The Five Worst Fathers In Comics

Today is Father's Day, that glorious celebration of fatherly love and appreciation for all the great things that dads do. While comic books are filled with amazing parents, some comic book fathers aren't all that great. In fact, some heroes and villains are downright terrible parents and should never had kids in the first place. Here are five of the worst pops in comics:

Cyclops

Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men current possessor of the Phoenix Force, but he's also a deadbeat dad and a neglectful father to his son, Nathan. Cyclops abandoned Nathan shortly after his birth to shack up with his recently resurrected girlfriend, Jean Grey, and hang out with his childhood friends in X-Factor. Not exactly model father behavior. By abandoning Nathan and his wife Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops is indirectly responsible for Nathan's kidnapping by Mr. Sinister and Madelyne Pryor going insane and becoming the Demon Queen. After Pryor was killed while trying to sacrifice her son to demons, Cyclops gained custody of Nathan and starts taking him on X-Factor missions…because that's what responsible parents do. After Apocalypse infects Nathan with a techno-organic virus, Cyclops reluctantly sent Nathan into the future to stop the disease's progress and later travelled into the future to raise Nathan and teach him how to control his powers. Nathan later returned to the present day as Cable, a gun-wielding hardcore mutant with bulging muscles and a deep, deep love of pouches. Cyclops never had the heart to tell Cable how ridiculous his costume looked, further proving his severe lack of parenting skills.

Wolverine

Not to be outdone by Cyclops' neglectful parenting, Wolverine takes the prize as the X-Men's worst father figure. While the furry Canadian has a history of becoming a father figure to teenage girls and loving them until they turn legal, Wolverine's history with his biological children is much, much sketchier. If you're the actual spawn of Wolverine, he will find you and he will kill you. For instance, five of Wolverine's bastard progeny were manipulated into joining a Wolverine-hate group and attacked the clawed mutant as the Mongrels. It wasn't until after Wolverine gutted and eviscerated each one that he learned they were his children. Sure he felt bad, but that remorse doesn't exactly wash blood off one's hands. Wolverine's other child, Daken, was even luckier, since Wolverine knew exactly who he was killing. After Daken formed a new Brotherhood of Mutants in a desperate plea for his father's attention, Wolverine took him out back and drowned him while openly mourning his own failings as a father. That's…that's just screwed up.
Wolverine is indeed the best at what he does…it's just funny that one of things is killing his own kids.

Deathstroke

Slade Wilson had three children in the comics, all of whom suffered tragedies thanks to their father. One, Jericho, lost his ability to speak after Slade's enemy slit his throat. Another, Grant, died when he attempted to replicate Deathstroke's powers, causing his body to eat itself while in battle. But Deathstroke saved his best parenting for his daughter, Rose, whom he manipulated by ordering an assassination attempt on her and her adoptive family. After Rose sought the mercenary out, Deathstroke injected her with a serum that drove her insane and caused her to gouge her own eye out. Deathstroke then replaced Rose's eye with a piece of kryptonite, knowing that prolonged kryptonite exposure caused cancer. Needless to say, Rose had major trust issues after she found out that her mass murdering mercenary father was lying to her and not looking out for her health.

Norman Osborn

Norman Osborn was a Silver Age master of emotional abuse, notably pushing several of his children into becoming supervillains. Norman's oldest son, Harry Osborn, struggled with drugs for much of his life because of Norman's constant emotional abuse. This led to Harry's ascension as the second Green Goblin in a misguided act of loyalty to his father, directly leading to Harry's presumed death after accidentally overdosing on Goblin formula. Not content with screwing up one of his children's life, Osborn then tracked down Gabriel and Sarah, his twin children from a tryst with Gwen Stacy (ew, ew, ew, ew). Osborn convinces the twins they are Peter Parker's children, trains them in combat skills and then sends them after Parker by blaming Spider-Man for their mother's death. After Spider-Man defeats the pair, Norman kidnaps Gabriel and stores him in a giant tube as a test subject.

Ra's al Ghul

You know how some parents push their children really hard towards a certain career path? Ra's is basically the ultimate pushy dad--except he's more into global terrorism than a law degree. When he's not trying to marry off his daughter Talia to worthy heirs, Ra's manipulates his children into taking up his quest to eradicate humanity. Ra's manipulated Nyssa into killing him and taking over the League of Assassins, and then attempted to use the body of Damian Wayne, his grandson, as a vessel for his resurrection. When that failed, Ra's sacrificed his son Dusan to facilitate his return...but not before disowning Dusan for being an albino.

Who do you think are the worst dads in comics? Start the guilt trips in the comments below!

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