Professor Xavier is a Jerk


“It wasn’t until Civil War that I noticed it, but now I’m convinced: Professor X has got to be the worst civil rights leader in the history of mankind.”

My lunch date looked up from her chicken nuggets at me and wordlessly furrowed her brow.

“I know,” I said, “X-Men continuity is all Greek to you. I understand you’re not really into the whole thirty-year-long, intricate-as-a-fractal soap opera plot. I know you’re more of a Tinkerbell movie kind of gal. And to be honest, even if I wanted to bring you up to speed on it, I’m not sure I could. Escher couldn’t diagram the last few years of X-Men stories. That’s what happens when you have three books going simultaneously by three different sets of writers; it’s like there was an explosion at the story factory. Pick any character, and the Wikipedia entry would make you cry. Magneto’s is longer than some presidents’. Franklin Pierce, for example.”

“Mormor!” she said. “Mormormor.”

“Well, sure,” I replied, “a lot of it can be blamed on Morrison, but he left the book in a relatively– oh. ‘More more.’ You’re out of applesauce. Sorry.” I picked up her bowl and headed over to the fridge to refill it.

“Even with your rudimentary knowledge of Marvel characters, which I guess consists of the Spider-Man toothbrush I got you when Mommy wasn’t looking, I think you’d agree that Charles Xavier is right up there with the Hulk in terms of broken characters, even for a guy that has been portrayed as kind of a pompous manipulator since the word ‘go.’ Mind you, this is a teacher who used to fake his own death just to see if his students would cry. He is now bad compared to that.”

She craned her neck eagerly as I shook the jar of applesauce, watching the contents glop wetly into the bowl. “I wouldn’t eat this in prison,” I muttered, “but you shovel it in like we pay you by the lump, God bless ya.”

“Since you brought up Morrison, sort of, let’s start there,” I said as I handed back the bowl, into which she immediately thrust both fists. “Charles Xavier had always been a notable ‘mutant rights advocate’ without ever coming out of the atomic closet; his cover story was always that he was an expert on the ‘mutant problem.’ Everybody knew he studied mutants; they just didn’t know he studied them in his bathroom mirror every morning. Xavier was one of those people who always show up on cable news to argue with the anchor. He was like the mutant Arianna Huffington. Anyway, during Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men, Xavier’s mind was being controlled by his evil twin– don’t look at me like that, I didn’t write it– and under that influence he went on national television and outed himself and his school. (I didn’t care for that development at the time, but it’s grown on me since then.) The school went from being a secret to being a beacon of hope for the outcast, and Xavier’s role as spokesmutant and leader of his people got cemented for good.”

She licked the last of the applesauce from her palm, nodding politely. She had virtually no idea what I was saying but had learned to humor me whenever I got like this.

“But then, see,” I said a little louder than intended, “House of M happened. Basically, this mutant with the power to alter reality– quite a power to be squandering on superheroics, no?– this mutant feels threatened and remakes the entire world. She gives all her enemies their fondest desires so they forget to come looking for her. Professor X, though? She just makes him vanish off the face of the planet. Why she didn’t do that to everybody who was bothering her, I don’t know; it’s none of my business. Eventually, the whole thing ends in tears and hurt feelings, but before they defeat her she remakes the world again and 90% of the earth’s mutants completely lose their abilities.”

“Now, Professor X has devoted his entire life to protecting his race from threats like this. This is exactly what he has been carping about for as long as I’ve been reading these books. So when this happens, what do they have him do?”

“Gah?” she said. “Gah-ba?”

Nothing! After vanishing off the face of the planet, without anyone ever telling us where he was or what he was doing, a month or two later he just strolls in like he went out for a pack of smokes and says, ‘Hey guys, how’s it going? Anybody’s heretofore unseen brother kill Banshee lately?‘ No, ‘Wow! How ’bout that decimation, am I right?’ No, ‘Man, it sure is weird to cease to exist for six months, I tell ya what.’ I don’t know about you, but I would have pressed him for a little more information. Never gets brought up again.”

“But here’s the thing that really galls me (no, sweetie, don’t throw your nuggets on the floor; that’s bad): in the wake of the House of M disaster, the federal government has turned the grounds of his house– his actual, personal house– into a mutant reservation. They have gone to the house of the preeminent advocate for mutant equality and made his lawn into a camp. And who, you may well ask, do they have guarding the camp, to make sure no one gets in or out? Oh, only Sentinels.”

