Dazzler #20

Dazzler #20 (1982)
by Danny Fingeroth & Frank Springer
cover by John Romita Jr.

Got to admit that’s a pretty great cover. Will the actual story hold up just as well?
(spoiler alert: it won’t)

I’m immensely grateful Dazzler is a fictional character and can’t read my reviews. I don’t think she’d be a fan.

This is actually a nightmare that Dazzler’s father is having.

Dazzler has never been this intimidating so far… so naturally this scene isn’t actually happening.

I called it a nightmare, but it’s actually a complete mental breakdown. Please remember the way Dazzler’s father is acting, because once we get to the cause of this breakdown you’ll see how monumentally overdramatic he’s being.

Jumping ahead several pages (the comic will take a lot of time before catching up with this plot), Angel decides to look for Dazzler.
And we have yet another reason why Red Moustache is a good love interest: he might be jealous, but since Angel mentions it’s about her father being sick he doesn’t hesitate giving him directions.

Meanwhile, how is Dazzler doing?

Yeah that’s about right.

And yes, it does come out of nowhere.

I know Dazzler keep repeating that she’s not a superhero, but still, the fact that she was almost taken down by a teen is kind of embarrassing.

I think I’ve seen like fifty different superheroes make the pledge they’d never use their powers again. It hasn’t worked once, but sure, Dazzler will be the one to make it.

Dazzler has been carrying around her mother’s brooch for several issues… days to probably weeks in the story… and ONLY NOW she notices it opens up.

The brooch has the picture of her father, who “looks so young” despite being basically the same he’s drawn now…

…BUT it also has the picture of another man.

Remember how last issue ended with the cliffhanger about Dazzler’s singer friend discovering a shocking secret in her teacher’s home? Turns out she’s a stalker.

Well, her daughter is.

Speaking of Dazzler’s band, she visits her bass player’s house and we meet his family.
His wife is not particularly important, but his son plays a part in this story.

Okay we’re almost at the halfway point of this issue (!!!), is ANYTHING interesting going to happen!?!?

Doctor Sax and Johnny Guitar, our villains for the issue (REALLY!!!), were previously in the same band of Dazzler’s supporting characters… until they were discovered committing crimes on the side.

A fight ensues (???), and Doctor Sax ends up being blinded by the blowtorch he wanted to use to steal from a safe.
You know, typical indie band shenanigans.

The duo ends up being arrested thanks to the band, and I guess they’re mutants because it looks like they can fly (WTF is up with the artwork in these flashbacks!?).

These two ended up becoming supervillains thanks to Techmaster, of all people. That’s cute, all of Dazzler’s lame original villains know each other!

Johnny Guitar’s… ehm, guitar is a sonic weapon that can break stuff. Kind of predictable, but sure.
Doctor Sax’s power, on the other hand, is that he sucks at playing so much he gives you nightmares.

Dazzler decides to intervene because Doc Sax’s music makes babies cry.
You just can’t make this stuff up!

She swoops by to get the baby, but doesn’t get far. Maybe if she wasn’t wearing her skates beneath high heels (???) she could make a run for it!

She’s able to blind Johnny Guitar, but Doc Sax is LITERALLY blind…

…so she decides to DISINTEGRATE HIS SAXOPHONE.

But even that doesn’t take him out, so Dazzler resorts to her ultimate weapon: coffee!

Not only he’s still not out… are we SURE this guy doesn’t have super-strength!?

A good old kick in the face is what ends a truly epic fight, and ALMOST an obligatory underwear shot.

Since her band saw her use them, FINALLY someone recognizes she has powers!!!
This already happened with her manager and her boyfriend… and yet when she uses her powers in public in front of hundreds or thousands of people, nobody ever makes the connection.

And that’s the end of the Johnny Guitar and Doc Sax storyline. I don’t really care all that much for Angel’s storyline, but it HAS to be less boring than THAT.

We end the story with the revelation that the singer’s teacher really is Dazzler’s mother…

…and that Dazzler has a half-sister!

That will be the focus of the next issue, which is double length.

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Dazzler significance: 2/10
The last page revelation about Dazzler’s family will influence the rest of the series… but it’s more like a promo of next issue.

 Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Johnny Guitar and Doc Sax wouldn’t feel out of place in the Silver Age.

 Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This is, without a doubt, THE most boring Dazzler issue I’ve covered so far. It takes a long time for anything to happen, and when it does… meh.

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Bonus: Johnny Guitar and Doc Sax don’t show up again until 2009’s “Avengers: The Initiative #27”, which would lead you to believe their fight was awesome.
Unless it was an untold Dazzler tale, it really wasn’t.

The idea that they fought “a legitimate superhero” is laughable considering the Dazzler of this period… but this is Johnny Guitar narrating, so it makes sense he wouldn’t want to admit how pitiful they were.

Long story short, Johnny Guitar volunteers for a high-risk superhero job and gets killed pretty much on purpose…

…because he set up his life insurance to make sure Doc Sax could retire and get back to his family.

That was a surprisingly bittersweet ending for two throwaway characters who fought Dazzler once.

Don’t you just love it when writers prove that there are no bad characters, only badly written characters?