Dazzler, the Shining Light of KrakoArakko Appreciation 2022

[ohsnapulon5000]

def these vibes are back.
tumblr_llammyuHSc1qzniqdo1_500.jpg

[PolarIceFire]

Kingdom X was kind enough to provide this early review, too, which thankfully...

https://aiptcomics.com/2022/08/22/x-...tors-1-review/

First review is up! It’s *slightly* spoilery if you wanna go in completely blind. Overall seems like this will be a fun side-story.

sounds POSITIVE!

‘X-Terminators’ #1 is a rowdy jolt of bubblegum charm and excitement
Out on September 21st, there’s nothing else like ‘X-Terminators’ in the X-Men line.

David Brooke, August 22, 2022

X-Terminators may be out on September 21st, but AIPT got an advance look to tell you if the neon-drenched action frenzy of adult-tinged entertainment is as entertaining as it looks. Given the main characters are all energy-powered mutants–Dazzler, Boom-Boom, and Jubilee–it’s already setting off fireworks with its cast. Add in Leah Williams’ ability to write fun characters with modern dialogue, and we have a party you won’t want to miss.

And a party it is, with a breakneck pace, dialogue that zips, and characters that aren’t shy to be themselves. This book seriously moves quickly and yet, reads in a dense way where you’ll linger on Williams’ dialogue or Carlos Gómez’s pleasingly kinetic pencils. Just when you think a character is out of the woods in immediate danger, they’re thrust into another danger that requires them to think fast or die. The characters aren’t so much fearful for their lives as they are excited to stay alive at every turn, making the book more fun than perilous. You’ll enjoy experiencing the death-defying threats since they relish being badass.

Something appealing about this book is its parental advisory, allowing Jubilee, Dazzler, and Boom-Boom to be more adult and casual about doing adult things like drinking alcohol or commiserating over Dazzler dealing with a personal issue. Williams writes these characters in a realistic way, to the point where I wondered if the dialogue was straight from Williams’ real-life hangouts with friends and family. The characters talk and act naturally, making it a breeze to enjoy their company.

I wouldn’t say this issue is for adults only, but there’s some swearing, plenty of blood, and imbibing of alcohol. I will say I did find the excessive drinking early on in the issue a bit too much. It’s played up as fun without any negatives, but I suppose we’ll see if there are any hangovers by the time the five-issue series is done.

As Marvel’s preview shows, this issue has Boom-Boom blowing up vampire heads and Dazzler rollerskating through vampire blood. It’s grindhouse in the most fun way without disturbing imagery or themes. These characters have a ball, making it almost cartoonish rather than edgy. That will appeal to readers of any age.

This issue starts...

And I stopped there, 'cause I didn't wanna spoil any of the details' finer points, but I'm...
VERY ENCOURAGED!!
My X-fandom needs this.

There's an interview Leah did recently, also: Leah Williams Serves Up Sexy X-Men With Grindhouse Themes in X-Terminators (Exclusive), @ComicBook.com

but I haven't had a chance to read it yet, only just finding it, though I will later today to post highlights.

LASTLY, just up in the last 24 hours: X-Men Monday Call for Questions: Leah Williams for ‘X-Terminators’, @AIPT.com

... You survived the House of X eXperience… but what about the Grindhouse of X?!? We’ll find out September 21 when X-Terminators #1 drops.

But before then, you’ll get a chance to learn more about this bombastic new series courtesy of its writer Leah Williams in an upcoming edition of X-Men Monday. If you’d like to ask Leah a question, read the rules below and fill in the official form. ...

Deadline: Saturday, August 27, 2022 at 5 PM EST!

So... GET 'EM IN, GLITTERATI!!!!

[ohsnapulon5000]

a day before my birthday??? (8.28) Its like its meant to be!

[PolarIceFire]

a day before my birthday??? (8.28) Its like its meant to be!

Cool, CONGRATS!

