X-Men: Dark Phoenix Will Feature Dazzler

Mutant pop star Dazzler will have a role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, EW reports.

The character, whose album made a brief cameo in a deleted scene from the ’80s-set X-Men: Apocalypse, was long-rumored to be a part of that film, with names like Taylor Swift popping up in conjunction with her.

Per the EW piece, the studio confirmed that Dazzler “will pop up but only in a small role and there is no plan at the moment to have Swift play her.”

Dazzler first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #130 in February 1980. She was commissioned by Casablanca Records in the late ’70s to be a cross-promotion in the mold of KISS, who had starred in two successful comic book tie-in super-specials by that point. Marvel Comics would develop a singing superhero, while Casablanca would produce a singer who could perform while in character and wardrobe. Marvel’s then-Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter wrote a treatment for a feature film based on the character.

She never reached the desired level of popularity to get a movie — and of course, it probably didn’t help that by 1980 her “disco queen” persona wasn’t quite as hip as it might have been a few years earlier — but she’s been a regular member of the X-Men universe ever since, with the occasional musical genre-switch and a much-publicized move toward a darker and edgier look in 2014.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be a direct sequel to X-Men: Apocalypse. The film will take place in the 1990s and will be inspired by “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” the most popular X-Men story of all time.

Fox attempted to adapt “The Dark Phoenix Saga” once previously, in X-Men: The Last Stand. The attempt was not well-received by fans.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix currently has a 3.72 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating. Let us know how excited you are for X-Men: Dark Phoenix by giving the film your own user anticipation rating below.

MORE X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX: X-Men Dark Phoenix Director, Returning Cast Confirmed / Why X-Men: Dark Phoenix Needs to Go Cosmic / What is Dark Phoenix? / What Dark Phoenix Can Learn from X-Men: The Last Stand’s Mistakes