Friday Favorites: Back to School Edition

Welcome back to Friday Favorites.

It’s back to school time so this week seemed like a good opportunity to look at some of our favorite schools in the world of comics.

When we think of comic book high schools many of us automatically think of one place: the X-Men’s Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Mara Wood, Nerdspan‘s esteemed comics editor, shares three reasons why a mutant education is so much fun:

1. Despite how much I love Jean Grey school, the classic Xavier Institute will always hold a special place in my heart. How many kids out there dreamed of the day where their latent mutant powers kicked in and Professor X showed up to take them to their dream school? Plus, no other comic book school has had as much media time as the Xavier Institute. We’ve seen many interpretations of the school over the years (live-action X-Men movies, cartoons, and the like), but the mission as always stayed the same: preparing young mutants for whatever future they choose.

2. It’s hard to not think of the X-Men when looking at mentors and teachers. The inclusion of young heroes makes it a series dependent on the mentoring of people, especially emotionally. I’ve always had a soft spot for Wolverine mentoring Kitty (and later Jubilee), but the Cable/Hope relationship grew to be my favorite. The risk he took to protect her for years and prepare her for her future was not easy. As far as investing in a single individual, I can think of no stronger relationship.

3. How ’bout them BAMFs? Cutest school distractions ever.

One other school-related thing – I don’t know if this is still a thing, but the Jean Grey twitter used to tweet school announcements every day, and even live-tweet some of the classes. It was a hilarious way to integrate social media into a comic book school environment.

Speaking of X-Men, one of my personal favorite school moments came outside of Westchester County. When Wolverine’s clone, X-23, escaped the Weapon X program she made her way to San Francisco and sought out her birth mother’s family. Part of her attempt to adapt included attending high school with her cousin. The Weapon X education doesn’t make for a good precursor to a high school classroom as we see in this page from X-23: Target X.

Comics are definitely for a more mature audience these days, and while kids still have Archie Comics and Riverdale High School, teens and adults are finding a darker take on high school life. One such take is Morning Glories, and Nerdspan’s interviewer extraordinaire Leo Johnson talked about why this school is one of his favorites:

While many probably felt like high school was slowly killing them and the teachers were out to get them, it’s never been more true than in the pages of Morning Glories. The comic from writer Nick Spencer and artist Joe Eisma takes place at a boarding school full of some smart, dangerous students and some even worse teachers. It also might have some crazy cults, an opening to Hell, caves that make people travel through time, and a few other things most schools lack. The strange things at the school are only dwarfed by how strange the school itself is, like how even after three years the reader still has no idea where it is. It’s mysterious, full of dangers, features a great student body, and is quite prestigious according to the brochure. If that doesn’t make for a great school, I don’t know what does.

But if we are talking about high school and comics, is there any better place to start your education in all of geekdom than Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Sunnydale High School? It has everything: vampires, ghosts, an invisible girl, a mutant fish swim team, witchcraft, killer ventriloquist dummies, a praying mantis teacher, the best library occult section in the country, werewolves, an Inca mummy girl, hyena kids, hellhounds, love spells, band candy, a hellmouth, and a graduation ceremony where the hated principal was devoured by a giant snake (oh, and the school blew up).

Joss Whedon perfectly crafted high school trauma into metaphorical monsters and gave us a Slayer who could protect us from those demons. I would never want to attend high school ever again, but if I had to I couldn’t think of a better place to go.

So what are your favorites?

Next week: Our first special guest post from the awesome Andra Passen. Go check out her comics and then come back next Friday to see her favorite fictional comic book fans.

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