The Comics Professor

Did Professor Xavier Just Pull a Doc Brown? (Spoilers for Uncanny X-Men #31)

Just a little speculation about Brian Michal Bendis and Chris Bachalo's Uncanny X-Men #31...

Before the spoilers, a general observation: I've been enjoying Bendis' X-Men books tremendously since he launched them following the Avengers vs. X-Men event. His talent at writing character moments and witty banter serves this property well, especially with the each of the two books focusing on a younger subset of the group (the Original Five in New X-Men and the new students in Uncanny X-Men). While I think he overstayed his welcome a bit on Avengers, he seems to leaving X-Men on a high note, for that I salute him (along with his uncanny artistic collaborators).

Two new Fantastic Four-related posts, and a pitch for Thor #5

Hard to believe this is my first post here in 2015... sad but true...

Nonetheless, just a quick post to point your swiping or clicking finger toward several items of potential interest:

1. I have a guest post at The Cultural Gutter, one of my favorite websites, recounting my experiences and impressions reading the entire run of Fantastic Four over the last year or so, along with some of my favorite panels from over 50 years of their comics (most of them seen on my Twitter feed over the past year—occasionally with snarky commentary, although mostly at Reed's expense).
2. Speaking of the Fantastic Four and Sue in particular, my latest post at Psychology Today deals with invisibility—mostly in a social, metaphorical sense, but I draw ties to the Invisible Woman, as well as a little-known hero with a modest cult following in some parts, Batman.
3. Finally, I want to recommend Jason Aaron and Jorge Medina's Thor #5 to anyone not currently following the adventures of the latest person worthy to wield the mighty Mjolnir. This is a quick one-shot between longer arcs that both refreshes the status quo for new readers, as well as, for longtime readers, establishes the various other characters' opinions regarding the new Thor, including Odin, Freyja, and, most entertainingly, the Absorbing Man and Titania, with whom Aaron and Medina indulge in a bit of metacommentary about fan reaction to our new Goddess of Thunder, both positive and negative. (See below.) Buy this issue now, or thou wilst be sorry --  I promise thee that.