DAZ #40: "Travellers"

Aim higher, warriors. Aim higher.

(The road is short.)

Comments

The terrifying words in that upper-right triangle might strike fear into many hearts at this point, but the intersection of DAZ #40 and the on-going sprawl of "Secret Wars II" does at least offer something useful, from a critical perspective if not in terms of entertainment.

For a while now it's been my contention that Jim Shooter invented almost the entirety of the modern-day comics crossover with "Secret Wars", and whichever concepts eluded him on that occasion were born from his sequel. Indeed we've already covered the first timid steps into the field of tie-in issues, with both Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants featuring imprints on their covers as the Beyonder arrived to interfere with ongoing stories.

Up until now, though, the Beyonder has come and gone through those stories without leaving any real imprint. His appearances have given our heroes plenty of opportunity to engage in various levels of freakout, but there's been nothing to suggest that these issues required anything more than a last minute write-in to remind the punters Shooter needed a new storey on his house.

This issue is different.  The Beyonder actually alters the narrative. Most of what happens here would need rewriting - or at least reframing   without him sticking his indestructible indefinable nose into events.  At the same time, though, his presence is viewed through the general framing of the parent title.  Dazzler isn't usurped by the Beyonder, as O.Z. Chase threatened to do, the Beyonder is forced to approach things from the book's perspective. Which is great, of course; a demonstration years before these crossovers became ubiquitous of how these crossover should be run (the quality of the story here notwithstanding).

Not that everything goes to plan. There's a notable discontinuity between SW2 #4 and this issue. In the former, the Beyonder acted like an utter jerk but eventually agreed to return Alison to Chase. Here, the Beyonder has taken Alison to a mall opening so she can sing and thus celebrate their triumph. I suppose you can wave away the change of destination as the Beyonder just being capricious, but what exactly is this great victory they're celebrating? Dazzler dying and having to be resurrected? The Beyonder obliterating (another) galaxy out of rage? Him stopping controlling her mind to make her think she loved him?

It's not an insurmountable hurdle, as continuity snarls go, I'm just raising it to strengthen my point: almost any feature of modern-day comic crossovers can be found here.

Leaving the internal variations aside, though, there is a significant problem here, which is that the Beyonder warps the narrative to the point where he has to be fobbed off so as not to fix anything long-term.  We saw the same problem in the last crossover (the short but infuriating X-Men and Alpha Flight), and we saw it again decades later with the recent "Avengers vs X-Men" storyline (see? It all comes back to this miniseries); the idea that insanely powerful super-beings mustn't be allowed to enact global improvements because... well, because that would render the Marvel Universe too unrecognisable, I guess. Irrespective of the actual reason, though, the in-universe excuses are always unbearable. Dazzler doesn't want the Beyonder to help out in the struggle for mutant rights because it's important they do it themselves? That's not even worth a debate? The pretty white rich mutant (well, she could be rich if she was nicer to her father) decides for every mutant everywhere that they don't need the Beyonder's help? I'm sure that will come as a great comfort to all the mutants who are clubbed to death that week. I know given my position in society I need to be careful about spouting off on the subject of how oppressed minorities should fight back, but come on. A God offers to help the human race simmer down and you don't take it?

But the larger problem here is that even if longer consideration would have led to the same conclusion, the Beyonder's offer here overshadows everything else.  The idea of how the Beyonder might be able to aid the mutant cause (or not) is simply more interesting than the material elsewhere in the issue.  It's not clear how much of that is Springer not realising where the best ideas are and how much of it is him being limited by Shooter's story and the upcoming cancellation of this title, but whatever the cause the problem is noticeable.

Which is a shame, because the rest of this issue isn't at all bad. It's perhaps difficult to see how it can develop sufficiently over the two further issues Dazzler has, but the basic plot - Dazzler is being manipulated by a body-hopping man named Dust and a strained voice on his radio named Silence - is at least a solid hook, especially since they have three super-powered trackers at their disposal to chase Dazzler down. At present their plan seems convoluted to the point of self-sabotage - why hire Chase to capture Dazzler if their goal is to free her, unless they want a handy adversary to cast themselves against - but mysteries in the first part of a storyline are nothing new.

The interactions here are deftly handled, too. You've got Alison, Chase, the Road Warriors, and the Beyonder, all with their own goals, and Springer deftly handles their intersection. In particular, the Road Warriors' plan revolves around Chase being a standard mutant hating jerk, which means everything goes pear-shaped the minute it transpires Dazzler actually likes him. Indeed, the whole battle would have been over much sooner if the Beyonder wasn't sneakily piling more and more powers onto the Road Warriors out of a misguided attempt to give Dazzler more "satisfaction", which she values and he doesn't understand.

