M. Night Shyamalan’s newest horror film, The Visit, subverts the almost universal fond memory of traveling to a grandparents’ home. While grandparents are almost always loving and caring individuals, two children discover that their estranged grandparents may have more sinister motives. Comics has its own share of evil grandparents, ranging from well-known supervillains to more obscure but equally sinister matriarchs. All of these grandparents cause much suffering to their children and grandchildren, and some have even directly plotted to kill their family members.
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To commemorate The Visit, here’s five of the worst grandparents in comics:
Ra’s al Ghul
The Head of the Demon and leader of the League of Assassins, Ra’s al Ghul is also the grandfather of Damian Wayne, Batman’s son and the newest Robin. The megalomaniac first met his grandson when he tried to use the boy as a vessel for his own permanent resurrection. (One of al Ghul’s daughters had killed him several years earlier). After Damian died at the hands of a mutated clone created by his mother Talia, Ra’s stole Damian’s corpse, hoping to resurrect him with a Lazarus Pit and brainwash him into becoming his heir. Although Batman stopped the villain’s initial plan, the two later worked together to fight the forces of Apokolips and resurrect Damian using the Chaos Shard, an Apokoliptian gem infused with Darkseid’s Omega Sanction.
Nathaniel Richards
Only a time traveler would kidnap his adolescent grandson to stop his future great-grandson. Nathaniel Richards, the father of Reed Richards, was a time traveler who spent most of Reed’s adult life living in the distant future. Nathaniel only returned to the present day to kidnap Franklin Richards and journey into the distant future, raising the boy to use his reality warping powers and then sending him as the teenager Psi-Lord back to the present day only moments after he left. He did all this to stop Franklin’s future son, a power mad despot named Hyperstorm, who would kill the Fantastic Four in the future. After discovering the truth about Nathaniel’s actions, Reed and the rest of the Fantastic Four lured Hyperstorm into the present and tricked Galactus into eating him.
To recap: Nathaniel kidnapped his son and trained him to become a teenaged psi-warrior while Reed Richards FED his grandson to Galactus. What a fantastic set of grandparents.
Norman Osborn
One of the most evil men in the Marvel Universe, Norman Osborn has a dark and twisted love for his grandson, Normie. One of Osborn’s most recent plots was to create both a criminal and business empire for Normie to rule. Using a growing Goblin army, Osborn took control of half of New York’s organized crime while creating the technology company Alchemax by merging Oscorp with the Allan Company (a company owned by Normie’s mother, Liz Allan) and Horizon Laboratories. Spider-Man stopped the Green Goblin’s plan, but Osborn escaped with the help of his daughter in law and grandchild.
The Hulk
In the alternate future seen in Old Man Logan, the Hulk is the patriarch of the sick and twisted Hulk Gang. The Hulk Gang are the grandchildren of the Hulk and She-Hulk, who mated after an atomic bomb warped both of their brains. After the Hulk Gang kills Logan’s family, the retired Wolverine kills most of the Hulk Gang before confronting and killing the Hulk. The only survivor of Wolverine’s rampage is the Hulk’s baby grandson, Bruce Jr., who Logan adopts and takes with him, hoping to turn him into a hero.
Marie L’Angell
Marie L’Angell was the psychotic and abusive grandmother of Jesse Custer, the main character of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher. A sick and twisted woman, L’Angell ruled over her family with an iron fist, keeping control using several sociopathic thugs. After killing Jesse’s father and mother, L’Angell would imprison Jesse to keep him in line, forcing him to become a preacher and spread God’s word. After Jesse merged with a celestial being named Genesis, God recruited Marie to control Jesse and bring him back in line. Although L’Angell captured Jesse and murdered his ex-girlfriend Tulip, God resurrected Tulip to send Jesse a message. Together, Jesse and Tulip killed most of Marie’s thugs and set her house on fire, leaving Marie inside to die.
