Why Dazzler Matters

The creation of myth is a hell of a thing.

I could be drunk as I write this, this could all have started as a lark between Phil, Matt, Rich and myself, and Dazzler might be the jetsam of a fallen-through cross-promotional movie/music/comic deal who was created entirely by committee, down to which celebrity she should most look like (and feel free to hazard a guess in the comments - no Wiki-cheating!), a fact which explains her schizophrenic publishing history and early barrage of guest appearances.

All this could be true. But none of that matters.

Alison Blaire matters.

Before Dazzler appeared without origin or preamble in Uncanny X-Men #130, you had three options when it came to being a mutant. You could:

1. Join the X-men
2. Be a bad guy
3. Kind of hang around and help out when needed, despite claiming you're not part of the team, which is what happened to Jaime Madrox, Havok and Polaris.

What does Dazzler do? She saves Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler from the Hellfire Club and then tags along to Chicago to rescue the rest of the team. And then she quits, content to keep playing disco gigs in shady nightclubs.

Yes, that early departure is likely due to the massive Dazzler promotion engine losing its wheels. Yes, her eventual ongoing series would eventually draw her back into superheroics, but Dazzler is the first example of a mutant who simply decided to use her powers to have a career.

She wouldn't be the last, either. Even as Dazzler herself ends up back in the superhero game, the mutant books at Marvel were following her lead, albeit twenty years too late. Grant Morrison devised a mutant culture where most of the world's X-gened population didn't have to put on costumes and monologue incessantly. NYX, when it could be bothered to come out, lived in that culture and focused on characters and day-to-day life over the high-minded 'protecting the dream' rhetoric that even die-hard X-fans are probably a little sick of by now. And it's Dazzler that set the precedent.

So the next time you read an X-Men book and wonder what contribution Dazzler makes to the team, correct your thinking. It's not the X-Men that Dazzler's made a lasting impact on, but the world. From an editorial perspective, Alison Blaire has stumbled to the forefront of the mutant rights issue, and whether as an actress, a disco diva or a member of Lila Cheney's backing band, she's proudly proven time and time again that mutants don't need to rely on Charles Xavier in order to give back to society.