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Dazzler the Disco Queen
50 Plays1 year ago
We take a break from our regularly scheduled Spider-Man coverage to have a much needed respite with Marvel's disco queen- Dazzler!
From a record deal to a planned movie, Dazzler has been anything the marketing department needed her to be.
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Transcript
Introduction and Light-hearted Story
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Eric L. Chase, and joining me on this episode is the wonderful Corinne Levy. Hi! You have a cat. I have a cat. He's with me. This is Oliver. He jumped on a thing, and I told Bex to bring him over here as punishment. I was like, haha, he has to hang out with me now.
Birthday Weekend and Cat Adventures
00:00:39
Speaker
So, uh, before we get too far into this weird episode that we're going to be doing today, I guess I should ask if you have a bright spot. Oh my goodness. I do. Um, I don't, I don't know like where we're at in terms of like recording and posting. Um, it's, it's so, um, pretty close. We're pretty close now. I actually skipped, uh, last week.
00:01:05
Speaker
so that I wasn't going to kill myself getting everything turned out on time. True. True. We do be pushing out.
00:01:15
Speaker
all of the Spidey things. But yeah, I think Vibrate Spot, we spent, I had my birthday this weekend, so we did a lot of celebrating, me and Max, which was a lot of fun. One of my favorite parts was probably we went on a picnic, and there's a state park near us, and we got to bring our cat,
00:01:42
Speaker
So I got to like take him outside with us and he like, we took him on a walk and he was super happy and
Cooking Failures and Grocery Service Woes
00:01:49
Speaker
fun. And like, man, sometimes I just need like a good sandwich and I'm like happy for so long.
00:01:57
Speaker
And that's exactly what I, oh wait, sorry, I'm yawning. And that's exactly what I got. It was great. Yeah, so we did that. I went to a cat cafe. That was a lot of fun. It was a very cat themed weekend, apparently. But it was really cool. All of the cats were up for adoption. I did not get one.
00:02:19
Speaker
because I do not have room in my living space for that. But it was a really cool experience and it was like an acute part of town. What else did I do? I went to a seafood restaurant and I devoured a lobster. Great time. Love a lobster. Cool little fancy treat. We love it.
00:02:42
Speaker
What about you? I think for me, I was listening to you and I forgot that I'm going to have to answer. Yeah, you have to answer. And so I was just like, oh yeah, wait, I don't have anything to say. Did you have any good food recently?
00:03:03
Speaker
I actually did, you know, yesterday I made dinner for Austin and I. I made homemade General So sauce with, I also made some rice with some steamed broccoli and we had steak and it was very good.
00:03:25
Speaker
Okay. I thought you were going to say you essentially made a general soap combo platter to which I would have been so hyped about. I do. I do that sometimes. Um, but like I was lacking a lot of like vegetables that I would like to add. I essentially just had broccoli left. Um, and so I mean, you know, those like mixed veggie bags that you can get in the freezer, there's like carrots and corn stuff.
00:03:53
Speaker
I like that. Austin tends to not like it so much. And I think it's usually the way I cook it, but the way that I steam our vegetables, I don't have like a steamer to use, but I have like a steaming tray for our rice cooker.
00:04:11
Speaker
And it, um, but you can only do small amounts of vegetables. So I was like, I can do broccoli. And that's probably like, it's probably better to do a nice green than it is to like get a bunch of corn and stuff like, and she doesn't really like carrots. Okay. Um, I mean, depending on how it's prepped, you know, uh, so I was like, all right, I'll just go
Origin of Dazzler and Cross-Promotion Plans
00:04:33
Speaker
with the broccoli. And then we had this steak that we had to use, um,
00:04:39
Speaker
So I was like, I'm just gonna mess around. So we had actually, we had signed up for like a box to be delivered of like groceries. Oh, okay. Like a HelloFresh situation or like a? Yeah, it was a different company. And I won't say who it was. But like a meal prep service. Well, it's kind of like meal prep, but they give you like a bunch, it's like a bunch of groceries. It's not just like what you're gonna use for these specific meals.
00:05:07
Speaker
Okay. But they give you recipes for the things that come so that you can mix and match, but you can also use what they sent. You know what I mean? Yeah. We canceled our service because we had two boxes come. First of all, they were very expensive. Both boxes that came had at least one thing damaged in them. Okay.
00:05:36
Speaker
So it's like, well, we're already having to like throw out some stuff and it's expensive. And the stuff that they were sending, I feel like I could easily, for the amount of money I'm spending on this, I could literally go to the store and get so much more.
00:05:57
Speaker
For me, it was more about trying new things. I wanted to get outside of my own box and get new stuff because I'm left to my own devices. It'll be chicken rice and black beans. I'm good. I'm happy. But we got to do some new stuff and sometimes it feels good. Yeah, you got to have variety.