That's the way to use the Beyonder. Not as a one-note butt of misunderstandings via literalism, but as a bewilderingly powerful being who wants to wants to do the right thing but has no conception of the approach necessary or even what really constitutes "the right thing" anyway. So here he simply prolongs a fight that destroys more and more of the surrounding landscape as Dazzler attempts to escape the pursuers who would already have been defeated if not for the Beyonder's meddling.

So really, we should declare this issue a success and move on.  The Beyonder works here better than he ever has before, and the idea of a body-snatcher (who leaves his former victims in a pleasingly gruesome state) using various other superbeings to corral Dazzler for reasons unknown is a nice enough hook for the last two issues of the run.  If you're going to force a title to use it's third-from-last issue to dance to the tune of an unbearable ego-stroke of a crossover, this is definitely the way to do it.

Still, though.  If only it hadn't needed to.

Clues

This story takes place over the course of a few hours.  Since Blaire and Chase are still on the road, we're going to have to move DAZ #39 forward in time here to fit in with Secret Wars II, since otherwise their road trip takes on Kerouac-like proportions.

Date

Thursday 24^th January, 1985.

X-Date

X+6Y+329.

Contemporary Events

Standout Line

"And that strength lasts... upholding the shimmering umbrella of vibrating light molecules through the fiery storm."

Light molecules? Apparently physics is for other people.

MGN #12: "Dazzler: The Movie"

(File under "softcore erotica".)

Comments

Ye Goddesses, this is problematic.

I mean first of all, it's not very interesting. Yes, it's never going to be another "God Love, Man Kills", and given the focus of Dazzler as a book on the soapiest aspects of the already soap-heavy world of superheroics means it's right not to even try. Even so, seventy pages is a long way to wade through such thin material - Dazzler gets a movie deal, Dazzler is outed, Dazzler is hounded by bigots, Dazzler destroys her own film rather than be exploited.

But that's just why the graphic novel isn't all that interesting. What makes it actively unlikeable is, unsurprisingly, a strong dose of mid-'80s comic book sexism.

Fundamentally, this is a story about three men who are all hot to trot for our heroine. There's slimy moneybags Eric Beale, faded mega-star and expert in self-deception Roman Nekoboh, and self-professed awkward geek Freddy. Given the target audience of this story, it's not particularly difficult to figure out which of the three the audience is supposed to be rooting for. So when Dazzler accepts a ride home from Freddy in his car as the story opens, telling him how wonderful he is and letting him kiss her ("you're a great kisser", she insists), it seems abundantly clear that this is intended to be a blow for geeks everywhere.

And look, I'm not remotely unsympathetic to the idea that it's nice to make geeks feel better. Sure, Geek Pride Day gets some stick every year for allegedly attempting to draw parity between the centuries-old struggle of minorities with the decades-old discomforts of a subculture which frequently has problems with interacting with those same minorities, but that's an argument (to the extent it's fair at all) about how to boost the self-image of the geek, not that it shouldn't be done at all. If a comic mainly bought by geek boys wants to do a bit about how being a geek boy is not an automatic social death sentence, I'm all for it.

Except here, there's something else going on as well. Dazzler, as I have argued more than once, isn't really a tremendously nice person. Which is fine, because she's often not tremendously nice in some fairly interesting ways (though, much like Buffy twelve years later and - far more obviously - Doctor Who's Rose, there's an odd disconnect in how these stories seem to want to portray their heroines, and what they actually have them say and do). But she's not an obvious choice for a woman to make geeks feel good about themselves except for one thing - she's gorgeous.

This hits on a very pernicious aspect of sexism, one that's almost impossible to avoid encountering amongst teenagers and which survives far too often into a man's adult life, the idea that men who are nice should be rewarded with relationships with women who are pretty.

The cognitive dissonance on display in such an assumption is remarkable. It can perhaps be forgiven in teenagers because impenetrable self-absorption is so fundamental to the immediately post-pubescent character - in a sense, there's nothing any deeper at work here than "I want a pretty woman, I cannot have one, this is therefore unfair", which is a statement teenagers will make endlessly no matter what the object of the sentence is. Somehow, though, when men get old enough to recognise this idea as foolish in general, there's still one strand they frequently refuse to relinquish: nice men should get pretty girls.