... There's an interview Leah did recently, also: Leah Williams Serves Up Sexy X-Men With Grindhouse Themes in X-Terminators (Exclusive), @ComicBook.com

but I haven't had a chance to read it yet, only just finding it, though I will later today to post highlights. ...

... its original title of "Dazzler the Vampire Slayer,"...

I KNEW IT!!!

Honestly, I haven't once thought about Ali... 'the Vampire Slayer', and how well it works, until this. Never even *dawn*d on me and now it's like duh, of course, in hindsight. ...

... Gerry Duggan brought up this kind of old pitch that he had once mentioned and then never pursued. And he referred to it as Dazzler the Vampire Slayer. And I was immediately entranced, like what? What? Gerry, what? Why are you not writing this? This is amazing. Are you kidding me?

And he was like, "Leah, it's yours. It's yours. If you want to do something with it, it is all yours." And I was just like, okay, absolutely. I will write this book. Are you kidding? It's an amazing idea. And from there it kind of shifted as the needs for the line changed. And it went from being Dazzler the Vampire Slayer, which we'd considered doing as a Marvel Unlimited comic, the vertical scrolling webcomic they have on the Marvel Unlimited app, to being a Grindhouse book, because after X-Factor and after Trial of Magneto, what I really wanted to do was Grindhouse.

There wasn't a book like that in the lineup. And I kind of needed an emotional pallet cleanser after X-Factor and Trial of Magneto. I wanted something fun and action-packed and kind of joyfully stupid. I was just really, really into that. So it became Grindhouse of X is what we started calling it after Dazzler the Vampire Slayer. And it was Jonathan Hickman's idea. So we really wanted that to be the title of the book and called it Grindhouse of X for a while. ...

Parental Advisory

Of course, the parental advisory portion of the series made headlines. Did that choice come down to just wanting to stick to the grindhouse vibe that you were going for?

It did. And it was actually [editor] Jordan White's idea. I have never given much thought to ratings and I didn't know until this series that it was within my power to have an opinion on the matter. So Jordan came to me and he was like, "What are you thinking for rating?" And he asked me that in the X-Slack, in the X-Terminators channel and he suggested parental advisory. And I was like, "Oh my God, that's an option? Yes, absolutely."

And then he just kind of paused for a second and he was like, "Yeah. Yeah, we have to." Because of the issues that were already completed. And I think it was around Issue #3. I was writing Issue #3 when we committed to being a parental advisory. And from that point on, now that I knew we were going to have a PA rating, I started stress testing the boundaries of this rating. Like how far can I push this? Because I thought I was playing it safe in the first two issues, but now let's really see how far I can push that parental advisory rating. And it's every time an issue comes back from S&P, we do a victory lap in the Slack, all of the other writers and Jordan and the editors, we celebrate what actually got through.

Were you getting a lot of notes back from S&P?

No, because they know that it's a PA rating. "We're going to give you some latitude here because we know what you're doing. We know that there's a warning on it." I guess it's because it's always kind of a negotiation with that kind of thing. Like curse words, that kind of thing. "Damn" and "ass," stuff that I think is like PG-13, it's not PG-13 in a Marvel comic. That's a parental advisory warning.

You said around Issue #3 is when you started to push it a little more. So is that a case where readers will notice back from the first two issues to Number #3, the boundaries being pushed a little more?

Yeah. So the way that it's going to come across in the story is the plot escalating. It's not something that, like the tone hasn't changed, the style hasn't changed, but the plot is escalating, events are accelerating. It's a natural kind of flow. And I got an interesting comment back from a friend who I asked to read over the third issue. She came to me after reading it and she was like, "Okay. This is the issue that made me sit there in stunned disbelief that Marvel is actually publishing it. This is the issue that I was like, 'I can't believe this exists.'"

I was like, "Oh, okay. That's interesting, because that's when I found out about the PA rating."

That has me excited to get to the third issue, because just from the first issue I already was enjoying it. So that's something to look forward to.

