most confused and then immediately was like, oh, well, I see what you're doing. You fucking like he doesn't know. he And he's he doesn't know what he's writing. And yeah, yeah. I think it's very important to remember all this as we go into Secret Wars 2.
01:34:42
Speaker
OK. Which is his big. Self insert political social ill screed. Yeah, yeah. There's a thing. yeah Alison Blair's kind ah character is complex, right?
01:34:55
Speaker
She, and this is something I think Anne Nocenti thoughtfully picks up on, is what Allison thinks she wants and what Allison wants are two different things.
01:35:06
Speaker
She thinks she wants to be wrapped up in a relationship and love, but what she really wants is independence. And whenever she doesn't have it, she feels oppressed and, um...
01:35:20
Speaker
less like herself. She thinks she wants this lifestyle, this vapid lifestyle of fame and whatever, but what she really wants is this form of self-expression.
01:35:34
Speaker
um And sometimes that requires fame, but as the closer she gets to fame, the more miserable she is. And ah she just, she just fucking loves to sing. Right. um So I do not mind a story about her getting wrapped up in love, about her getting swept away by Hollywood, about her losing herself and trying to find herself again. i really don't mind a story about a mutant being about the first out and proud mutant and that mutant being resistant to the idea of being out and it going in some complicated directions because the world still has complicated feelings about mutants.
01:36:24
Speaker
Really, the thing that makes me so mad about this is just Roman. Why is it Roman she falls in love with? Yeah, yeah. Especially, and I didn't know this coming into this, but especially since he was somebody that rejected her in the main comic line.
01:36:45
Speaker
This whole story would have been so much more important more more not important. This story would have been so much better had he just made Roman a kind of a nice guy at the beginning.
01:36:59
Speaker
Yeah. That he wanted to do this comedic, ah failed Lothario stumbling over himself to try and have sex with a woman character.
01:37:11
Speaker
Basically ruined this whole book. And the fact that he you know didn't realize that Rape bad. Yeah, and his his treatment of women and yes like all that, of course. Ruined this whole book.
01:37:24
Speaker
And it's just because Jim Stupid doesn't understand how... Doesn't understand the the very, very basics of feminism. Well, buckle up, folks, because we are at the halfway point of this graphic novel. And... But... To...
01:37:41
Speaker
to underline that one of the things that she points out that that is a sign of her becoming bad and losing herself is that she is putting on weight yes that is so right i mean not uncommon for someone to look at themselves in the mirror and say i'm fat but But it's clearly the writer's perspective. yeah this Yeah. This is more like she's drawn as a beautiful and just somewhat curvy woman. And it it's
01:38:17
Speaker
it's it's true that like if you're drinking, if you're reading rich foods all the time, there is a very specific type of chubby that you become. But – That's not how they're drawing her whatsoever. She's still now this model, beautiful woman and looking at herself in the mirror, beautiful form, and saying, I'm too fat.
01:38:42
Speaker
Right. And... So not only... Yeah, not only is it is it just... It doesn't... It's fucked up because she doesn't she doesn't look fat in in in even the slightest bit, but also because that is supposed to be a character moment of like, oh, I'm getting fat. I'm losing who I truly am. Like, what the fuck? Like, it's not okay to have a little extra shit. Yeah, it it means evil.
01:39:10
Speaker
um And not to say that that isn't like... impressed into our culture today but just to say that yeah this is clearly the writer looking at that and thinking it and being like one thing that would happen if you lost yourself is you'd also get fat and exactly the very next day She's giving a press conference on the LAX tarmac in a bikini for some reason, with a dozen commercial jets lined up behind her.
01:39:39
Speaker
Pre-9-11 world. After a few remarks, Roman gives the signal and the plane engines start roaring, giving Dazzler the power she needs to start lighting up. Feeding off the gasps, Roman signals the planes to rev their engines higher, resulting in a piercing noise that starts to deafen the crowd. Allie notices this and starts absorbing the sound, glowing brighter and brighter as she completely removes the noise of the jet engine. Dude, they... Just to pause for one second, because this is an impactful moment, but yes when she is standing there, like, kind of levitating and glowing and absorbing all the light... they draw her fucking nipples protruding through her bikini. Like her bikini is already just a tiny triangle meant to cover up the nipple region. Yeah. And they draw the little bumps. It's, so it's, yeah, it's supposed to be an empowering moment where like I'm being the, I'm at the apex of my power and I'm showing it to the world.
01:40:36
Speaker
I am, i am bare in front of, the world you don't have to sexualize it too right like you didn't have to also i've got huge boobs somebody in the audience says check out those bazooms and they really do that's real that happens roman says roman has like some women check out her body and is like face it boys i couldn't trust it any of you ah just to prove that she's actually a mutant she's not hiding any gadgets or whatever yeah She's like, going to have these women check out her body because I couldn't trust any of you jet jets to do this. Fucking shut the ro fuck up.
01:41:15
Speaker
ah The very next day she's, oh, sorry. The crowd starts to panic. She's a mutant. It's true. What if she goes on a violent rampage? allie is Yes. What if she like gets too, puts too much light on us? The entire press corps to show up after seeing the headline, she's a mutant, and then the press conference they that she's throwing to address that, and then be like, wait, what the fuck? She's a mutant? know. And then start running for your lives.
01:41:47
Speaker
Ali is mortified by this, but Roman and Beal are thrilled. Any publicity is good publicity. Roman changes his tune when they arrive at a nightclub, though, and Ali has to protect them from a bunch of brick-throwing mutant-phobes.
01:42:01
Speaker
they There's like six people with 12 bricks. is There's a rainstorm of bricks falling down upon them. As they ride home, she explains that the plane experiment has changed her. She can store power now and has plenty to spare.
01:42:17
Speaker
She's reinvigorated by this and wants to do the movie more than ever, but on her terms. They bone down in the limo. in the limo And Roman's kind of like freaked out because she's taking charge of it. Yeah, yeah. She's very she's riled up about it. Mm Filming goes extremely sexual. yeah Filming goes terrifically over the next few weeks with Dazzler reworking the script and doing all her own stunts.
01:42:44
Speaker
Outside, though, things aren't as pretty. Allie fights with protesters to the media's delight. People are burning her records in the street and an evening news editorial tries to get people worked up about the great replacement.
01:42:58
Speaker
It's really there's no difference between what he's saying and what like yeah Elon Musk talks about v that he picked up on neo-Nazi website. This is the great replacement theory, but with mutants.
01:43:09
Speaker
Yeah. She even has her old apartment broken into and trashed. She's still confident in the film, though, as she tells Roman after they ah bone down again. They have so much sex in the back half of this graphic novel.
01:43:23
Speaker
but And they talk about it a lot. Again, if this wasn't Roman, I would be like, fucking great. Fucking great. A woman taking control of her sexuality. But this is fucking Roman who tried to fucking rape you. Jesus Christ. Right. It's it's almost like they're trying to save life because she just keeps complimenting his lovemaking. Uh, it's almost like they're trying to say, c wasn't it stupid of you to reject his advances the time that he sexually assaulted you?
01:43:50
Speaker
Who gave you the instruction manual to my body? Roman is what she said. Gross. I don't need to hear any person say that to another person. That's Hey, they do say bit menace in here. Mutant menace.
01:44:05
Speaker
All right. The film is finally finished, and Allison takes Roman to see the final cut at a private screening. It's beautiful. Truly the best film he's ever seen. He's in tears. This is supposed to be a groundbreaking film.
01:44:21
Speaker
It's very funny for a movie where where that has a scene where she is shooting a bunch of lasers at a bunch of boulders that are falling on a car, but and she's dressed in like ah ah like a... Like a John Carter of Mars a z yeah yeah outfit.
01:44:38
Speaker
This is like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. This is cinema. This is an epic. This is like Gone with the Wind. It's also very funny to say this about a movie that...
01:44:51
Speaker
actually failed to get produced in the real world.
01:44:59
Speaker
It turns out not to be such a private screening after all as protesters break in and try to attack with bats and sticks. Oh no. They escape thanks to Dazzler's powers. Everyone stop attacking a superhero.
01:45:12
Speaker
You're not going to win. They're mobbing her. They're like trying to find her. Allie sends Roman home and hangs back to yell at the studio manager for sending security home early.
01:45:24
Speaker
But she gets a panic. Yeah. This is ah another. Sorry to keep interrupting. No, please. Exact same point. But Jim Shooter just completely missing the metaphor here where Ali hangs back to be like, why the fuck didn't security do its job? And he has the office manager go, ah well, I sent them home once I was afraid for their safety.
