So the other day I reviewed the latest Dan Brown novel over at our sister shopping site, WeCovet, and I was bitching a little bit about the main character, Robert Langdon, when it occurred to me that my real problem with the character isn't so much that he's a preening, unlikable doofus with a totally made-up academic specialization, but that he's all of those things when he could have been so much more! I mean, really. The swashbuckling academic-slash-adventurer? The buttoned-up professor who all of sudden becomes a hero when he's compelled by some fascinating intellectual mystery or opportunity for world-changing discovery to become a bad-guy whupping hero? That guy (or gal, although there aren't many female versions of this character) is AWESOME.
Robert Langdon is not awesome. He's wishy-washy and totally bad at making decisions and is really no better at symbol reading or code-breaking than were the Hardy Boys. And he can't read Latin. Which, really, even if there were such a thing as Symbology as an academic field - which there's not - one wouldn't even get past the qualifying stage of one's doctorate without being able to read the language that is central to the field of one's study. (/academic rant.)
All of which is to say: LOSER. His adventures are cool; him, not so much.
But it got me thinking: who are the awesomest Professor-Adventurers in pop-culture history?