Often this is expressed through its obvious complement: "Why do women always go for bastards?". This was something I frequently asked myself as a teenager until two related realisations hit me. Firstly, I was only wondering about why pretty women would always go for bastards; the women I found unattractive could have been going for sea otters for all I cared. Secondly, a lot of these girls I was pining for actually weren't tremendously nice, indeed no nicer than the men I was cursing for their top-secret use of bastardly bastardness to get themselves some action. The true formation of my complaint was actually "Why are women who are too hot for me to mind that they're unpleasant so interesting in men who are sufficiently hot that they can get away with being unpleasant."

Having Alison kiss Freddy so the guy can feel better about himself is playing right into this fundamental sexist hypocrisy that men should be recognised for their fantastic internal characteristics so that they can end up with women with fantastic external characteristics. If only they were truly understood, they might get to make out with a woman who's character is a supreme irrelevance so long as she's pretty.

So there's a real problem in how totally this story is on the side of the geeks who just want to be loved by hotties. This is hardly helped by at least three panels in which Dazzler is topless - one of which only has her nipples covered by a few errant strands of hair. This is titillation, pure and simple, and whilst I'm not objecting to that in all circumstances, it interacts very poorly with the idea that pretty women are prizes to be won for being a sufficiently pleasant geek.

Of course, "Who will win the prize that is Dazzler?" may as well be this story's title. Eric's early attempts result in him getting a brush-off, and following their kiss, Freddy disappears from the plot (which on the one hand simply highlights his role as a reader stand-in, but equally, it's probably best the graphic novel goes no further with what that implies), leaving the way clear for Roman Nekoboh to try another run at Alison.

This is the next major bone of contention I have with this story. Let's not be coy here; Nekoboh is an utter dickblister. He's been a pain in Dazzler's arse for several issues now, but just in this story he has the media hound her over a non-existent affair he's implied their having, chases her in a car (breaking the law in the process), chases her on foot, and fakes a heart attack, all whilst Alison repeatedly and loudly turns him down. Worst of all, though, he breaks into her apartment to demand they go out together, and despite her unequivocal refusal he grabs her and tries to lay her down as he kisses her. Breaking and entering followed by sexual assault. All of this is played for laughs.

Still, at least Dazzer is appropriately enraged by proceedings, even if the comic doesn't seem really to be following her example. Except that unbelievably, Nekoboh doesn't give up, and upon learning Alison is looking for a decent-paying gig, immediately switches from obvious stalker into generous benefactor, which Dazzler falls for almost immediately. A few pages later, and the two are officially an item.

So let's review. Nekoboh has physically endangered people in order to chase her, has ignored repeated requests to leave her alone, has broken into her home, has sexually assaulted her, and is now promising her payment in exchange for dates. What, you can be forgiven for asking, the hell?

A couple of days later, she fucks him.  After quoting his dialogue from when he assaulted her.

It's not, of course, that the storyline of a girl desperate firstly for fame but mainly for a hot meal allowing herself to be used for sex in exchange for opportunity isn't one that should be told, though a quick look at the history of cinema might lead one to ask whether it need be told so often. But it absolutely needs to be handled better than this. It's difficult to feel sorry for Alison because she's just being so horribly dense. It's even suggested on several occasions that she's doing this out of concern for Roman's career, which suggests she's literally fallen for an utterly self-absorbed sex criminal because he's started being nice to her. The whole structure of the story is dependent on the idea that Dazzler will fall for whomever you put in front of her if the plot requires it, and that's straight up bad writing even before we get onto the underlying gender issues.

So, yes, the plot. After some time being pampered by Roman, Alison starts to think better of the whole arrangement, partially because she's put on weight and accidentally developed a smoking habit, but mainly because she learns the picture is being financed by Eric Beale, who Dazzler wants nothing to do with. Alas, the matter is quickly taken out of her hands when Roman reveals to the media that she's a mutant.

Dangerous driver, sexual assaulter, and outer of mutants. What a prince. Alison is furious at first, as is entirely understandable, but she soon calms down, which absolutely isn't.  Roman has basically bought her a one-way ticket to an entire world of trouble, which he doesn't understand, and he never checked with her first, because he doesn't give a shit about anything but the bottom line.  But yes, Roman has not only revealed a secret that could quite literally get her killed, but he's set up a media event so she can demonstrate her powers to the country.  Naturally, she agrees ("She don't look like no dangerous mutie to me!  Check out those bazooms!").  The crowd take one look at her light powers and freaks out, causing a riot Roman only just manages to pull Dazzler out of alive.  Naturally, she fucks him in his limo.