01:45:50
Speaker
Right. And that's the end of that conversation. Like you can plum into that. You have a classic ah banality of evil moment here. Right. Where the office manager could have just been like, why am I protecting a mutant?
01:46:03
Speaker
Why don't I send all my people home? But instead, he's like he just has a a flimsy excuse and she's OK with it. Well, I think – so I think that banality of evil thing is implied here, which i I'm – I think it's cool that that is included. But again, like like you're saying, she – they don't spend any time with it, but they do spend like 19 pages of them fucking.
01:46:27
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Her and the office office manager. No. no No, her fucking Roman. i'm We're exaggerating. Like there's a lot of sex, but we're it's not like – it's not that – It's not explicit, but... The talk about it The talk about it The chats they have about sex are and extremely explicit.
01:46:48
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And the way women men talk about women's bodies in this is so... like it's all very This is a very explicit comic This so strange. We're almost done. But she gets a panic call from Roman just after he leaves and suddenly dashes to his location...
01:47:05
Speaker
Eric Beal's office. Oh, no. Roman is no longer there, though, and in fact has signed a new contract to save his career in exchange for never seeing or speaking with Allie again. Yeesh. He signed it? ah like I know, right. Allie's devastated. After all this, he chose his career over her.
01:47:24
Speaker
As she breaks down, Beal explains the new deal to her. She should never have turned him down because now he will own her. He has right here the only copy of her movie, possibly the best movie ever made.
01:47:37
Speaker
And he will destroy it right now unless she signs this exclusive deal with Beal Productions. Cornered, heartbroken, in tears, Allie walks to the contract, picks up the pen and signs...
01:47:49
Speaker
Go suck an egg. She writes, go suck an egg. Suck an egg. She punches Beale in the face and while he's stunned, zaps the only copy of her film into ashes herself. She calls him pond scum and hums a tune on her way out. Downstairs, Roman is rushing inside to beat up Beale himself and destroy the contract, but Allie tells them that she already took care of it.
01:48:10
Speaker
shes like she's She's like, I knew you would want me to. They kiss, but then break up for some reason, but they're both very happy with it. We get a girl who's going to be okay panel to close it out at the end. um So much of this doesn't make any sense. So Beale explains, first Beale explains to Allie, i never wanted i never wanted you or your movie to begin with. All of this, all of this,
01:48:41
Speaker
was to force Roman into a place where he owed me and I could get him to sign an exclusive contract with my company. All of this was just a ploy for that.
01:48:52
Speaker
And what? There's so many less complicated Not taking a full year of people's lives ways that you could have done that.
01:49:02
Speaker
Yeah. This is crazy. He takes a moment to say it's not a sex thing anymore. And. it was back then, but now it's not.
01:49:13
Speaker
And even though he says like none of this was ever about you, this was all about Rome. And then he's like, but while you're here. I could get you to sign an exclusive contract and we'll still release your movie and what, or ah or I could burn it myself. And it's like, well then wait, that doesn't that undermine your entire, what are you
Character Developments and Future Speculations
01:49:31
Speaker
doing, man? if You are the worst businessman anyone's ever heard of.
01:49:37
Speaker
And if you're a good writer, you write it so that he understands that and she maybe, maybe doesn't, right? It's questionable whether or not she understands what her worth is, but he is trying to diminish it so that she- Right, like his first ploy is a lie.
01:49:54
Speaker
But again, that's not what Jim Stupid does. He did care. This is just him stating two contradictory facts that are true. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's totally true. If he had been like, I didn't care about you at all, but hey, I could do you a favor and have you sign this contract. Yeah, Right? Like, that would have been, all it fucking would have taken is a slight change for this to be be a good scene.
01:50:17
Speaker
A little bit of subtlety. And in the end, Roman's supposed to be a good guy? What is he supposed to represent? Like, okay, so if this story- yeah other thing Yeah, if this story is about she gets taken in because Hollywood is so – it'll chew you up and spit you out. It doesn't care. Like – Roman outed her as a mutant, which got him in far too deep to something important.
01:50:46
Speaker
Like she recognized, okay, this could be important. Maybe he did something good for me. And then he gets so intimidated because he's like, I don't, I didn't want to get this deep into the politics and social aspects of this. Like, man, this sucks. And I'm, I'm too shallow and I'm too stupid for all this. So fuck it. I'm gone.
01:51:05
Speaker
showing like even when they stumble into something important Hollywood is too vapid to really pursue it and Allison is too deep of a person to fit in here this isn't where she belongs but that at the end they're still in love with each other and Roman is a good guy. It's like, well then none of this makes sense. Then your whole story is broken. listen what There's no lesson. There's no moral.
01:51:38
Speaker
This the whole story is pointless. She ends up back where she started. She learns nothing. the character None of the other characters in the story learn anything. Nothing. This whole... You can burn this.
01:51:53
Speaker
yeah is Right. She's back at believing in herself, which is where we found her at the very beginning. Right. The only difference now is that the world knows she's a mutant. She's – yeah. The only difference. And she's she's more famous than she was at the start of the graphic novel but not in the main comic where the graphic novel is supposed to be picking up.
01:52:14
Speaker
And within three years, they're going to undo that too. So like this is all ridiculous. I will give this a bit of a generous read because i' I'll say –
01:52:28
Speaker
Knowing that this was Jim stupid written, you go in expecting problematic stuff, right? He doesn't like women. He doesn't like gay people. He doesn't like a host of other things that are going to make. doesn't understand racism.
01:52:44
Speaker
But the story itself. Is about is. I think gives us a lot of good examples of the.
01:52:57
Speaker
but seedy underbelly of becoming famous of becoming a celebrity and it is what shakes Allie's confidence and now she's a flawed hero she that this is like supposed to be a story about somebody getting fully swept up in fame reaching the peak but changing who she is as a person to get there if that's all it was it's like a B minus version of that story you Absolutely. it's but But that is the, like, at the end, she's literally, the last panel is her looking into the camera saying, Alison Blair, you're going to be all right.
01:53:42
Speaker
as she you As she walks away, you perfectly happy. Like, it's just, it's an arc for her where at the end, she gets... why Yeah, just the the sort of personal fulfillment that she's looking for. She realizes her worth again, yeah just like she did at the beginning. And we're about to get into Beauty and the Beast, which I think is Ann Nocenti's direct answer to this graphic novel.
01:54:13
Speaker
i Yeah, I think it's her saying this should have been written by a woman. Here is an actually compelling story about fame.
01:54:23
Speaker
I have some problems with the story we're about to read, but um I think Anosenti understands Dazzler far better. I fucking love this story we're about to read. i am so sorry for, I don't know why. And maybe it's because it's, this is how it was received. But I went into this expecting it to be like infamously bad. I thought it had a reputation of being this like terrible, unreadable comic. I don't know why.
01:54:54
Speaker
ay I fell in love. this is This is brilliant and beautiful, and the fourth issue is completely unnecessary. We should remove it, but the rest of this is just... let's We should get into it. Okay. i The last thing that we should say I want to say about Tazzler, the movie, the graphic novel, the comic, the movie, is it's a good-looking comic book.
01:55:19
Speaker
the The artwork is yeah very pretty. The artwork is very... like I think Frank Springer... For all his horniness. He is the best Dazzler artist.
01:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's good at being horny. Yes, he's the best Dazzler artist by far. He draws pop stuff. He draws sexy stuff. He draws action well. he draws like There's not a lot of action in the graphic novel, but um if we're talking about including his issues of Dazzler, the 20 issues or so before, she's he's fucking good at this combination of like crime, superhero, romance,
01:55:58
Speaker
this horniness and he makes dazzler look like an appealing character who you want to read more about yeah yeah it's all the yeah every panel is very exciting yeah all right matt should tell tell you About Beauty and the Beast?
01:56:21
Speaker
Which issue? Matt, it's a four-issue miniseries. I'm going to take the whole thing. Why don't you sit back once again and try to try to recover, try to get your head i think this is something I think, folks, that we're going to do a little more often, um especially as we get deeper into the...
01:56:43
Speaker
Writing to arcs, writing to the trade, that sort of stuff. um Yeah, yeah. It's just going to become more and more popular. A good example of this is when we get to the Wolverine solo series. Everything is written in like a three to five issue arc. I think just for the sake of time. For the sake of time and for the sake of like, okay, I don't think we need, we don't need to cover every moment.
01:57:07
Speaker
this This is going to be a slow change throughout the throughout this podcast where we're Don't freak out. In certain instances, we shift from issues to arcs or issues. Yeah, yeah. you unless so what you think Unless this episode sucks and then we won't.