00:06:22
Speaker
And it's nice to have like, um, when I'm trying new things, I make it with like certain portion sizes in mind, you know? Okay. Whereas like, if I'm making stuff that I already know how to make a million times, I'm just like eyeballing everything and it ends up being way more. Yeah. And you're just using what you have to make it. So it's like, you might end up using like, I don't know, like a pound and a half of something, but it's only going to be two of you.
00:06:46
Speaker
Damn, what am I gonna do with this stuff? And I've done that so often, but the steak that we got was pretty good. The rice was, so the recipe that they recommended for the steak was basically to make baked little roasted potatoes to go with the steak, which makes sense. Those things kind of work together. Yeah, steak and taters.
00:07:15
Speaker
But one of the things that was damaged in this box was the bag of potatoes. I was like, well, what am I going to do with all of this? Um, so I made rice. I love rice. Um, I made the broccoli and then I now, when I learned how to make general so sauce, it has become like the number one thing that I want to make.
00:07:40
Speaker
all the time, because it tastes delicious. I love General SoSauce. It's my go-to entree when it comes to getting Chinese takeout. Oh yeah, same. I love that people, when it comes to Chinese food takeout, you always get the same things that you've always gotten. Yes. And it's so reliable. I love it.
00:08:11
Speaker
The realization one day that I could make this stuff, mind blown. The idea that it's not like, oh, you have to go somewhere to get this. No, no, no, I can make it at home. Yeah, you can. It's crazy. And it's just as good. It is good. We make our own fried rice and stuff like that.
00:08:36
Speaker
Content good good stuff. If I'm And I have time I don't always have time but if I'm up and I have time I make like breakfast fried rice a lot. Okay, it's so good and It's like just it and it fills you up and you're ready to go for the day. Yes
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, but I do love those like mixed veggie, the frozen bags. Like I know the ones you're talking about, the blends. I just saute them though. I don't steam them. I just chuck them in the pot. Austin doesn't like them when I do that. Uh, she thinks they don't come out very well. And the last time I cooked them with her sister over, I like cooked them and I put like butter down to kind of cook in that. Cause I was like, Oh, this'll definitely,
00:09:22
Speaker
She still only ate like half of what I get and whatever. Right. But we're actually not here to talk about food, even though you and I both love it. I could talk about it forever, but we're talking about something totally different today. And it's not Spider-Man today. We're taking a freaking break.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, I, I needed a break and like before we started this episode, we were talking about, uh, one of the episodes that I'm going to be, I don't even know if it's going to be the next one, depends on like how fast I edit these episodes. But one of the episodes that I'm doing, uh, with Spider-Man was it's essentially three different stories. That's that is listed as one.
00:10:04
Speaker
And it makes no sense. Yeah, the Crossfire storyline. So there's like one issue that has nothing to do with anything. Then there are two issues that are clearly meant to be their own story.
Dazzler's Redesign and Movie Plans
00:10:16
Speaker
And then there is a like a fourth issue tacked onto that.
00:10:21
Speaker
that is an entirely different story that kind of follows up a little bit off of something that happened. It's dumb. I hate it. It is stupid. The marketing department can go fuck itself because they don't know what they're doing. So we're taking a break from that. Yeah. Otherwise I was going to like blow a gasket. We're going to talk about some fun stuff. So we're going to talk about one of Derek's favorite things. X-Men.
00:10:50
Speaker
While we have spent a great deal of time trudging through Spider-Man's clone saga and wondering how the decision makers at Marvel could possibly make something so short-sighted and unnecessarily convoluted, I came to realize this behavior was not necessarily unique to this era. Allowing marketing to dictate storytelling, chasing trends in pop culture, and creating far too many avenues for one character are just your average Wednesday for the people at Marvel.
00:11:16
Speaker
It's with this thought fresh in my mind that I remembered one of my favorite characters and her unfortunately hilarious origins with the company. It's no surprise to many that, uh, well, anyone that listens to this show anyway, uh, that I am a big X-Men fan. So we of course would eventually have to talk about none other than Alison Blair, AKA dazzler. So.
00:11:40
Speaker
I have no clue who this is. Here are the X-Men that I know. And keep in mind, when I mention all of them, I am 100% thinking of the early 2000s X-Men movies. So we got Hugh Jackman.
00:12:01
Speaker
Hugh Jackman, famous X-Men Hugh Jackman. We have Hugh Jackman. So we have the Wolverine. We have Cyclops, who is 100% always James Marsden in my eyes. We have Jean Grey and
00:12:18
Speaker
No one likes Jean Grey because they always do like the Phoenix storyline and that is what I remember We also have The bald man Professor X we have Professor X we've got Nightcrawler the the funky blue guy. I love him Shit there's more
00:12:45
Speaker
There's one that's like a frog, but I think that's just in the movie. No, no, no, he's an OG character. His name is Toad. Oh, love that. Okay. Mr. Toad. Cool. Magneto, obviously. I don't know why I didn't mention him earlier. My brain panicked. Sabretooth. There's Storm. Oh, I freaking love Storm. Storm is so cool. Oh, cool.