This becomes something of a theme, in fact, with Dazzler cycling through filming, fucking, professing her love for Roman, and wading through protesters or finding her apartment ransacked.  The actual portrayal of anti-mutant sentiment is quite good - which is to say, profoundly unpleasant and aggravating, particularly the talking head guy who lays into Dazzler like FOX News during Black History Month - but it can't convince when our heroine is spending all her time making kissy faces at the dumb berk who's responsible for the whole mess (the story goes out of its way to tell us Roman is a phenomenal lover; apparently it's not just young geeks who need to believe they can score with hot twenty-somethings).

The story tries to square the circle by having Alison insist the film will strike a blow for mutant equality by demonstrating their capacity for good, which is a noble goal, and personally I'd argue the fact it's so clearly doomed to fail gives the whole affair a tinge of tragedy rather than making Dazzler look even more foolish.   In fact, that story - the attempted release of the film followed by inevitable disaster - might have been quite interesting, though probably some distance away from the kind of thing Marvel would be interested in doing.  We'll never know, though, because the story ends with Eric Beale confronting Dazzler to explain he forced Roman to reveal Dazzler's status in exchange for saving his career with a new contract, which among other things forbids him to ever see Alison again.  With that done, there's no need for the film to be released, and Beale is pulling the plug.  He takes this opportunity to mock Dazzler for being so foolish, which, fair cop, but obviously he decides to do it in as misogynistic a manner as possible (her "bust measurements exceed [her] IQ", we learn, because titties, boys, amirite?).

The only way Beale will allow the film to be seen is if Dazzler signs a monstrously draconian contract, basically signing on for a lifetime of exploitation at Beale's hands.  Do that, and the film might just help her people out.  Refuse, and he'll burn the film's only copy.  Now there's a dilemma that's worth thinking about, a mere 66 pages in.  Let's try and set aside how unsatisfying the rest of all this is, then, and noodle about Dazzler's choice for a moment.

It's actually not an easy call to make.  I mean, here it might be, because there's two obvious short-circuits to the problem.  On the one hand, Alison wants the life she's being offered, so the fact she won't have either as much money or as much freedom as she'd want in the process is significantly less of an issue than if she were, say, signing on to become Beale's housemaid.  On the other hand, the basic premise of the dilemma is based on Beale's insistence that the movie will be a major net positive for mutants, and he's obviously not to be trusted, so Alison might in fact gain nothing for anyone by signing.

So let's put those two points aside, and work on the principle that a) Dazzler is giving away her future here, and b) it's in exchange for a known boost in the struggle for mutant equality.  Is she obligated to go for it?  I think the answer has to be no, in the same way I'm not obligated to fly to Australia to give blood, even if I'm the only person in the world whose blood would save the life in question.  Depending on the person I'd be saving, the amount of free time available, and who's paying for my trip, I might be a colossal arsehole to refuse, but that isn't the same thing.  And whilst it's true that an argument can be made to say Dazzler's fellow superheroes might have an obligation  here (if you dedicate your life to helping people, it's at least arguable that you are obligated to do so because you've created expectations), Dazzler's never made claim to be anything other than a singer with ambition who occasionally does nice things.

In any case, Dazzler's choice is to destroy the film reel, along with the contracts.  Despite everything that's happened, she still forgives Roman, but decides she should make it on her own rather than being an anchor dragging her lover down. Which, I... Jesus.  What do you call it when something goes beyond trolling?  It would make more sense for Eva Braun to dump Hitler because she's worried she hates Jews too much.  Yes, I've Godwinned "Dazzler: The Movie".  That's what this piece of crap has reduced me to, with it's casual sexism and geek wish-fulfilment and cack-handed message and tits, tits everywhere.

There.  I've commented.  This has been commented on with comments. We shall never fucking speak of this again.

Clues

This story starts during another of Alison's keep-fit sessions, and takes place over an astonishing two months at a bare minimum.  Frankly, given the amount of time necessary to make a film, six months seems more likely (if we assume post-production never got started, which seems to be what is being implied), so that's what I've gone for here. This could end up causing all sorts of problems down the road.

Early in the novel, Dazzler has a phone conversation with Storm, who is clearly shown to still possess her mutant powers.  We're going to have to fiddle with the UXM timeline to deal with this.

Date

Thursday 29^th March to Friday 29^th September, 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+28 to X+6Y+212.

Contemporary Events

Well, a lot, obviously.  GCSEs and Virgin Atlantic Airways make their first appearances, the Earth passes directly between the Sun and Mars, the Upper Volta changes its name to Burkino Faso, the agreement between UK and China to return Hong Kong to the latter is signed, and the USSR has a good time of it when its submarines break the record for depths reached, and their cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a spacewalk.