01:57:24
Speaker
Yeah. Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Does this episode suck? This is Beauty and the Beast. It was four issues. All of it was written by Anne Nocenti, penciled by Don Perlin, who I think works some real magic of his own here. i I think the art here is crazy. Also worth mentioning, all the covers are done by Bill Sienkiewicz and they are fucking sick. theyre He draws Beast in a very weird way, but like a creepy, interesting way. ah Yeah, yeah. I would love to see him like regularly drawing Beast. I think it would be really bizarre.
01:58:02
Speaker
ah Inks Kim DeMolder, letters Joe Rosen, colors George Roussos and Petra Scotesi. Editor Michael Higgins and editor-in-chief...
01:58:14
Speaker
Blimp. Blimp bloopers. Blimp bloopers. Oh, man. What about that? oh What about a tape of blimp bloopers? Blimp bloopers. It's just a Hindenburg over and over again.
01:58:27
Speaker
Here's a Hindenburg that didn't kill as many people. Here's one that killed more people. It only made the papers.
01:58:35
Speaker
ah This was released between August 28th, 1984 and February 26th, 1985. Cover dates range from December 1984 to June 1985. At a party in Hollywood, Dazzler, still blacklisted because of being out as a mutant, meets Alexander Flynn, the alleged son of Dr. Doom.
01:58:56
Speaker
Do we know that here already? Yeah. ah Yeah, because there is a scene in the very beginning with that it that is just Dr. Doom where, number one, he has a Jarvis. Yeah, he's got his own mostly off-panel butler that gives him updates on the situation. and number two, he's got an art room that has one rule.
01:59:19
Speaker
The only people who can enter the art room are people who appreciate art. And the only person who appreciates art is Dr. Doom. So the only rule is only I can enter the art room. Yeah, yeah. he great i love the idea of his servants being like, Hey, Dr. Doom! And he's like, Don't come in here! You don't appreciate art enough!
01:59:41
Speaker
Oh!
01:59:44
Speaker
I thought, but I thought this was supposed to be a mystery up until... The last issue that Alexander is actually dr Doom's son. Nah, they say it in the very beginning. Okay.
01:59:58
Speaker
Well, I read it. I read it differently. i Alexander Flynn tells Dazzler of an underground theater where she can perform and gets her to sign a contract with a man named Hugo Longride. Hugo Longride. Sounds like a prank phone call name, but it's not.
02:00:19
Speaker
It's not. Then... The two go on a whirlwind tour of Hollywood parties, landing in the tabloids for their wild behavior. Also, Dazzler's powers seem to be slightly out of control after Flynn gives her some kind of drink.
02:00:34
Speaker
Okay. Huh. Meanwhile, the Beast is in Hollywood on vacation. Oh, Beast is here he he He arrives in Hollywood via the Hollywood sign. So what, he like, he climbed the mountains? Climbed through the mountains to get here. He's like, ah, Hollywood, I'm finally here. Like, you're on top of the Hollywood sign.
02:01:02
Speaker
He's also, his outfit for this entire series is just a pair of blue underwear without any other markings on it. And... You know when you see somebody in public and they're wearing like pants that are the same color as their skin and it makes you do a double take? yeah yeah I'm doing that this entire comic. I'm like, oh he's nude because we have to mention it.
02:01:27
Speaker
so He's not. He's never actually nude in the comic here. As he gets to L.A., he's like... And this is my problem with Anna Senti's writing. is she just she just She has, in thought balloons and dialogue, she just has characters ramble, and it it seems to be based on her own stream of consciousness. so So characters will completely contradict each other within the same page. So like he gets there and he's like, hey, maybe I should try my chance in Hollywood. And he's like, if... if if ah
02:01:58
Speaker
If every football player or ah or astronaut with a personality can make it, so could I. But I guess people don't really like mutants. I guess ah ah after Dazzler's movie, it seems like people don't like mutants, and I'm a mutant. So I guess people wouldn't really like to see me. I guess... ah No one cares about me and I wouldn't stand a chance here. And there's no reason for me to be in Hollywood. It's like, what the fuck did I just read? what yeah sort of whirlwind did I just experience? Like, i think...
02:02:31
Speaker
i Okay, you're right. And she goes she goes pound for pound with Claremont on like po overly poetic worthiness. Sure. In all her narration. I think what she nails, though, is going on these rants in those characters' voices. like Yes, it's it's it every line sounds like Hank McCoy. but Like Hank McCoy having a stream of consciousness. Having Anne Nocenti's stream of consciousness. Okay. But he goes from like, man, I could be the next big Hollywood star to why does everyone hate me? I hate the world for this.
02:03:04
Speaker
And it's like, what? No one said anything to you You're constantly just kind of having to like buy the premises of what characters are saying because they they react to things that aren't happening in the panels. He'll be like,
02:03:18
Speaker
he'll he'll He'll talk about how everybody is treating him badly because he's a mutant. But we've seen every moment that since he arrived in Hollywood, and that didn't happen. Yeah, he walks around completely blue.
02:03:31
Speaker
and and and every And pretty much, there's one point where somebody people are like, oh, wow, there's ah there's a blue man here. And they they even do that kind of like after he's like...
02:03:47
Speaker
I don't know. It's, it's weird. He, yeah, there's no, there's no strong reaction like there was to Dazzler glowing on LAX. I think that's, that's in no sense. He's sort of better understanding of where Claremont's going with things though. Right. Cause she's editing them right now. She knows that it's, there is more of a subtle buildup of this anti-mutant sentiment than ay Jim stupid who,
02:04:16
Speaker
I think literally does not know the word subtlety. I've never seen him write it in one of his comics. um He's on Hollywood Boulevard and he's looking at the all the feet.
02:04:30
Speaker
He's just at the Chinese theater. He's just spending all of his time in front of the Chinese theater. But yeah, go. Sorry. He's looking at all the the hands and feet footprints and he's like. He's like, half these people aren't even famous anymore. He's looking at Boris Karloff and Shirley Temple, who are still famous in 2026. And some so there's a there's a background character who says, who calls another character Bronk.
02:04:59
Speaker
Bronk. Bronk.
02:05:02
Speaker
Is he... is that Step on it, Bronk. The last, is that, is that supposed to be a celebrity? I don't know. She says, step on it, Bronk.
02:05:13
Speaker
Bronk. Bronk. Now, I did look it up and there was a TV series starring Carol O'Connor called Bronk, where he was a detective called Alex Bronkov.
02:05:26
Speaker
So maybe you're referencing reading the onomatopoeia in the panel. Maybe she's saying step on it and then goes. And then somebody's honking the horn.
02:05:37
Speaker
Okay. We can do an hour on Beast Touring Hollywood. There's so many things here. But he meets up with his good friend, Wonder Man, who takes him to a party full of mutants where he sees a horseman named Rocker talking to Dazzler.
02:05:54
Speaker
I could not get his name. I didn't realize they named him right here. they name him They name him a couple times. Well, he's got a a real name, but is like his yeah yeah name is Rocker. um And it this is a crazy panel because he's talking to Wonder Man. Again, this is one of these...
02:06:12
Speaker
complete about faces where he's like man nobody here seems to be afraid of me i guess i guess they don't really care that much about people who are mutants i guess they see their own share of weird freaks here like that fucking horse guy with his fucking dumb horse face and why your hands off her and why is he talking to dazzler get your hands on keep your damn hands off and she's just like He's at a distance from her. They're just talking while she's having a drink. Like nothing.
02:06:41
Speaker
He's not doing anything wrong. And Beast is like, I'll fucking fight you. i think you're not wrong. He he is like, look at this horse freak. i don't like this guy.
02:06:53
Speaker
But.
02:06:56
Speaker
I think the implication here is that she keeps saying, or he keeps calling her like sugar and baby. He's, it seems like he's genuinely being helpful, but also knowing but like this is why Again, this is no senties direct answer to the graphic novel, knowing what she just went through with all these creepy dudes. Like this is her saying, look, someone's being creepy towards her again. And she's learned a thing or two, I guess. But she is not in any way.
02:07:31
Speaker
upset. I read her as a little uncomfortable. All she's doing is asking him questions. She's like, oh, everyone here's a mutant? Wow, what kind of shows do they have here?
02:07:42
Speaker
And those are the only things she says before... and Beast grabs him by the fucking collar and is like, I'll beat your ass. Like, it's so fucking weird. Again, it's just like she assumes we're reading things that she didn't write. Like, she assumes that everybody knows something in her head that she didn't actually put on the page.
