Alison Blaire has spent years trying to make music her life rather than accept every superhero invitation that comes her way. Her arrival in the rebuilt X-Men doesn't make that…

Alison Blaire has spent years trying to make music her life rather than accept every superhero invitation that comes her way. Her arrival in the rebuilt X-Men doesn't make that history disappear. She enters with a career, disappointments and enemies, not as a blank space waiting for the team to give her a personality. Uncanny #214 makes her immediate circumstances especially ugly. Malice possesses her, and the confrontation draws the X-Men into a fight where familiar bodies cannot be trusted. Alison's powers become part of somebody else's attack. The route into the group therefore begins with a violation of control, not an uncomplicated change of employment. The Juggernaut encounter in #217 is an excellent follow-up because it remembers she is also a performer. Cain Marko recognizes her music and is delighted to meet her. For a moment, she is dealing with a fan. That doesn't make whatever he is planning harmless, and Alison chooses to interfere rather than enjoy the recognition and leave. By #218, the situation demands cooperation with the others. Rogue is among them, carrying a history Alison has no reason to dismiss. Getting through the fight gives these women something more useful than an instruction to forget their differences. Dazzler's power also gives the pages a very different texture. Sound becomes light, performance becomes a weapon and a woman who wanted an audience finds herself working in circumstances where being noticed can be dangerous. She is not instantly comfortable, and she shouldn't be. Her place in this team grows out of the collision between the life she wanted and the emergencies she will not ignore. The decision to help keeps getting made in specific situations, even when the larger superhero life remains a difficult fit.