Alison "Ali" Blaire, AKA "Dazzler" is a mutant superhero and singer, and a charter member of the X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.
History
History of character is unknown.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
None known.
Abilities
None known.
Strength level
Unknown.
Weaknesses
None known.
Paraphernalia
Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.
Notes
- No special notes.
Trivia
- No trivia.
See Also
- Appearances of Alison Blaire (Joint Venture)
- Character Gallery: Alison Blaire (Joint Venture)
- Quotations by Alison Blaire (Joint Venture)
Discover and Discuss
- Search News for: Alison Blaire (Joint Venture)
Links and References
- None.
History
Law versus Music
Alison Blaire was born in southern California to Carter and Katherine Blaire. Carter was an attorney-at-law; no-nonsense and well-respected, but often humorless and severe. This put him at odds with his wife, who had made a name for herself as "Kathy Brown." Using her maiden name, Kathy was a touring jazz singer whose album, "Smoky Mirrors", was a cult hit among fans of the genre. She took to spoiling young Ali as much as she could, to win her over with a permissive attitude and lavish gifts, along with encouragement to nurture her natural singing talent. Ali was too young to understand that she was an unwitting pawn in her parents' game of influential tug-of-war, until the day Katherine had had enough and walked out on her husband and young daughter to pursue singing full-time.
Now a single father, Carter doubled down on his own harsh parenting style. While he never physically hit Ali, he raised her with strict rules and lofty expectations, and only allowed her minimal time to herself. Alison had to hide her mother's music collection, stashing countless CDs in her closets and the hidden nooks and crannies of her bedroom, lest her father find and destroy them to keep her from "getting distracted".
Discovering Her Muse
Despite her extremely controlling father, her love for music never left Alison's heart. She would practice singing, dancing, and acting whenever she could get away with it. Entering a high school talent show, Alison discovered that not only had she inherited her mother's gift for music, but she also possessed a mysterious power: the ability to turn sound into light. As the song she was performing stirred her emotions, lights began to dance around her in various colors, giving the performance a memorable visual element. While she did not win the competitive portion of the talent show, Alison made headlines in her school paper, and footage of her performance went viral at a time while social media was still in its relative infancy.
When she graduated high school, Alison was finally free to move out from under her father's thumb. When she went to college, she entered a prestigious pre-law program that her father had planned for her...but behind his back, also enrolled in the performing arts track, doing the work of two full college majors at once. She landed the role of Glinda in her college's performance of Wicked, and worked with the director and tech crew to use her lightshows to maximum effect, not just for her own scenes, but for the scenes with her fellow cast. Single-handedly, Alison had taken a college-theater performance with mediocre production values and heightened it to rival Broadway, just with her own seemingly-miraculous powers.
Alison never forgot the standing ovation she and her co-star Theresa Rourke (who played Elphaba, and was also the daughter of the X-Man Banshee) received on opening night.
She had found her true calling.
Upon graduating magna cum laude and receiving degrees in both Performing Arts and Civil Law, Alison took both to her father, and promptly threw her law degree in his face, declaring she loved music more than anything, and walked out of her family home forever.
Lightengale
Moving across the country to New York, she began looking to break into the music business, using the burgeoning Internet to market herself. Taking cues from her mother, Alison put together an album and released it independently. Even though she could not explain her mysterious light powers, Alison decided to bank on them, carving an identity for herself as 'Dazzler', with her first album, Lightengale, selling out at every live show she was able to book. She practiced with her powers day after day, discovering new and exciting uses for them, including lifelike, three-dimensional holograms, which she could use to make her own music videos. She would then release these music videos up on the world's biggest video streaming site, and was surprised and impressed by the reception.
However, as her star rose, so too did the danger.
Meeting the X-Men
One night, on her way home from another successful show, Alison was attacked by thugs sent by the notorious Hellfire Club, and had to fight for her life for the first time. Her 'Dazzler' powers served her well, and she "dazzled" someone for the first time, shorting out an attacker's synaptic functions with a chaotic light show that overloaded his mind, but ultimately she was too inexperienced to do much on her own, and had to be rescued by the X-Men. It was from Cyclops, the X-Men's young strategist and co-leader, that Dazzler learned that her miraculous light powers were due to her being born a mutant, and that that, as much as her growing fame, would make her a target. They offered her a place at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, but Alison refused, since she wanted a career in show business, and to touch hearts around the world, not stay sequestered in some safehouse until she was called upon to fight evil.
As a compromise, Cyclops offered to teach Dazzler some basic combat skills, and she accepted. Taking a brief break from her gigs, Alison concentrated on learning self-defense. Thanks to Cyclops' firm but patient guidance, she learned not only the basics of hand-to-hand combat, but also to condense the light she generated into intense lasers that could cut through anything, and photon blasts powerful enough to pulverize matter. While she learned from him, the two became friends, though Scott's relationship with his teammate Jean Grey kept them from becoming more.
Meeting Lila Cheney
Eventually, Dazzler returned to performing, now much more confident in her abilities and able to protect herself and those she cared for. However, despite her successful debut as a superhero and singer, Alison's career was slow to start. Some time after fighting alongside the X-Men, she competed in a season of US Sing, a popular musical competition that focused on minority artists. Though she did her best to limit the use of her mutant powers in her act, so as not to be accused of cheating, Ali still ended up making it to the finals thanks to her stellar voice, catchy pop songs, and soulful ballads. However, Dazzler was beaten for the championship by the band Lila Cheney & the Nazgul, whose aggressive pop-punk style evoked the hair-metal bands of the 1980s while still being popular with the modern audience.