02:08:06
Speaker
I think it's weird. It's weird. ah Strange, for sure. Which is different than subtext. It's it's like missing text. ze Yeah, yeah. ah okay So he tries to start a fight, but Hugo Longride intervenes. Remember him?
02:08:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Dazzler tells him off, but Beast is still suspicious of the whole thing. There's a moment where Hugo kind of gathers everyone around, and then the horseman comes up and shakes his hand and clearly passes some cash over.
02:08:39
Speaker
He's like, did you do that thing for me? Did you get that thing done? And the the horse guy's like, yeah, boss, and hands him a wad of cash. There's an Avenger here. whi two Two Avengers! Two Avengers! I don't know what kind of criminal activity you're up to, but we give it five minutes. ah As Dazzler walks away with Hugo Longride, she starts glowing out of control and panics.
02:09:07
Speaker
She runs away into the night, eventually passing out on the beach. Some folks find her and take her away to a room at the Heartbreak Hotel. i wonder if there's some sort of metaphor there. This is probably much cooler and in the mid-80s. Maybe. Heartbreak Hotel. That sounds badass.
02:09:31
Speaker
When Beast sees a headline that says Dazzler Disappears. Okay. What? She, last night, late last night, she wandered off.
02:09:46
Speaker
And now it is the next morning, and somebody has somehow gotten it all the way into the newspaper on the headline that Dazzler's disappeared.
02:09:57
Speaker
Number one, who who reported on this? How did they get it to publish so quick? but In the paper so quick? Also, fucking, she was glowing...
02:10:11
Speaker
like ah Like a neon sign all night. If anybody was looking for her. How does paparazzi that are plaguing her not not just follow her trail light? Right. The only way this is that it it would end up in the newspaper is if somebody reported her missing to the police, right? And there's a police report out like, Dazzler, like keep an eye out for this missing celebrity.
02:10:35
Speaker
Yeah. But if you were, if anyone was looking for her for any length of time, they would have seen just a glowing woman in the middle of Hollywood. Well, Beast sees the headline. He goes straight to Rocker.
02:10:50
Speaker
The horseman. Yeah. And beats the hell out of him until he calls his boss. Thankfully, Hugo had someone tailing Dazzler. So it's not Hugo that reported it to the police.
02:11:04
Speaker
Right. It's i anyway. And Beast finds out she's at the Heartbreak Hotel. OK, there is there's a cool. So at the same time, she is trying to figure out what's going wrong with her. And there's sort of like cross cutting. Yeah.
02:11:20
Speaker
half page by half page between beast beating up the horseman and doing it in fucking badass fashion. It's very chokes him with a phone, chokes him with a phone cord and threatens to squeeze it tight enough that he'll pop his fucking head off.
02:11:38
Speaker
And then also at the same time, Dazzler's in the hotel battling herself and like being overwhelmed by her powers. It's, uh, it's just a cool effect. It's a cool way to panel it out.
02:11:49
Speaker
ah The horseman also says that his superpower, his mutant power, is he has very strong feet. ah you're Your mutant powers, you're a horseman. That just comes along with it. like You're kind of horse. You're you're um yeah kind of a horse. We should describe this guy, by the way. He is a horseman. He is.
02:12:13
Speaker
He has a horse's mouth, but without like the snout that horses have. Like he has a human head with a horse's mouth on it. eye Mohawk. Got a Mohawk, like a mane like Mohawk. The rest of them is covered in very, very short brown fur.
02:12:28
Speaker
i And he's got Arms with two hands at the end of them, but legs with two hooves at the end of them And he's got horseshoes on his, like he must have. Horseshoes on the hooves. He nailed them to his own hooves.
02:12:41
Speaker
This guy's wild. And then the person that's been, the person that's tracking them, the person that record that reports back, as far as I can tell, is Abraham Lincoln. Isn't that right?
02:12:54
Speaker
yeah Big stone plate pat and a chinstrap beard and yeah can't see anything else about him. He's like Abe Lincoln. We don't ever meet that character.
02:13:05
Speaker
When Hank gets to the Heartbreak Hotel, Dazzler's delirious and out of control, but he stays by her side, nursing her back to health. Apparently, Heartbreak Hotel is a haven for misfit mutants in Hollywood, including a boy named Poltergeist whose latent telekinetic abilities shake stuff around the more emotional he gets.
02:13:28
Speaker
Or he shares an identity with an actual poltergeist. Yeah. One of those two. Yeah. there's There's a lot of like, am I the poltergeist or do I... It's such... Is there a poltergeist inside me or... and so i guess... You just have telekinesis, man.
02:13:42
Speaker
I guess he's got an arc in Spider-Woman. Yes. But it's such a it's such an interesting way. Like even just the way it's presented here. It's such a... interesting way to put depth into this character just to be like yeah clearly he's telekinetic and it's out of control but he looks at it as um as he thinks it's a ghost like yeah poltergeist was also pretty popular at the time so that's why they had to name a character that but i i think it's interesting that
02:14:15
Speaker
So Poltergeist was in, i think, two Spider-Man, Spider-Woman issues, and he was in one ah Avengers issue.
02:14:26
Speaker
Okay. And then he was in this miniseries, and then he never appears in a Marvel comic again, except for is like in the background of shit. Yeah, yeah. When they're putting together the initiative, it's like, um well, in California, there's Poltergeist and Link.
02:14:42
Speaker
And unlike a link in like all the images of like what mutants lost their powers on M-Day, you get like an image of poltergeist in the background and it's like unclear if he lost his powers or not.
02:14:55
Speaker
That's a shame. Is this was this a guy who lost his powers or is this a guy who they're saying still has power? Like you see little images of him, like references to him here and there, but like you never meet him again. Yeah.
02:15:07
Speaker
um Which is a shame because I think this Heartbreak Hotel lineup is so fucking cool. i want to see what they do. Just this group of like, it's this one older woman who says she's a mutant, but she just doesn't use her powers anymore. She won't use them anymore. What her mutant power is. And then a bunch of kids who like... of varying ages who clearly they're they have lesser powers there's one whose ability is just to like change the colors of things
02:15:39
Speaker
It would have been a great miniseries. Yeah, I would love to see what these guys get up to. It's just like a little little mutant club of misfits. The one that can change things change colors of things says she flunked out of the Academy in Westchester. Yes! How interesting is that? That adds so much depth to like all we've ever seen is the like the core members. There are other people at this academy. Apparently, apparently, according to this. Yeah. Apparently there are some other people who have appeared and like passed through.
02:16:12
Speaker
Incredible stuff. And he Hank McCoy its is sees she's complaining about her power. She's like, yeah, it doesn't fucking do anything. needs would I be? And he's like, you're an artist. I wish I could do the things with color that you do. But like, I can barely pick up a paintbrush. And he's thinking in his head, I guess ah fortune will favor some of us and not others. But he's saying out loud like that's so cool. He's being a very encouraging teacher. Like he's that mentality pops out immediately. Poltergeist and Dazzler relate over having uncontrollable mutant powers.
02:16:51
Speaker
Over the course of a few days, Beast and Dazzler get closer until eventually they kiss and start dating. This is and i you and I, think, have different takes on the quality of the series, but yeah I thought this is where being able to write in their voices so effectively really made this work. Like, this is a believable relationship between the two of them. She's keeping their conversations interesting, but still focused around the stuff they care about.
02:17:21
Speaker
I don't disagree with that. I think, I think it moves a little fast, but they imply that there's a lot of, like, she's good at it where she's good at implying that stuff happens between the panels and where it fails is where stuff can't possibly have happened between the panels. Like, are sure where it succeeds is when it's over a series of days and it's like, okay, clearly they've gotten closer and they're, um they're implying that they spent more time together than this. And, um,
02:17:52
Speaker
it's not It's not perfect, but I like it. I like this romance. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If she wasn't such a pervert freak. You know he's got blue fur on him?
02:18:05
Speaker
I'm kidding. heard that. ah This whirlwind romance is interrupted when Alexander Flynn and a big dogman show up to remind Dazzler that she's still under contract to perform at Long Rides Theater.
02:18:21
Speaker
dogman? Is he just collecting animen?
02:18:25
Speaker
ah The dog man has his own... This is another thing I guess Anosenti does is like, okay, even though you're a horse man, you have to have a special power at its feet. Even though you're a dog man, you have to have a special power, and it's that you and so your two dog friends can...
