DAZZLER II: Page 11 of 11

BIOGRAPHY - Page 11

Dazzler went off-grid shortly after that. She took some time to herself and took up roller-derby with a team in Miami (Jammer for the Elm Street Nightmares). After the multiverse imploded and Earth was reborn as Earth-Prime [Secret Wars], a sentient pocket dimension named Singularity found herself on the recreated Earth for the first time. She reassembled a team of superheroes she had known on Battleworld known as A-Force, not realizing that the heroes before her were not the same ones she had known in Arcadia/Battleworld. When Singularity’s cosmic opposite, Anti-Matter, chased her all over Earth trying to consume her, Singularity assembled a team consisting of She-Hulk, Medusa, Nico Minoru and Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers needed more data on Anti-Matter to figure out how to destroy it, and tasked the team with bombarding it with light in battle so they could study it. Singularity knew exactly who to recruit to do that: Dazzler, her old friend from Arcadia. The newly assembled A-Force traveled to Miami and found Ali-Stun Blaire at one of her roller-derby matches and explained what was happening. Several minutes later, Anti-Matter arrived, and Dazzler confronted it in battle. [A-Force (2nd series) #1-2]

Dazzler’s powers were useless against Anti-Matter (light cannot destroy light), but she did allow Captain Marvel to get the data she needed. The team fled the fight with Anti-Matter and regrouped on Captain Marvel’s orbital station, Alpha Flight. There, they discussed how to neutralize Anti-Matter, and posited that any solution that destroyed it might also destroy Singularity as well. For that reason, She-Hulk suggested at least trying to reason with the entity first. When it approached the station this time, A-Force donned their space gear and met it outside. During the ensuing confrontation, however, Anti-Matter made an example of Alison and hit her with an energy blast, killing her. Enraged, She-Hulk tore off its head, granting them some time while it reassembled itself. They brought Alison into the medical bay on the station where the doctors declared her dead. [A-Force (2nd series) #3]

Once again, however, Dazzler returned from the dead, waking up while her teammates were outside battling Anti-Matter once again. They had a plan to destroy it using a matter bomb Dr. Tempest Bell created but, because of its quantum entanglement with Singularity, the device was poised to destroy their friend as well. However, Dr. Bell had also finished developing a pocket-dimension device after the team departed that could be used to possibly save Singularity. Dazzler suited up, took the device from Dr. Bell and met her team on the battlefield. Just as they were about to detonate the bomb, she snagged Singularity, activated the pocket dimension device and hid both of them in another reality, thus sparing her from death when Anti-Matter was destroyed. Alison and Singularity returned moments later, with Singularity’s life intact.

Later, the team took a much-needed break at a burger joint in Virginia. While they were there, Dazzler and She-Hulk had a heart-to-heart in which Dazzler revealed that this wasn’t the first time she’d mysteriously returned from the dead. She admitted she had no idea what caused her to keep coming back to life. She-Hulk advised her to figure it out. She also offered her some unsolicited advice and told her she didn’t know what she was going through at the moment but that A-Force was there to support her. Alison confided the bit about Mystique to her. She-Hulk’s words resonated with Alison and she decided to stay with the team. Before they departed on their next mission to track down some other extra-dimensional beings that found their way into their reality, Alison asked Nico Minoru if she could use her magic to help her with a makeover, to which Nico enthusiastically agreed. Shortly after teleporting to their next destination in Astoria, Oregon, Nico cast her spell and Dazzler found herself with yet another new look, this one much more reflective of her evolving, less nihilistic outlook. [A-Force (2nd series) #4]

The team arrived in Astoria and found the monster they were looking for — a giant, flying dragon — engaged in battle with what appeared to be a female version of Thor. As they got nearer, they met the Thor and realized she was actually an alternate version of Dazzler who had become Thor. This Dazzler-Thor hailed from Battleworld and was one of the many Thors who kept order over God-Doom’s vast kingdom. A-Force forced the dragon-creature, whom Dazzler-Thor called “Countess,” into retreat, and went to get some food and get to know their new friend.

Alison was uneasy meeting an alternate version of herself and eventually excused herself from the raucous conversation to be alone. Dazzler-Thor found her outside and asked if she made her uncomfortable. After some discussion, Alison revealed to her Asgardian counterpart that she was afflicted with M-Pox, a disease caused by the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mists that targeted, sterilized and killed mutants. Alison was ashamed and hadn’t told her teammates yet. Later, after the Countess entranced and captured A-Force, Alison learned that Dazzler-Thor was also afflicted with M-Pox, only hers was much further along. In the continuing fight with Countess, Dazzler-Thor fell to the disease and Alison, in a moment of desperation, picked up her hammer, Light-Bringer, and found she was worthy of wielding it. She used the weapon to help defeat Countess, then returned to Dazzler-Thor’s side. Sadly, Dazzler-Thor perished in Alison’s arms, disappearing in a flash of light and leaving Light-Bringer behind. Dazzler relinquished the weapon to Thor and, after a brief period of mourning, went with A-Force to their next mission. [A-Force (2nd series) #5-7]

A-Force was soon summoned back to New York to help stop Thanos from attacking a facility Dazzler was no stranger to, Project PEGASUS. It seemed an Inhuman named Ulysses had a precognitive vision of the attack, allowing Captain Marvel to rally a defense in time. During the fight, however, Thanos beat down She-Hulk and sent her into cardiac arrest and then a coma. While she was unconscious, Ulysses had a vision about Nico Minoru killing a girl named Alice in a mine somewhere. Captain Marvel, believing in the veracity of his precognitive visions, wanted to detain Nico to prevent her from committing the act. Alison, however, being a magna cum laude pre-law major, objected to what she perceived as a violation of Nico’s due process and civil rights, i.e. being arrested for a crime she hadn’t committed.

