History ComicBook / Dazzler

* BuriedAlive: In an issue of ''Dazzler'', Alison is hired to appear in a music video that was a thinly-veiled copy of ''Music/{{Thriller}}''. The preparation for one scene calls for the zombie dancers (including Alison) to be buried alive, so they can [[RiseFromYourGrave crawl out of their graves]] during the video. However, the director, [[FilmFelons having arranged a series of accidents to draw publicity to a "jinxed" production]], removed the air hose from Alison's plot, hoping to suffocate her. She was not amused, and got a confession from him [[WhatAnIdiot in front of the news crew he'd invited for the "accident"]].

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[[redirect:Characters/XMen80sMembers]]

[[redirect:Characters/MarvelComicsDazzler]]

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->''Can you hear it? The wind. Cars. The ocean. The laughter and the screaming and the hum of everything. This city is a symphony. And I'm her speaker.''

Billed as the first {{disco}}-themed superhero, Dazzler was originally created as a cross-promotional stunt, by Creator/MarvelComics and Casablanca Records. The latter had previously found a niche when Marvel made a comic book about Music/{{KISS}}, one of the most popular artists on Casablanca's label. The character first appeared in ''Uncanny X-Men'' #130 (February, 1980). She gained her own magazine in 1981.

The comic followed the adventures of Alison Blaire, a mutant who had the power to turn absorbed sound into bursts of light, and her life as a singer and superhero. She wore KISS-esque makeup ([[FollowTheLeader how obvious]]), [[RollerBladeGood snap-on roller skates]] and reflective bling, including a disco ball necklace. The character was introduced in 1980, [[DiscoSucks which did not help her popularity much]]. Despite this, the Dazzler book ran for about five years and 42 issues (March, 1981-March, 1986). Originally, the comic was aimed toward young females, the plots were a combination of {{Soap Opera}}-esque drama and the typical Superhero storylines (a format that would later be adapted by the later animated series/toy line ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}})''.

The musically-inclined Alison Blaire is introduced as a young mutant who has no desire to be a hero or villain, but just wants to use her powers to entertain and further her IdolSinger career. Although initially popular, after coming out as a mutant to help quell anti-mutant sentiment, the public rejects her. After a short stint as a back-up keyboard player, she joined the ''Comicbook/XMen'' and developed a romance with ComicBook/{{Longshot}}. After a long time in limbo, she resurfaced as a successful techno-trance musician and rejoined the X-Men.

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!! Dazzler appears in:

[[AC:Notable Comics]]
* ''Dazzler:''
** vol. 1 (1981 -- 1986)
** vol. 2 (2010)
* ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1984 -- 1985)
* ''Dazzler: The Movie'' (1984)
* ''Dazzler: X-Song #1'' (2018)
* ''ComicBook/XMen'' (various runs)
* ''[[ComicBook/{{Excalibur}} New Excalibur]]'' (2006 -- 2007)
* ''Comicbook/AForce'' (2016)

[[AC:Film]]
* Film/XMenFilmSeries (2016 — 2018)
** ''Film/XMenApocalypse'' (2016) - In a deleted scene she is seen on a record album's cover that Scott Summers and Jean Grey purchase in a music store.
** ''Film/DarkPhoenix'' (2019), portrayed by Creator/HalstonSage

[[AC: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/PrydeOfTheXMen'' (1989)
* ''WesternAnimation/XMen''
* ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen''
* ''The Offenders'' (TBD), voiced by TBA:
** ''Tigra & Dazzler'' (TBD)
** ''The Offenders'' (TBD)

[[AC:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/XMen'' (1992)
* ''[[VideoGame/XMenLegends X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse]]'' (2005) - Appears as a NPC in the PC version.
* ''Videogame/MarvelPuzzleQuest (introduced in 2018)

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!! Tropes associated with Dazzler and her comic include:

* AbsoluteCleavage: Her original costume had a slit that depending on the artist could stretch as low as her navel.
* ActionGirl: A very athletic woman who uses her powers but can also fight hand to hand if necessary.
* BarrierWarrior: Thanks to HardLight force fields. Another one of her powers that's largely forgotten about.
* CainAndAbel: Has this relationship with her half-sister Lois London (aka Mortis), which culminated with a one-on-one fight in a standalone issue, which ended with [[spoiler: Alison knocking Lois out and giving her to Psylocke for psychotherapy.]]
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Is often underestimated, in- and out-of-universe, due to her history as a blatant FadSuper and her preoccupation with her singing career. Despite this, she's proven she can more than pull her weight whenever she's on the X-Men.
* DarkerAndEdgier: [[spoiler:Following Mystique keeping Dazzler comatose so she could impersonate her, as well as for the sake of harvesting Dazzler's blood to create Mutant Growth Hormone (which can revive the X-Gene for a short period), Dazzler will be receiving a new look to reflect her pissed off attitude. The key word is "Black."]]
* ElementalPowers: Sound into light.
* EmotionControl: Can generate lightshows that stimulate specific emotional moods. Usually she can use this to calm a crowd; however, under the influence of Malice, she also spread feelings of [[HatePlague aggression and hostility]] at one of her concerts.
* EnergyWeapon: Her primary form of attack.
* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: A visual trademark of her powers.
* FadSuper: Her original incarnation was textbook example of this trope. Luckily, when she joined the X-Men, she ditched her OutdatedOutfit. Although it's worth noting that she's now an electronic dance musician during that genre's current boom.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: Her father wanted her to be a lawyer like him because he didn't want her to go into music like her mother who walked out on them for it.
* FilmFelons: She was recruited to dance in a music video that is a thinly veiled ''[[Music/MichaelJackson Thriller]]'' reference, and the director tries to cause her "accidental" death to further hype a curse on the production.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: [[DependingOnTheWriter Sometimes]]
* HardLight: She can make this too, though it's more difficult for her than her normal-strength light shows.
* HiddenDepths: Although her concern for her music career seems pretty shallow she was compassionate enough to figure out that [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]] was just a NonMaliciousMonster that only wanted to be left alone.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Would ''really'' rather focus on her career than be a superhero. Unfortunately, she keeps being dragged back into the world-saving biz.
* InstrumentOfMurder: Johnny Guitar and Doctor Sax.
* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: Invoked with her half-sister Mortis who emits dark energy instead of light.
* KilledOffForReal: In the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel universe, during ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}''
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:It had been implied that she was ComicBook/{{Shatterstar}}'s mother (with Longshot as the father). But this was later forgotten, only for it to be revealed that she ''did'' give birth to Shatterstar, and as part of a StableTimeLoop he, as an adult, wiped her memory of giving birth before taking his infant self to be [[KidFromTheFuture raised in the future]]. She still has no idea that he is her son]].
* LightEmUp: The crux of her powers revolves around the use of photons and light by using sound as a fuel. She can either blind people with her powers of use a concussive beam of photons, among other things.
* ([[MagicIdolSinger Magic]]) IdolSinger : Well, she's Western AND a mutant, but she's pretty close.
* MakeMeWannaShout: On one occasion released all her stored sound energy in a scream.
* ManOfKryptonite: As she can absorb any sound and convert it into light energy, she is the bane of any being with sonic attacks. Anyone with light/photon-based powers are also out of luck, as she is immune to and absorbs them as well.
* MasterOfIllusion: With enough concentration and sonic energy, she can create three-dimensional holograms. This power is largely forgotten, though, in favor of her [[IncrediblyLamePun flashier]] powers.
* MissingMom: Her jazz musician mother left the family because she didn't want the stress of her husband fighting for her to give up her career to help around the house to affect Alison.
* MostCommonSuperpower: in early issues, at least, she was occasionally drawn very top-heavy for a roller-skater.
* TheMovie: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Almost.]] A Dazzler movie was planned but scrapped after the script was made by Jim Shooter. Parts of the script were leaked online and it would have been, mostly because it was made in four days, the most [[NonSerialMovie coke-fueled]], [[AllStarCast cameo-heavy]], [[SoBadItsGood disaster]] ever.
* MsFanservice: She's quite beautiful in her outfit.
* MundaneUtility: Her powers first surfaced as a light show accompanying her singing. That was her regular use of them, assumed by fans to be a gimmick.