02:18:41
Speaker
howl in a way that drives people insane yeah he's got two dogs that he has to bring around so that they can howl together he's like maggot like they walk into the they walk into the the thing and there's two dogs following him but when he leaves he's carrying the two dogs dogs with me all the time or i die i When she agrees to go to honor her contract, it turns out this theater is actually gladiatorial combat arena. What? Okay, pause.
02:19:17
Speaker
Up to this point, everybody knows that this underground theater has a bad reputation. As far as anybody knew, it was just a reputation for being really weird experimental underground theater.
02:19:31
Speaker
Now it's revealed that they're actually like in a fighting pit. Yeah.
02:19:40
Speaker
Dazzler doesn't find out until she goes to sing and the crowd starts booing. what and then a big skull unicorn man charges in to attack her. See, I think this is a rhino man.
02:19:52
Speaker
But he's got a skull face. He does have a skull face. Imagine if Dazzler figured out, because the booze would provide just as much of a power source to her as the applause right law would,
02:20:08
Speaker
Imagine if she realized that here and was like, I'm to become an edgy comedian. Why did they this to her? why did they do this to her Why were they like, yeah, go out there and sing. This is a singing arena. Go out there and sing.
02:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, why'd they trick her into this? no why they Why'd they trick her into singing? Like, go out there and sing. It's She wouldn't have gone out there...
02:20:40
Speaker
If they told her that she had to go out and fight. And then they just had somebody attack her. Yeah. So she has to fight. And then she gets drunk off the roar of the crowd. She literally feeds off the audience.
02:20:53
Speaker
Well, hold on. Because she goes out there. She sings. She runs off stage. And they're like, oh yeah, it's because it's a fight. Again, some some more Ann Nusenti just like flipping things in a weird way, like where everything feels unnatural. She goes out there, sings, everyone boos her. She runs off stage.
02:21:15
Speaker
She's like, they hate me. They don't want me to sing. And he's like, yeah, because they want you to fight. Duh. And she's like, what? I don't want to fight. And they're like, why? It's just a theater. There's not a real fight.
02:21:26
Speaker
Go out there and fight. ah it's it's It's normal. It's normal for people to want to see people fight. And she's like, okay, I guess I'll go out and fight. And then they send the rhino skull man after her. Like, why have the first beat if you don't have the... Why have the first beat and the second beat? Like, the second beat makes the first beat
02:21:47
Speaker
I don't know. It kind of, I think it explains like these, these would be her natural reaction reactions. The first thing she would is run off, but then she's, she's intoxicated by the attention of the crowd, which is, i think the point of this entire series is like, she keeps making choices, being tempted by fame after her fall from grace.
02:22:10
Speaker
Also, ah Alexander Flynn, apparently, when he talks, it convinces people somehow. And we'll learn more about that later, but we keep seeing that. He's a very persuasive speaker is what we're finding out.
02:22:25
Speaker
Every time somebody he talks to somebody, they agree with what he says. um but he would she said Which means she would have done it anyway. Anyway, also, there's a very funny moment where ah when she's singing, they're like, shut up! And she's like, he's she's like,
02:22:43
Speaker
i've I've never been told to shut up before. ah All right. I think that's believable as a person on stage. It would be yeah like yeah in your life. No, I'm sure she's been told to shut up. But as a performer, that's just a fucking funny line.
02:23:04
Speaker
But but I've never been told shut up. i So after all this, the fight turns into a war with all of the performers.
02:23:16
Speaker
And someone dies. The horned skull face man kills somebody. Dazzler's distraught, but the performers and Flynn all band together to try to convince her that this place isn't as bad as it seems.
02:23:28
Speaker
okay Plus, he just broke the rules. We don't we we all love fighting. It's just the horn man broke the rules. And don't worry, we'll punish him. And plus... We all love each other and it's theater and everything's fine.
02:23:42
Speaker
It's very ah improv community. This is how improv communities turn toxic. ah ah Plus, speaking of improv communities turning toxic, Rocker the Horseman drugs her and her powers start going nuts again. It's okay if he drugged you. He was just trying to get your performance to be better. Is the drugging out right here are we he's just... Okay. I watched him dump pills into a shot glass that he's also filling with alcohol. Okay. So maybe the subtlety that I was reading into it was really me just not picking up some visual clues.
02:24:21
Speaker
ah Beast shows up to take her out of there. He attended the fight and saw what happened. ah But she chooses to stay and asks him to stay with her.
02:24:32
Speaker
He, of course, doesn't and goes back to the Heartbreak Hotel. all alone He's crying on the steps of the Heartbreak Hotel. He It's sad. Don't laugh at him. um One thing that's a bit of subtext here that you forgot to include in your recaps.
02:24:51
Speaker
i' always I'm such a fucking idiot. god damn it. Is that her path like one of the one of the turning points here is she's like, I don't but I, you know, but like she's repeating all the stuff that the the people told her. But what really changes her mind and she's like, I'm not going to go with you is her hand starts glowing against her will because of the drugs.
02:25:15
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah. she She doesn't know she's being drugged. She just thinks she's losing control of her powers. has the least dangerous power to do this story with. ah Yeah, just lights. It's just light.
02:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, she's not going to hurt anyone. Give out sunglasses. ah But it is it really is like... The you can see the corruption in her. I, i again, ah really enjoy this moment where she's like, it's not her turning nasty or mean. It's just her being like, I'm going to stay. This is the best opportunity for me. And even offering for him to join, too. it was It's heartbreaking.
02:25:58
Speaker
The next issue That was the end of one issue, by the way. Okay. The next issue opens with Hank and Allison making out on the beach. Yeah, it felt important to to explain that this is an issue break here because, like, it completely changed it. Like, what? why you did That last issue ended with you guys tearfully saying goodbye to each other.
02:26:21
Speaker
Despite their disagreements, they can't stay away from each other. But as they walk along through the park, people leave their blanket. They leave their beach blanket. It gets swept away in the fucking litterers.
02:26:34
Speaker
They just leave their beach blanket on the beach and then the tide comes in and sweeps it away. Come on. That goes into the ocean. Come on. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. But as they walk along through the park, people are disgusted and call them names and stuff. And Dazzler decides to go back to the theater again.
02:26:54
Speaker
And no senti understanding the underlying metaphor here and having people be like, like having the, they're holding hands in public and that's, what's disgusting people. And, uh, with the, there's a concerned parent there going like, right. My child can't see something like this. Like this is what it was like to be gay in the eighties.
02:27:18
Speaker
I want to read some of these. These are some good insults. Hey guys, look, it's the Sizzler. She's taking Rin Tin Tin for a walk. Hey babe, at least put it on a leash. And then he says, uh, uh, why should we worry about these two? One is an overgrown reject from the dog, from a dog food commercial. And the other's a light bulb.
02:27:42
Speaker
is calls her, calls her the Sizzler. It calls her a light bulb. This sizzler is pretty good.
02:27:54
Speaker
I feel guilty laughing at this. said Hey, sometimes bad people are funny. remember later Remember when ah Donald Trump said it ah that when he was debating um Ted Cruz, it looked like he fell in a pool because he was sweating so much. Sometimes bad people are funny and it's unfortunate. Yeah. Zingers are not the mark of are not necessarily the mark of a good person.
02:28:23
Speaker
At the theater, they keep trying to convince Allison that the murder at that show was an accident and that it's all just pretend. Dazzler feels accepted there and makes friends with the horseman and a green lady named Ivich.
02:28:37
Speaker
Maybe be a lizard lady? i I had trouble telling what animal this is supposed be. was just a big green lady. yeah We also see that there's a power struggle happening between Alexander Flynn and Hugo Longride.
02:28:51
Speaker
At the Heartbreak Hotel, the gang convinced Beast to force Dazzler to leave the arena. He shows up at her dressing room where she's dressed like a Native American stereotype. my god. And repeating to him all the talking points that the rest of the gladiator people have been telling her.
02:29:07
Speaker
Beast gets angry, not because of the racism, but because of the things she's saying. And draws all over her face with lipstick. He fucking attacks her with lipstick.
02:29:18
Speaker
He just like... does. does. she's like She's like, please stay and starts kissing him. And he shoves her away but holds on to her collar and starts ah yeah stabbing her face with a so thing of lipstick. he's And he's trying to mock her costume and be like, here, why don't you put on some war paint? but You disgust me, he says. Six long lines across her face. This must have taken a while.
