I accepted this assignment (“volunteered”) from the dean to work with a partner on a “Mentoring Handbook” for the college. We’re working on it pretty well (trying out a wiki–my first experience actually using it for collaborative writing, and it seems like a good technique) although it’s taking longer than I expected.
But when sitting in the full-day retreat where the ideas for the Handbook grew, I remembered somehow that Captain Marvel (remember? “SHAZAM!”) had a kind of guide and teacher named “Mentor.” I have a picture in my head of him somehow floating in the sky, or maybe in a thought-bubble, and advising young Billy about the proper use of his superpowers.
It seemed like a fun way to have a logo and even a kind of unifying metaphor for the Handbook–even one to push against.
But I can’t seem to find a picture or good description of the character. Is my imagination faulty? Just about every reference to that character I can find is from some 70’s live-action TV version (traveling around in an RV, indeed!)–which I don’t think I ever saw! Or maybe I did–but the picture in my head is certainly not this old guy! I know I owned the comic books, but of course, as is the way of things, my mother long ago destroyed that collection. So…where is MENTOR? Shazam!
Hey, SHAZAAM was my favorite comic as a kid, but I don’t remember any mentor! Hmm, I’ll be back in NJ this weekend; let me see if I can dig up any old comics from my father’s collection (actually, I think Shazaam was his favorite, which is why it became my favorit…)
Whoa, this Captain Marvel is way more buff than the one I used to read as a kid! And whoops, it’s Shazam, not Shazaam, though I think the latter looks much better.
Yikes, looks like he ate the Incredible Hulk!
Where did I get the Mentor from? 🙂