Jason Loo Talks Sentry and Tackling Marvel's Dazzler in New Era

In partnership with

Jason Loo is a Canadian writer and artist best known for his work on The Pitiful Human Lizard, the Eisner Award-living Afterlift with Chip Zdarsky and Paris Alleyne, along with several contributions to Marvel, including Lucky The Pizza Dog and X-Men Unlimited on Marvel Unlimited, as well as a recently concluded Sentry series with Luigi Zagaria, Werewolf by Night with Sergio Dávila, and the upcoming Dazzler series with Rafael Loureiro.

I spoke with Loo at Toronto Fan Expo 2024 about his time on Sentry and what readers can expect from Dazzler!

The Daily Newsletter for Intellectually Curious Readers

• We scour 100+ sources daily

• Read by CEOs, scientists, business owners and more

• 3.5 million subscribers

Sign up today!

How did the Sentry book come to be, and how did you navigate using those incredible powers?

Yeah, so the basic pitch that I got from my editors, Alanna Smith and Kaitlyn Lindtvedt, was that they wanted to introduce some new Sentry candidates after his death. It was kind of like the Reign of Superman. And I was like, well, this is a great opportunity for me to come up with origin stories for some brand new characters that are just ordinary strangers that we can relate to that happen to accidentally stumble onto these powers. And how would each of them handle these extreme powers of the Sentry? And so that's what I went with.

And to kind of bring it down to street level, I wanted to make this like a mystery. Because I was binge-watching lots of Law & Order, Cold Case, and a bit of CSI. And I was like, alright, let's use Misty Knight and Jessica Jones, trying to solve this mystery behind all these catastrophes. And then we'll kind of like pull the curtain back to see first-hand experiences of each of these candidates.

With Mallory and Ryan, was that an intentional dichotomy to personify Sentry's powers?

So, for Solarus, I wanted a character who parallels Bob Reynolds—a person who has good intentions but is living with her own challenges. Bob has his challenges with mental health, and Mallory Gibbs has cerebral palsy. And you have these two people who have extreme powers and are dealing with their own challenges. How can they balance that? Mallory Gibbs was my Bob Reynolds. 

And I knew that Ryan Topper, off the bat, if I was going to introduce some legacy characters, there would be people who would be upset about just the idea. And so this was more like... Here's a character that is obsessively a fan of the Sentry. And has studied him. And that's what Ryan Topper is. The unhealthy side of that.

The toxic fans that see Sentry... Hopefully, they can see that in themselves and be like, “Wait a minute, that's me. I should take a step back and re-evaluate my obsession over a character that's been unstable and has been catastrophic in the Marvel Universe.” He hasn't been too beneficial compared to your typical Avengers. That's Ryan Topper. Every character is someone that people can relate to — you have the working parent who's juggling their retail job and other stuff — Everyone comes from a different walk of life.

What was it like to take on Dazzler? What initially attracted you to doing something with the character? The cast supporting that book is really fun. Very Peter David X-Factor-y kind of thing.

I have all the volumes of Peter David's X-Factor run. I like to think of myself as the custodian of Jamie Madrox and Strong Guy. Especially with the X-Men Unlimited series! So when Martin Biro, the editor, approached me about writing Dazzler... at first, I was like, are you sure you want me? Because I know there are tons of other writers that would probably be more suitable for Dazzler. But then again, I've collected Dazzler. I know what she's all about.

The Daily Newsletter for Intellectually Curious Readers

• We scour 100+ sources daily

• Read by CEOs, scientists, business owners and more

• 3.5 million subscribers

Sign up today!

At the same time, I want to be part of this new era of X-Men! So, what if I'm in competition with other writers? I'm going to fight my way to solidify my position by writing original songs for her. So that's what I did to prove myself further. I told Martin that because he pitched having Domino and Strong Guy in the cast, I wanted to make sure that Multiple Man is also in that package. That's part of my contract [laughs]. They made that work. As well as Wind Dancer and Shark Girl, who I worked with in the Lila Cheney story for X-Men Unlimited. They were team Chini, but now I'm like, I'm going to move you guys over to Dazzler's team now — same roles where Shark Girl is still a drummer. Wind Dancer is still a PR manager.

It was just a very natural transition. I felt like everything I've done with X-Men Unlimited has accumulated to the Dazzler series. Some of the elements that you'll see from my past issues of Infinity Comics—for those that do have access—have a payoff in the mini-series of Dazzler.

Dazzler #1 is out tomorrow!