02:29:41
Speaker
That is... that is cancelable like that is yeah that is that is Hank you can't do that to you disgusting yeah that isn't that's a fucking that's awful Also, her costume is extremely offensive. It's very offensive. It's so bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's got a tomahawk on her ankle. Yeah, on her hip. it's It's one of those, like, this is the race we're still allowed to make fun of moments. Yeah, big feather headdress, all of that. ah
02:30:14
Speaker
Beast goes sneaking around to find out what they're really up to at this theater, and he finds a chemistry lab, including a beaker labeled Dazzler. After some quick micro microscop microscopy, microscopy microscoy after some quick ah microscopey he figures out that they've been intentionally making her powers go out of control just before he gets hit on the head.
02:30:41
Speaker
Just before he gets hit on the head and injected with something himself. The next we see him, Dazzler is dressed up like a princess on a fairy tale set and Beast is raging out of control. The two fight on stage and almost kill each other until they remember they're in love.
02:31:00
Speaker
Hugo tries to force her to kill him, but she refuses. So all the theater warriors attack her until Flynn shows up and tells them to stop. He then has the theater warriors attack and kill Hugo and the crowd goes wild.
02:31:14
Speaker
Yeah. Also, there keep being these cutaways to Dr. Doom learning what his alleged son to Alexander Flynn is up to in Hollywood. And he keeps getting mad about it because he doesn't believe that's really his son.
02:31:27
Speaker
But eventually the reports cut off. So Doom's like, okay, I've got to go stop him. Turns out Hugo Longride was a robot the whole time informing on Flynn for Doom. What the fuck? So, okay. So he puts a robot in Alexander Flynn's theater troupe to report to his Jarvis.
02:31:52
Speaker
On what Alexander Flynn's up to. And every time his Jarvis comes up to him and is like, hey, I got to tell you what what what your son's doing. He's like, how dare you talk to me about that, man? i don't want to hear about this shit. don't want hear about him. He's a pretender to the throne. And like hits him and stuff. Like, again, his servants have to be like, uh, you didn't.
02:32:15
Speaker
Dr. Doom, I have that report you asked for. but like so like, like this is something that like an insane Dr. Doom would do. But again, to me, I think this is innocent. He not really.
02:32:29
Speaker
There's a bit of you. cat You're not saying there's six levels of. Right. ah social miscommunication here. dude That's all planned out by Dune. It's actually, it's actually an essentially kind of be yeah at it. this Fine.
02:32:48
Speaker
Beast and Dazzler are chained up in the basement of the theater, hanging upside down, but facing each other. So they can't kiss. They can kiss. They do. They can end do kiss. Mm-hmm.
02:32:59
Speaker
Turns out Flynn was raising an army here in this theater to claim the Latverian throne from doom who refuses to acknowledge his claim to it. He's also a mutant with charisma powers. Uh, he says, okay. He says it's a sly magnetic gypsy blood.
02:33:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's, uh, that's unfortunate. But he is wearing the most ridiculous clothes.
02:33:29
Speaker
He's got a modified Doctor Doom costume on. Imagine dr Doom's mask didn't cover... Like the bottom half of his face and instead was shaped like Galactus's sort of helmet crown. It's like a bucket. It's like a Doctor Doom themed bucket that he puts on his head. On top of his head. Yeah. and looks absurd. You look so bad, dude. His Doom outfit looks like um if Doctor Doom was going to the Renaissance Fair. and a Yes.
02:34:07
Speaker
i Back at the Heartbreak Hotel, Poltergeist builds up the courage to face his emotions and go save Dazzler. And the resident Theater Del Arte nerd, Link, decides to join him. Okay, let's talk about Link for a second.
02:34:24
Speaker
Creep. He's like a mime clown. thing He's not a mime because he talks, but he's got mime paint on and he puts like... you
02:34:36
Speaker
he's It's like an artsy clown. Yes. Yeah. Like the the the stuffy clowns, not like circus clowns, but like the French art of clowning. i And you we don't really know what his power is, but he puts things z back to normal when using like what seems like telekinesis when...
02:35:02
Speaker
poltergeist messes them up. I thought, but then when we, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah When we first meet him, he's just holding up a bunch of masks to do like a little clowning bit to be like, oh, and this makes me sad and this makes me happy. I thought his power was changing those masks. Yeah.
02:35:21
Speaker
Like he could just sort of reshape a mask that he was holding in front of him. No, he had a bucket. Okay, this guy's fucking weird and creepy.
02:35:31
Speaker
Sure. And he just he just walks around. he doesn't So it turns out he doesn't have clown powers. He just walks around looking like a clown all the time. Yeah, and when they go on this mission... then he's telekinetic. When they go on this mission, he flips his clown makeup, so instead of a white face with um black like features, he is jet black with little white is yeah makeup. Yes, you should be clear, this is not blackface. him. Resembles blackface a little bit, but isn't. is Yes, the it is...
02:36:05
Speaker
Jet black, like pitch black. um and ah And yeah, and so like he he kind of has telekinesis, but later he will only use it.
02:36:16
Speaker
He only uses it to fix poltergeist stuff or to choke people to death. He doesn't use it for anything else. Yes. And he's any later he's like, I'll never use my powers again because I i keep killing people. And it's like, you could do other shit than choke them.
02:36:34
Speaker
they They break into the complex and they're like immediately confronted by two big, bulky yeah mutant guards. And he just crushes their heads. He just uses his tele telepathy to like put pressure on their skulls until they fall to the ground. yes This is not what Jean Grey does. There's other things you can do with telekinesis.
02:36:57
Speaker
Uh, Rocker, the horseman who we're calling Max now. Oh, he's gotten first name now. It's Max. Max Rocker. Uh, he decides to turn on Flynn because Flynn is too Hitler-y and tries to get Ivich to join him, but she declines. She likes the Hitler-y-ness. Yeah, because, I mean, he's literally like, great men. I'm going to be one of the great men like Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Doom. Yeah, he does praise Hitler. which and And then Max is like, he's being a little too much like Hitler. And Ivich is like, I don't know, man. ah
02:37:33
Speaker
Nevertheless, Rocker does free Dazzler and Beast who find themselves face to face with Flynn and his entire army. o Their fight is eventually joined by Rocker, Link, and Poltergeist, all while Dr. Doom watches from the eaves of the theater.
02:37:51
Speaker
Flynn grabs Poltergeist and puts a gun to his head, but Link uses his powers of telekinetic choking to stop him But at the last minute, drops Flynn because he doesn't want to kill anyone.
02:38:06
Speaker
He vows never to use his powers again. yeah And I guess he never will. We don't we don't yeah let see this gang again. Who knows? Yeah, i don't know. With Flynn defeated, Doctor Doom reveals himself, taunts Flynn, and then walks off.
02:38:22
Speaker
Free of Flynn's manipulations, the warriors all decide to join Rocker and stop killing each other, and they walk off too. Okay. Max Rocker, horseman.
02:38:32
Speaker
The new leader of this experimental underground theater troupe. Do we ever... I've got to look this up now. Do we ever see Max Rocker again? Hmm. Oh.
02:38:44
Speaker
Is it a spoiler? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh. I... Okay. I thought... The look on your face, dude. I... I thought... There's an interesting thing that's going to happen that I thought was parallel. Parallel.
02:39:02
Speaker
and not a sequel. Oh, wow. And I was going to make fun of the fact that so some of these certain characters ended up in the same scenario a second time.
02:39:17
Speaker
Can't wait. Stay tuned, folks.
02:39:23
Speaker
i Also, they just leave Flynn to his own device. They're like, well, I learned your lesson. You're clearly humiliated. So we're just going to leave you here crying and and that'll probably be good enough.
02:39:37
Speaker
Yeah. Just it it's completely boring. Super villain shit. Back at the heartbreak hotel, beast and dazzler chat about the moral of the story. Yeah. The world may hate mutants now, but one day they'll have to confront the fact that they're not going away and learn to accept them.
02:39:56
Speaker
But in the meantime, there will be violence and oppression. Things will have to get worse before they get better. Beast and Dazzler confront the fact that their romance was just a way of distracting themselves from that truth.
02:40:08
Speaker
No, it wasn't. I know. And... And, sorry, go ahead. They decide that to stop running and face the future, they'll both need to do it alone.
02:40:19
Speaker
Why? The end. There's no reason they need to break up here. The end. Okay, good. Yay. There's no reason they need to break up here, first of all. Second of all, Dazzler's mission, like Beast's mission, maybe has something to do with the acceptance of mutants, right? He was an X-Man,
02:40:41
Speaker
He's not really anymore, but he still believes in in Xavier's dream. Dazzler just wants to be a singer. Her mission is just to be a singer. So like, in what way would she... These don't clash. They're not...
