Professor X founded the X-Men back in 1963. At that time, he opened a school for gifted students who had amazing powers and who were outcasts needing a place of shelter. There were 5 students initially and they were all devoted to the professor and to his mission.
Since then, the X-Men have become wildly popular and hundreds of students have come and gone, hundreds of superheroes have graduated his school and hundred of issues of The X-Men and spin off titles and movies have seen the light of day.
And Professor X has changed.
I like the early Professor Charles Xavier, a kindly, powerful man whose motives were pure and whose methods were above reproach. While I understand the need to modernize comic book stories which are published month after month and to alter the characters so they have complexity and growth, when I think of the Professor, I reach back to a simpler time.
And I am okay with that.
We never know the influence we have… While culture tends to promulgate the “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach” idiocy, there are hundreds of examples of brilliance and impactful teachers in reality and in pop culture. Every-other-week this year, I will share my brief reflections on Smart People Doing Smart Things be they in literature, in film, in music or in real life. Many will be teachers, but not all. Many will be fictional, but some will be real. All will be inspiring. Welcome to IntelliPop!