* OutdatedOutfit: Not the one pictured above, but the page image for FadSuper. it doesn't help that she was created to cash in on the disco craze.
** Even worse -- by the time she was finally introduced, the "Disco Sucks" backlash had already come, making her immediately an UnintentionalPeriodPiece. One can only think that there was more than a little TakeThat to Disco and having a disco tie-in character forced upon Claremont and Byrne when they introduced her in a "disco" that owed more to MoralGuardians' worst nightmares of [=CBGB's=] in New York and The Masque in Los Angeles than Studio 54.
* ThePowerOfRock: What? Did you ''really'' expect her music not to evolve with the times?
** Given her "sound into light" powers, she can make this literal.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The last issue's cover featured the caption "Because YOU demanded it" making it the end.
* TheRockStar: ExecutiveMeddling forced her to start off as a DiscoDan (at the exact time when disco was ''dying out,'' no less!), but as time went on, became more of an '80s pop sensation, in the style of Cyndi Lauper or Sheena Easton. In the early-to-mid 90s she was all but ignored, then brought back in the late 90s as a Disco revival act, before becoming a lounge act in the early '00s and finally, a circuit club star in the modern story arc.
* ReimaginingTheArtifact: As seen on this page, many Marvel writers have tried to update Dazzler's music genres to make her relevant to the era.
* SliceOfLife: Her original genre.
* SpecialGuest: In many of the early issues, popular established Marvel heroes such as Franchise/SpiderMan, the X-Men and ComicBook/TheAvengers as well as such villains as Dr. Doom. Also, her first appearance was as a guest star in X-Men.
* SpiritualSuccessor: the "pop singer with a secret identity" plot would later find itself as the basis of two popular TV series aimed at young girls, ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' and ''Series/HannahMontana.''
** In-universe arguably DJ/Mark Sheppard from ''New X-Men'', who could directly convert different types of music into various effects: Dance music allows him to manipulate light, Gospel lets him fly, while [[ThePowerOfRock Rock and Roll gives him energy blasts]].
** Marvel tried the idea of a singer/superhero, again in the 90's with Nightcat.
* SuperCuteSuperPowers: There is "Dazzler: [[FadSuper Disco Queen]]" whose mutant power is effectively to make shiny bright sparkling lights in time to music. In reality, her ability is turning sound into light which [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower has staggering implications]], but for the most part it's used for her disco image.
* TookALevelInBadass: She joined the X-Men thanks to being forced by circumstance, but over the course of her run with the team, she focused mainly on [[TrainingFromHell becoming a more capable combatant.]] And it showed; by the time she left the team, she was considered [[LookWhatICanDoNow one of its most potentially powerful members.]]
** When people realized just how powerful her abilities really are, she became more badass as well. The more sound or light there is, the more energy she can charge and release, meaning enough light can make her sound powers [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Black Bolt]]-level, and enough sound can make her light powers WaveMotionGun-level. She's fine-tuned her light powers enough to make holograms, and the HardLight ability means while it's extremely difficult for her, she can be the poor man's ComicBook/GreenLantern. At one point Galactus had her absorb the sound of ''an exploding solar system'' so she would be charged enough to retrieve something out of a black hole for him. She also gets immunity to sound or light attacks as a bonus; bad news for your average [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]]-wielding opponent.
** In ''"What if? Infinity "'' she managed what Black Bolt couldn't and converted one of his screams into a beam powerful to obliterate Thanos.
** Case in point, when Emma Frost wanted to punch Black Bolt in the throat to avenge Scott, Emma didn't call Colossus or Magneto to help. She called Dazzler, who used her aforementioned Man of Kryptonite status to negate Black Bolt's sonic powers.
* UnexplainedRecovery: She has died multiple times and resurrected without much of an explanation (even for ComicBookDeath). This was discussed by her teammates when this occurred twice in quick succession while on [[{{Comicbook/Excalibur}} Excalibur]] but so far nothing has come of it.
* WhatHaveIDone: When Klaw, a villain literally made of living sound, made the mistake of attacking her, she fought back with her sound-absorbing powers and, to her own surprise and horror, basically ''ate him.'' [[ComicBookDeath (He got better.)]]
* WhatTheHellHero: She never forgave the X-Men for welcoming Rogue into their ranks after how many times the latter tried to kill her and destroy her life while serving Mystique, and to this day relations between them tend to be rocky at best.
* WorldsMostBeautifulWoman: Although she lost that specific title to the Enchantress twice, she has won the title of best singer on both Earth and Asgard to Amora's frustration.
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** ''Film/DarkPhoenix'' (2019), portrayed by Halston Sage

