“X-Men: First Class” writer Zack Stentz talks Banshee and Dazzler!

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS screenwriter Zack Stentz spoke last month at a gathering discussing superhero powers and how they relate to science. Stentz talked about the mutant Banshee and how his powers played a vital role in the 3rd act. He also revealed that Alison Blaire aka Dazzler was, at one point, being considered for the film!

“You remember about 20 years ago or so, when baby Jessica fell down the well and they found a guy who was born without shoulder blades and lowered him down the little narrow thing. It was like wow, that guy was waiting buy the phone for that call for so long and it finally came. Banshee was the man without shoulder baldes. He doesn’t really have a lot of use…he makes sound. But when we were designing the third act, and it was like Sebastian Shaw, the cool groovy dude in his cool groovy sub. They can’t find him, he’s down there somehwere…how they gonna find him? Wait, we’ve got a guy who makes sound. Drop him into the ocean and he’s a sonar bouey.’ He may not do much, but like Wolverine…does it very well.”

“We went through so many mutants.” he says. “There were so many different alternate universe versions of this, with any variety of mutants. But Banshee was in a lot of different versions, and he was doing things. At one point we had Banshee and Dazzler…because Dazzler could turn sound into light. An earlier writer – we took the idea from – the earlier writer had Banshee make intense sound and then she turned it into a laser…so that was really cool.”