Standout Line

Roman has a lot of fun dialogue in this story, some of which isn't even gob-smackingly sexist.  I think though the WKMC editorial on the horror of mutants carries the day, though, just because it's so close to something you'd expect to see coming from Rush Limbaugh or the Daily Mail:

"Good evening.  Two weeks ago, filming began on Roman Nekoboh's latest movie, which co-stars one Alison Blaire, an admitted mutant!  The film is said to focus on the problems of mutant-kind! I suppose there must be some -- any wolf in sheep's clothing has to put up with that annoying, itchy, fleece!

Protesters, barely restrained by police and Nekoboh's own hired thugs, have constantly picketed the shooting!  These people are afraid -- and we don't blame them!

Mutants are an entirely new race, each member of which possesses abilities which seem like science fiction to us normal humans!  We have heard that they refer to themselves as 'homo superior' - the next step on the evolutionary ladder above homo sapiens!  Some mutants have mounted blatant attacks upon human-kind -- demonstrating to my satisfaction that they plan to supplant us 'lower' creatures as the dominant species on this planet!

The worst thing is that these... beings, may look like you or me!  They walk among us unsuspected!  One of your friends... a neighbour, perhaps... or, God forbid, even someone in your own family may be quite capable of reading your thoughts - or levitating into the air... or, like Alison Blaire, killing you with just a wave of her hand!

We here are WKMC believe that the mutant menace is real!  We support the protesters!  If something isn't done about mutants... if we humans do not take positive action to protect ourselves -- then it shall not be the meek who inherit the Earth..."

DAZ #29: "Fame!"

("Light up the sky like a flame!")

Comments

OK, so this is a little different.  First of all we've got Springer and Shooter sharing scripting duties.  This issue is also a little shorter than usual, as well, so that it can end with three pages of slightly disturbing Dazzler "pin-ups".  That's bad news for feminism, but good news for the poor schlub that has to summarise this issue: i.e. me.

So what have Frank & Jim managed to squeeze in?  Well, Dazzler is having a whale of a time at her sort of stepdad's mansion.  It's all lounging by the pool and dreaming of her name on the marquee for her right now. Lois is a little more torn about the whole thing, because she was actually around for Nick's "beat the shit out of my wife" phase, which is rather wrenching the olive from the martini, so to speak. This puts Alison in something of a bind, since right now she's pretty much entirely reliant on Nick to get her career going again, but fortunately for her, Lois is smart enough to realise that, and not push too hard for for advice on how to deal with a formerly abusive father.

(Of course, in an ideal world, I'd be insisting Dazzler refuse any offer of help from Nick after what he did to her mother and her sister.  That said, I already have a job.)

Whilst we're on the subject of how Nick can help Dazzler; today is her meeting with Roman Nekoboh, the music business big-shot who can jump-start her career.  Being the audience, however, we get to meet him first.

When we are introduced to him, it's pretty interesting.  I could be wrong, but I think Roman's first few panels represent the longest continuous set of wordless comic panels so far in any X-book; nine of them taking up a full page's worth of space.  Basically, Roman is very old and more than a little fat, and so it takes him a full page of panels to get into his disguise - contact lenses, girdle, false teeth and wig. Like William Shatner before a convention, or when he's telling people he wrote TekWar.

Alas, Roman has bigger problems than encroaching senility; his accountant has arrived to tell him he's flat broke. His music career is in tatters, his Hollywood portfolio a smoking ruin. His ex-wives all want their alimony, too. Faced with such dire financial circumstances, Roman agrees to have his butler light his cigarettes with matches rather than a Zippo. Because sacrifices must be made.

With financial business concluded, there's time for a little fencing practice (and associated angina), and then Roman has to run off to meet Dazzler, or as he calls her: "One I haven't married yet."  Smooth.

Back with our heroine, and Alison is starting to get a good idea of the deal she's making here; Nick's determined to replace Osgood as her manager.  Honestly, that's not necessarily the worst career move imaginable, but Dazzler wants it on her own terms, thanks very much.  Further discussion on the topic will have to wait, though, because Roman has arrived to offer his "advice."

Except, obviously, the only advice he wants to dole out regards carnally satisfying the ancient and deluded.  He seems to have his approach down pat - one assumes he's done this more than a few times already - the basic plan being to keep bowling Alison over until she leaves her clothes on the floor.

