I think a lot of people were put off by Dazzler’s “costume” and description as the “Disco Dazzler” (which I recall seeing only in a Bullpen Bulletins page, never in the comic). In truth, though she wore the silver jumpsuit & blue facepaint on most of the covers, she was in “civilian” attire in the interior art unless it was before/during/after a concert performance. And even if she did sing Disco, you can’t hear music in a paper comic book. :)

When I first saw Dazzler in Amazing Spider-Man #203, I thought she was a lousy character (she was in concert attire the entire issue, and her mind was possessed by a villain’s so her personality was absent). Later, she appeared in Marvel Team-Up sans “costume,” and I saw her true character– someone with superpowers who wanted neither to be a superhero nor supervillain, but to live the life (as a singer) she always wanted, and someone with a good heart who helped others in trouble. I then semi-Byrne-stole a few issues of her solo series and ended up buying every issue… this led me to buying X-Men for several years starting with her appearance on the cover of #217.

Unfortunately, Dazzler’s romantic storylines were often dreadful (Roman Nebokoh? Seriously?) and she became more of a superhero over the years, complete with standard superhero costume. I feel overall that she is a great character who deserved better from the writers/editors (with the exception of a few, especially Tom DeFalco).

[...] KC’s latest installment of his column series on the history of comic storytelling, he tackles the magic year of 1986, which was so important it got a column of its own. Find out [...]

[...] week in his Westfield column, KC takes a break from the history of comic storytelling to respond to Mark Waid’s recent earth-shattering Twitter. KC’s column is about the [...]

James 2, we had no idea then how great times were, did we?

I’ve been enjoying these pieces into comic history as well. Its cool to see a perspective from someone who has been a part of just about the entire range of the comic industry. Since KC’s been part of the distribution, editorial/creative, business, retail and such.

So its neat to see the perspective from a knowledgable, though not biased towards any one person. That The First Kingdom book sounds kind of cool, never heard of it though. Oh and I wish I could find some of those Dazzler issues for 25 cents!! lol (I read some off a website that was recently shut down, and they were fun)

Good luck with your class! I used to teach classes on comics also (a long time ago…).