This stunned her into silence. I assume.

“The racial politics are mind-blowing! I mean, never mind Charles Xavier; any member of the organization that stood by while this was going on should have had his little ‘X’ patch ripped off his unitard. Professor X, though? He’s apparently cool with the message this sends. He’s got business in outer space or something; it’s not really on his mind. Can you imagine what Ted Koppel would have done with that in the real world? The Drudge Report would not be able to find a font big enough. Where is the leadership, baldy?”

She laughed, having hit me in the eye with a tater tot.

“Then Civil War happened. And… look, I get it. The X-Men have gotten so complicated and unwieldy that’s hard to involve them in a crossover without making it all about them. There are 147 X-Men. That school is like a roach motel; people keep enrolling, but nobody ever graduates and moves out of the dorms. Still: the registration act has been the pivotal political issue for the X-Men and their prof since I was practically your age, and the day an act like that becomes law they say, ‘We’d rather stay out of it’? Are you kidding me?? Anderson Cooper doesn’t even try to get Xavier on the phone? Ever? I’m sorry. I can believe in a world where Halle Berry’s DNA can make it snow, but I can’t believe that. That is ridiculous.”

“I mean, you’ve still got puberty ahead of you. Imagine you’re a mutant in this climate. How betrayed would you feel by this man? You’re not a superhero. You’re just some kid who turned 14 and suddenly had the power to turn things into Raisinettes just by laying your hands on them. You just want to live your life, maybe get a job at a multiplex, and suddenly you turn on the TV one day and Tony Stark is drafting kids just like you and shipping them off to keep Montana safe from Galactus. Who’s looking out for you and your Raisinette touch? Not Charles Xavier, apparently! He’s just had two generations of muties parroting his line about his ‘dream,’ but I guess when the rubber meets the road he’s gonna go take a ‘me day’ down at the spa. He’s off in his own book, in which TMZ never follows him at the airport for some reason. At least once, I’d like to see a depowered mutant walk up to him, ask, ‘Are you Charles Xavier?’ and then kick him in the shin.”

She began banging on her tray, shouting, “Dadadada!”

“You’re right,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said ‘muties.’ That’s racially insensitive. I apologize. It’s just unbelievable how badly they’ve collectively dropped the ball with this character, over and over again. Maybe this crossover with the Dark Avengers this summer will balance out the ledgers a little bit… although judging from this ‘Dark X-Men’ business I’ve been seeing around the web, it once again looks like Xavier will weigh all his options and pick the door marked ‘Shifty and Weird.’ I hope I’m wrong. This is just something that’s been under my skin for… yeesh, House of M came out like four years ago now. Where does the time go?”

“Don’t look at me,” she seemed to say. “I just got here.”



Jim Mroczkowski desperately needs someone over the age of three to talk comics with. In the meantime, Twitter and e-mail will have to do.

Comments

  1. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    Aw, I like applesauce.  

  2. Mmmm "Raisinette Touch." How I would kill for that power.

     

  3. Wow… I totally agree with you. And thank you for putting it on the record that Morrison left the X-Men relatively stable. It’s not his fault Claremont cried and cried that Magneto was dead so that Marvel, so unhappy with Morrison’s run (Yet willing to put out a new TPB version of it seemingly every year), decided "Nah, despite all the evidence to the contrary that was Xorn II posing as Magneto. Oh, and Xorn II is the brother of Xorn I who you haven’t met yet." Yeah that makes sense.

    As much as I’m enjoying Fractions run, I couldn’t bring myself to read X-Men Legacy a day longer. It just ties into everything your saying. And really, the Prof. X is a Jerk thing has existed longer than this, but there have been concerted efforts to undo it. But really since Whedon’s story about Danger in Astonishing, Prof. X has steadily rode the roller coaster of irredeemable. And Legacy was doing a terrible job of making him likable again.

    Great Article, Jim. I loved the presentation. 

  4. I think that your daughters name once she joins the Initiative or New Mutants should be Raisin-X. She’s most likely to get her own mini with a name like that. (a series, not a Cooper)

  5. The idea of Ultimate Professor X was a great idea. That maybe he was using his powers unbeknownst to anyone else. Maybe have a slightly sinister side to him and that anything the X-Men were doing werent by their Free Will. But of course that never seemed to be brought up…..and was ignored.

    Anyways I agree everything you state about Xavier. But then again in today’s X-Men world; Cyclops has turned into a more asshole then he was. So if anything else I would prefer Xavier to be the leader then Scott any days of the week.

