UNCANNY X-MEN #130: DAZZLER

The X-Men hit the disco - and the disco hits back. Wait, that's inaccurate, although Jean does get hit on.

Originally Published February 1980

Last time, we learned that Cerebro had detected two new mutant signatures out there in the world - one in Chicago, and one in New York City. While Colossus, Storm, Wolverine and Professor X headed out to the land of deep-dish pizza to recruit young Kitty Pryde - getting themselves kidnapped by Ms. Frost's Hellfire Club in the process despite a good showing against the club's armored goons - Jean, Cyclops and Nightcrawler have arrived in NYC to track another candidate.

They arrive at a seamy disco in the heart of Lower Manhattan's Abandoned Warehouse District. The two normal-looking heroes head inside while poor Kurt is charged with guarding the Rolls Royce. (His own fault - he deliberately stopped using the image inducer that had been given to him to let him look like Errol Flynn.)

Inside, straight-laced Scott and girl-next-door Jean are nonplussed to find that this nightclub set inside a derelict attic is being frequented by objectionable types - freaks and weirdoes galore. As they split up to scan the crowd, Jean finds herself catching the lascivious stray thoughts of the general population - totally on accident I'm sure - and not hating it.

It should come as no surprise that the X-Men are being watched, as a few Hellfire gomers are in contact with their superiors - Jason Wyngarde and Sebastian Shaw, who continue their debate about the relative formidability of the X-Men.

Shaw boasts that he's already captured half the team and is doing well so far. Wyngarde notes that they may yet surprise him, possibly aware that the X-Men have been kidnapped on a monthly basis for almost 20 years now, and always seem to get away.

While Jason turns his attentions to his plot re: Jean Grey, Shaw touches base with Frost who has had her captives stripped to their BVDs and placed in giant go-go cages for safe keeping.

I have to think the only reason Professor X remains suited up is due to the protests of one John Byrne, penciler/co-plotter.

What Ms. Frost doesn't count on is the presence of young Kitty, who has walked right through the walls of the... Disused medical facility? Private event space? Whatever this location is where the Hellfire Club are temporarily headquartered while in Chicago, Kitty has snuck in. Storm is too "out of it" to do much, and her trademark lockpicks have been taken away, but luckily she has the Prof's carphone number sewn into the waist band of her underwear (you know, for just such an emergency) so she gives it to Kitty and tells her to find a phone. Oh, the olden days.

Back at the disco, Jean runs is busy trying to find the new mutant amongst the clubgoers when she runs into a surprising old friend...

In this fantasy, she and Jason are wed by a sinister looking vicar played by Sebastian Shaw. They then unveil Jean as the new "Black Queen" of the Hellfire Club, clad in considerably less church-ready attire.

Jean is so caught up in the moment that she doesn't even realize when she starts, like, totally making out with Jason, in front of everybody, including Scott, who is so shocked he basically goes, 'Huh, that's pretty weird.'

This is like something out of a Robyn song.

Before they can discuss the matter any further, the announcer introduces the main entertainment for the night, the hot new disco diva - DAZZLER! Dazz is so impressive Scott forgets his girlfriend just open-mouth kissed another guy right in front of his face - the mutant alarm buzzer on Cyclops' wrist informs him that Dazzler is in fact the mutant they're looking for.

Outside, Kitty gets ahold of Nightcrawler on the Rolls Royce's carphone, somehow having enough change to call New York from Chicago on a payphone. As she is in the process of revealing that the other members of the team have been kidnapped, Kurt is attacked by an armored Hellfire goon, equipped with all sorts of gear to counteract Nighcrawler's powers.

Similarly, inside, Cyclops and Phoenix are attacked by foes armed with tech that is eerily similar to traps used by the Professor in the Danger Room. I quite like the specific ways the Hellfire Club's tapping of the X-Mansion comes into play, rather than just giving a general advantage. Really must have paid off after all those months of radio silence while the house was completely unoccupied.

Glop!!

However, Dazzler takes exception to having her set interrupted and tells the goons "No you Xana-don't!" She unleashes her powerful blasts of light, which disorient the baddies, allowing Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler can overcome their enemies.

Once the battle is won, Cyclops informs Dazzler she is a mutant, a fact she is strangely "meh" about considering she is now part of a class of people who are routinely attacked by supervillains. Still, she agrees to go along for the ride.

As is usual, the Hellfire Club explodes their vanquished flunkies so they can't tell the X-Men anything, and our heroes are left to ponder the identity of their mysterious enemies, and where the dashing but suspicious Wyngarde fits into it all.

A Brief History of Dazzler:

The idea for Dazzler had been kicking around for years prior to this debut, conveniently timed right at the end of the disco craze. The original concept was a multi-media collaboration between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, to produce comics, a movie and a soundtrack featuring Dazzler, the disco-themed superhero who can turn sound into light blasts. Honestly, it all sounds very "ahead of its time" not the least because Dazzler's powers seem prohibitively impractical for a 1970's production not helmed by George Lucas.

Dazzler was originally going to be played by Donna Summer. Wikipedia says that it was going to be Grace Jones, but Summer was a Casablanca artist, so I suspect Wikipedia is just confusing this story with a later instance of an X-Man being based (loosely) on Jones. In any case, Dazz looks like neither - by the time she hit the drawing board Bo Derek was going to play her, so she became a buxom blonde, until eventually Drek was replaced by nobody and the project was scrapped. To this day Dazzler has never appeared in an X-Men movie (because they're generally not fun enough to include a disco interlude) although there are rumors about the upcoming Dark Phoenix film.

However, Marvel was still all-in on the Disco Heroine concept they had spent years developing. So here she is, just a smidge late to cash in on the disco craze. Claremont and Byrne had intended to only showcase Byrne's Kitty Pryde character in a two-parter, and objected to her editorially-mandated Poochie-like appearance here. As to her being a mutant, this is probably easier than saying she was bitten by a radioactive mirrorball or whatever, but it seems odd to link Dazzler with the X-Men's corner of the universe, knowing she was meant to be a solo act. Dazzler only appears in the last pages of this issue and doesn't show much personality so while she doesn't drag the issue down, it doesn't build her up much either.

A movie character without a movie, a musician in a soundless medium, a mutant not meant to be an X-Man, Dazzler is a fascinating set of contradictions. Thank you for attending my TED Talk.