Dazzler: X-Song Spoilers, Stand Together

[Star_Jammer]

Just so I'm clear: Am I transphobic if I hate this issue? Circle yes / no.

[Filthy Mutie]

I'm happy with any book that has dazzler in it. She looks the best she has in years. I liked the Peter interaction. However, I felt like it did nothing for her at all except introduce a little segway in order to introduce her into Astonishing.

My biggest pet peeve is how artists display her power. Her powers haven't been properly showed visually since X-Treme X-men. Throughout Fraction and A-Force (and now in the mini) she just has little sparkles and flowing lines of lights. It makes her seem weak. Do your homework and look at her power signatures throughout her solo, her outback years, x-treme, etc. Show her with lasers. Show her with huge photon blasts. Show her blasting out of her eyes. Show her using a strobe blast that would blind a block. I hope it gets better with Astonishing, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Former Morlock]

No, I get it. I knew someone was going to show that one single scene over the last five years. You know, where she disfigures her best friend. Totally in character.

[Filthy Mutie]

No, I get it. I knew someone was going to show that one single scene over the last five years. You know, where she disfigures her best friend. Totally in character.

[Maestroneto]

Whatever, I liked it. Minorities turning on each other is depressingly real, and yes I do happen to think the Inhumans were the right choice here. Previous stories aside, you can't bring them up around these boards without much wailing about how they're all imperialist genocide monsters, as if every single Inhuman had their finger on the trigger of the T-bomb back in Infinity. That's akin to calling every German citizen from 1939 'til now a Nazi. (doubly hilarious since, if you're looking for Nazis nowadays, you'll have much better luck looking in the United States) (god this world deserves death) Unless Black Bolt and Maximus were trying to get into Dazzler's gig, there were no "oppressors" on-page. Most Inhumans are just...people, who got turned into coccoons by gas once and are trying to deal with traumatic physical change but are still just people. Mutants in general, and the X-Men in particular, should know how it feels to be held accountable for the sins of the worst of your own kind despite having nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, there's always a bunch that just LOVE having the shoe on the other foot and can't stop themselves from kicking when they should be better than that.

The X-board should also know better than that. But they don't. Time and again this place is...I can't f***ing...can't put the words together because I'm just remembering all the other times I have been ashamed to post here and now I'm honestly trembling with rage. And not to name and shame, but Tycon, I expected better from you. That kind of POV is what I'd expect to see from the folks with Cyclops avatars (for it is always them, every time), you are normally better than this.

...I need to walk away from the computer now and punch a wall until my knuckles swell up.

Good book. Right message. Wrong fanbase.

The guy who says Magneto needs to stop whining about the Holocaust has a hot take, everyone.

[Heroine Addict]

... Unfortunately, there's always a bunch that just LOVE having the shoe on the other foot and can't stop themselves from kicking when they should be better than that.

The X-board should also know better than that. But they don't. Time and again this place is...I can't f***ing...can't put the words together because I'm just remembering all the other times I have been ashamed to post here and now I'm honestly trembling with rage. ...

...I need to walk away from the computer now and punch a wall until my knuckles swell up.

Good book. Right message. Wrong fanbase.

I cannot commend you enough for your brutal honesty, CtC...

ComicBook.com, Reviews for This Week: 6/6/2018
... how brilliantly this issue uses Alison Blaire's status as a musician and icon within her community to tackle themes of tribalism and territorialism within subcultures including, but not even close to limited to, X-Men fandom itself with an insider's nuance that shows empathy for all sides without necessarily bestowing approval. ...

... and it's true, some people can't see past their own pain, are selective with their empathy but eXpect it in return unconditionally, and therefore come across as hypocritical. I think most objective observers, would find the behavior of Mutant Action's members, indefensible. Apparently, emotions are still running high here tho, and thinking is clouded.

Just so I'm clear: Am I transphobic if I hate this issue? Circle yes / no.

How cavalier. Why, would it matter to you? 'Cause it doesn't sound it.

[Heroine Addict]

The guy who says Magneto needs to stop whining about the Holocaust has a hot take, everyone.

What a well-thought-out & helpful retort.

[Heroine Addict]

... I also found it quite unsettling actually at the point in the story were the mutant says to Dazzler he just wants to feel safe and she doesn't get to tell them they don't have that right and she beats him up......did no one else think that was f*cked up?

Wasn't that the "X-Men" moment to try and bring people together as opposed to a bizarre girl power moment. ...

WOW! I guess that's one way to read it. But safe from what? From who? And C'MON, it's not like he was some gentle soul, in the mood for an enlightening, cathartic chat.

