Born as a marketing scheme to take advantage of the Disco music craze, the freewheeling mutant known as Alison Blaire (or to comic book and X-Men fans: the Dazzler), is about to make her big screen debut in the upcoming FOX X-Men film 'The Dark Phoenix'. How will this appearance affect the prices of your old Dazzler comics? Let’s look at the data…
It was the late 1970s. Disco was in, roller skating was cool, and Marvel didn’t have any multi-billion dollar film franchises to finance its publishing empire.
Enter Casablanca Records. The executives of that company contacted the then editor at Marvel, Jim Shooter, and pitched the idea of a character called ‘the Disco Queen’. They would find a singer to promote (n the vein of the Monkees and the Archies, apparently) and they would also contribute the financial backing to produce a movie based on the new singer, and all Marvel had to do was to put her in their comics and promote her.
The above is, in short, the strange origin of the character millions of X-Men fans would come to know as Dazzler. Created by Tom Defalco and John Romita Jr., with some help from Roger Stern -who replaced the Casablanca suggested name of 'Disco Queen' with a new one- after, for various reasons, the Casablanca film project fell through. Normally this would have been the end of the Marvel/Disco story, however, Marvel decided to use the character, with Stern's suggested name of 'Dazzler,' and make her part of the X-Men Universe.
Dazzler first appears in Uncanny X-Men #130. All X-Men fans know that X-Men issues #101 to #138 form the classic story known as the ‘Phoenix arc’. It’s a strange place to introduce Alison Blaire, a Mutant who literally has the power to manipulate sonic vibrations and 'transduce' them into light. In other words, she’s a walking Fourth of July fireworks show.
With the Dark Phoenix story now coming (yet again) to the big screen, and with actress Halston Sage, (see here), portraying her there, it makes sense to look at the activity surrounding the Dazzler keys.
X-Men #130 (February 1980) - First appearance of Dazzler
The colorful cover of this X-Men classic tells you almost everything you need to know about Alison Blaire. She’s loud, proud and a Disco Queen. No, she’s the Disco Dazzler, or Dazz for short. Prices on this book were almost bargain bin levels for the longest time. With the passing of the years, there’s no book in the Clairemont/Byrne Phoenix story arc that has stayed that way. This issue is no exception. With no less than 2, 086 copies on the CGC census- the long term growth on returns has been simply ‘brilliant’ with sales showing strong growth on all grades. To the point that today, in high condition of 9.8, X-Men #130 currently has a FMV of $650.00. Over the last three months, the numbers break down as follows: mixed to negative returns.
9.8 grades shows slightly positive growth of +3.5% with recent sales (10 over the course of the last three months hitting lows of $625.00 (eBay 02/27/2019) to a high of a Dazzling $1, 000.00 (eBay again, 03/03/2019). These are the highs.
8.0 has been the big loser short-term however, with negative returns of -20.6% after 3 sales over the last 12 weeks ranging from $62.00 to $80.00.
Dazzler #1 (February 1981) – First Issue of Self-Titled Comic
Only 660 of these can be found on the CGC census. Still, it’s a Bronze Age #1 issue and has been rising in value for a few years as well; with a current FMV of $110.00 in 9.8 graded condition. Does this issue also have mixed and mostly negative performance stats over the last three months? Surprisingly---the answer is no. Returns are mixed but mostly positive and basically the reverse of X-Men #130. Although sales have not been as frequent:
9.8 grades are up +17.9% after 5 sales with a high on eBay [03/17/2019] of $120.00 and a low sale also on eBay [02/25/2019 ] of $85.00.
9.0 is the other grade that shows growth. This time positive +46.3% after 2 sales.
What's the diagnosis we can make?
There is a bit of impatience with FOX's handling of the X-Men. Most comic fans know that the Marvel Mutants will eventually make an MCU appearance and that has been keeping sales of their keys strong. In the case of a peripheral figure like Dazzler, however, the new FOX movie may give her books a minor bump.
In a situation like this it’s probably best to sell if you are not a Dazzler fan and you need the funds to pick up a bigger Uncanny key, or – if you are a fan, and want her key issues in high grade, wait for the FOX version of the character to come and go. Prices will most likely dip slightly which should be a good time to buy.
