Preview: Spider-Man to join the faculty at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning

spider-man-and-the-xmen-detail
(Marvel Entertainment)

“Wait, what?” you say. “Spider-Man’s not a mutant.”

No, indeed he isn’t but that hasn’t stopped the X-professors from welcoming him onto the faculty, according to writer Elliot Kalan who will pen the new series Spider-Man & The X-Men launching this December. Artist Marco Failla will be joining him on the title which, with the highly publicized death of Wolverine, will be replacing Wolverine & The X-Men.

Says Kalan, “He’s there because Wolverine asked him to do it, though being a teacher isn’t the extent of the mission.”

Apparently, in addition to being a teacher and guidance counselor he’ll be a covert detective investigating some sort of mystery or other yadda yadda.

So that’s the news, here’s a bit of opinion:

Generally, I find it impossible to keep up with even a quarter of Marvel’s current titles at the rate they proliferate. So when they add yet another one, it’s generally more annoying than anything else. But I have to say, I’m actually pretty excited about this one, and for a number of reasons:

First, Spider-Man’s one of my favorite characters and I love it when he interacts with any other major character in the Marvel universe, particularly the X-Men since he tends to interact with them less often than other characters like the Avengers.

Next, I really enjoy it when he’s put into a mentor position as he was in AvX  when he was asked to train Hope Summers. Partly because he’s such a light-hearted character and other characters therefore find it hard to take him seriously, so it’s enjoyable to watch how he establishes his authority as a teacher and gets taken seriously as someone who knows his stuff having himself learned it through the school of hard knocks.

Finally, there’s that fish-out-of-water element which, when done well, can be quite enjoyable.

Anyway, here are a couple of preview images from Spider-Man & The X-Men. Class begins in December.

Spider-Man_&_The_X-Men_1_Cover Spider-Man_&_The_X-Men_Bengal_Variant

About The Pop Mythologist

The Pop Mythologist
The Pop Mythologist is the founder and editor of PopMythology.com. He has been a staff writer for the nationally distributed magazine KoreAm , the online journal of pop culture criticism Pop Matters and has written freelance for various other publications and websites.

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