Professor X Is a Jerk!: Nothing's more fun than flipping off the Reaper

Hey, look! I promised you a sequel to last night's post and I'm actually doing it on the following night (pause for hoopla and jubilation, horns, swanee whistles and kazoos). So, as I was saying, Professor X is dead! (Good.)


Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #138 (October 1980), co-plot and script by Chris Claremont, co-plot and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Terry Austin, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Tom Orzechowski

As you know, the X-Men were all torn up about this. Literally!


Cover of [Uncanny] X-Men #46 (July 1968), pencils by Don Heck, inks by John Verpoorten (?) or John Tartaglione (?)

But how did the hordes of the M.M.M.S. (Mighty Mutant Maiming Society) out there in Marvel Fandom respond? Well, just the way they always did: by sending cordial, supportive letters!


Letter printed in [Uncanny] X-Men Annual #5 (1980)

Whoops, that was from much later. Here's a real letter reacting to the death of Professor Xavier, Ph.J. (Doctorate of Jerkdom):


Letter printed in [Uncanny] X-Men #46 (July 1968)

Oh, for Pete's sake. Please spare us. Anyway, he is not only merely dead, he is most sincerely dead. (And a jerk.) Say, Roy Thomas, why did you kill off Professor X? Not that we're blaming you.


from The X-Men Companion I (March 1983, Fantagraphics*); Roy Thomas interviewed by Peter Sanderson

Ah, well, that's a good enough reason. The X-Men wasn't selling. Well, since X-Men never doesn't sell well these days, then there is obviously no reason that Marvel would ever need to kill off Professor X today! You're safe, Xavier! (Ya jerk.)

So, about fifty issues and ten years later, by the time that the X-Men franchise had become, as Kurt Wagner would say, über-popular (and yet still only consisted of a single monthly book), we've got this scene:


Panels from [Uncanny] X-Men #129 (January 1980), co-plot and script by Chris Claremont, co-plot and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Terry Austin, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Reacting to that scene, here's a letter printed in a few months later in X-Men:


Letter printed in [Uncanny] X-Men #135 (July 1980)

What th--?!? They brought that jerk back? (frantically riffling through my late-sixties X-Mens)


from [Uncanny] X-Men #65 (February 1970), script by Denny O'Neil, pencils by Neal Adams, inks by Tom Palmer, letters by Jean Simek

Wow, he came back from the dead so hard he's glowing. And, judging from the speed lines around his skull, he's been spending some time in Japan! But how...how...how can we explain the death and resurrection of Professor Charles Francis Susan Xavier? With a little bit of Marvel magic, that's how!



Now get this: it wasn't Xavier who died! Instead, he went into hiding while another mutant impersonated him at his instruction and then later died! (Jerk.) That mutant was...the Changeling! Well, tho' a jerky move, who can blame Xavier? Who wouldn't wish for Changeling's prolonged and painful death, huh?


Panels from The New Teen Titans v.1 #40 (March 1984); co-plot and script by Marv Wolfman; co-plot and pencils by George Pérez; inks by Romeo Tanghal and George Pérez; colors by Adrienne Roy; letters by Bob Lappan

So, just how much of a (looking in my thesaurus for a synonym to the word jerk so I don't use it too much)...blockhead, dolt, donkey, dope, dunce, fool, idiot, imbecile, jackass, nitwit, numbskull, simpleton, twit...is Chuck Xavier? He made Marvel Girl keep the fact that he was substituting the Changeling and faking his death a secret! Wow, that's a lot of responsibility for the unstable mind of Miss Jean Grey. And of course every panel between the death and the return of Xavier supports that plot device, right?






So, remember when they told us this on the cover of #42, the ish where Xavier died?



Yeah, it pretty much was a hoax. Thanks...jerk.

And then, he pretended to die again in the same issue, just to get sympathy.



Luckily, at least one of the X-Men started to speak up about what a jerk Professor Xavier is. And that X-Man is...Cyclops Marvel Girl Beast Angel...Iceman?