The comic followed the adventures of Alison Blaire, a mutant who had the power to turn absorbed sound into bursts of light, and her life as a singer and superhero. She wore KISS-esque makeup ([[FollowTheLeader how obvious]]), [[RollerBladeGood snap-on roller skates]] and reflective bling, including a disco ball necklace. The character was introduced in 1980, [[DeaderThanDisco which did not help her popularity much]]. Despite this, the Dazzler book ran for about five years and 42 issues (March, 1981-March, 1986). Originally, the comic was aimed toward young females, the plots were a combination of {{Soap Opera}}-esque drama and the typical Superhero storylines (a format that would later be adapted by the later animated series/toy line ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}})''.

* WhatHaveIDone: When Klaw, a villain literally made of living sound, made the mistake of attacking her, she fought back with her sound-absorbing powers and, to her own surprise and horror, basically ''ate him.'' [[ComicBookDeath(He got better.)]]

* FrickinLaserBeams: Her primary form of attack.

** When people realized just how powerful her abilities really are, she became more badass as well. The more sound or light there is, the more energy she can charge and release, meaning enough light can make her sound powers [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Black Bolt]]-level, and enough sound can make her light powers WaveMotionGun-level. She's fine-tuned her light powers enough to make holograms, and the HardLight ability means while it's extremely difficult for her, she can be the poor man's ComicBook/GreenLantern. At one point Galactus had her absorb the sound of ''an exploding solar system'' so she would be charged enough to retrieve something out of a black hole for him. She also gets immunity to sound or light attacks as a bonus; bad news for your average FrickinLaserBeams-wielding opponent.

* TheMovie: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Almost.]] A Dazzler movie was planned but scrapped after the script was made by Jim Shooter. Parts of the script were leaked online and it would have been, mostly because it was made in four days, the most [[BigLippedAlligatorMovie coke-fueled]], [[AllStarCast cameo-heavy]], [[SoBadItsGood disaster]] ever.

** When people realized just how powerful her abilities really are, she became more badass as well. The more sound or light there is, the more energy she can charge and release, meaning enough light can make her sound powers [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Black Bolt]]-level, and enough sound can make her light powers WaveMotionGun-level. She's fine-tuned her light powers enough to make holograms, and the HardLight ability means while it's extremely difficult for her, she can be the poor man's GreenLantern. At one point Galactus had her absorb the sound of ''an exploding solar system'' so she would be charged enough to retrieve something out of a black hole for him. She also gets immunity to sound or light attacks as a bonus; bad news for your average FrickinLaserBeams-wielding opponent.

%%* ActionGirl

%%* LightEmUp

* ''[[VideoGame/XMenLegends X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse]]'' (2013) - Appears as a NPC in the PC version.

* Film/XMenFilmSeries (2016-present), played by TBA:

** ''Film/DarkPhoenix'' (2019)

[[AC:Flm]]

* ActionGirl

* DarkerAndEdgier: [[spoiler: Following Mystique keeping Dazzler comatose so she could impersonate her, as well as for the sake of harvesting Dazzler's blood to create Mutant Growth Hormone (which can revive the X-Gene for a short period), Dazzler will be receiving a new look to reflect her pissed off attitude. The key word is "Black."]]

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler: It had been implied that she was ComicBook/{{Shatterstar}}'s mother (with Longshot as the father). But this was later forgotten, only for it to be revealed that she ''did'' give birth to Shatterstar, and as part of a StableTimeLoop he, as an adult, wiped her memory of giving birth before taking his infant self to be [[KidFromTheFuture raised in the future]]. She still has no idea that he is her son]].
* LightEmUp

* '''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen''

* ManOfKryptonite: As she can absorb any sound and convert it into light energy, she is the bane of any being with sonic attacks.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dazzler.jpg]]

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler: It had been implied that she was Shatterstar's mother (with Longshot as the father). But this was later forgotten, only for it to be revealed that she ''did'' give birth to Shatterstar, and as part of a StableTimeLoop he, as an adult, wiped her memory of giving birth before taking his infant self to be [[KidFromTheFuture raised in the future]]. She still has no idea that he is her son]].