00:13:16
Speaker
Oh, and then the guy that throws cards, whatever. Gambit. Yeah. Um, so that is very possibly, oh, and Rogue, who's the person that accidentally kills everybody by touching them. That's what I got for you. So you mentioned, uh, the Phoenix, which is kind of.
00:13:40
Speaker
Interesting, because Dazzler actually debuted way back in Uncanny X-Men number 130, which was right in the middle of the Phoenix saga. Okay. And the funny thing is- And the Phoenix saga is where Jean Grey starts to go crazy and like, she like overpowers herself, essentially. There are two different Phoenix sagas. Okay, so what is the one that the Dazzler starts as?
00:14:11
Speaker
This is around where she starts to become evil, but it's around the Phoenix saga, and then there's going to be a dark Phoenix saga after, and that's where Jean has really lost control. Okay. So the idea, it doesn't matter so much to this story, but Jean died in issue 99 and in issue 100,
00:14:41
Speaker
or whatever, it's something like that. It is
Dazzler's Comic Debut and Cult Status
00:14:45
Speaker
reborn as the Phoenix. And for a while, it's just kind of treated as this is Jean, but with extra powers, and then it becomes like a bigger deal, you know, later on. Okay. So Dazzler debuted in the middle of the Phoenix saga, but she wasn't really supposed to.
00:15:04
Speaker
See, uh, Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the two lead creators on the issue, didn't create the character and didn't originally intend to include her in the story. Marvel, however, had big plans for her introduction and asked Claremont and Byrne to work a guest starring role for her into the story because Uncanny X-Men was the company's top selling comic book at the time.
00:15:28
Speaker
This meant that Dazzler would reach a huge audience by being featured with the X-Men and having her front and center on the cover with the blurb, the dramatic debut of the Dazzler. So she was just a character and they just picked for her to be an X-Men because that was just the successful series at the time.
00:15:54
Speaker
Like they just had a bare bones concept and they were like, cool, we'll make her like a mutant and put her in X-Men. Yeah, basically. Back in 1979, Marvel was tasked by Casablanca Records with cross promotional adventure that would feature a singing superhero that they could not only publish comic books about, but also license an actual musical act. This had sort of been done before, but I'll touch on that in a moment.
00:16:24
Speaker
According to Louise Simonson, who was being interviewed by Comic Feature number seven in 1980, Casablanca came to Marvel and said, hey, you make a singer and we'll create someone to take on that persona. So they, they, they want to have like essentially a cartoon, like Hannah Montana. You want to have a fictional character that can actually stand.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, like Jim and the Holograms, or Josie and the Pussycats, you know? Yeah. Okay. That's the idea. So naturally, Marvel looked around at the current state of pop culture and decided that the best way to sell a musical character was to tie her into the evergreen style of disco. Hell yes. Okay, wait a minute. I'm so excited. Yes. Now I'm just trying to think of like who they would try and sign as like her voice.
00:17:19
Speaker
Well, we're going to get into a little bit of that. So keep in mind, this was 1979 when they decided to come up this year. I really hope they want Donna Summers. Ugh.
00:17:29
Speaker
I would love it. Again, this was 1979. This was the year that had the infamous disco demolition night at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games. So many people came to see the explosion rather than the games. They came for that event. And after that detonation, they rushed the field and caused a riot where nine people were injured
00:17:58
Speaker
39 people were arrested and the White Sox were required to forfeit the second game due to damage to the field. This is widely considered the year that disco died. And it is also the year that Marvel chose to create a disco queen. Oh no. Wait, I was so excited. And now I'm like, that's whiplash. Oh, but it's fun. I look, the,
00:18:28
Speaker
Like, listen, I'll forever love disco. In my eyes, disco never died. I mean, like, I guess discos themselves might have died a little bit and the club scene has changed. But like, man, oh, man, would I kill the B out of disco. I'm sorry. You would have fun. Where I work, if I'm in charge of the radio,
00:18:54
Speaker
Uh, we are playing a disco play. Well, so more recently I play a lot of ska, but like, if I'm 100% one, I love ska, but if we're, if we're having a little bit of fun and I have to pick something that I think more people would be into, not just me, uh, I put on the disco playlist and it gets a lot of people going. It's, it's, it's upbeat. People have great playlist. I, um,
00:19:23
Speaker
when I would run like speakers and things like that or like I would get to pick a playlist. I always ended up doing some kind of like funk or soul or like disco and it just makes my heart so happy. Ah, I dig it. Now I mentioned earlier that creating a character that could simultaneously be published as a comic
00:19:48
Speaker
and sell records had been done before. And that's because I was referring to the Archie's, which was a fictional band put together as part of the Archie show and created the hit song, Sugar Sugar, which everyone knows. The song was so insanely popular and the synergy between Archie comics and calendar records worked so well that it inspired not only Marvel to introduce Dazzler, but also Hanna-Barbera to create Scooby-Doo.
