[Criticism Corner] The Canceled X-Men Musical (Patreon)

So this is a subject that I've been wanting to dive into for a while and when Raycon approached me to sponsor a new video, I thought a video about music would be appropriate. I hope you enjoy!

What if I told you that Marvel had the idea to create a multimedia pop star that would not only be a comic book superhero, but also a real world singer complete with a music tour, and feature length rock opera that not only brought together a plethora of Marvel’s biggest heroes, but also some of the era’s greatest musical talent?  This is the story of Dazzler and although she’s a C-Tier hero at most these days, she was originally supposed to be one of the biggest deals in all of comics by headlining their first live action movie.

Hello and welcome to Because Comics, the show that takes a look at all of the crazy, strange, and straight up bizarre things that make comic books well… comic books.  I’m your host, Drake McWhorter.

One night, Marvel vice president, Alice Donenfeld, was at a bar with her friend who remarked that Marvel had a lack of black characters so he suggested one.  His concept was simply a music based character called The Disco Queen (Marvel Comics: The Untold Story), but little did either of them know, this pub talk would start a chain reaction that would lead to one of Marvel’s biggest canceled projects. (Behind the Panel: Dazzler)

But hold up, we know that Disco Queen eventually evolved into Dazzler so how did a character that was literally conceived to add black representation to comics end up so whitewashed?  Well let’s dig deeper.

Alice Donenfeld was in charge of developing Marvel’s TV and movie projects so she was well aware that the company had previously worked with Casablanca Records to produce a successful KISS comic and an adaptation of the 1977 film “The Deep” which was published by Casablanca’s film division.

According to former Marvel editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, Donenfeld pitched Disco Queen as a multimedia character.  She’d be a female superhero that Marvel could make comics for and then they’d partner with Casablanca to produce a music album where a singer would perform as the title character. (Behind the Panel: Dazzler)

Now this wasn’t unheard of since about a decade prior, Archie Comics was able to turn their main cast into a band called “The Archies” that was featured in their animated series, but in addition to that, a real life band was assembled to release pop songs AS The Archies.  In fact, their song “Sugar, Sugar” was a number one hit and I’m sure you’ve heard it at least once.

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Casablanca Records was very much on board with Marvel’s idea, wanting to take it a step further by actually having their singer go on tour as Disco Queen.  There was talk about Donna Summer taking on the role, but nothing was set in stone.

In the meantime, Jim Shooter assigned Tom DeFalco and John Romita Jr. to create the character with the loose premise of that she's a female musician with light-based powers that goes to clubs. (http://jimshooter.com/2011/07/debut-of-dazzler.html/)  Although DeFalco and Romita did the bulk of the work, other high profile talent at Marvel sat in on the brainstorming sessions like Stan Lee, Roger Stern, and Al Milgrom. (Marvel Age #7 - 1983)  Even Casablanca pitched some ideas like wanting Disco Queen to talk quote “funky black”. (Marvel Comics: The Untold Story)

They settled on Disco Dazzler as “Disco Queen” was a bit on the nose and this unreleased design made by Romita is the first concept art that we know of with Dazzler being inspired by singer/model Grace Jones and the mask-like face paint being reminiscent of KISS.

DeFalco’s backstory was that Dazzler was a mutant that could use her powers freely under the guise of the lights all being part of the show and his name for her alter ego was Evelyn Free. (Shooter’s Blog)  Nobody liked it so instead they went with Alison Blaire,  Alison meaning “child of light” and a blare being a loud noise. (Behind the Panel: Dazzler)  Additionally, the codename was shortened to just “Dazzler”.

Everything was going smoothly and Casablanca decided that they wanted to also produce a half hour animated special with all sorts of Marvel heroes and original characters to accompany Dazzler which could be voiced by some of their talent. (Shooter’s Blog)  Jim Shooter took it upon himself to write an outline for the special and it is NUTS!  He actually released it on his personal blog so let’s take a look.

Dazzler, Spider-Man, and The Avengers, consisting of Iron Man, Falcon, Beast, Scarlet Witch, and Wasp, are teleported into a future, post apocalyptic version of Manhattan that’s divided between Upper Hatten ruled by The Queen of Fire played by Donna Summer and Lower Hatten ruled by the Witch Queen played by Cher.

They’re filled in by a lawyer played by Rodney Dangerfield and a random dude named Tristan played by Robin Williams that they were brought there by the dastardly Lord Chaos because of a prophecy that a “Sun Queen and her knights” would appear in order to unite the two Queendoms of Manhattan.

The heroes are then attacked by both Queens’ knights, Cher’s Dreadknights played by KISS and Donna Summers’ Stompers played by The Village People.  Also, the members of both bands have powers based on their real world personas.  The groups have a three way battle royale with Spider-Man and The Avengers getting defeated, Dazzler, Rodney Dangerfield, and Robin Williams making a get away, and each of the squads take half of the heroes prisoner.

