Hey, Mopey has come up with a new name for the Professor’s current incarnation: the Bratessor. As such names go, I think it’s a pretty good one. Accurate, for one thing. And catchy. I think I’ll adopt it.

So, yeah – plumbing the depths of their assembled memories, the crew does find a couple more persons that fulfilled the master or mentor role for some or all of them in the past. And this new bunch isn’t even all that bad, compared to the names that have already been mentioned – at least these people aren’t outright villainous.

The Elder tried to do the right thing, most of the time. And thanks to the miracle of things working out miraculously, he actually ultimately succeeded, despite a certain level of incompetency on his part. Unfortunately, he’s stuck in a different dimension, and he probably doesn’t have any kind of prophetic visions dealing with cricket on stock. Plus, being ‘nipped up isn’t exactly the same as being drunk. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if some anthropomorphic cat out there enables the drunk master part via catnip…

And Prof. Ninjaopolous was actually a pretty good coach – he taught the whole gang a whole set of skills that weren’t only useful back in that chapter, but came in handy numerous times since. He also wasn’t a villain at all, and as little evil as a teacher can be. He wasn’t even incompetent! Plus, ninjutsu kind of is an athletic discipline. An ideal candidate, it seems…if you disregard the fact that he went insane, lost a leg and turned into a drunk pirate scoundrel. Still, compared to some of the others those drawbacks are almost minor.

Prof. van Helsing is a classic of course – in general, and especially because he hasn’t been seen or mentioned since the second chapter. I’ve only included him for the sake of completeness, and reference for the character. He’s not really a serious candidate, here – most coaches suck, but the good ones don’t suck blood. Also, his world (and sports) knowledge is stuck in the late 19th century, so he’d definitely have problems adapting.

And as far as the Bratessor is concerned…well, obviously he can’t take the job because he’s stuck pretending to be a pupil. So bringing him up really only served for Mopey to get a little (or actually moderately sized) dig in at him. Although it’s done in kind of a fond way, so probably the Bratessor would be touched as well as struck.

Gregory is on to something in the last panel, though. Given all of the educational effort aimed at them, the team actually should be in much better shape in terms of knowledge, skills and character than it actually is. But I guess this is just truth in fiction, as far as educational outcomes are concerned…

More on Thursday.