00:20:18
Speaker
The Hex Girls. Wait a minute. I was literally thinking about them a minute ago. Because I was like, oh man, what are some singers in cartoon form that I can think of? That is something that came later.
00:20:37
Speaker
I'm talking the original pitch for Scooby-Doo. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Scooby-Doo Where Are You was a cartoon, the original pitch for it anyway, featured a band of teens that would travel from town to town, play gigs and solve mysteries with their dog, who was also part of the band. If you ever go back and you look at the Archie's, part of the fun is that they have a dog that plays like the tambourine.
00:21:03
Speaker
Oh, I think I have seen that before. Yeah. I'm looking it up as, like you can keep going. I'm going to look at the picture. And so as time went on, the concept for that changed. And we wound up with the classic cartoon about a band of kids that just solve mysteries and have a talking dog. But it all started with the Archie comics and their hit song. So that's why they drive around in that van.
00:21:28
Speaker
It's a holdover from when they were supposed to be a band that traveled around and played gigs.
Dazzler's Unique Interactions and Impact
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. That was the whole thing. And what I find interesting about that is that the song, the Sugar Sugar, and by extension the template for what Marvel was going to attempt to recreate, that came out in 1969, which means that they were also 10 years late to the thing that they were trying to emulate.
00:21:56
Speaker
Marvel doing Dazzler was 10 years after the Archie's did this. Oh, yeah. So it's like, I don't know. 10 years is interesting because it's like, if it was like two years ago, it would be like, man, too soon. Like there's already like a good one, but like 10 years, I think you could
00:22:19
Speaker
maybe get away with it. I'm going to say it obviously didn't work because it's like, I have no idea who this person is, but I don't know. I still got hope for this disco queen. So now that Marvel has decided to copy a business idea from 10 years prior and attach it to the carcass of a musical genre, let's talk about how development of Dazzler actually went.
00:22:42
Speaker
A committee was created to work on the pitch, which would feature a disco superhero named either disco queen, disco dazzler, or just dazzler. And that would, uh, that person would have light based powers that would tie into her music. Like that the idea. So it's really tied in to disco. Yeah. Like the whole like ball reflecting light, everything. Okay. I can see it.
00:23:07
Speaker
So gem shooter Tom DeFalco, Louise Simonson, and John Romita Jr. would all have their hands in creating a story, which they had to revise four or five times before Casablanca agreed to move forward. Romita Jr. has stated that he was asked that the character be drawn similar to Grace Jones, a famous model, singer, and actress at the time. Oh! This meant that Marvel's first version of the character was a black woman, something that wasn't incredibly common at the time.
00:23:34
Speaker
I, uh, that would have been so cool. Cause like Grace Jones is truly like such an icon. Oh yeah. Like if you, if you Google, um, like the original Dazzler pitch or something like that, uh, you can find that image of Grace Jones as Dazzler. It's great. Yeah. And it's weird because I, I was introduced to the character not looking like that, but, um,
00:24:05
Speaker
That's the only reason. It's really cool and fun. And you can see Grace Jones, you know? Right. But right now I am definitely seeing the exact opposite of Grace Jones. Yes, that's not... I'm assuming what you're seeing is what was originally published. I think so, yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker
So by the time Marvel had finished a solid pitch for the character, Filmworks, an independent film company that had recently merged with Casablanca Records, smelled the money that could be made from another sugar sugar level hit and introduced the idea of an animated special that would introduce Dazzler.
00:24:44
Speaker
Jim Shooter wrote a treatment for the special, which included all of the artists that were currently signed to Casablanca, including Donna Summer, Cher, the Village People, and even Kiss. Oh my God. I am a genius. How did I know it? I don't know. I just, I just like funky music. I also love that Cher was possibly involved.
00:25:10
Speaker
I love Cher. The treatment was such a hit that it was decided to be a feature-length film and guest star Spider-Man and the Avengers. This means that before the character had ever appeared in any publication, she was signed to have a comic book, a movie, and a record attached to her name. And that movie would have Cher, Kiss, Donna Summer, and the village people in it. Amazing. Also, I did find the original pitch idea
00:25:40
Speaker
What a cool character. Right? Oh, she's all sleek and cool and funky. That would have been so good. I love that I'm able to bring this to you and get you as excited about this character as I am. Well, I don't think we've ever really talked about it, but the amount that I love,
00:26:05
Speaker
funky disco music is palpable. And this is a character that the people that like Dazzler really like Dazzler. Well, because she's campy and fun it seems like.
00:26:25
Speaker
Now, the original sort of pilot for an X-Men cartoon that came out in the 80s was this thing called Pride of the X-Men. If you go and you watch that, first of all, it's fun as hell. It's great animation.
00:26:41
Speaker
Um, you have a weird Australian Wolverine for no reason. Uh, look, they don't even, he's just Australian for no fucking reason. But also Dazzler is part of the X-Men in this weird ass cartoon that went nowhere. Uh, but it's fun. If you can find, it's like,
00:27:02
Speaker
I think it's only a half an hour long. Like it's a regular cartoon. You can find the full pilot of it and it introduces you to the X-Men and everything that's going on. You kind of, you are introduced through Kitty Pride's eyes and Kitty Pride is another character that I fucking love. So it's, it's everything I like is in this little pilot. And the only thing I don't like is the weird Australian Wolverine, but like I could get down with it.
