If you went to refill your Diet Coke early in “X-Men: Dark Phoenix,” you may have missed the long-awaited cinematic debut of Alison Blaire, aka Dazzler — one of the most kicked-around characters in the X-Men universe of outcasts.
Almost from the beginning, Marvel had big-screen ambitions for Dazzler. But like so many cinematic dreams, Dazzler’s have been repeatedly dashed, leading to makeshift makeovers, dark trips down industry side alleys, and coulda-been-a-contender moments in the makeup mirror. Dazzler’s failure as a movie star — both in the comics and in real life — has fueled some of the most compelling-yet-forgotten Marvel stories of the 1980s.