Oh absolutely. It kind of sets me up. I'm finishing the fifth issue today. And it kind of sets me up in this position where I have to outdo myself every time. Not just because of story reasons, but because Carlos Gomez, the artist, his reactions to the scripts have been so gratifying that every time I'm like, "Okay. I got to impress him even more now."

And I'm sure that the same can be said of readers. I want to impress you guys even more with every new issue....

Vampire Villains

What made vampires the perfect antagonists for the series? Because you rarely get to see them outside of supernatural titles.

Well, Dazzler is uniquely equipped to annihilate vampires. She's like a one-woman vampire genocide. She could just end it all for the vampire nation. And I find that fascinating. And I can't believe that it hasn't been explored more or focused on. It was shown in Deadpool. She teamed up with Deadpool in an issue. They showed her killing vampires, but that was just like a single issue. And it was a Deadpool, not a Dazzler comic. I think it should be a Dazzler story and it should be front and center and we should get the full gory glory of what she can do with her powers to vampires. It's incredible. And the vampire nation in the current continuity, they're actually not at war with the greater Marvel Universe or anything like that. So the vampires that we're dealing with in X-Terminators, just in case anybody's concerned about this, do deserve it.

They do deserve what's coming to them. They are defectors from the vampire nation. ...

Hafta admit, while still hyped, my enthusiasm was lessened a li'l by this interview. I'd already made peace with the gimmicky-ness of it all & actually embraced that aspect, my concern is after reading between the lines, it's clear to me at least... that Boom-Boom is her waifu, not Dazzler. Hopefully, though, that'll prove to be a... nonFAQtor, and the spoils of war will be plentifully distributed, to the cast as a whole. And I have more confidence than not, that'll be the case. So, no shade, just sayin'... and managing eXpectations.

[Rift]

From more recent times, I would highly recommend her 2012-13 X-Treme 14 issue run, and I personally enjoyed her short, 2017 Astonishing 5 issue one:

There also was of course, the non-X-related A-Force, for 5 issues in 2015's Secret Wars & 10 issues after it in 2016:

Oh yeah, I forgot I read Astonishing. But I remember liking her a lot in that run.

[PolarIceFire]

Oh yeah, I forgot I read Astonishing. But I remember liking her a lot in that run.

Yeah, one of my favorite bits was her "big sis" shaming Colossus [and by eXtension the rest of the boys], for his pigsty apartment & the feelin' sorry for himself, drunken slob that he'd become. She of course was more sensitive about it, not surprisingly. When zombie Banshee freaked the F out & flew the hell outta there, after she put her hand on his knee, was hilarious too.

[PolarIceFire]

Hadn't settled on what to ask for Leah's X-Men Monday yet, 'cause oddly, I couldn't even think of somethin' initially. But I wanted to bring this over from the official announcement thread...

In typical X-Men fashion, what starts as a wild night out gets even crazier when Jubilee, Boom-Boom, and Dazzler are kidnapped and put into elaborate death traps by a mysterious new army of enemies. What are three fierce mutants with the power to blow things up to do? Expect a hardcore, neon-fueled, down and dirty type of adventure unlike any seen before in X-Men history with all the light blasts, fireworks, time bombs, and brawling you can possibly hope for!

Yah, I'm totally in!

Haha yes, bring on the explosions. In my head I'm calling this X-Men: Neon.

SAME, and LUVs it!! Crazy WILD indeed, and turns out...

https://twitter.com/KrakoaWelcomes/s...51402528362506

Krakoa Welcomes
@KrakoaWelcomes

From Marvel 1001

NOT SO RANDOM!!! AND once again...

it was *Emma* all along, lol...

https://twitter.com/petervnguyen/sta...97066454290442

Peter V Nguyen !
@petervnguyen

The announcement of the new #xterminators @mymonsterischic @nemafronspain
has me super excited. I haven't painted x23 because im going through the 90s version first but i have painted these 3 before. praying for a whiz kid cameo hah
#jubilee #dazzler tik tik #boomboom #xmen

https://twitter.com/powerofxmen/stat...43865041113088

Power of X-Men
@powerofxmen

X-TERMINATORS lands this July and stars Wolverine, Dazzler, Jubilee, and Boom-Boom! We are READY for this title
@mymonsterischic
✨ #xtwitter #XSpoilers #xmen

LET'S GOOOO!!!!

which gave me an idea for 1, and now I think I have the other 2. I'll put them together ASAP, hopefully in the morning, 'cause the deadline's tomorrow @ 5pm EST.

