Uncanny X-Men #148 (1981)
by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum
Dazzler makes a quick cameo in the series where she first appeared.
I won’t talk about the X-Men plots because… well it’s the Claremont era.
It IS historically significant as the first appearance of Caliban, though he’s nearly unrecognizable from his future incarnations.
The section of the story with any relevance to Dazzler is that we see her performing at a nightclub called Infinity. Among the customers are Storm and Kitty Pride, along with civilian Stevie Hunter and the superhero Spider-Woman, in her secret identity of Jessica Drew.
I’m fairly sure this is the first time the first Spider-Woman shows up in my reviews!
You might think my decision to count all the superheroes that are fans of Dazzler is exaggerating how much they love her music. But they are actively ignoring gunshots for her performance!!!
I still have absolutely no idea what kind of music Dazzler plays. Even Claremont’s verbose prose does little to illuminate us (pun intended).
When the superheroes finally take interest in the actual story, Dazzler uses her powers to create a distraction for them.
So while Storm and Spider-Woman rescue Kitty from Caliban…
…Dazzler uses her powers to hypnotize the crowd. Wait, WHAT!?!?
Soooo… Dazzler is able to perfectly calibrate the music AND her light to “create a specific emotional mood” now!?
Sounds legit.
That’s the last we see of Dazzler in the issue, by the way.
It feels like a cameo coming from an editorial mandate AND it feels perfectly Claremont to just have a character appear, do something she’s never done before, and then vanish.
Dazzler significance: 0/10
Why did she show up in the first place?
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Taking into consideration ONLY the Dazzler scene: that power sure came out of nowhere!
Does it stand the test of time?
Obviously I can’t properly give this a rating since I’m not reviewing the whole story.
For what it’s worth I’m not the biggest fan of this X-Men era, but it’s fine.
Superhero fans: 14
Both Storm and Kitty Pride are already part of the fanclub. Spider-Woman doesn’t say anything about Dazzler’s performance, so she’s not included.