After Nico teleported away to escape, Dazzler took Singularity with her to track her down so they could help her. They followed her to her safehouse in a small town in Colorado, which, incidentally, was under some kind of weird bug invasion. When the rest of A-Force arrived to detain Nico, they talked it out and realized that the source of the bug outbreak was likely a girl named Alice who was hiding out somewhere. They split into two teams to go find Alice and help her and stop the invasion. While they were together, Dazzler had a heart-to-heart with Medusa about her anger about her M-Pox infection and admitted she resented Medusa for it even though she knew it wasn’t her fault.

The two of them hugged it out. Eventually, they all found Alice in a mine outside of town, only to discover she had transformed into a giant bug queen herself. Fortunately, she was able to telepathically communicate with Nico. She told Nico the only way to stop the infection that had transformed the entire town into bugs was to kill her. Nico obviously didn’t want to do it, but as the infection spread to the rest of A-Force — transforming all of them, including Dazzler, into bug monsters — Nico conceded and cast a death spell on Alice. It worked, returning everyone to their human forms. Alice, meanwhile, managed to survive and return to life as some weird bug queen hybrid. Afterward, A-Force returned to New York City to be by She-Hulk’s side. [A-Force (2nd series) #8-10]

Later, Dazzler took part in an ambush on Black Bolt when the X-Men decided their truce with the Inhumans was over and they wanted them and their Terrigen Mists off the planet. In the aftermath the threat of M-Pox was gone and Dazzler was soon cured of her disease. [Inhumans vs. X-Men #0-6]

Despite aiding the X-Men, Dazzler still wanted to keep her distance from them and so, once again, she set off to reignite her music career. Leaving A-Force behind as well, she took Dazzler-Thor’s weapon with her and used it as inspiration when starting a new band called Lightbringr. Wanting to begin afresh, she chose to stand for all the metahumans who felt oppressed, whether they be mutant, Inhuman or anything else. Naturally she gained lots of new fans with her catchy songs and inclusive message, but being so visible in a time when tensions between humans, mutants and Inhumans were at an all-time high earned her some enemies too. When one of her shows was crashed by a group of mutants looking to pick a fight with Inhumans, Dazzler felt the need to intervene and show them all that they had a lot more in common than they realized. Unbeknownst to her, Colossus was in the crowd and afterwards asked her to return to the X-Men with him as they had need for her. When she declined, he reiterated they would always be family and parted ways, making sure she knew she would always have a home with them. [Dazzler: X-Song One-Shot]

Alison struggled to shed her “classic” Dazzler past and Lightbringr didn’t last as long as she’d hoped. Whether it was pride or a real love of singing, she decided not to return to the X-Men and instead chose to celebrate the anniversary of her original album, Sounds of Light and Fury, by going on a small tour. She was delighted to see Havok and a group of X-Men show up after one of her shows and immediately assumed they were there to recruit her. In the middle of pre-emptively accepting their offer, she was furious when they revealed they were actually there for her stage-designer, Forge. The Reavers had been hitting targets associated with the X-Men, and Havok had gotten word that Forge was next on their list. Alison booted the X-Men out of her dressing room, but when the Reavers attacked them soon after she got her chance to show her former team what they were missing when she single-handedly saved them. Any hopes of Dazzler resuming her music career were dashed when she realized that Havok’s group of X-Men were somewhat “unofficial” and were in fact labelled as terrorists by the media. Despite it not being the X-Men comeback she hoped for, she stuck with the team and proved to be a key member in the subsequent battle with the Reavers. [Astonishing X-Men (4th series) #14-17]

Alison would soon come to the aid of the main X-Men team when Nate Grey, aka X-Man, took over Legion’s body and attempted to use the reality-warper’s influence for his own purposes. The battle didn’t go as planned as most of the X-Men, Dazzler included, were seemingly killed in the battle. Whilst the world mourned, Alison and the other X-Men found themselves in a newly created reality designed by Nate Grey. With their minds and memories altered, no one could remember their former lives, a situation that Dazzler had been in a few times before. However, this time she was in a world that outlawed emotional love and romance, and Alison found herself standing alongside Apocalypse as they fought for the right to love. Much like the other warped realities she had been drawn into, the Age of X-Man also fell apart and Alison was returned to her regular reality with all her former memories. [Uncanny X-Men (5th series) #9-10, Age of X-Men: Apocalypse and the X-Tracts #1-5]

Alison remained with the X-Men and joined them on their new home of Krakoa soon after. Professor X had joined together with Magneto and Moira MacTaggart to take charge of the team and usher in a new dawn for the X-Men and the mutant race as a whole. [House of X #6]

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