"Dazzle me!" he says!

Actually, today's title is a line from the 1980s movie Parenthood; Steve Martin's character says it mockingly when complaining to his wife (Mary Steenbergen) about his boss' gripe that he's not doing his job effectively enough. I can relate. Last weekend I got a post from a friend here in Minot who owns a comic book store, one of those posts to present a "positive" image to counter all that "negative" stuff you see if you're online for any length of time. Will selected my character to be Marvel Comics' Dazzler, real name Alison Blaire, an aspiring rock and roll singer (the character debuted in February 1980, and her repertoire's expanded since then).

Alison is also a mutant -- in Marvel-speak that's someone born with superhuman power (no radioactive spider bite or cosmic ray or gamma ray burst required, think X-Men) but it's not manifested until they become teenagers ... often explosively, as the first issue of Dazzler showed when Alison let loose with a light show she'd made by converting the sound of the music she heard. In fact, music's her preferred medium for this process -- she could just as easily use car horns honking or the muttering of a multitude, but I digress.

When I posted this photo I referred to a story I had about a later issue, Dazzler #10 that first "introduced" me to her when I was nine or ten. After an android's recap of the first nine issues where this aspiring entertainer who also packed a heck of a blindsiding punch had taken on the Asgardian Enchantress, Doctor Doom, an evil version of herself, and Klaw who's entirely made up of sound, she was recruited by the planet-devouring giant Galactus to retrieve his then-herald Terrax who pre-his becoming Galactus' herald could already manipulate rock and stone on a small scale.

Now with the "power cosmic" Terrax's power was on overdrive, and also his ambition. Running away from Galactus in the Marvel Universe is not a good idea. But Terrax fled into a black hole where Galactus with all the energy HE had couldn't follow him (because it would blow up; this was when it was thought -- is it still? -- a black hole could be a tunnel to another universe, a la the 1979 movie The Black Hole), so the android suggested Dazzler, Galactus empowered her and sent her in to get him. Thank the Lord for that android (R-11) who beamed her power when she needed it!

[Terrax] wants to rule planets -- you [Galactus] want to eat them. But which of you is better? Which one? (Dazzler #11)

Dazzler arguing for the defense -- her dad wanted her to be a lawyer -- who'd have thought it? Galactus was argued into NOT crushing Terrax to a pulp (trust me, he'd had and would later find reason to do that in Marvel's main reality) and the time he spent in the black hole was commuted to time served ... but in one of Marvel's alternate realities in What If? (cover date June 1982) Galactus banished Terrax down the black hole and empowered Dazzler to be his newest herald! "Behold! You are now truly the mistress of light! All radiant energy is yours to harness and command!"

Even with all that power, and Galactus' need to consume the living energy of worlds, Dazzler endeavored to keep him away from populated planets. It still awed her though when she saw the aftermath of a world that Galactus consumed that she led him to. After an unknown amount of time, Galactus permitted Dazzler to go back to Earth, and she found it a desert wasteland with everyone dead. Something occurred to me, something macabre, as I went up for communion at church this Sunday -- it happens -- the first world Dazzler led Galactus to WAS Earth!

who, despite his professed amorality -- is the most immoral being of all! 
(Rom #26, Terrax's main-universe next appearance)

I WANT A ROM SPACEKNIGHT ANTHOLOGY! That's my rant.

The disappearance or transposition of planetary populations is not uncommon in the major comic book franchises (a Superman story from the seventies with the Man of Steel against a Lex Luthor-created-from-starstuff Galactic Golem comes to mind, but again I digress) and something definitely could have happened to lead Dazzler to Earth without her knowing it and directing Galactus to devour its ability to support life (what I mean when I say he devours planets, otherwise he'd be able to dine on asteroids for eternity). Hurry! Galactus hungers!

Oh fine, big guy! Last night after work I came home to a dinner of sloppy joes and French fries; Sarah had called me a few hours before and said I was the tie-breaker between sloppy joes and burritos for dinner at home. And they were great, and I offered to treat my wife and kids to Dairy Queen and bought peanut buster parfaits for Martha and me and small Reese's blizzards for Sarah and Jeffrey. As for Day Camp, tonight all the kids there are supposed to be performing and I'll meet them after work at church and Sarah gets to stay at a lock-in there tonight! I miss those, I do.

Welcome back to my world, David