(Actually, he's pretty entertaining whilst he's trying this. "Enough talk about me, you ravishing creature!  Let's talk about you! Tell me, how did you love my last album?"  "Let's take my plane.  This car is beginning to bore me!  Does it bore you? It bores me!"  It's almost charming, in a sweaty, unpleasant way, and as long as you avoid dwelling on the fact that any cocktail Dazzler chugs in Roman's jet will have far more drugs in than just alcohol.)

For her part, Alison doesn't really care how many swanky cars he buys fresh off the lot; she just wants to know if he has any career advice he can dispense in-between demonstrations of ludicrous opulence.  Ever the optimist, she allows him to drive her to his private jet, certain that once he has her up in the air with no-one but his employees to talk to, he'll definitely stop the borderline sexual harassment and dole out the secrets of fame.

Needless to say, this is exactly what doesn't happen.  Roman has decided Alison is to be his co-star in his next film, and is determined to start practising the love scenes as soon as possible.  Dazzler is finally pissed off enough to fend him off, but this awkward scene is interrupted when an incoming fighter jet tries to shoot them down.  Frankly, I suspect Alison considers this something of a relief, but even so, she'd rather not be spread across the landscape.  Using the onboard stereo system (originally engaged by Roman to help in rocking her world), she generates enough power to take out the attacking plane, but Roman's pilot is shot during the battle, which means a rapid interaction with terra firma might be in the cards after all...

Clues

Dazzler mentions that her battle with Rogue was the day before.  The story itself takes place over several hours.

Date

Friday 29^th of July, 1983.

X-Date

X+5Y+102.

Contemporary Events

Standout Line

"Let me look deep into those magnificent eyes and take your trembling hands in mine!"

Is there anyone this line could fail to work on?  THE ANSWER IS NO!

DAZ #28: "Vendetta!"

(I'm not leaving on a jet plane.)

Comments

(Ooh! 300th post! Break out the cakes!)

Somewhere in New York, Rogue is training for a mission.  Actually, by training, I mean she's punching through brick pillars with Dazzler's face on them.  And by mission, I mean punching through a skull with Dazzler's face on it.

Obviously, this is interesting, since by this point Rogue has already been with the X-Men for at least two issues.  I guess Springer didn't get the memo, and/or this was written before the bimonthly schedule was settled upon, and this was supposed to have an August cover date.

Either way, Mystique and Destiny are rather unimpressed by Rogue's obsession - murder without profit being something they are firmly against.  You know how it is with super-powered criminal kids, though.  Can't tell them anything.

Meanwhile, in California, the various twists and turns of last issue are finally being straightened out.  The man in the double bed - who Dazzler and her half-sister Lois were blackmailed into trying to murder, only to be surprised inside the house by their blackmailer, who know wants to do the deed himself - is Lois' father.  He hired the blackmailer to find Lois, which he did, just in time to see her accidentally kill a hobo in DAZ #26. That's when he came up with the idea of blackmailing her into murdering his rich client, intending to do the deed himself and frame her if she chickened out.

That's actually not at all bad, if a little convoluted.  It certainly makes more sense than I figured it was going to. In any case, further bloodshed is avoided when Ken (referred to in a narrative box as Dazzler's "old flame", ouch!) arrives with the cops. Angel contacted him just before leaving to help out Alison (just as well, since all he managed was to get shot like a goon). A few hours later, and Angel is safe in hospital; the blackmailer, Napier, behind bars; and everyone else inside the luxurious limousine of Lois' father.

Having already saved them, Ken has more up his sleeve: the pictures Napier took when viewed in their entirety clearly show the bum Lois killed had attacked her, and the coroner's report has attributed his death to a heart attack.  Lois is in the clear!  Unless, of course, the United States justice system is rapidly gaining a reputation for transparently unfair treatment of mutant citizens, which Ken seems to have forgotten.  If only Ken Barnett could spend more time talking with Ken Barnett about these things.  I don't know why they never get to see each other; their schedules always match up.

It has long been held that good things come in threes (presumably by those who've never heard Bananarama), and so it is this time, as the car's radio begins to play a song Dazzler recognises as one of hers.  Whilst she's been on the run, her single has been climbing the charts.  And if that weren't enough, Lois' father, Brown, is in the music business, and "owns" the "biggest singing star of [their] age!".  He'll even introduce them!  Everything's coming up Milhouse Alison!  Only an attack from Rogue could ruin this moment!