Panel from X-Men: The Hidden Years #1 (December 1999); script, pencils, and letters by John Byrne; inks by Tom Palmer; colors by Greg Wright

Anyway, after all that, Professor X probably will start acting nicer again now, right? Dying seems to do that to you. Pleasant and kind, that's our Chuck now!



Or maybe not.



So, once again we have a jerk at the helm of the Xavier's School for Gifted and Gullible Youngsters. Things would not change until many years later, when the X-Men got a pleasant change by installing terrorist and mass-murderer Magneto as the headmaster. Everybody liked him a lot and boy, was he good at helping you drop a new engine block into your car!

In conclusion: Professor Xavier was a jerk who died, then he was a jerk who came back. And I think we can all agree that story was so definitive and classic that Marvel will never try to duplicate its startling success ability to cancel the X-Men comic book, ever again. Professor X will never die!

Depressing, ain't it? But there's a lesson to be learned. Let is never forget...that Professor X is a jerk.


Panel from Uncanny X-Men #443 (Late June 2004), script by Chuck Austen, pencils by Salvador Larroca, inks by Danny Miki, colors by Udon, letters by Rus Wooton


*Yes, Fantagraphics....I know! The mind boggles, don't it?

Professor X Is a Jerk!: R.I.P. (Really Inhuman, Professor)

Professor X is dead! A dead jerk, mind you. But still: D-E-A-D! And that rhymes with P and that stands for "Professor" and that all means jerk. The fun happens in 1968's way-out, groovy, psycho-jerkular X-Men #42, a story so chilling and shattering that Marvel Comics will never dare try this stunt again. Never, I tell you!


Cover of [Uncanny] X-Men #42 (March 1968), pencils and inks by John Buscema and John Verpoorten [Iceman head]

Well, as we like to say in both the comic book industry and the Mafia's cover-up municipal sanitation businesses: good riddance to bad rubbish. Now, take note of part of that banner at the bottom there:



We'll be comin' back to that later. In the meantime, just how did the late Professor Jerkavier die? I believe he may have been murdered by his own rogue eyebrows, but that's only my opinion.


Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #42 (March 1968), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Don Heck, inks by George Tuska, letters by Sam Rosen

Geez! Even when he's dyin', he's being a...well, you know what he is. And he's such a drama queen! Get on with it, Xavier!



And so, with heavy hearts and a dead cueball in their arms, the X-Men step over the boot of Miscolored Captain America and head for the mortuary, where they will be given the choice to burn him, bury him, or dump him.



All history is revisionist (says Dr. Sam Beckett), so it's perhaps not surprising that the X-Men choose to remember their ex-X not as the jerk he was, but as a fine, upstanding sitdowning man. And sure, why wouldn't they, when Professor X had mental powers that could reprogram their brains to not only love him, but also to love the brussels sprouts that he insisted they eat at every meal, all because of his foolish investment during the early sixties in a hydroponic brussels sprout farm? (He also bet that the Mets would sweep the '62 season and that the Beatles assassinated John F. Kennedy.) Why, even the unique opportunity of having a native of the planet Vulcan could not keep the X-Men from being sad at Xavier's burial, and as we all know, Vulcans put the "fun" in "funeral." Also: the "eral."


Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #43 (April 1968), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by George Tuska, inks by John Tartaglione, letters by Sam Rosen

They're so upset, they can't even riff MST3K-style on the Professor's hilarious "Wacky Video Will" that is projected upon Jean's dressing room table. Oh, wait, so now we're learning that Xavier had a deadly disease from which he died, and it wasn't being squashed by a freakin' monster that did the happy deed. Yeah, I can tell you Exactly what disease Professor X had: you can find it in DSM-1, and it beings with the letter J and ends with the letter K. (And no, it's not jabberwock.)



Then, the X-Men bury him in a miniature Washington Monument, because the Professor was always so fond of that elebaorate and intricate piece of architecture.


Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #46 (July 1968), script by Gary Friedrich, layouts by Don Heck, pencils by Werner Roth, inks by John Tartaglione, letters by Artie Simek

Well! Case close, end of story, happy endings all around for everybody! Ding dong, the Wicked X is dead! Say, how does the death of America's Top Mutant affect other people aside from the X-Men? Well, we can see nobody else came to the funeral—not the Avengers, not the Fantastic Four, not even Forbush-Man. And yet, everybody went to The Sentry's graveside and old campfire stories about how he was the greatestest Superhero in a million billion worlds. So there, Professor! Could this be true: could nobody 'cept the X-Men mourns him? Fir the answer to that question, let's peep in on Xavier's nobly grudging antagonist, fellow Nazi-kicker and former bestest pal Erik Max Eisenhardt Lehnsherr Magnus Aubrey Magneto!


Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #43

(Bonus: extra-special value-added Magneto is out of his freakin' skull panel!):



Say, did anyone remember to notify the next-of-kin?


Panels from [Uncanny] X-Men #46

Whoops!

Yep, Professor X is dead, dead, dead, and nobody really minds it, 'coz he's a jerk. We leave the X-Men pining away, mourning their leader, and wishing for ice cream (aw, c'mon, you know they are).



Tomorrow: Part Two of our thrilling examination of the Death of Professor X, an event so unique, startling, and uncanny that it will never happen again in the whole of Marvel Universe history! Never, do you hear me??? Also: we'll continue telling you what a jerk he is. Y'all come back now, y'hear?

Like a clone, smartly dressed in your pressed uniform

Well, I for one didn't think that Madonna's outfit at the Super Bowl was all that bad. In fact, I kinda liked the Asgardian influence. Get Jack Kirby in there to add a few more epaulets and shoulder pads and it's pretty much something you'd expect Sif's kid sister (Tiff) to wear during one of those big-ass Norse god parties they're always having, with Odin at the head of the table, Loki skulking behind the arras, and the mashed potatoes never even getting past Volstagg.



You couldn't even say it's the worst outfit ever, because I think that award has to go to Miss Katherine Juno Pryde of Deerfield, Illinois for her infamous entry "Colorblind Disco Zap Girl."


Panel from Uncanny X-Men #149 (September 1981), script by Chris Claremont, loose breakdowns by Dave Cockrum, finishes by Joe Rubinstein, colors by Don Warfield, letters by Janice Chiang

Yep, this crime against optic nature debuted in Uncanny X-Men #149 and lasted through the following issue, where Magneto took such pity on her fashion sense that he spared the X-Men from their untimely deaths by magnets. You can try to claim it's not canon because it wasn't lettered by Tom Orzechowski (which, come to think of it, is a really good way to determine your personal X-Canon), but it happened. As Cyclops is fond of saying: "AIEEEEEEE MY EYES!"

This krazy kreation by Kitty is also an occasion for another "Professor X Is a Jerk" entry:




Chuck is really critical of Kitty's "costume" (note that word), even though, hey, Charley: pot, meet kettle:


Panels from Uncanny X-Men #193 (May 1985), script by Chris Claremont, breakdowns by John Romita, Jr., finishes by Dan Green, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Tom Orzechowski

So I wouldn't be that critical, Professor. Well, at least it coulda been worse...it could have been Thor's outfit from Thor #498:


Panel portion from Thor #498 (May 1996), scriot by William Messner-Loebs, pencils by Pino Rinaldi, inks by Andy Lanning, colors by Marie Javins, letters by Jonathan Babcock

Anyway, my point (you know the rest of that phrase) is that this infamous Kitty Pryde/Sprite/Ariel/Shadowcat/Li'l Intangible outfit is seen again, years later, in Wolverine: First Class #12, a continuity implant tale that takes place immediatel following X-Men #150. Say goodbye to Kitty Pryde, the Disco Era.


Panels from Wolverine: First Class #12 (April 2009), script by Fred Van Lente, pencils and inks by Scott Koblish, colors by Ulises Arreola, letters by Joe Caramagna

Pull up your seats, students: Professor Logan is about to tell us the official term to refer to one of those skintight unstable-molecule outfits all our favorite superheroes (except Lockjaw) wear.



Naturally, not everybody agrees on this terminology.



By the end of the comic, and keeping with the universal truth that Cyclops is a putz, Kitty makes her choice of not only what she wants to call that yellow and black outfit, but also who she wants to be her tutor in learning how to protect a world that is sworn to hate and destroy them.