00:27:31
Speaker
So around this time with like this movie being produced and like an album being set up and with this comic book supposedly on the horizon, the actress Bo Derek became interested in the role of Dazzler. Do you know who Bo Derek is? The name is very familiar. She's like, well for a while she was crazy famous.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah. She's known for being incredibly attractive too. Oh, they look so familiar. This whole episode is me just looking shit up. Well, so I guess the most important thing to know about Bo Derek, other than they have like a famous husband too, is that they are a white blonde woman.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yes, they definitely are a white blonde woman. That is very different from Grace Jones. Right. I mean, both very lovely communities, but I really like the Grace Jones look
00:28:44
Speaker
As Bo Derek became interested in the role of Dazzler, according to her, I was being offered everything. I had a huge offer for a ton of money to play a female wrestler. You can see that I'm not really the type playing Dazzler. This incredible rock performer would have taken a lot of training. So I wasn't anxious to do all of that. And at the time, Superman, the movie had just become a huge hit. The superhero movies were nowhere near
00:29:11
Speaker
what they are today. So like Marvel decided that they needed to change the design of the character to look a lot more like Bo Derek in the hopes of getting her excited to be attached to it. This meant Dazzler now had to be changed to a blonde white woman, which is like
00:29:32
Speaker
That's how I know the character, so I'm not necessarily like super upset, I guess, but it is like a weird thing to make such a sudden shift, especially when you had like a design, like a concept already going around, at least for, you know, it's only one image, but it's an unimage that you were kind of committing to, you know? Yeah, and it was a really cool image.
00:30:02
Speaker
Like, I guess. I don't know, I guess I can't be like too mad at it because it's not like they just totally erased, like if the first one was ever published and then they just totally like changed it afterwards. I think that would be like a little more shitty, but it seems like this has been on the drawing board for a while now. So it's like, it's like, okay. But I think.
00:30:33
Speaker
I like both of the designs, but I think I would have still wanted the Grace Jones inspiration to be somewhere. Yeah, and I'm sure somewhere in the Marvel multiverse, there is a Grace Jones dazzler somewhere to be seen.
00:30:58
Speaker
Or like, uh, what would be super cool if it was like, um, if they made it like the band heart where it's like a duo of women. Oh, that would be fun. And then you could use both designs. Uh, cause I like both designs. I think they could be friends. So I don't know. At one point, I know that at one point Dazzler was teamed with the character Lila Cheney. Um,
00:31:26
Speaker
I don't really know how that would work because Lila kind of does like punk music. Uh, it's kind of funny. I mean, I guess I would go see a whole squad of genres. I would be down for that kind of a thing. Lila Cheney is another character I'm a big fan of, but like kind of doesn't show up that much. And I don't really like her power set is dumb. I don't really care for it, but like her as a character is fun.
00:31:56
Speaker
And like her weird she's like always tied up with like alien stuff. It's fun. It's great For a while she had a bodyguard named Guido and he went by the superhero named strong guy I love him Guido is great strong guy
00:32:18
Speaker
His name is supposed to be dumb because he gets, he came from like a comedic comic book where they all had to have like names and they were like a government position team. So like they were doing an interview and someone's like, what's your name? And he's like, oh, I'm strong guy. He's clearly having a laugh at everyone, but that like became his name. Geez.
00:32:44
Speaker
So as time went on, the studio decided that Jim Shooter's role as a comic book writer wasn't good enough for writing a movie, so a screenplay for the film was written by Leslie Stevens. Since comic books were seen as silly and campy, he felt there was no problem with completely changing the concept of the character, so he got rid of the light powers and gave her the power to make people tell the truth. So that's where we are with the movie now. She's now a disco queen that has the power to make people tell the truth.
00:33:16
Speaker
At this point though, the head of Casablanca Records was pushed out by his film partners due to some interesting accounting irregularities and excessive spending. So with him out of the picture, interest in the movie quickly fell and when Bo Derek introduced the idea of her husband directing the film, it fell even more.
00:33:35
Speaker
John Derek was famous for his movies being behind schedule and over budget. So every bidder that was interested withdrew, which meant Bo Derek backed out as well. So now we no longer have a movie. Okay. This is where we are with this. This character has gone nowhere, but they've, they've decided this has to be this big thing. I think at this point they have now introduced her in the X-Men.
00:34:06
Speaker
And when I say they introduced her in the X-Men, like they introduce her and like, that's it. She doesn't join the X-Men. Yeah. She's in a story. That's it. Okay. So this left Marvel in a weird position. They spent a lot of time and a lot of money promoting the development of a character that had so far only appeared in that one issue of Uncanny X-Men. Yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
So that's when Jim Shooter had the idea to test out the direct market, which is where specialty stores could buy comic books directly from the distributor and get a larger discount in exchange for the forfeiture of their right to return unsold copies.