  6. haha, took me about half the article to realize it was a youngster you were talking to.  Hilarious stuff.

    I always felt that X-3, for all it did wrong, was fantastic in showing just how flawed Xavier really is.  I totally didn’t agree with the way he handled the Jean/Phoenix crap in that movie, and I think most people felt the same way.  Needless to say, it made me very happy to finally see Cyclops put the old man in check during Messiah Complex.  Ah,  sweet sweet comeupance.

  7. Jimski, every Monday you make me laugh. Thank you 🙂

  8. You are a mean and unsensitive man for torturing that poor girl with something as horrifying as X-Men continuity! Especially with the plot-hole ridden debacle of early 2000’s Professor X!

    I do like the direction the X-Men (especially Cyclops) has taken towards Professor X, as they’ve finally come to realize what a jerk he’s been, and now he’s slowly but surely putting his money where his mouth is. The most recent example is coming through on his promise to Rogue about fixing her powers. Perhaps in the future with the whole Dark X-Men thing, he’ll start to be the mutant savior he’s always hyped to be.

  9. When Chuck gets the urge to explore the final frontier, there’s really nothing that’s going to tie him down to earth. 

    "So, the most powerful cosmic being in the universe is traipsing around Earth and thinking about ending it all? Um, I think I’ll put my mortal enemy in charge of my school and my X-Men. He can handle all of my affairs while I go chase some alien tail."

  10. Now I don’t know if this was something that I missed, but was it ever explained why "no more mutants" ended up being "only a few" or "much less mutants"?  (other than the need we all have for the x-men).

  11. @rian – are you looking for a better explanation than "That’s the way Joe Quesada wanted it?" I think there have been some lame attempts to explain it, but nothing that makes any consistent kind of sense.

  12. @TNC- How is Cyclops more of an asshole than Xavier?  Cyclops is allowing some dirty things to go on, but at least he’s somewhat upfront about it (at least to X-Force; not telling Emma is a whole different story).  Xavier would just do things and then mindwipe everyone afterwards to make them forget.

    And let’s not forget some of the other d-bag stuff he’s done:

    1) Let all his students think he was dead so he could fight off an alien invasion;

    2) Replaced himself with one of the X-Men’s enemies so that they wouldn’t know he was gone until it was too late;

    3) Mindwiped his best friend and turned into an uber-evil powerhouse because of it;

    4) Left his lover Gabrielle and their child, who turned into an unstable psycho that ended up killing Xavier and creating an alternate timeline (but then he got better);

    5) Strung along Moira MacTaggert and Amelia Voight

    6) Killed his twin sister in the womb (thanks Morrison and ‘Nuff Said)

    7) Created an entire team of undertrained X-Men and left them to die on an island that had taken out HIGHLY TRAINED X-MEN.

    Yeah, MLK Jr. he’s not.

  13. I find the article even funnier when you read the article like Jim is on a date.

  14. @TheNextChampion:

    The reason Cyke has become so much more of a jerk, is that he realized what a jerk Prof. X really was and is now a more realistic and disillusioned character. He ain’t preachin’ the dream anymore, he’s just lookin’ out for mutantkind.

  15. @BC1-Agreed.  Cyc stopped being as much of a douche after Wheddon was done with him.  And Messiah Complex further propelled him into more of a proactive leader than the whiny pompous yuppie of yesteryear.

  16. Poor poor child. Someone should really call childprotection services or get the kid some noice canceling earphones. But yes Xavier is an incredibly bad excuse for a civil rights leader.

  17. You can find fault in pretty much any world leader of any note, though. Even Lincoln violated the Constitution and did things outside the law. Look into how Ghandi, far from a perfect human being, treated his family. The writer Christopher Hichens has written treatises exposing how Mother Theresa was a monstrous fraud (not saying I agree with that, but there’s at least enough evidence there for a few well-researched scholarly works to be written arguing that point).

    MLK jr plagiarized his phd thesis and cheated on his wife; Prof X plagiarized MLK’s philosophy and also treated his lovers pretty badly (Lilandra being the only exception–Lil had Charlie on a string). Yeah, I’ve always thought the old, understated stuff about Charles’s affairs with women were pretty horrible…then it was like 15 years later when people woke up and thought he was a jerk because of how he acted as a leader. Before that he was a deadbeat dad, a blatant manipulator (sans telepathic influence, even) of Moira MacTaggart, and oh yeah he had a thing for a 15-year-old student of his named Jean Grey. And while he never acted on his feelings for Jean, the fact is that he harbored them in such a way as to result in the gestation of Onslaught.