[PolarIceFire]

My 3rd question's gonna revolve around there being any coordination with, and/or possible connections to... THIS?!

https://twitter.com/AconyteBooks/sta...46268190482432

https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/266411

Description

Dazzler, rock ‘n’ roll, and the children of Cyclops and Magneto launch into space and beyond in this electrifying trans-dimensional adventure from Marvel’s School of X

When rock star Dazzler walked out on S.H.I.E.L.D., she hoped she’d seen the last of the clandestine organization. But when a rogue agent drops in after a sold-out gig, she must decide whether to work with them again or stick to her solo career. The agent links Mutant Growth Hormone – a dangerous biochemical that wildly enhances mutant powers – with the disappearance of Magneto and Cyclops. Reluctantly, Dazzler takes the case and unfolds a mystery greater than she anticipated. In need of a new team, she recruits the extraordinary mutants Emma Frost, Polaris, and Rachel Grey on a mission to foil a plot to remove mutantkind forever, which blasts them from Earth into a whole new dimension.


A Note From the Publisher

This new School of X story features some well-known faces and fan favorites allowing us to appeal to an established fan base:
o Alison Blaire “Dazzler”: 70s disco queen, modernized for a current audience, creates her own all-female X-Men team to help S.H.I.E.L.D
o Lorna Dane “Polaris”: Winner of the 2021 X-Men Fan Vote, the mutant daughter of Magneto. Polaris lost her powers during M-Day, and we follow her as she regains them.
o Emma Frost “White Queen”: Head of the New Charles Xavier School
o James Howlett “Logan” / “Wolverine”: Cameo appearance
o Rachel (Summers) Grey: The mutant daughter of Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey-Summers from an alternative timeline

AMANDA BRIDGEMAN has written eight volumes of the award-nominated Aurora series of near-future space thrillers, the SF police procedural The Subjugate (recently optioned for TV), and a Stephen King-esque mystery The Time of the Stripes. She’s also worked as a TV and film actress.


Advance Praise

“A compelling seat-of-the-pants murder mystery and a fascinating inquiry into good and evil and the possibility of redemption.”

The Guardian, on The Subjugate

“Convincing near-future forecasting with great characters and a police-procedural murder mystery achieves full page-turner status – all without sacrificing intelligence for thrills.”

Locus magazine, on The Subjugate

Advance [member] reviews: https://www.netgalley.com/book/266411/reviews

Kathryn M, Reviewer

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I'm a big X-Men fan and I found this team, a unique team but really worked really well together. I loved the premise and was fully invested in what was going on. It had the spirit of the X-Men that I enjoyed and I does what I was hoping for. The characters felt like the comic counterparts and I was glad I was able to read this. Amanda Bridgeman does what I was hoping for and I enjoyed the way she wrote this book. It worked in a entry in the Marvel: School of X series and I look forward to more.

"“Their security was next level,” Sage said. “I detected all sorts of scanning systems. Perhaps they picked up on abnormal brain activity in Rachel.” She placed her hands on her hips, shoulders softening a little in defeat. “They knew we were mutants before Polaris pushed that table against the door.”

Luke M, Reviewer

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

It’s great to see a book with Dazzler in the lead- especially when she’s working with an all female team- Polaris, Sage, Rachel and Emma together make for great reading, and there’s a fun plot that includes some classic X-characters.
My only grumbles are from an editorial/continuity perspective- Sage is believed to be from Afghanistan, not Eastern Europe, and Cyclops definitely doesn’t fire lasers from his eyes- they’re beams of concussive force that do not give off heat. I was also a little puzzled about some choices that were made- most of the X-Men had never met Ali despite being a stalwart of the X-Men, and little things like Emma being in a white costume rather than a black one didn’t fit the time period of the book- although I won’t grumble as I much prefer her in white! All in all, a fun read- I’d have loved to see Mortis turn up!