An attack from Rogue ruins this moment. She's had Alison tailed since she left NYC, and this time, she's out for nothing more than blood, and she starts off by wrecking the limo so Dazzler can't absorb any sounds from the horn.  You'd have thought the noise generated by smashing up a car would work just as well, but there you go.  Alison makes a break for it instead.

So begins a game of cat and mouse.  Only the cat can fly.  Though the mouse can drive, as well, which proves handy when Dazzler comes across Brown's garage, and steals a Packard V-12 (that's what the text box tells me, at least; it could be a fucking ice-cream truck for all I know).  Using the horn to charge herself up, Alison is able to keep Rogue at a distance, but she needs something with more juice if she's going to put her pursuer down more permanently.

Fortunately, Brown owns an airfield.  And what's the easiest thing in the world to start up?  That's right; a jet engine!  Dazzler manages to clamber into a mysteriously unlocked cockpit, use her exactly zero skill with piloting to ignite the engine (though only after pressing the button that makes the SPAK! noise so familiar to frequent fliers), keep the plane together and stationary despite it's exhaust spewing out fire, and use the energy to charge herself back to full.  Once again, comics choose not so much to ignore physics as actively spit upon it.

At least this blasphemy against basic science has the desired narrative effect, and Alison is able to process enough power to knock even Rogue out, right in the path of the strangely impotent jet engines!  They still apparently have enough juice to suck a young woman to a rather unpleasant end, though, but Dazzler bundles the supervillainess out of harm's way.  The battle won, she gets back in the Packard, and - feeling uncharacteristically optimistic - heads back to her half sister, her "old flame", and her potentially dodgy link to the next stage in her suddenly burgeoning career.

Clues

This story takes place from late night to late morning. 

Rogue's presence here provides us with problems, as mentioned above.  By now, she's already with the X-Men.  This is easily resolved however by placing DAZ #26 earlier in the time-line; there's no direct link between that issue and its predecessor that we need to worry about. We'll put it back far enough for there to be a week between this story and Rogue seeking sanctuary.

Date

Wednesday 27^th to Thursday 28^th of July, 1983.

X-Date

X+5Y+100 to X+5Y+101.

Contemporary Events

Doctor Ken Masugi, of the Claremont Institute in California, testifies before the Congressional Committee charged with deciding on how to redress the interment of Japanese families by the US during World War II. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Masugi is critical of the committee for going too far in sympathising with those who share his Japanese descent, arguing that neither reparations nor a formal apology were necessary (both ultimately came to pass five years later). And definitely surprisingly, some bright spark figured the best person to chair the committee was Strom Thurmond, a man who's name is synonymous with racism, and about whom pretty much the best thing could be said is that he died markedly less of an arsehole then one could have guessed from his early campaigns.

Standout Line

"I owe you an apology, Mr. Barnett, that guy does have wings!"

DAZ #27: "Fugitive!"

Comments

Stone the crows, Dazzler's gone bi-monthly! Which is handy, since it means at long last I've caught up with UXM and NMU.  It's the little victories, y'know?

Anyway, onwards.  That's a lovely cover.  Particularly the way the checks on Dazzler's dress match up with those on the settee.  I presume that's a reference to the fact she's on the run and so she's trying to blend into the scenery.  I seem to say this a lot, but whilst it's hardly subtle, it still gets points for trying something different.

But is this lovely image indicative of a creative renaissance?  Or is it just to distract from another penciller-as-writer disaster lurking within?

Well, it starts off reasonably enough.  We get two pages which are basically a recap of the comic to date, but I guess that's forgivable when a new writer is taking over (though that said, I'm not sure the summary is particularly helpful).  This is no time for brooding on the past, though; the woman in the seat in front of Dazzler suddenly reveals herself to be Rogue!

Alison is stunned, as well she might be.  How did Rogue sneak on board wearing her trademark green hood without our heroine noticing?  And how did she know Alison was on board in the first place?  Actually, I'm betting this is probably - oh no!  Rogue's grabbed Lois, absorbed her power, and seems to have killed her!  Yeah, this is definitely looking like - CHRIST!  Rogue's used Lois' power to melt Dazzler's face!  There's no way this isn't a - oh, and now the bus has fallen off a cliff and everyone's dead.

EXCEPT IT WAS ALL A DREAM!  Phew, what a relief!  Except not really.  Three pages of reminiscence I'll grant Springer, but a seven page dream sequence?  That's not a good way to kick things off.  We're almost halfway through his first issue as writer, and all we know is that the half-sisters are still on the run.