02:40:55
Speaker
Exclusive to each other. So I think your ideas. And I want to hear them more in detail. But I think your ideas about what this says about Dazzler. And what this story is about. Regarding Dazzler. And her personality and the journey. That she's on personally. I yeah those are i think those are interesting. And um salient.
02:41:15
Speaker
But I'm not entirely sure. that in I think Anna Senteeth. Maybe thought she was making some bigger points. That don't really resonate here. And...
02:41:27
Speaker
and So, okay. It feels to me like the rules yeah here were number one, you got to include a supervillain. You can't just have like a dramatic story. There's got to be a recognizable supervillain. So, right. They put in Dr. Doom and his son. His son, Alexander Flynn.
Supervillains and Story Implications
02:41:51
Speaker
Who does he? I'm sure he appeared before this, right? Oh, I have no idea.
02:41:57
Speaker
But it's not necessary. Like, this is a story about Dazzler finding herself. This is a yeah a yeah coming of age story. You don't need Doctor Doom to be involved with that. No, but ah yeah this is Alexander Flynn's first appearance.
02:42:16
Speaker
Whoa.
02:42:19
Speaker
Does he come back? Yeah, indian one like in the xmen in one other story that we're going to read really soon. Oh, fuck yeah. Okay. I do good. I'm so glad when there's consequences to them just leaving somebody on the ground crying. to learn lesson I don't know that that man. All right. We fuck Jesus Christ. I can't wait till get this. It turns out this has a lot of consequences. huh Now I suddenly can't wait until we get to ah a story that I was really not looking forward to.
02:42:54
Speaker
So i I do want to dig little. We keep distracting ourselves. I do want to dig a little more into what this story is about, but I got to point out a couple of things. Number one, do we ever find out who this Abe Lincoln character is?
02:43:09
Speaker
No, of course not. the they Okay. Just so it is Abe Lincoln. It's a Abe Lincoln. I think no other distinguishing qualities. Pat, we are going to get a follow up to this next episode.
02:43:24
Speaker
Okay. I can't believe it. I can't believe, and I can't believe I never made this connection. I'm losing my mind here, dude. Stay tuned, folks. Um, Hank?
02:43:37
Speaker
wears a suit to the gladiator fight because he doesn't know that it's a gladiator fight, but it's sharp. As, as we know, he's a sharp dresser. it Seems like he's got the same rule for his pants as he does for his superhero undies, which is they should match the color. of for So it looks like he's wearing the top of a suit and no pants, no pants.
02:44:00
Speaker
Uh, and then finally you have to comment on this. Doom calls his son, the son of a sniveling cur. What does that say ah Yeah.
Themes of Fame and Identity
02:44:15
Speaker
um Matt, i I have to say I thought this ruled. I thought this was a great representation of falling from grace as a celebrity, right? You you kind of... Between both stories, you kind of have to take the mutant metaphor out of it, except for...
02:44:36
Speaker
The few times that it becomes pertinent to the plot. Okay. i First story, which or the the graphic novel ends with her being back at square one. And I think Anne Nocenti said...
02:44:49
Speaker
No, she's not starting back over. Like there have to be consequences to her making all these terrible decisions in the graphic novel where she just, she gets swept up by the fame. She falls in with the wrong people. She gets exploited for it and has to, to find herself. So we get, we even get like a speed run of the graphic novel in the first issue here where she's in a war wind romance. She's famous again.
02:45:17
Speaker
And then she starts to lose control and like it mirrors celebrities that get overwhelmed by their fame. They fall into ego and substances and just start to lose control of themselves. And she has those moments here instead of her, like looking in the mirror and being like, I'm fat. She's instead completely losing her, self she doesn't understand her identity she can't control her powers she doesn't know where she's where she belongs and as a result she continues to make these terrible decisions she's like yeah this theater troupe is pretty toxic but this is my key to getting back on top to getting that high that i had in the middle of the graphic novel and so
02:46:09
Speaker
She doesn't come to any sort of realization around that until she hits rock bottom, still returns to the situation that's bringing her to rock bottom, and then has her sort of, ah what do they call it, moment of clarity when she's finally, when she finally sees what a fucked up operation this is. Like, I think it's a really good representation for someone shooting to the top too fast and losing it all and like how they have to dig their way out of that.
02:46:46
Speaker
Okay, i can see I can see all of that, and I can see how this makes a lot of sense. as This is a person who really understands Dazzler, right? And I can see how this is a person who really had problems with the um Dazzler graphic novel, but there's there's just so much... mis Okay, besides the Nocenti spirals, the Nocenti dialogue spirals, and the Nocenti um ah conceptual gaps, right? like These are the things that really bug me about all Nocenti books that I've ever read yeah yeah these gaps in these spirals um besides those so if we're if we're just saying like oh that's just a quirk you have to deal with with Anusenti let's just look at it yeah let's look at it deeper um and let's try to just like maybe she's not the best dialogue writer or the best maybe she's not the best moment to moment writer but she's good at following themes and crafting a story yeah um
02:47:42
Speaker
There's things that are missing here. Like, this makes a lot of sense for Beast, right? Beast walking away from the Defenders and the Avengers. And, like, he's he's in a weird place right now. He hasn't been with the X-Men for a while. So he's kind of been ignoring his his responsibilities to mutant kind. And so for Beast... And Beast hates himself because he looks like a beast.
02:48:05
Speaker
So... For Beast, I think the story makes a lot of sense. This is how he finds ah appreciation of himself again. This is how he um finds... um This is how he gets over his weird obsession with Dazzler. And this is... He's saving someone to save himself.
02:48:26
Speaker
Right. And this is how he finds his... And finds his way back to x Xavier's dream. But... He doesn't join the X-Men again for another, what, 10 years?
02:48:38
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, I guess X-Factor's coming up, so he will get back to that. He'll be back to the X-verse. So maybe Anusenti knew that was going to happen as the X-editor.
02:48:51
Speaker
Zeditor. The Zeditor. So, okay, so works for Beast. For Dazzler, she's not she doesn't want to be a superhero. She's not a superhero. She doesn't want to fight for mutant kind. She's turned that down several times. So...
02:49:06
Speaker
What this is missing then is anything about music whatsoever. yeah Yes. So she was it the. this It seems like she is pivoted to acting through this ah through this, but and only acting it where she also gets the opportunity to sing.
02:49:29
Speaker
But so I think even then, if you get if you're like, OK, so it's just this isn't about her singing. Singing's not her passion anymore. um Just perform is her passion. There's nothing towards there's nothing towards the end of this that in any way suggests that.
02:49:49
Speaker
That there is a redeeming quality to performing for her. Right? There's nothing towards the end here. there's no There's no part of this resolution that in any way legitimizes her desire for acting. It is...
02:50:07
Speaker
She has the same ending as Beast, which is we both have to go forward and champion the rights of mutant kind. That's not what she's going to do. She's just going to go back to singing. Honestly, i wish more canceled celebrities took that path. You know what? I'm going to sit back for a little bit and maybe do some good in the world in general. I wish she did. I wish that's what would happen to Dazzler, but she doesn't. She just goes back to singing. So, like, I think it could have either used this is the turn where Dazzler becomes a superhero.
02:50:42
Speaker
Which maybe, Anosenti, maybe to take to to give the most generous read possible. She knew that Dazzler was going to join the X-Men in a couple of years. And this just came out a little too soon.
02:50:55
Speaker
Right? and just like she knew Beast was going to join X Factor and this came out a little too soon. Sure. If we just say maybe that was what was going on here. She was trying to set them both up for those things. Then cool. But I don't think that... That's a very generous read because I don't i think this is a little too soon for her to have known those things.
02:51:18
Speaker
Well, so what I think is...
02:51:24
Speaker
Is that, yes, Ann Nocenti knows that at some point this has to be a hero. And the choices that she makes in the graphic novel are not the choices a hero would make. All the way up to the end when she's happy and supposedly back to
Redemption and Heroism
02:51:41
Speaker
square one. She was just purely obsessed with fame. She didn't learn any lesson about that.
02:51:46
Speaker
Because the yeah the problem there was anti-mutant sentiment. i i think Ann Nocenti said like, hey, how do we tell the same story but make it so that it's actually a redemption arc instead of just okay going back to normal? And that's where that all that like addiction to performance and willingness to keep returning to where a a toxic situation comes from. Until she figures out that she does it and then she's ready to be a hero.
02:52:15
Speaker
And I guess what I'm saying is that would work for me if this was the this was the moment that Dazzler pivoted to being a hero or if there was anything in this story that showed the redemptive power of performance.
