Didja Know... The Dazzling Dazzler

Get some downright delightful details from across the merry Marvel Multiverse!

Didja Know digs into the fun facts, strange stories, and divine details that helped build the hallowed halls of the House of Ideas!

It’s a trip—and we mean a trip—back to the electrifying '80s in DAZZLER #1 FACSIMILE EDITION, the flashback issue rollerskating into comic shops and your hearts this week, True Believers! It's a magnificent Marvel 80th Anniversary look back at the character's first ever solo story, and it got us thinkin'...

The new ish reminded us—what do you really know about Dazzler? Well, she’s one of the most unique Marvel stars ever, and we’re about to tell ya why!

Unlike many of the other magnificent Marvel magicmakers, the origins of Dazzler began not in the hallowed halls of the House of Ideas, but in the swirling, glittering arena of the record business. See, back in 1980 Casablanca Records approached Marvel to create a character to not only burn up the pages of a comic, but to be their next singing sensation. Crazy, you say? Maybe, but read on, effendi!

So, several of the stalwarts here at Marvel put their heads together and dreamed up a new Super Hero who’d hit the stage like a beam of light and the crooks like a battering ram! Originally, she was to be called “Disco Queen”—hey, it was the late '70s!—but they settled on “Dazzler” as her mighty moniker, and the latest Marvel mutant was born.

None other than amazing artist John Romita Jr. helped shape the new heroine visually, and before anyone knew it, she took on a life of her own. Talk was tossed around about films, TV series, records, and other projects, but, alas, Dazzler debuted definitively in 1980's UNCANNY X-MEN #130 and all the rest of that rigmarole rightfully rescinded to fall by the wayside.

Now, we already told you the musical mutant stepped on-stage as a guest of the X-Men, but from there Dazzler made the rounds of Marvel mags like FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN without a house to call her own. Then, deserted by the record biz, she thought she’d gotten her big break…

DAZZLER #1 dropped down on an unsuspecting fanbase like a disco ball to dare the darkness and shed some light on the industry. Despite some top-notch creators, the book only ran until 1986 and the character sort-of, well, disappeared after that. Dazzler turned up like a bad penny—albeit a shiny one!—here and there in the X-Universe, but overall she’d have to bide her time before returning to the spotlight in new millennium titles like NEW EXCALIBUR and A-FORCE.

But nobody can truly keep a disco queen down...

At first glance, and from behind the protective power of a good pair of sunglasses, Dazzler’s a walkin’, talkin’ lightshow. She literally lights up! How? Well, her mutant power enables her to take any ol’ sonic vibrations—that’s sound, bunky—and turn ‘em into light!

What can she do with that lightning-like luminescence? Here’s where we separate the Dazzler from the dolls: Just about anything. She can entrance, blind, disorient, zap, shield, and hologram just about anybody she wants, and if there’s music present, Dazzler’s gonna rock the house down.