As such, they find themselves a motel by the bus station.  Having now gotten to LA, their interim plan of heading west has pretty much run its course (Utopia still being some 350 issues away), and something new is called for.  Alison returns to the idea of contacting the authorities, but alas, she's still stuck on trying to convince Lois she might not have actually killed anyone (because girls are, like, totally hysterical sometimes), and making it worse by injecting some narcissistic "I know what it's like" bullshit into the bargain.  Newsflash, lady: you are not "haunted every minute" by your power.  You've used it to further your fucking career.  There's nothing wrong with that, obviously, but trying to compare it to a girl who's mutant ability is to kill people at random (plus melt ashtrays, apparently) is breathtakingly self-absorbed, even for our favourite starlet.

Unsurprisingly, Alison's suggestions seem to be falling on deaf ears, but events overtake our duo in any case, as pictures of Lois' struggle with the hobo from DAZ #26 are posted under the door, along with a phone number.  Lois puts two and two together and surmises that someone has been trailing them from New York, which seems obvious, but rather begs the question of why.  Is it blackmail?  Lois doesn't exactly look loaded, and there's going to be some expense involved in tailing her across the country.  It all seems like long odds, quite frankly, though I suppose given whomever we're talking about happened to be hidden nearby when the original fracas took place, and had their camera, perhaps they're just used to things breaking their way.

(Writing that paragraph suddenly gave me a mental image of Longshot as a stalker/peeping Tom, and I'm going to have to lie down for a while to recover.)

Not sure of what else to do, Dazzler calls the number they've been given.  A man picks up the phone and explains the deal.  It is blackmail, but he doesn't want money; he wants Alison and Lois to murder someone. He gives them an hour to consider the alternatives: snuff the man he wants snuffed, or the negatives end up with the police. With that done, our would-be assassin-maker phones his own boss, who it turns out is blackmailing him; he has to find Lois, or some rather interesting details are going to be sent to the FBI.

Okay.  I think I can just about tie together what's probably happening. Blackmailer #1 presumably want Blackmailer #2 dead.  Perhaps he lacks the will to try to do it himself, and the money to pay off anyone else to do it.  Instead, then, he's going to blackmail Lois into pulling the trigger.  If he was following her on the orders of Blackmailer #2, that explains why he has the photos, and this way, if Lois kills his boss, he's in the clear, but if something goes wrong, he can spring from the woodwork and point out he's delivered Lois.

Which is a reasonable plan, except that he's blown the fact he's following Lois, and if she fails to kill his boss, he has to find a way to explain why she was trying.  Other than that, it's a brilliant scheme.

Dazzler persuades her half-sister that their best move is to pretend to go along with their mysterious stalker's plan, but she phones Angel in the hope he's nearby and willing to provide back-up.  Alas, the call goes through to voice-mail, so our heroines get in the car provided by Blackmailer #1 without any idea as to whether Warren will show up before they're ordered to kill their target and rifle through his safe.

WWIII (as he likes to be called) hasn't shown up by the time they've gotten into their quarry's mansion, however, and Dazzler freezes, unsure of what to do.  Disgusted by her brief hesitation, Blackmailer #1 emerges from the shadows and accuses her of trying to pull a fast one.  He's got a gun in his hand.  JUST SHOOT THE GUY YOURSELF, we scream.

Maybe he'd have done it, actually.  Maybe his synapses would finally have started firing, and he'd realise he's inside the home of the guy he wants dead, and he's the only person there with a pistol.  We shall never know, though, because Angel chooses this moment to smash through the window.  Blackmailer #1 is so surprised he almost doesn't manage to immediately shoot him down.

Worthington's arrival has at least provided sufficient distraction for Alison to leap towards the TV set, turn it on full blast, and channel the sound into a burst of light sufficient to incapacitate their opponent.  Warren proves to be badly injured but alive, but they're not out of the woods yet.  The man Blackmailer #1 wanted dead has awoken (despite being drugged by someone: SHOOT THE GUY YOURSELF), and he and and Lois recognise each other...

Clues

It's been three days since Alison and Lois left Pittsburgh, and this issue takes place over a single day.

Dazzler describes the events going back to at least DAZ #8 as having taken place over a year or so.  By our count, it's more like seven months, but Alison might be thinking of earlier events as well, or just rounding up.

Date

Saturday 6^th of August, 1983.

X-Date

X+5Y+110.

Contemporary Events

Shehu Shegari retains his title of President of Nigeria following national elections.  His government falls to a military coup on New Year's Eve that same year.

Standout Line

"I'm all right! Alive! Pretty!"

If nothing else, Springer's got the character down, you can't deny that.