00:34:47
Speaker
You and I have talked about the way distribution worked back in the day, mostly when we were talking about Comixgate, because the way that you look at sales, yeah, it's very weird. And you have to take a lot of random data into account.
00:35:05
Speaker
Because you could have a shitty retailer, like a newspaper stand, rip off the cover, return the cover to get a full refund for the book that they purchased, and then also sell the damaged copy and just basically double-dip on what you're making. Right. The idea for a specialty store, comic book stores were not a thing until around this time. They just didn't exist. You got your comic books at a newspaper stand or at a grocery store. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
there you didn't go to like a specialty book place for this correct so marvel wasn't sure if the direct market would ever actually work so the idea would be to launch dazzler as a direct market only ongoing series and see how it did
00:35:56
Speaker
So Dazzler number one was the first all-direct comic book, at least from a major publisher, and it sold 428,000 copies, which is a big success for the time. The comic book continued for four years with later Spider-Man editor, Danny Fingereth, even writing some issues. So there is a little bit of a connection here, not just John and Mita Jr., but we also got Danny Fingereth in here to our Spider-Man coverage. Yes.
00:36:26
Speaker
So not long after, Jim Shooter stepped in to write a graphic novel that was confusingly titled Dazzler the Movie. In this comic, her career takes a huge hit as she's outed to the world as a mutant. Her comics started losing readers around this time, so Marvel decided to fold her into the X-Men and she became a full member of the team.
00:36:48
Speaker
And since then, she's pretty much always associated with Marvel's Merry Mutants. She's not like, like every so often there might be like a Dazzler-centric story, but it's almost always in context of the X-Men.
00:37:01
Speaker
Now, is she back to light powers or is she truth power? Yes. So the truth telling thing never made it out of the screen screenplay that was written for the movie. When they introduced her, they introduced her with the light changing powers or the light. So I guess I should explain a little bit of what her actual powers are because they're cool as shit. She can take sound and turn it into light.
00:37:27
Speaker
So that's why as a disco performer, she like does her own light show because she's able to use the sound from the music and turn it into this big event. It's great. Now later, how does that work with like, does she fight crime?
00:37:50
Speaker
When she joins the X-Men, kind of, and that's what I was about to say, she learns how to focus the light to where it becomes hard light. It's like being shot with a concussive blast, I guess. It's an interesting way, but she's also very acrobatic.
00:38:16
Speaker
Uh, and they kind of like teach her how to do different things. There's one of my favorite issues of the X-Men. Um, I don't know if she's, I think she'd already joined the team at this point. She runs into the juggernaut and like they get into a fight. I don't remember why they get into it. They get into a fight because it's a comic book.
00:38:34
Speaker
And the juggernaut is like, he keeps being like, I'm a big fan. I really don't want to fight you, but like, I'm a, I'm a big fan. And it's so much fun to like read that story. I love that. The juggernaut, by the way, also one of my favorite characters. I love him. I think he's great. He's just like a big dude, isn't he?
00:38:56
Speaker
So he's a dude that found a gem that gives him supernatural abilities to be basically unstoppable. And he gets a big suit of armor. He's cool as shit. He has a bromance with this guy named Black Tom Cassidy. They're in love with each other. It's great. I love them. And in more recent years, they've been making him more of a hero trying to make up for his wrongdoings. They actually gave him
00:39:26
Speaker
the, a juggernaut, uh, like stand up, like solo series. I loved it. It was so good. I was mad when I ended it and it was only, it was, it was a short series, but I, I loved it. Anyway, back to Dazzler, I guess, uh, as far as the impact of the character is concerned, Ira Madison,
00:39:51
Speaker
The third of MTV described Dazzler as a gay icon in the annals of Marvel Legends, asserting that Dazzler remains a hugely popular character, particularly among queer Marvel fans. Even though her stories were never tied to the disco scene at large, her journey of struggling for acceptance from a dismissive father and longing for the love of her missing mother was something that queer readers who only years earlier could have been arrested for showing signs of affection toward a member of the same-sex in public connected with.
00:40:21
Speaker
Embracing your sexuality had to happen in the dark, sweaty nightclubs with disco music blaring, or for younger gay men far from metropolises of New York and San Francisco, it could occur in their childhood bedrooms reading Dazzler's exploits in between more butch fare like X-Men and Spider-Man that wouldn't get them bullied. Right. The role Dazzler played in X-Men comics is small.