So, as we have now learned, Wolverine calls the blue/yellow and/or brown/black outfit he wears a uniform. He never, never, ever calls it a "costume."


Panels from Wolverine: First Class #15 (July 2009; three months later), script by Peter David, pencils and inks by Scott Koblish, colors by Ulises Arreola, letters by Joe Caramagna

Oh for crying out loud.

Professor X is a Jerk!: Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels

It's not only in the actual Marvel comic books that Professor X is a jerk—he's pretty much an all-over arrogant good-for-nothing varmint, as they would say way out west if he were caught rustling cattle, which he actually did in X-Men/Rawhide Kid Team-Up #43 (July 1976). Mind you, he looked mighty fine in those leather chaps.

Instead, let's take a look at a medium in which you'd hardly expect Charles Xavier to be a complete and utter skunk: a children's picture and sticker book. How does this make him jerky? Well, you have to remember he sold off the likeness and personality traits of every one of the X-Men to various publishers in exchange for filthy, filthy lucre. (Except for Maggott. No one wanted to buy the rights to him.) Here's one of the more egregious examples from that bargain made with the devil X: 2003's Wheels of Steel, written by Michi Fujimoto, author of such Marvel classics as Football Spider-Man: Touchdown!, Hulk Rage! Get Ready for Hulk!, and Elektra Wins the Girl Scout Cookie Competition. The art's by Ron Lim (yes, Marvel Comics artist Ron Lim from Silver Surfer and Captain America) and Emily Y. Kanalz. The "Y" is for "Why, Professor Xavier, why?"

As the story opens, Professor Xavier is hanging out at the park, approaching and speaking to young boys who don't know him. Maybe they should call him Predator X. Quick, somebody phone Chris Hansen! And hey, what kind of basketball court doesn't have a smooth flat asphalt surface? And in Westchester, yet? My guess: this was a paved court until the Juggernaut tore it up. Which only goes to prove: unlike the Dukes, all the Xavier boys are jerks.



Professor X resists no impulse to twist the knife at any chance. "It's nice to be able to do things that others can't." Wow, now that's a reassuring idea to a kid who's in a wheelchair. Luckily, he's exposed the secret identities of his nearby school by bringing out two of his students, in costume, so that other children on the playground will be able to sell their cell phone photos to the Daily Bugle's "Page 6," which will be published with the headline "CUEBALL PROFESSOR IS MUTANT MENTOR!" And also "SPIDER-MAN: THREAT OR MENACE?"



Storm creates a wind strong enough to lift Kyle and his wheelchair up into the air. So, wow, it's just like flying! Except, y'know, still in a wheelchair. It's a little like riding Space Mountain completely covered in bubblewrap. On the one hand, you can say you've been on Space Mountain. On the other hand...



Hooray, Kyle made a slam dunk! Coincidentally, the deadly mutant Proteus has transformed the grass to asphalt in between the last two pages. Even tho' he's made it so the basket faces away from the court by 90 degrees. Proof positive that mutants are jerks.



You've got to admit that's pretty cool, and all the kids are so delighted that their faces are frozen into identical grins. Possibly Professor X has filled the basketball with Joker venom. In any case, to quote: "The kids cheered. 'Do it again!'"

At which point Professor Xavier immediately takes off so that Kyle will never be able to do that again.



Whatta jerk.

On the other hand, this book provides us with two pages of gooey, gummy, 'glutinative stickers! Nobody doesn't like stickers! Look at them all! Including a Rogue/Mystique catfight! Mrrowwww!



I, of course, have wasted no time in creating a lovely sticker tableau for your enjoyment and entertainment. Turn it into your computer desktop image. I dare ya!



As befitting Proffesor X's usual jerkiness, however, some of the stickers are less than entertaining. What the Sam Scratch is this thing?!?:



Finally, no set of stickers is complete without a British supermodel-turned-pilot-turned-superhero transformed into a purple-haired Asian ninjette in a swimsuit with stretchy bands around her thighs. Yes, that's right...hey, look, it's Psylocke!



So, to sum up: Professor X is a jerk. But you knew that already.