[PolarIceFire]

Got my 3 ?'s 2gether & just sent them in...

1. Beyond the admittedly, rather brilliant 'Vampire Slayer' angle, what's your take on Dazzler's character as a whole? Who is Alison Blaire & what's she about, to you? Particularly in this new, arguably "Golden Age" setting of Krakoa & Arakko, that mutantdom currently finds itself in.

2. I'm imagining that your "Blast Squad" [feat. Dazz, Jubes, Boomer, & Gambino] from Marvel 1001's '616's Best Stress Testers' was a bit of a precursor & setup for this, is that true & if so, could you elaborate on the thought processes on bringing them all together [based on the similarities of their powers and/or archetypes]?

3. Lastly, the upcoming Marvel School of X 'Sound of Light' novel for later this fall [feat. Dazz again, along w/Polaris, Emma, & Rachel], is there any connection to and/or at least coordination with what you & the X-office have been/are doing with those characters, or is it all just... a happy coincidence?

and I don't think any of them were too spoiler-ish, in any way. Though that doesn't guarantee they'll be picked, as I'm sensing... a slightly antagonistic, somewhat adversarial energy, coming from Marvel & the X-office these days, along w/those who are closely associated and/or favored by them. But IDC, from here on out... gonna say what I mean, and mean what I say, FTW!!!

[Jackraow21]

I’m looking forward to this. Have always liked Jubilee and Dazzler, and absolutely love Boomer and find her hilarious.

[ohsnapulon5000]

hey! it's my birthday and I just wanted to gift the boards with some definitive dazzscans!

Ok so first off is this Dazzscan from Dazzler #19 that definitively shows that YES Alison's Grew up in a House where her family knew she was a mutant! this is super important because a lot of what Dazzler reads as and is her being responsible for the issues of privilege, inadvertently.
whereas a lot of Mutants were ostracized, abandoned or ended up in a lot worse conditions because of their family lives or lack thereof, the institution of training young mutants into government or paramilitary factionionalism is the norm among many generations.

Alison, lovingly, is raised in a home where the main conceit of her father's ostracization isn't because she's a mutant, but that she won't quit music. and go to law school.

RCO005_1469240851.jpgRCO005_1469240851.jpg

Just another thing that sets Dazzler apart as being an everyman in a more real world regard, where many of us were at least given opportunity to let our abilities develop in school around family settings maybe in the burbs. But with Ali its about bringing that real world to the books but in the most phenomenal situations. ha ha

[PolarIceFire]

A belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Ohsnapulon5000!! And a BIG yes, to Dazz's Grandma Bella, THANK YOU!!!

Also, here's somethin' that says A LOT, about who Ali is to me...

and what she stands for.

[PolarIceFire]

I’m looking forward to this. Have always liked Jubilee and Dazzler, and absolutely love Boomer and find her hilarious.

Yeah, Tabby's alright, I like her well enough. I just wonder with her imaging already as presented & the way she's being talked about, combined with the quote [of a promised development] that follows:

... I'm not going to explain why. I'm not going to explain how the story gets us there, but I just want to plant that seed in people's minds about seeing Boom-Boom in a sexy clown girl outfit, because we did that. ...

if her portrayal won't be able to avoid coming across as a riff on DC's ever popular...



Harley Quinn?

Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing, mind you, just sayin'.

[Havok83]

I asked in the Polaris thread and wondered if anyone on here knew. Has Dazzler ever interacted with her on panel?

[ThomBoleyn]

Unless it is a blink and you miss it panel, they have never interacted. I don't think they even spoke in XFactor when Ali made her cameos.
I would LOVE for them to have some panel time together. I think they'd have a good dynamic.