    But like I say, it’s EASY to pot-shot leaders. In fact, I think the fact that the guy has glaring faults makes Prof X a more realistic fictional leader.

    Would you rather Charlie were perfect? That’d be so much more boring. Decent article, though.

  18. Who doesn’t like apple sauce? Jerks, that’s who.

    I’ve read Uncanny X-Men and X-Men for close to 20 years and he’s never seemed like a jerk to me. Except for when he turned into Onslaught and killed the Fantastic four, Hulk, and all the Avengers. But that’s neither here nor there. Seems to me that somewhere along theroad some "writer" decided Professor Ex-avier was a jerk and since then everything he had previously done has been interpreted as diabolical. I think it was just decided, "Wait Cyclops is boring! How do we convince reader’s he’s actually cool?Maybe we can have him hook up with the most unlikeable woman in the Marvel world and he can get all angry with the mentor he’s loved for 30 years. Yeah!"

  19. I don’t nor have ever read X-Men other than picking an issue out of the thousand on the racks maybe a few times a year.  With that said It always seems whenever I read an issue Prof X is in a coma, dead, or away.  He is just a deadbeat dad to me.

  20. It just struck me. Has professor X actually managed to pull of any real successes in his fight for mutantkind? I’ve been a little out of the loop for awhile but I can’t really think of anything.

  21. Warning! Unsolicited Fan-Fic to follow!

     

    Marvel should take Prof. X and get rid of him via the "we made him the deadliest bad guy ever known" route. And I am not talking about another Onslaught (Heaven Forbid!). That was a cop out making him mixed with Magneto so they could give him a moral pass for the bad things he did.

    Just make him go batshit crazy evil from all the white noise of peoples thoughts bouncing around in his head. Let him hook up to Cerebro and start turning people off at the neck. Secretly in the background in the middle of the night. I mean REALLY make him do bad "Killing Joke" kind of stuff with real consequences. God knows they have thrown Mutants into the crapper for less. Imagine a bad guy that can make you or all your friends think that "Hey. Murder isnt such a bad idea after all!"

    You could really have a Dark Reign that would have all of the Marvel U freaking out.

    His character would be sacrificed for the greatest of all reasons… a GREAT story with real consequences. And at the end of it, you could have Cyclops off him to assume the Mutant Leader throne (And in the process give Scott something else to agonize about).

    People would talk in hushed tones about the time "he" went evil…

    *sigh* If only.

  22. @Vuk: He’s not a bad civil rights leader, since it’s arguable that his heart was in the right place. He tried, but in the end he was just really ineffectual.

  23. @flapjaxx: I don’t personally care about any of that stuff. Well, I don’t LIKE the idea of him mistreating people, but really all I’m concerned with is how titanically asleep at the wheel he is when it comes to his supposed life’s work.

  24. Brilliant, and completely accurate.

    It’s also notable that Rockwell’s "Somebody’s Watching Me" came on the TV as I read the bit about the Sentinels, and now I’m going to have nightmares about that combination.

  25. I love Cyclops but TNC is right.  He’s been written as a murderous jerk for no good reason, since Messiah Complex.  I’d have more hope for the eventual redemption of the character if any of the writers or editors seemed to acknwledge there was a problem with the way he’s acting, but apparently what I see as horrible amoral behavior, they see as "hardcore" and awesome.

    Jim’s right on about Xavier, unfortunately.  I think the major problem is that he’s mostly been written as a ‘bad father figure’ for the X-Men to react to, rather than respected as a character in his own right.  I like the morally-ambiguous Illuminati side of him that Bendis and Brubaker (when he showed up in Cap) have sometimes shown, but that isn’t how he’s used for the most part.  ‘X-Men Legacy’ has mostly consisted of Xavier pondering what a dick he has been, while continuing to act dickishly.  The latest issue even retconned the (admittedly kinda dumb) sentient Danger Room thing from Astonishing X-Men so that Xavier was really trying to ‘help’ Danger by enslaving it.  I think this is possibly supposed to make him look better, but to me just makes him more of a paternalistic jerk.