00:40:47
Speaker
She joins them for a brief period. I debated whether or not to add this to the episode. Because I feel like the origin of the character is far more interesting than any of the shit they actually did with the character. I love her. I think she's great. She's fun. She's like an interesting person to read about. But all of the plot lines they come up with her
00:41:16
Speaker
are kind of dumb and they usually go nowhere. Right. She like falls in love with the guy from another dimension. She ends up pregnant, has a baby that's also him, but like a clone of him. Oh, okay. It's weird. They don't like the swamp thing wanting to have a baby. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the whole thing is very strange. And then they also did a story where she like,
00:41:44
Speaker
I'm pretty, like she's like immortal, but then they don't, like it gets brought up a lot that she dies and comes back and then she's just fine. Like they don't, they never explain why. She just dies and comes back. It's weird. There you go.
00:42:03
Speaker
So nothing has been done with the character that I could point to and be like, oh, this is the long Halloween of Dazzler. Right. Okay. I guess so. She's just there and she's just fun. And I always am excited to see her and nothing ever comes of her as a character, but it's always great. It's like checking in with an old friend, you know? You know what? This makes me think of my love for Gus in Saga.
00:42:33
Speaker
It's very similar. Gus does not pop up a lot. He's just there sometimes. You learn a little more about him and he does have his own things going on. I'm just always happy to see them drawn. I'm like, oh boy, Gus is here. I get that.
00:42:58
Speaker
This, this is my dazzler. Right. I love it. I have a tiny seal man and you have a disco queen. I support it. It's an interesting way of looking at, uh, uh, I guess our, our interests. Hell yeah. I actually, I just found out they did a dazzler action figure that I now must own. Okay.
00:43:26
Speaker
Uh, holy cow. It's great. She has a, like, it's like a, like a unitard, but like with no sleeves, but then she wears like a leather jacket over it. Oh, that's cool as shit. I love that style. It's so much fun. Cool. And then, oh, but you can also find a, an action figure of her wearing her like disco outfit. Oh, that's great.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yay. As far as anything to do with the character, I don't really have much more to talk about. I just thought it would be fun for you and I to have a little bit of a break from Spider-Man, talk a little bit about some disco. Yeah. We boogied, we learned good times.
00:44:11
Speaker
I mean, I had fun with it. I, I, when I sat down, I was like, Oh, you know what? I might write an episode just about the origin of Dazzler.
00:44:19
Speaker
And like two hours later, I had finished my episode on the origins of Dazzler. Yeah, there you go. Well, hey. Oh my gosh, wait, there's a, okay. Cause I'm still looking at like images cause I like character, I like comic art, but there's an action figure where she has roller skates. Oh, that's so fun. And now I'm like, shit, what if I am Dazzler?
00:44:49
Speaker
Oh, you know what? I didn't even mention this. Dazzler was part of the team during the Australian era of the X-Men. Oh, well, no wonder she's in the show, like with an Australian Wolverine. So there was a point where the X-Men, where it's like, it's the weirdest story where you have this, like,
00:45:14
Speaker
Very strange band of X-Men, like Storm, Wolverine, I think Longshot, Dazzler, Havoc. I don't remember who else is on the team. Is that who your cat is named after? That is who my cat is named after, yes. Oh, wow, I had no idea. I just thought your cat was named Havoc. Ruby is also named after an X-Men character, but a much less known X-Men character.
00:45:40
Speaker
Okay. So Havoc is the younger brother of Cyclops. Oh, okay. And Ruby is an alternate universe daughter of Cyclops and Emma Frost.
00:46:01
Speaker
Her name, she's Ruby Summers. And her whole body turns, instead of Emma Frost can turn into Diamond, Ruby can turn into Ruby Quartz. My cat's name is Oliver. I also have a dog named Brownie and a snake named Hank. Yo, Hank is a great snake name.
00:46:26
Speaker
My, but like my cats are very specifically named after X-Men characters. That's okay. I support it. I wanted to name a cat Meatball, but I got Oliver. I wanted to name a cat Lucifer and I was told no. That's pretty funny. I mean, I think that's pretty silly, but also like, I don't know that it's hard to come up with nicknames for Lucifer. Ah, Lucy.
00:46:52
Speaker
I guess. Yeah. But so during this era of the X-Men, they like fought this weird magical creature and they all died. But because they all died in like service of like the greater good or whatever, I don't know, this lady stepped in.
00:47:07
Speaker
who is like super powerful and she's like, I'll give you another chance. And no one will know, like the world as far as they know, like the world thinks the X-Men are dead. So the X-Men decide that they are going to work from the shadows. They're going to do the same work that they were doing, but they're gonna do it while everyone thinks they're dead.
00:47:30
Speaker
And for some reason, they go to Australia and they live in Australia during this time, in the Outback even. They find like this random like little, it's like a tiny village that is abandoned, but it also has like a bunch of
00:47:48
Speaker
uh uh like working technology so they kind of create like they set up shop in australia and for a good while of the x-men comics they were all living in australia and going on adventures in well not all in australia because they also had a teleporter that would take them places
00:48:08
Speaker
Right. Um, but he was like an Aboriginal man. Um, uh, and he like used his weird magic powers to send them places. It was fun. And like, that's, that was when Dazzler was part of the team. It's a very weird era of the X-Men, but it's also kind of right up your alley. I love that. I'll have to find it one day. That sounds fun. It's from the eighties too. So it's like, it's, and it's very eighties. It's, it's fun.
