This might not seem like a horror book; and it's not!

Really could've been, though. From 1990, Uncanny X-Men #260, "Star 90" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Marc Silvestri, inks by Dan Green.

When this came out, I would've maybe read like one issue of Dazzler's solo book off of the spinner racks; but her former agent Eric Beale had appeared before, although not as a drooling psychotic. Well, cocaine is a helluva drug, although it's not pictured, and described as "primo snow serious buzz" with some monstrous sound FX for sniffing. So, Marvel won't show drug use, but a ton of simulated violence against women, that's just fine. Cool, cool. Anyway, Eric's lost the reality knob, and plots to murder the recently returned Alison Blaire, who at the moment, was not that far away in Malibu. After going through the Siege Perilous, she was back, but without a lot of her memories, which she seems to see as baggage she was better off without. She was currently staying at one of Lila Cheney's houses, with her old friend Fred Stanachek and Lila's bodyguard Guido Carosella, the future Strong Guy.

Fred is not only crushing super-hard on Alison; he also had found maybe the only surviving print of the Dazzler movie. After a screening, Guido admits it ain't bad; but Alison has no interest in promoting it or becoming a star: that was another woman, another life. She opts out of the conversation in possibly the most dramatic way, by stripping down to a swimsuit, grabbing a board, and hitting the beach for night surfing. This gives Eric a chance to shoot at her: he misses his first shot, then clips her surfboard. Ali zaps his gun, but Eric gets away as Fred and Guido pull her out of the water. Still, this gives her something to do: promote the movie, to draw out her potential killer.

Next, hey, more violence against women! Who would usually do a better job taking care of themselves, even. Colossus, also having gone through the plot device Siege Perilous, didn't have his memory and was fixated on a beautiful woman he had seen but kept disappearing on him. He gets another chance, as she's attacked by an X-Men themed gang, while wearing what appears to be a prom dress. Peter steps in, and also does a crap job, but is saved by Genoshan mutate Jenny Ransome. The woman disappears again, though: she was really Callisto; her old face taken away by Masque. Usually she'd have been able to slaughter that gang with one arm tied behind her back, but maybe the dress was a hindrance.

Fred gets Alison a meeting with a movie studio, that she doesn't seem particularly invested in; telling the exec she wasn't Dazzler, but her "evil twin, Skippy." This leads to a couple pages of makeovers, interspersed with Eric's slapstick attempt to murder her, that gets interrupted by his own forced makeover. Then, three more subplot pages, as Forge and Banshee are on their way to Muir Island, to see what was going on there. They are sidetracked, first by the new issue of People with Alison on the cover (artwork, she still didn't show on film!) then by the plane they would've been on getting shot down by Fenris! Who, like typical rich kids, halfass their job and don't even bother leaving their yacht to make sure they got Banshee: they had got a tip-off from someone; I suspect Moira/the Shadow King, or whatever. Banshee flies off with Forge, taking a page from the X-Men's book: let everyone think they were dead.

On the beach at Malibu, Alison's all dressed up for her movie's premiere, but still doesn't really care. She misses it anyway, as Eric...sneaks up on her with a three-wheeler, disguised as a cop, and bops her with a nightstick? Unless her powers were working overtime, she should've heard that blocks away! Back at his house, Eric changes Alison's outfit to her classic Dazzler spandex, but with a bag tied over her head. She's able to blast eyeholes through it with a photon blast, but her hands were still tied and she was in roller-skates, and she was running out of options: even if she had the juice for a laser, that would be a fatal response...which Eric probably deserves. Instead, she cranks up the lightshow to hypnotise him, mellowing his buzz out to the point he was harmless.

And, I think that's a wrap for Alison in this run of Uncanny: pretty sure Guido would appear again before she would. This issue takes its title from the Dorothy Stratten biopic Star 80 but instead plays the stalker mostly for laughs: I don't know if Claremont wasn't interested in going harder with that, or if he had been limited editorially. Despite the overwhelming magenta hue, the Jim Lee cover makes it seem like it was going to be a much darker story, although Alison's powers do maybe keep her out of a lot of danger. This also feels like a missed opportunity, to maybe toss out some problematic aspects of her continuity--some stuff from the Dazzler graphic novel is deeply skeevy, but Jim Shooter also gets a cameo here, so mixed messages?