Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
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Dazzler #41
Issue(s): Dazzler #41
Cover Date: Jan 86
Title: "Revelations"
Credits:
Archie Goodwin - Writer
Paul Chadwick - Penciler
Butch Guice - Inker
Mike Carlin - Editor
Review/plot:
In this penultimate issue of Dazzler, we learn the story of Dust and Silence, the villains that have been plaguing Dazzler for most of Goodwin and Chadwick's run. We learn that they were government scientists working on creating super-humans who eventually had to go underground when word got out that the "addicts, criminals, and street slime" that they used as test subjects were being killed.
Their experiments were never quite successful, but when Dazzler publicly came out as a mutant in the scene where she absorbed the jet engines' roar to make a spectacle of her powers in her Graphic Novel, it triggered the latent abilities in some of the former test subjects. And that's where the "mutant" bikers from last issue came from.
Dust and Silence have set up a sanitarium where they've lured more of their former test subjects, and their goal in hiring O.Z. Chase was to have him bring her there so she could activate the rest of their powers. As a back-up, Dust has also taken over the body of Dazzler's father.
Dazzler therefore has to fight Dust while he's possessing her dead father. Dust is backed up by another test subject with latent powers activated by Dazzler.
Dazzler is backed up by O.Z. Chase, forced to go after Dazzler by his dog Cerebus.
Also in this issue, a prisoner named Arthur Allan Smith, an obsessed Dazzler fan, receives a psychic message to "save the lady". He's reacting to the same call as Rachel Summers (see below).
It's too late to save it, but Goodwin and Chadwick have put together a nice storyline here. And given us a real star with Cerebus.
Here's the panel with the X-Factor van that Richard mentions.
Quality Rating: B
Historical Significance Rating: 2 - death of Dazzler's father
Chronological Placement Considerations: The story continues next issue as Dazzler confronts Silence, but the way that story is structured some time passes between issues so i am keeping them in separate issues. The Beast appears in issue #42 between X-Factor #1-2. This issue also has a cameo by Rachel Summers, reacting to an attempt by Silence to call in more of her former test subjects. Rachel dismisses it as the aftereffects of eating some ice cream supplied by Kitty Pryde. It's context free, but the MCP places it between Uncanny X-Men #201-202 (see Michael's comments for the sequence and reasoning).
References:
- The trigger point for the former subjects of Dust and Silence was Dazzler's big exhibition in Marvel Graphic Novel #12 (Dazzler: The Movie).
- O.Z. Chase first arrested Dazzler in Dazzler #39 (the footnote incorrectly says #38, which was Chase's first appearance but he didn't capture Dazzler then).
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
At least two weeks have to pass between Dazzler 41 and 42. Here's why: in Uncanny X-Men 202 the X-Men are transported to California by the Beyonder. They remain in California until Uncanny X-Men 206. In Uncanny X-Men 206, the X-Men read a postcard Maddie sent before Scott left in X-Factor 1. In it, Maddie mentions the X-Men being on the West Coast. Beast learns about X-Factor two weeks after Scott left. Since Rachel is in New York, this issue has to take place before Uncanny X-Men 202.
So basically the sequence is:
Dazzler 41
Uncanny X-Men 202
X-Factor 1
Dazzler 42
Sigh. "I don't intend to just LAY here..." If your poor dead father could hear that grammar, Allison. You were supposed to go to law school, remember?
The name of the creepy obsessed guy in prison, "Arthur Allan Smith," makes me think of Arthur Leigh Allen, believed by many to be the never-captured Zodiac killer. This is probably a coincidence, but I don't know -- interest in the case was heating up again around that time, with the publication of Robert Graysmith's first book.
This is the first time I've read this issue, and although rather macabre, I agree it is a nicely set up story. There's an ad for X-Factor on a van, last panel of page 8, so I don't know if that means this is post X-Factor 1.
I've added the scan with the X-Factor van. I think based on Rachel Summers' appearance and the timeline Michael lays out that we'll have to write it off as a meta reference, similar to the X-Factor ads in Marvel Graphic Novel #33.
It's possible Cameron Hodge already had X-Factor in the works before he recruited (and set up) his old friend Warren.