Now each queen is being advised by separate lawyers that are.. also being played by Rodney Dangerfield and jesters played by Lenny and Squiggy.  While the Queens confront their various Marvel captives, Robin Williams is doing his best to try and seduce Dazzler because he’s fated to fall in love with the prophesied Sun Queen.

Dazzler is able to rescue all the heroes and the united force confront the Queens’ armies in one final showdown where it’s revealed that this war was being fought… because Robin Williams seduced both of the Queens and due to manipulation from their lawyers, each of them thinks the other stole Williams from them.

It’s also revealed that the three Rodney Dangerfield can combine together to reveal their true form, Lord Chaos, and he’s been the one pulling the strings behind the scenes in order to create conflict that he can use to gain power and take over Manhattan.  But thankfully, Dazzler is able to sing a big song that unites everyone in love, defeating Lord Chaos and saving the day.

Casablanca loved the pitch so much that they wanted to do away with the animated special and instead turn this into a feature length movie. (Shooter’s Blog)

But tragedy struck when the music industry saw an economic downturn with smaller record companies like Casablanca being hit the hardest.  Not to mention that around this time, Casablanca was in the process of being bought out and was also being accused of accounting improprieties so the Dazzler project went on the backburner and was eventually dropped altogether. (Shooter’s Blog)

With Casablanca unable to finance the project, one hundred percent of the rights to Dazzler now belonged to Marvel and not wanting to see their work go to waste, Shooter and Donenfeld pushed forward with what they could muster by talking to John Derek to direct the film and his wife, Bo, to star in it.

Bo Derek was fresh off the heels of the movie “10” and was a hot commodity in the acting world, (Behind the Panel: Dazzler)  Shooter and Donenfeld were able to sit down with the star couple and get them interested in the project complete with concept art of Bo as Dazzler. (Marvel Age #7 - 1983).  Heck, the four of them were ambushed by the paparazzi after this meeting and there the Dereks were, Marvel comics in hand, making the front cover of People magazine with Shooter and Donenfeld being cropped out.

The Dereks loved the Dazzler concept and with them attached to the project, a bidding war between multiple movie studios erupted. (Shooter’s Blog)  Though comics were still not being taken seriously and instead of having Jim Shooter write the screenplay, veteran screenwriter, Leslie Stevens, was brought on to do it.  He threw everything that Shooter had written out the window and completely bastardized Dazzler.  The light powers?  Gone.  Instead, Stevens made Dazzler’s power being that she was so beautiful that people were compelled to tell her the truth. (Behind the Panel: Dazzler)

Also, during this bidding war, Bo demanded that her husband HAD to be the director, otherwise she would walk.  Here’s the thing though, John Derek was infamous in Hollywood for going over budget and behind schedule on his films.  Because of this, all the studios withdrew their bids and The Dereks walked away, leaving Marvel stranded. (Shooter’s Blog)

They were able to get actress Daryl Hannah attached to the project and Marvel tried shopping it around, but nobody was interested. (Shooter’s Blog)

So there Marvel was with this fully developed character with nothing to do.  They decided to feature her in books like X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four to build up hype in hopes of launching a Dazzler solo series.  The X-Men crossover was extremely significant because it wasn’t just in the middle of some random side story.  They introduced her in the middle of THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA, one of the most famous X-Men storylines of all time.

The thought process was that even though the corporate interest to bring Dazzler to the big screen was low at the moment, maybe they would reconsider if she became a popular comic character first.

Also around this time, comics started transitioning away from newsstands in favor of dedicated comic shops, so Jim Shooter suggested that they release a comic exclusively in stores.  Worried about pissing off the newsstand distributors that they were still working with, Marvel decided to try this experiment out with a lesser known character.  As a result, Dazzler’s new solo series became Marvel’s first comic to be sold directly to comic shops. (Shooter’s Blog)

The first two issues were actually a couple of old Marvel Super Special comics that were never made (Behind the Panel: Dazzler) but regardless of that shotcut, the comic sold over 400,000 units (Marvel Comics: The Untold Story)  which was insanely good, especially when you consider that Savage She-Hulk #1 was released a year prior and was considered to be a huge with 250,000 units sold.

Despite the initial great sales, Dazzler’s book lost steam.  If you think about it, she was a character that was out of style before she even made her debut.  After all, it was the 80s now and the era of disco was coming to an end.  Despite all the hype, Dazzler faded into the background of Marvel comics.  Sure, she made plenty of appearances in Marvel properties over the years, but she was never really that big of a deal.  When it comes to movies, the most we’ve ever got to see her was a brief cameo in Dark Phoenix.

I do have hopes that a Dazzler album will eventually get made considering that in recent years, we got a similar thing with a couple of sort-of official songs from Spider-Gwen’s band, The MaryJanes, being made by the rock band, Married With Sea Monsters.

I say sort of official because even though Marvel didn’t pay for the songs or to my knowledge even give permission, the band’s members are personal friends with the artist of Spider-Gwen, Robbi Rodriguez, and they collaborated on them as the comic was being made.  I feel like hoping for Dazzler to get the same treatment is a pipe dream, but it would be a really cool way to celebrate the long and frankly fascinating history of the character.