02:52:34
Speaker
ah yeah Okay. Yeah, yeah. I can... but give you I think she leaves Dazzler in a good place to continue on from there. And so, yeah, I do see what you're saying. I don't think it's Andocenti's fault, but it would have made sense for her next step in comics to be her ah dealing with the the fallout from all this. ah Well, thankfully, um when Dazzler goes back to her own series, she's being written by one James Shooter.
02:53:05
Speaker
Oh my god. So I'm sure he follows up on this. Takeover titles at this point. Let me see. I'm going to flip through. I'm not going talk about what happens to her after this um because it gets a little weird. So yeah, after after and i I had trouble following kind of like the end of Dazzler's series. I think she worked she goes for another nine issues ten nine or ten issues. But she goes it goes Jim Shooter writes an issue. Linda Grant writes an issue. Bob Dana Talley
02:53:39
Speaker
writes an issue who I don't even know who that is. Nope.
02:53:47
Speaker
Archie Goodwin. oh I earlier I said Peter David. It's Archie Goodwin who writes her final arc and her final arc is um
02:54:01
Speaker
who at this time early early Peter David And this era of Archie Goodwin, not all that different. We'll see that when we read Wolverine. But um
02:54:16
Speaker
yeah, it's largely about her teaming up with a bounty hunter and a wolf who eats cigars. Yeah. eats cigars. Yeah. um I'll bet that gives causes some problems. And then gets interrupted by a, ah by Secret Wars 2. So, a very inauspicious end to the Dazzler series.
02:54:41
Speaker
Thankfully, where she lands is X-Men with Chris Claremont, so we'll get some cool Dazzler We'll get some good stuff out of her. Yeah, yeah. dude She doesn't have the strongest arc when she's in the X-Men, but at least she's at least she's being taken care of.
02:54:56
Speaker
So that's Dazzler. He's got an eye out, that could buy out. If you had time machine that you would like to try out. can be. Ew!
02:55:07
Speaker
Folks, Pat Steals and Deals, there was exactly one advertisement in Dazzler number one that I was able to pull for our episode today.
Nostalgia and Humorous Ads
02:55:16
Speaker
So what we're going to is check back in. It's been a little while on the Hostess Fruit Pie comics.
02:55:23
Speaker
That's been a while. Quick one-page comics i plugged into Marvel. And I think they did them with DC as well, but between, what was it like 1975 and...
02:55:37
Speaker
80 something. have no idea. Yeah. This one, Matt stars daredevil. It's daredevil versus Johnny punk. ah Okay.
02:55:49
Speaker
Johnny punk is a green Mohawk man who is planning to raise the desk. He's backstage at a punk rock show or maybe glam rock show based on their outfits. But, i he plans to raise the decibels to mega pitch. Um,
02:56:06
Speaker
The high frequency sound waves will lock the crowd's brains and they'll do whatever he commands. But o Daredevil's super sensitive hearing picked that up from outside the building. He swoops in He gives them fruit pies, which distracts them from turning up the volume. And then he wraps them all up.
02:56:27
Speaker
He leaves him there. him there. He leaves him at the venue just tied up. Tied up and he says, thanks to Hostess, I don't have to listen to this music anymore. And he seems to fly away.
02:56:38
Speaker
<unk> He's swinging, but ay horizontally. So what year was this? Oh, this was the 80s. Okay. This was, yeah, this would have been 1980. Okay. Well, I guess ah Daredevil doesn't have very good taste in music. Yeah.
02:56:56
Speaker
Interesting thing I learned. Well, he's, it's the, it's it's not Johnny Punk's music that he's objecting to. It's the band that's on stage, which again, I think is like a, a glam rock band. Oh yeah. Cause there's a, there's a guy playing a horn and there's a guy playing an acoustic guitar. I can't tell. i can't tell, but they're wearing shitty outfits.
02:57:15
Speaker
And, Johnny Punk hates these guys. Yeah. Okay. Interesting fact. These hostess fruit pie ads take place in. can't believe five, one, nine, one, four.
02:57:29
Speaker
That's the, uh, the universe designation. So apparently this was set in spider in spider verse comics.
02:57:42
Speaker
That it was. Yeah. That that that was the number because the Spider-Verse pulls in every Spider-Man form, including the Hostess Fruit Pie ads. Right. So it was like there is a There's a very specific universe where the Hostess Fruit Pie stuff happens, which.
02:58:06
Speaker
I want to dive into that universe. I want to live in the Hostess Fruit Pie universe. And it's got its own series of um villains. like Sure. I'm pretty sure it's an original. Junjitsu.
02:58:22
Speaker
Simon the Evil Swami. Legal Eagle. Legal Eagle. Larcenous Lil. And ah in this universe, Morlun...
02:58:35
Speaker
The villain Morlin kills kills Spider-Man when he's on a date with ah Mary Jane. Yes. Yeah, that makes that makes sense.
02:58:47
Speaker
um I looked up Johnny Punk just to see if this was someone that existed anywhere else. He is a spirit Halloween costume.
02:58:59
Speaker
prop i'm sorry a halloween prop you can buy and he looks like that it looks like that no no no no it's a little clown man on a screen they just call him johnny punk yeah johnny punk had one appearance um in uh in marvel and it was in this hostess ad marvel hostess ads volume one number 54.
02:59:24
Speaker
give me Give me that graphic novel. I know. I know. The hostess ad is graphic. Oh, my God. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they? Why aren't we writing that? Oh, my God. So the Marvel Wiki has just every. Yes.
02:59:39
Speaker
Ad. Yes, they do. My God. You can look them all up. if And it really is just a superhero, supervillain. They give them a hostess treat.
02:59:51
Speaker
And then arrest them. When was the last time you had a hostess anything? Not that, not that long ago. There's some shops by me that sell like hostess mini donuts and stuff. I prefer tasty cake.
03:00:05
Speaker
I prefer Tasty Cake. Well, Tasty Cake's gotten worse over time. That's true. It's still better than Hostess, but it's only local. Yeah, and I haven't had a Hostess fruit pie since I was like a little kid. Though recently I did have a regular ass fruit pie from a place out near Gettysburg. Like a Hostess fruit pie, but made by a real So it's just not that it's the brand?
03:00:30
Speaker
No. It's off-brand? An off-brand Hostess fruit pie? Yeah, and because of that, I don't want to buy this deal in Steel. Damn it. got nih out of the fire
03:00:52
Speaker
All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Mutant Menace. Pat, how do you feel about Dazzler? I feel good. I feel great about Dazzler. I really enjoyed this. You excited about Dazzler eventually coming and joining our X-Men crew?
03:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think that could be really promising. And honestly, I wasn't before I read through this. Before this, I was like, oh, it's just like a marketing gimmick. But... I'm bought in now. I really wanted to save these until after until right before she joined. But then there's you know there's stuff that ties in, right? ah like
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
03:01:29
Speaker
For example. Apparently.
03:01:30
Speaker
Our very next episode. And everyone keeps referencing the Dazzler movie in all of the other books we're reading. So it's important. um i would like to...
03:01:45
Speaker
direct everyone to our patreon if you like this podcast we do some other silly little pot we do a little podcast called puffy faffin which uh you know every couple weeks or so we release a silly little comedy or just chat um podcast it's it's usually like between 30 seconds and half an hour Somewhere in that room, between 30 seconds and 30 minutes. Yes. um You can join it for any dollar amount. There's no – you could join through a buck if you want. If we could it one cent, we would. The minimum on Patreon is $1 per month.
03:02:24
Speaker
um But we also really appreciate the support. you know this This does cost time and money to make, and your support really helps a whole fucking lot. So thank you so much. The other way that you can support us, perhaps an arguably bigger way to support us, is just by telling people about the show. So you know we are MutantMenacePod on Instagram, MutantMenace on Instagram,
03:02:47
Speaker
YouTube. Just share those, like them. um Yeah, we put out little video clips. We do fun things that people can engage with. If you want to be on Pat's email corner, you can email us mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
03:03:04
Speaker
It's actually just, sorry, just to be clear, mutantmenacepodcast on YouTube. My bad, my bad, my bad. No, no, no. I had to i had to look it up. Huge thanks, as always, to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby and to Krils Wilson for the music.
03:03:24
Speaker
And that leaves us with only one thing left to do, which is to say the catchphrase that we say at the end of every single episode. That's right, Matt. As always, though a gaily garnished gymnasium may lack the seasoned ambience of a Copacabana, It was a wonderland of blossoming dreams and desires to a young heart.
03:03:44
Speaker
And of course, I'm no witch, turkey!