Professor X - Is Bendis right that Charles is an anachronism?

[Ingonyama]

Charles actually sent out teens into extremely dangerous life-risking situations while he was sitting comfy in his big mansion while listening to Beethoven and drinking hot cocoa.

To be fair, he isn't considered fit to do field work himself. When his legs work, he's out there with them nine times out of ten.

[Daniel Mengsk]

To be fair, he isn't considered fit to do field work himself. When his legs work, he's out there with them nine times out of ten.

He still sent out kids into war zones. Didn't Amelia voice concern about that or was it because he wanted to expose them to the world, I can't remember.

[Ingonyama]

He still sent out kids into war zones. Didn't Amelia voice concern about that or was it because he wanted to expose them to the world, I can't remember.

From everything I've read, her problem was that he was more devoted to his work and his vision than he was to her. The 'kid soldiers' idea never entered her head unless it was retconned in and I missed it.

[Daniel Mengsk]

From everything I've read, her problem was that he was more devoted to his work and his vision than he was to her. The 'kid soldiers' idea never entered her head unless it was retconned in and I missed it.

I think that the real reason she left was because Charles was a lousy lover.

And she left when Charles took in Scott into his home, uh oh...

[listererik]

Charles actually sent out teens into extremely dangerous life-risking situations while he was sitting comfy in his big mansion while listening to Beethoven and drinking hot cocoa.

I think that's one way of looking at it. An extremely cynical way, however.

The other way to look at it is that when you are a teenager, you are very optimistic about the world. You think that you can change everything. The X-Men, the 05 at least when created, embodied this spirit, especially when they were created in the 60's, when in the U.S. especially, there was a counter-culture movement that basically preached that anyone could change the world, especially the young. This was their founding core, and this is who the X-Men were created for. Now, later, when the ANAD X-Team was introduced, Vietnam was going down and the idea of youngsters fighting for a cause was probably not too popular, and the 05 had aged, and the ANAD team was definitely in their 20's. So, in essence, to say that "Charles sent child soldiers to do his work" is really looking at history from a very, very cynical viewpoint without looking to any of the circumstances at the time when the comics were created, nor of how the medium itself was viewed at the time period. That's why people over the last decade have turned Charles into a selfish bastard, because they really don't understand the X-Men as a concept, and are looking at Charles' actions through modern eyes, and is also why the X-Franchise has really tumbled from what it once was.

Again, it's all about viewpoints, and Marvel's writers seem to take a modern, cynical viewpoint of Charles, which definitely renders him obsolete. However, if you get a good writer that actually "gets" the X-Men on the title, and Charles could, and should be, one of the most interesting characters in comics again.