  26. @Unoob- they did that once on a minor scale.  Somebody got into his head and made him all evil (you knew he was evil because he started wearing a cape with his suit).  It might have been his astral self separated from his body, I don’t completely remember.  I think you can find the stories in Essential X-Men 4 or 5…I think.  It was also referenced once on the 90’s X-Men cartoon.  Also, other than motivation, you rather nicely summed up the Dark Phoenix Saga, so you’d have a lot of fans calling "copycating".

    @flapjaxx- you’re right, the fact that he’s not perfect does make him more realistic.  But you can’t deny that some of the things his done are beyond the pale.  MLK did cheat on his wife, and that’s bad, but he didn’t fake his death or leave followers to get killed when they didn’t know what they were getting into.  I guess my point is that we ought to question how good of a person he is when viewed in the light of his other actions, while other figures like King or Kennedy don’t seem to have done things that truly wipe out the good they did. 

    A lot of this, though, is based on recent stories and writer ret-cons (excepting the whole faking his death bit), so I wonder if recent X-scribes are just working out some bitter anger towards the character by trying to one up each other in making Xavier a total deusch.  ("I’ll make him mindwipe Magneto!"  "Oh yeah, Nicieza?" says Brubaker "I’m going to make him leave a bunch of kids to die on Krakoa!  Top that, Fraction!"  "Fine, I’ll make him make puppies rape kittens and then squeeze them all into bloody pulps with his mind just because he can!" responds Fraction.)    

     

  27. The X-Men are no longer in their own little universe it seems, and they’re not that special anymore. Also after making everyone and the kitchen sink a mutant, and after making most of them obsolete in House of M, it kind of takes the edge off of it.

    I understand Xavier saying "fuck this" and catching up with his tivo recordings. 

  28. I’m especially curious to see what his role with the Dark X-Men are. I think it’s either to directly spite Cyclops (which would make all his other acts of dickery pale in comparison) or if Norman Osborn is promising Xavier something so that he has him in his pocket.

  29. I never said I liked Prof over Cyclops. But at the end of the day I would prefer to follow a jerk then an asshole.

  30. Yeah, I tried explaining how the Ultimate line would have simply been another comics disaster if not for Millar and Bendis, but my dog just left the room.  Go figure.

  31. @comicBOOKchris

    True ineffectual maybe a better word. I’m having a hard time thinking of things that Osborn could offer Xavier to get him into  his pocket.  

  32. This is why I do not read the X-Men on any sort of continual basis.  Ugh.

  33. This is why I dislike X-Men (but like Ultimate).

  34. You could pull this exact same routine with virtually any main event character in the Marvel Universe.

    1. You’re assuming he would *know* what it’s like to cease to exist for any amount of time. By the very definition of the concept, he couldn’t.

    2. As for the leadership, once Xavier is outed, did you consider the fact that he was effectively discredited? "Hey, this mutant rights guy is a mutant and lying about it for years! Why should we believe him? What if he mind-controls the TV crew?"

    3. When registration is no longer about mutants, it stops being a mutant-only problem. Who gives a crap about mutants? And everything Captain America does is a bigger story than some has-been that Anderson Cooper no longer has a current phone number or address for.

    4. As for the Sentinels on the lawn, I think he was a little more preoccupied with his own personal shit. And Scott just kicked him out of his own house! You think he might have felt a little entitled to say, "Let the kid handle this shit."?

    Sure, Xavier ain’t the greatest civil rights leader ever, but the worst? No. That goes to Magneto. 🙂

     

  35. @TNC Point TNC! Cyclops has indeed become an asshole. He was once my favorite X-Man but has sense been mired with such conflicted and seemingly out of character actions that he is virtually unrecognizable to the 70s-80s Cyclops I knew and grew up. Hell, he’s not even like early 90s Pockets and Pouches Cyclops. He’s now Professor Xavier Lite. And this was coming someone who liked his affair with Emma as it gave Cyclops something he hadn’t had since Inferno… characterization.

    @Diahbol Worst Civil Rights Leader? No, Magneto may be wishy-washy on if he’s a good guy or bad guy, but he’s consistent in his agenda. Unlike Xavier who hid his mutant abilities for decades (even in comic time!).

  36. Prax: Consistency isn’t enough. You need to actually not sink nuclear submarines. 🙂

     

  37. @Diabhol: Magneto was a GREAT leader compared to Professor X! Just look at Astroid M and Genosha: Not one but TWO mutant nations formed by Magneto. Yes, they both had a downfall, but it was from outside forces  and wasn’t his fault.

