Jim Shooter explains the debut of the Dazzler, a third-tier Marvel Comics character:
Sometime in early 1979, Marvel’s in-house counsel and V.P. of business affairs Alice Donenfeld proposed that we create a super-heroine/singer character. She was hoping to set up a joint venture with a record company — we’d produce comics featuring the character and they’d produce and market music using studio musicians, as was done with the Archies.
Disco was big at the time. Virtually every bar with a dance floor played disco, from upscale nightclubs like the Ice Palace and Studio 54, to dance halls like the one seen in Saturday Night Fever to local joints.
I assigned Tom DeFalco and John Romita, Jr. to take a shot at creating the character. In my initial discussions with them, I believe, we came up with the notion of giving her light powers, and therefore, being able to provide her own light show. Hence the “Dazzler” part of the name “Disco Dazzler.” I don’t remember who came up with which parts of the above. I was the one who came up with the energy-transmutation rationale to explain her powers.
John did some nice design sketches — performer’s attire that looked just super-hero enough. The part that Tom delivered was pretty standard. She was a young woman who dreamed and struggled to become a star, born with a “gift,” like the X-Men. She found she could use her powers openly while performing, under the pretense that it was some kind of stage magic, a closely guarded trade secret. [...] Dazzler debuted in X-Men #130.
And nothing much happened after that….
Until one day, later in 1979, I was called to an impromptu meeting upstairs. Present were Alice Donenfeld, President Jim Galton and our Hollywood rep whose name escapes me. They seemed pretty excited.
Alice and the rep had met with Neil Bogart of Casablanca Record and Filmworks who not only was interested in the “Archies” type recording venture, but wanted to launch it with a half-hour animated special. Cool.
Bogart wanted lots of Marvel heroes in the special and he wanted the stars he had under contract to provide voices for the non-Marvel characters. There had to be, therefore, characters to play for Robin Williams, Cher, Donna Summer, Rodney Dangerfield, Lenny and Squiggy, the Village People and KISS.
They had a follow up meeting already scheduled with Bogart. They needed a treatment for the story in four days. [...] So, I did it. For free, by the way, over a weekend. If I was going to be the fool who blew the deal, I didn’t want to be handing in a bill at the same time. What I wrote is posted below.
The treatment was presented to Casablanca and Neil, and the verdict came back, quoted to me by our rep, “This isn’t a half-hour special. This is a FEATURE FILM!”
And it would have been.
However, around that time, Bogart had health issues, Casablanca was being bought out and accounting improprieties were being alleged. The project fell into limbo.
But Marvel owned all rights. Casablanca had no investment, no stake whatsoever in the property or my treatment.
Alice went to the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1980 with my treatment in hand.
She managed to take a meeting with Bo Derek, and got her to read my treatment. On the basis of my treatment, Bo agreed to become attached to the project. She wanted to play Dazzler.
There’s a picture of Bo and her Husband John taken at Cannes that was featured on the cover of People Magazine, shown below. If you look closely, you can see that John is holding a stack of Marvel Comics. That’s the first issue of She-Hulk on top.