After the show, Lila Cheney, the band's frontwoman, offered to treat Alison to dinner and drinks, and the two women bonded over their shared struggles in the music industry, as well as their respective adventures as mutants; Dazzler's time fighting alongside the X-Men and eluding the Hellfire Club, and Lila's misadventures as an interstellar teleporter with a range of thousands of light-years per jaunt. They eventually recorded a joint album together, "Face to Face", with the title track (a pop-rock cover of a country duet between Reba McEntire and Linda Davis), going on to be a smash hit with over a million downloads in its opening weekend.
Alison and Lila struck up a strong friendship, with Dazzler being considered an honorary fifth member of the Nazgul and Lila guest-recording on several of Dazzler's future songs. Tabloids often ran rumors about the two being romantically involved, but both Lila and Alison refuted these claims, insisting they were nothing more than good friends. Later, Lila would come out as asexual, which laid most of the rumors to rest, though some persist to this day.
The "Death" of Dazzler
As Dazzler grew more popular, she ended up needing help keeping ahead of her career. She hired a manager, Erica Beale, who quickly developed a deep crush on Alison. While they got along well at first, Beale's attachment grew more and more unhealthy as time went on. Eventually, during a particuarly intense surge in anti-mutant sentiment, Erica eventually abducted Alison to 'keep her safe'.
However, Erica was deeply mentally unwell at that point, and even tried to mercy-kill Alison herself, to 'protect' her from the cruelties of the world. This attempt failed, however, and Dazzler eventually subdued Erica with a soothing lightshow that kept her pacified long enough for Alison's friend and bandmate Lila Cheney, and her bodyguard Guido Carosella, to rescue Dazzler and turn Erica over to the proper authorities.
Alison continues to perform, tour, and record music to this day, and is currently in talks for a movie, "The Dazzler". She maintains friendly contact with the X-Men, and the wider superhero world as a whole, but is ultimately dedicated to her career as a singer.
Powers & Abilities
Dazzler is a mutant with the ability to convert sonic waves into light, or vice versa. This gives her a wide array of unique, special abilities.
Light Shows: Dazzler's primary use of her power is to use the music she plays to create brilliant light shows of varying colors, intensities, and patterns. These light shows can be controlled in various ways, or just allowed to "do their own thing", in which case the display often matches Alison's mood. For example, when singing a slow, contemplative ballad (like her third single, "A Little Girl's Dream"), Alison will create softer lights in cool hues that evoke gentle or melancholic feelings. When she sings something more upbeat or energized (such as "Sight of the Sound", the first track of her Lightengale album), the lights around her brighten and sparkle sharply, glowing in bright, peppy colors like yellow or pink.
"Mood Lighting": One of the most common uses of Dazzler's light shows is to alter the mood of the people who see it, typically to match the feeling of a song she's singing. Her light shows can be used to invigorate or energize, but also to calm, which is how she survived a chance encounter with the Hulk; with a ballad she was working on, Dazzler created a calming lightshow to evoke peaceful feelings within Hulk, and trigger his reversion to Bruce Banner.
Dazzle-Burst: One of the first powers Dazzler ever used in combat. When in battle, she can instinctively unleash a blinding "Dazzle-burst", creating an intense lightshow directly in an opponent's face that can short out their synaptic functions, rendering them catatonic for a time. This effect is achieved through the complexity and intensity of the light show, rather than its brightness, so eye protection (such as sunglasses) does not stave off the neural damage; if an enemy is looking at it, they will be "Dazzled."
Illusory Holograms: Dazzler's second use of her powers, which requires far more fine control than her simple lightshows, is the ability to create fully realistic, three-dimensional holograms. The size and shape of these is usually determined by the amount of energy she has stored up, but at full power, Dazzler can create entire holographic landscapes, and populate them with completely realistic, lifelike people.
Photon Blasts: The ultimate expression of Dazzler's power is the ability to focus her lights into a single, concentrated beam of light that can emit from her hands, eyes, or fingers. While this expends a great deal of energy, it can stun or knock over opponents, and at full strength it can burn holes through steel or smash through concrete walls.
Immortality: A little-known, even more seldom-discussed power of Dazzler's is her inability to die. Unbeknownst to Erica Beale, her attempt to mercy-kill Alison did in fact work...only for Alison to resurrect herself seconds later, completely unharmed, with no memory of having actually passed away. It is unknown if this is an active power of Alison's or an automatic response, since she herself is unaware of it when it happens.
Weaknesses
Stored energy: Dazzler's powers require her to absorb sonic energy to charge her light powers. While she can store sonic energy for later use, her reserves are finite, and once expended, Dazzler cannot produce any more light until she absorbs more sonic energy.
Illusory Shadows: Dazzler's illusions do not cast a shadow, making them relatively easy to discern from reality.
Memory loss: When Dazzler returns to life after being killed, she has no memory of her death. She remembers the attack, but not the actual moment of her demise. It is unknown how far back this memory loss goes, especially after recovering from a lingering death like drowning or immolation.