00:48:36
Speaker
I support the eighties. We're here. So, I mean, that's really all I have, uh, to tell you about, uh, Dazzler and about that weird era of the X-Men. Uh, I thought it would be fun, um, maybe to add in some of like the weird stories, but I really don't think it goes anywhere. It's not super important. You're not going to learn anything fun about Dazzler and learning about the dumb shit they've done with the character. Right. All of the fun stuff is just like,
00:49:04
Speaker
what got her to be a character and why the fuck she is a disco queen debuting in the 80s. Did the album ever come out? No. Actually, I'm actually glad you said something because there was a person who made a song and a music video as Alison Blair. Oh.
00:49:30
Speaker
Uh, it was put out by greasy pig studios and the song was the sight of the sound. Uh, and it was a, a, a, it's not, it's a pretty fun song. Uh, it came out eight years ago and it is the character in it is supposed to be Dazzler. It's, it's fun. Uh, I mean, they obviously can't sell it as Dazzler, but like,
00:50:00
Speaker
That's the idea. She also debuted in her live action version in X-Men. What was the name of that fucking movie? What was it? Dark Phoenix?
00:50:20
Speaker
I honestly, yes. I have no idea. Yeah, X-Men Dark Phoenix. Okay. So I'm a huge X-Men fan and I could not make it through that movie. I didn't even make it to her showing up in the movie. I only watched the ones with Hugh Jack that are in it.
00:50:42
Speaker
Uh, okay. Did you watch any of like the wolverine movies? Okay. Wait. Okay. So just wolverine i've seen The first three x-men movies Like and then i've seen wolverine origins Which i hate. Oh, that's a fun one No, no, no, it's fun because it's bad. Yeah, I yeah, I was absolutely bored watching it when it came out
00:51:11
Speaker
Um, you have to go into a certain mindset. I hated it when it came out and then I went back and watched it and I was like, Oh, this is fun. I'm sure like my opinion has changed since then. I probably will be like fine about it. Um, but it was at an era of like superhero movies that I was just like, these are really boring and they should be fun. And they weren't fun. They just felt like military adjacent movies to me.
00:51:39
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, they were getting money from the US government to do that, so. Yeah, and I was, I didn't know that, but I was like, this is boring. So I didn't like it. And I think I stopped there because I was so bored. I know that everyone says that Logan is really good. I still haven't seen it. And then,
00:52:08
Speaker
I know Jennifer Lawrence was like Mystique for a little while, and I think Mystique is a cool character, but I never saw those movies. They are mixed. They are very mixed. That's what I've heard, is that there's a mixed bag. To go along with this story, they did a movie called X-Men Apocalypse. Yes. I was very excited because I really like Apocalypse. It was set in the 80s.
00:52:36
Speaker
I love the eighties and I love X-Men in the eighties. I was very excited. Did they have Dazzler in it? No, not at fucking all. Here's the worst part of it is they had, and I remember specifically seeing this as part of the marketing. They had Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, Jubilee. I also love Jubilee. Okay.
00:53:05
Speaker
I think it was just them. They go to the mall. Oh, it's like they go to an arcade or something. Well, in the, I don't remember what happens in the actual movie, but I know that they spend no fucking time in the mall. Oh, I hate when that happens. So upset, like that is a thing I was so excited to see. That happened to me when I watched Spectre. So. Wait, the James Bond movie?
00:53:34
Speaker
Yes, I want to go see Spectre in theaters and the whole intro to that movie is very octopus themed. There's tentacles. There is not a single freaking octopus in that entire movie. I thought like it would at least be like floating around in the background of like the villain's lair or whatever.
00:53:58
Speaker
Not a single octopus. I was so furious. I was like, this was a waste of time. I don't think I ever finished Spectre. Not worth it. I fell asleep. We put it on late one night and I fell asleep and then we were like, oh, we'll go back and finish it. Well, spoiler alert, there's no octopus. So quite frankly, I don't think it's worth it.
00:54:26
Speaker
I, we, we spent like a weird period watching like a bunch of James Bond movies. And I think that's where we ended was on Spectre. I think we were just kind of like, you know what, this is it. Yeah. I think that's fair.
00:54:39
Speaker
Um, but anyway, you can find more information at comically pedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, Spotify, and at comically pedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comically pedantic at gmail.com. That includes like, if there's a character that you're interested in, uh, and you kind of want to hear like us talk about it, like I'm interested in doing that. Yeah.
00:55:09
Speaker
Can't say that it's going to be a super interesting episode unless I find something fun and interesting to talk about. But we can do that. We can try. Oh, we'll always find something. Yeah. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. And don't forget, we still own fuckcomicsgate.com. I actually just re-upped on that recently. If you'd like to send a donation to the Games and Online Harassment Hotline. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics.
00:55:36
Speaker
But until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
00:56:06
Speaker
Did not tell you she's something we did it