I still don't understand how he's supposed to look "more Xavier". The concept itself is ludicrous. Young Xavier doesn't wear an uniform, doesn't have any "visual" power, and people were even complaining that he was doing the "hand touching the temple" gesture. Really, how was he supposed to be shown in the cover? Saying he's not "Xavier enough" is unfair. I was expecting young Charles to be in a wheelchair, but there must have been an internal decision to show him standing. Surely there's an explanation in the film. Lack of wheelchair aside, the cover turned out exactly how I expected for young Charles. If people have different ideas of how he could have looked more "iconic" I really would like to know. So just because young Magneto wears an uniform he's automatically "iconic"? It's quite clear that Erik has already completed his transformation into Magneto, while Charles is still going through the process of turning into Professor X. The cover represents this. He has to be different from Patrick's Prof. X
Definitions:
i·con·ic
1.
of, relating to, or of the nature of an icon.
i·con
2.
a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.
It has long been canon in the comics that Charles Xavier lost his hair at a, relatively speaking, very young age. By the time he graduated High School, if I recall correctly. There was also a direct correlation between his hair loss
and his developing mutant power. Even in
real life, many of the causes of premature baldness are caused by, or are related to some form of
genetic mutation. As the founder and mentor of the X-men, Charles Xavier was a symbol and icon of the middle ground for Mutants. His mutation granted him great telepathic power with plenty of positive benefits, as well as being a power that was easily kept hidden at his discretion, but also came with a relatively small but distinguishing physical trait: premature baldness; and while this trait generally may not have caused any red flags or label him a mutant compared to certain others, it's still a physically distinguishing feature that is generally not preferred from an aesthetic perspective. How you could say that's
not iconic, I don't know. To me, he has always been a very good embodiment of the "average" or middle ground mutant, because on top of the baldness, the level of telepathic power he possess came as both a great gift and a curse. Being able to enter the minds of so many other living beings brought a perspective most other humans and mutants would never have. He was able to connect and share in the feelings and burdens of all those whos' minds he entered, and thus his principles and character were shaped around his experiences.
Ultimately, yes, there's a lot more to Charles Xavier than his look, however, his baldness has always been a part of who he is from a young age, and certainly qualifies and part of what makes him iconic as the founder and mentor(and to a degree, at times their leader) of the X-men. Does he
have to be bald to personify Xavier, or for me to enjoy McAvoy's performance? Of course not! I enjoyed McAvoy in First Class, and I'll likely enjoy him
even more in DOFP, but that doesn't change the fact that not being bald(and having a head full of hair in fact, for crying out loud) makes him that much less iconic
in appearances only.
In regards to the wheelchair, both in the comics and the movie, that was always something that happened to him. He wasn't born a cripple, he became one as a result of unfortunate and tragic incidents. That being the case, a younger Charles still walking is perfectly fine with me, in a general sense, though still not necessarily helping to add to his iconicness. The only other thing I would say about it, in regards to the cover, is that I still found it a little odd, simply because of how we last saw him at the end of First Class, but even if him standing is confusing to the many who see the cover, that's not necessarily a bad thing, just a potential spoiler that leaves one with the question of how he's walking again.
All in all saying he's "less Xavier" than Patrick's version easily turns into "this actor isn't competent enough to portray the character". Unfortunately this has been going on since First Class. People still don't understand the concept of a character changing and going from A to Z in terms of development, it seems.
Glad that you clarified that "less Xavier" could "easily turn into" the whole insult to the actor mentality, and that it wasn't inherently linked with it, because I don't think it's fair to assume anyone's insulting or criticizing the actor's abilities or performance when we're talking in the context of a, for the most part, purely aesthetical design concept with these magazine covers. And as I said in my above comments, I've been perfectly content with McAvoy as Young Xavier so far, and I anticipate that I'll enjoy him in the upcoming film even more.