  38. You could argue that his mutant states had their downfall because he tried to live outside the world while still acting upon it, which is unacceptable. He failed to maintain any kind of stability because of his own inability to not be a total moron. 

    Xavier is a much better civil rights leader than Magneto. Xavier is still a tool but at least, like Diabhol says, he has never actually sunk a nuclear submarine. 

  39. To be fair, is any superhero ultimately all that successful at what they do? Is Gotham City crime free? Nightwing wasn’t able to do much to save Bludhaven. Marvel New York actually seems less safe than real New York, etc.

    If mutants suddenly had equal rights there wouldn’t be much story to tell. 🙂

  40. @flakbait  I don’t think the point is that Xavier is unsuccessful so much as that the way his behavior is portrayed doesn’t line up with his alleged goals.

  41. @har13quin- Left.  Kids.  To.  Die.  Knew they most likely would die.  Magneto is an evil bastard, but at least everyone knows it, and in his mind sinking the Leningrad was a response to an act of war, one that he later regretted.  Xavier shoved a group of kids out the door and onto a living island that he knew was way more dangerous than anything they could be expected to handle.  And then never told anyone about it AND erased the memory of the only other person who was aware of the incident.  That’s way worse.

  42. The whole premise of Mentor Charles is not required now that the children are grown and out of the house. It could be argued that as an activist using powered Mutants, he could always be looked on as using shotgun diplomacy. I would still like to have him be a REALLY EVIL bad guy that thinks he is in the right, or to have him simply "fade away" and only to be sought out in times of great stress for his input.

    It has always been a struggle for him to be seen as relevant since the original team (+ Giant Size) had grown old enough to make their own decisions. "Lets kill him. Wait hes alive. Now he can walk. Now hes dead. Now hes in a wheelchair again. He loves Jean. He loves a Lillandra(sp?)" (Whats up with that anyways?  I always pictured him being turned on by the sight of a plate of over easy, and picking feathers out from between his teeth. Sorry if I went too far there. Its my brain. It doesnt always go where I want it to.) Wait now hes shot in the head. But hes alive again.

    The saddest thing is when someone great stays out there past his usefulness. (Muhammed Ali, The Rolling Stones, Unoob, etc..)

  43. @Unoob: Are you linking yourself to Ali and Stones? That cant be true.

    Your waaaay better then the Stones. 🙂

  44. LOL @ TNC – I only link myself to them in that I have a tendency to stay past my usefulness.  😉

  45. @Unoob  The comment about Ali makes me wince, I hope you’re kidding.

  46. @ohcaroline – I only mean his professional fighting career. Not his disability or anything like that. He did NOT need to fight Leon Spinks (Twice), and Larry Holmes. He should have retired after Manilla. A Champ. Instead we got a great history of performances marred by the fact that he stuck around in the game too long. Even his closest friends say this.

  47. @Unoob I figured that’s what you meant, it’s just sort of an unfortunate example.  Besides, getting back to Jimski’s example, Xavier would have to have actually won a lot of big fights to be Ali and. . .not so much.

  48. I don’t know why everyone is screaming ‘child abuse’ that’s exactly how my dad used to talk to me, exepct it wasn’t just about comic characters, it was about the people drawing them, graphic design, packaging design, rock music, and often architecture. It was great, he totally infected me with his enthusisasm for those things.

    Of course I only admitted that I’d learned to like those things after years of torturing him by insisting on wearing fluffy pink dressed, playing with Barbie, and listening to Disney records until he was tearing his hair out.

  49. Brilliant article Jimski. Good form.

  50. Yet another awesome article! Professor X has basically ALWAYS been a jerk. Way back in X-Men #1 (first series), he’s seen fantasizing about banging Jean Grey, his STUDENT WHO IS A THIRD HIS AGE!!! That is just wrong on so many levels, but the only thing Charlie sees wrong with it is that he can’t tell Jean how much he wants to show her his REAL mutant power because he is in a wheelchair. Not because he is old enough to be her father. not because he is her teacher. not because she is scared and confused and constantly battling for her life against the Brotherhood of Evil mutants. No, it’s because he is crippled. And if you read old X-Men comics, my God is he an arrogant prick. if you question the slightest thing he says, he gets all huffy and yells at you. What an asshole!

  51. Being able to read the minds of his young horny students does that to a man… He’s probably at beastiality fantasies already – pedophilia is long gone, and he’s in the chicken part. Next is feces and I don’t know what he’ll do next. He probably goes to space to see some alien chicks.