[blanchett]

Honestly did people really not find it disturbing she beat the guy up after this panel? It was a moment of clarity. He said he was scared, wanted to be safe. The Inhumans released a death cloud. The irrational hate was human even if it was wrong. Maybe he was sick, maybe he lost someone, was sterilized, just traumatized from fleeing. Dazzler could relate to all of that given what she went through. Even the other characters that Visagio created could have related. There could at least have even been a failed attempt by Alison to bring them together in that moment, given it was the point of her tour. Instead she beat the shit out of the guy. Totally wrong messaging.

[Maestroneto]

Honestly did people really not find it disturbing she beat the guy up after this panel? It was a moment of clarity. He said he was scared, wanted to be safe. The Inhumans released a death cloud. The irrational hate was human even if it was wrong. Maybe he was sick, maybe he lost someone, was sterilized, just traumatized from fleeing. Dazzler could relate to all of that given what she went through. Even the other characters that Visagio created could have related. There could at least have even been a failed attempt by Alison to bring them together in that moment, given it was the point of her tour. Instead she beat the shit out of the guy. Totally wrong messaging.

I bet tumblr dot com loved it though.

[SanityOrMadness]

Is Dazzler still sick with M-Pox, or did that get fixed somewhere? Or just forgotten about, like Rogue?

[AJpyro]

Wait does that mean that the sterilization still happened? Then that means that alot of mutants are still sterile.

[Luckystar.]

Honestly did people really not find it disturbing she beat the guy up after this panel? It was a moment of clarity. He said he was scared, wanted to be safe. The Inhumans released a death cloud. The irrational hate was human even if it was wrong. Maybe he was sick, maybe he lost someone, was sterilized, just traumatized from fleeing. Dazzler could relate to all of that given what she went through. Even the other characters that Visagio created could have related. There could at least have even been a failed attempt by Alison to bring them together in that moment, given it was the point of her tour. Instead she beat the shit out of the guy. Totally wrong messaging.

I agree. Who cares he was scared or angry at his species being gassed to death, right? #NotAllInhumans I bet a good spanking can teach him a few lessons!
So much for "showing empathy for all sides without necessarily bestowing approval"

[Heroine Addict]

I bet tumblr dot com loved it though.

Beat that tired, old drum.

[akiresu_]

I really don't appreciate targeted, activist language being co-opted by the villains of a piece. When a character says "colonise our oppression", there is an explicit disregarding of that kind of criticism in progressive spaces and it is just one of many things that left a sour taste in my mouth with this issue. This could have easily been a story about mutants and mutant elitists (a la Acolytes) and you wouldn't encounter as much questionable ethical content. The problem with having mutants as minority stand-ins always comes from when they are one-for-one metaphors- not stories that pursue thematical similarity. Here, with Inhumans as a stand-in for the less-privileged minority, and mutants as the more-privileged minority, you're getting horrifyingly close to playing at the same divisive tactics this book supposedly condemns.

As others have posted, this is a story which quite clearly decries the safe space. I read this story as the trans-stand-in Inhumans being needlessly excluded from LGBT+ spaces by the rest of the community- which is a good, relevant interesting story to tell. The problem lies within the essential differences between mutants and inhumans, which makes a one-for-one metaphor fall apart. Inhumans and mutants have very distinct literary and contextual differences and just aren't part of the same community in the way a queer community is. I don't think all people should be entitled to all spaces. I think white, cishet men in radical queer spaces can leave people in said spaces feel uncomfortable or at risk, because of the longstanding effects the dominant demographics have had on marginalised communities. So not only does it read like a failure of the mutants-as-minority stand-in but, more than that, it feels like a denial of mutants place as the allegorically oppressed, shifting them towards being the oppressor. I think this is perhaps the thing that is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. In an out-of-text sense, it's quite invalidating to a fanbase that reads their own marginalisation through mutancy for said mutancy to now be proclaimed as the dominant or mainstream.


I think it's a good one-shot, I think the storytelling is, at least, decent. I think Dazzler is well-rendered, with a solid voice. I think Colossus sounds nothing like himself, but it is nice set-up for Astonishing regardless. I enjoy a lot of the individual parts here, the creative team is clearly talented, but I don't enjoy its quite centrist, horseshoe theory politics; "Maybe the people fighting oppression are the real oppressors.". It's stories like this that weaken and dilute the core themes of mutancy in universe and, I think more than anything else, goes to show how outdated this book is. I get that they wanted to sync it up to Astonishing's reshuffle, but this should have come out during the IvX era. Now, it just feels needlessly confrontational in a world now devoid of that (Inhuman/Mutant) conflict.

The story could work fine on its own, but as part of the wider, meta-text I think we can say it's a failure. That's as best as I think I can articulate my thoughts on this issue. Despite the sour taste it has left me with, it has clearly captured the imaginations of a lot of its readers, yielding a lot of praise (or, from me, more critical discussion) so I think the book at least gets kudos for bravery. Even if I fundamentally disagree with it.