Dazzler #28

Dazzler #28 (1983)
by Frank Springer
cover by Bill Sienkiewicz

 This series has no business having such a gorgeous cover. That’s an absolute masterpiece!

This is the last issue where Rogue is the main villain. Guess how she feels about it.

Yeah considering how lame Dazzler has been for the past 27 issues, I guess anyone would be furious about losing to her.

Last time we ended the story with the revelation that Dazzler’s half-sister knew the person who was blackmailing her. Turns out it’s her father.

However it wasn’t him doing the blackmail. It was actually his butler, who ended up witnessing Dazzler’s sister accidentally murdering the homeless guy harassing her.

Red Moustache to the rescue! Wait, isn’t he a New York layer? We’re in Los Angeles now, what’s he doing here?

Well, while Dazzler was hiding with her sister, he solved the case on his own.
Let me repeat that.
Our protagonist’s boyfriend solved the case OFF-PANEL.
So now Dazzler is being upstaged by characters EVEN WHEN THEY DON’T SHOW UP.

Still, yet another reason why Red Moustache is awesome.

 While this feels like a copout, it’s a bit more nuanced. Because it turns out Dazzler’s sister really DID murder the guy, it’s just that her powers didn’t leave behind evidence.
Despite the fact that Gyrich’s goons were able to trace the energies left behind by her powers ACROSS THE STATE.

Still, that’s a major revelation that has a profound impact on the story.
Just kidding, this is the Dazzler series! The plot is completely dropped.

Instead, we get two major events a few panels apart that seem of little importance now but will have bigger impacts soon:
1) Dazzler’s songs are getting very popular
2) her half-sister’s father is a very rich man who will introduce her to superstar singer Roman Nekoboh, since he’s his producer

We’ll meet Roman next issue (unfortunately), but first SUDDEN ROGUE!

And she’s not playing around this time!!!

This SHOULD result in Dazzler getting murdered, but of course Rogue has a bad case of Plot-Induced Supervillain Idiocy.

Dazzler always has her priorities straight.

Dazzler steals one of the nearby vintage cars and, I kid you not, the majority of the issue turns into a high speed chase.

We’re sorry, Comics Archeology is currently experiencing an aneurysm out of sheer stupidity.
We’ll return once the story turns less stupid.

 

Aaaaany time now.

*Sigh* it’s not going to stop being stupid, isn’t it?

Okay, I begrudgingly admit that was kind of funny.

I was worried Dazzler would suddenly be able to pilot the jet… honestly it wouldn’t have surprised me from this series… but she just wants to turn on the engines to absorb their sound.

I’ve said it before: sometimes Dazzler almost, ALMOST manages to turn into a badass.

Aaaaand then things turn stupid again.

Why did she power down, beat up Rogue and then power-up again!?

And so we close the issue with Dazzler being unsatisfied about the resolution. I hear you, Dazzler.

Especially since this was the last appearance of Red Moustache. That’s right: he doesn’t even get a proper closure!

Well, he did kind of get a sendoff earlier.

I’ll genuinely miss you, Red Moustache. You were basically the only well-written character in this series.

---

Dazzler significance: 6/10
The storyline about Dazzler’s sister takes a backseat for a while, because the singing career gets a big spotlight from now on.

Silver Age-ness: 7/10
Considering what Rogue can do, that is one goofy chase.

Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
It’s abundantly clear that this is a course correction for the series, which will be taken over by Jim Shooter shortly. So we have this very clumsy resolution to the running storylines, resulting in a very lackluster issue.