*This piece contains spoilers for Dark Phoenix*
Dark Phoenix might not be setting audiences on fire just yet, but there is plenty of fun fan service that will likely please X-Men diehards despite the lukewarm reviews the film has garnered so far. One of the highlights of the 12th Fox X-Men flick is a fan fave character who’s long been rumored to join the franchise.
During a (very premature) celebration of the heroic team’s space mission, the kids hold a party whilst Charles Xavier heads off to accept an award for all his humanitarian good deeds. If the idea of unattended young mutants doesn’t sound like a good idea that’s because it isn’t. But before it all goes horribly wrong we get a sequence of a wild party out in the forests that surround the X-Mansion and the woman supplying the music is none other than Dazzler!
So just who is the superstar singer lighting up the woods with her magical mutant powers and vocoder-y voice? Well, she was first introduced in Uncanny X-Men #130, which was a key issue that came in the early end of “the Dark Phoenix saga,” making Dazzler’s inclusion itself is a nice nod to her comic book origin. The disco-inspired character has evolved since her first appearance; now she performs all kinds of music, she’s a cool EDM singer in the film version of Dark Phoenix.
Her powers consist of an ability to convert the vibrations of sound into radical energy beams, which makes her role as a pop star a seemingly perfect fit. And that wasn’t a coincidence; in fact, Dazzler was originally a failed crossover between Marvel and Casablanca Records, meant to generate an animated series and singer known as “The Disco Queen.” But even after the tie-ins were discontinued, Dazzler remained a mainstay of X-Men extras.
Known as Alison Blaire, rumors materialized that the classic character would join the X-Men during the last entry into the franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse, but she never appeared. During that discourse, there was a lot of talk about the potential for Taylor Swift to take on the mantle, but things never materialized for the 1989 singer. In Dark Phoenix, Halston Sage plays Dazzler, and the singer only appears in the aforementioned scene of the film.
Her comic book career saw her take on her own solo title which historically became the first comic to ever sell exclusively through the direct market. This is a massive milestone as that would become and still is the only way single-issue comics are sold to comic shops! She also cameoed in other X-Titles before falling out of favor in the ’90s. There was even a rumored live-action movie that would have starred Bo Derek.
In Dark Phoenix, we got our first on-screen iteration of the disco-sweetheart but with the inevitable Marvel reboot on the way, we probably haven’t seen the last of her!
Images: Marvel, Fox
