10 Worst Mentors In Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics has its fair share of young heroes. Whether they have appeared in the pages of The New Mutants and Young Avengers or more recent titles like Strange Academy, Avengers Academy, Champions, or the West Coast Avengers, the next generation of Marvel heroes is ready for their chance to shine. In almost all of these cases, the young heroes have had veteran mentors to look up to and learn from. The problem is that these older heroes are not always the best people to be helping young heroes in training. In some cases, the older heroes (and villains in some cases) are the worst possible people to advise anyone.

Sometimes, the Marvel mentors are incompetent at best. In other cases, the mentors have ulterior motives that suggest these kids’ best interests were never the primary goal of their training. Sometimes the young heroes overcome the bad training, but other times, these bad Marvel mentors are responsible for devastating incidents.

10) Emma Frost

At one time, Professor X was training his New Mutants team first-hand. However, there was another mutant who disapproved of how Xavier was teaching his mutants and felt her way was the best to keep the kids safe. Emma Frost established a rival school, and her Hellions served as her version of the New Mutants. This team included names like Catseye, Empath, Jetstream, Tarot, and Thunderbird. If some of these names are unfamiliar, that is because Emma Frost failed miserably as a mentor. Sentinels attacked them, killing two and capturing the others. Emma was devastated at their deaths and realized Xavier’s methods were better. This marked the beginning of her transformation into a hero, as she left her villainous ways behind.

9) Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange established a school to educate young mystics, known as the Strange Academy. He hired some great teachers, including Doctor Voodoo and Zelma Stanton, as well as some questionable ones, such as Scarlet Witch, Magik, Hellstrom, and others. That was questionable enough, but when the students realized that Strange might have more in mind than just training them (he told Voodoo that none of them should be made to feel special), they rebelled. One of the most powerful students (Emily Bright) almost destroyed the world when she ended up going to Dormammu for help. Strange was dishonest from the start about the cost of magic to these kids, and he hurt many of them more than he helped them. When Doctor Doom took over mentorship, things only got crazier.

8) Reed Richards

Reed Richards has an arrogance and conceit that make him someone who is almost as dangerous to the world as he is its savior. The Council of Reeds shows that many of them became either evil or selfish, losing everything, and the Ultimate Reed Richards (The Maker) became the worst of them all. Reed is the last person who needs to mentor young heroes, but he tried anyway with the Future Foundation. While he has done a great deal to help mentor his daughter, Valeria, to utilize her brain to solve the world’s most challenging problems, his mentorship of his son, Franklin, was less positive. Reed even put his son into a coma to control him better at one time. There are Fantastic Four members who were great mentors (such as The Thing). Reed Richards is not.

7) Magneto

When Professor X almost died and had to leave the planet, he asked his greatest enemy, Magneto, to take over as the leader of the X-Men. Still a villain, Magneto agreed to become a hero and even allowed the United States to put him on trial for his crimes (which he was cleared of thanks to mental manipulation). However, Magneto was nowhere near as good a mentor as Professor X, who had his own serious problems. Many X-Men members mostly dismissed him, and others never trusted him. Even as a villain with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Magneto used the members to get what he wanted. He even pushed away Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, thanks to his arrogance and selfish nature, proving to be a terrible mentor for the two people he thought were his children.

6) Cyclops

Cyclops has always been a terrible X-Men leader. While he is a tactical genius and can lead his team to victory, which is why he held a leadership role, his personality often conflicted with that of his teammates. He never got along with the team’s most important members, with Wolverine a perfect example. However, at one time, Cyclops became a mentor to a young generation of mutants at the worst possible time. He was in prison after killing Professor X after being possessed by the Phoenix Force. He ended up being broken out, and many disenfranchised mutants joined his side, considering him a martyr. He even had Magneto following him, and Cyclops was the worst possible person to have any mutant follow him, thanks to his more militant stance on the world.

5) Captain America

Captain America is considered one of the best heroes in Marvel Comics history. From the outside, he appears to be a patriotic hero fighting for America. However, in reality, he is a hero fighting for Americans, even if that means battling against his own country. He is also one of the best Avengers leaders in the team’s long history. However, while he is a great leader, he is a terrible mentor in the Marvel Comics universe. He first mentored a teenage Bucky Barnes, who later died fighting alongside Captain America. Rick Jones was next, and Captain America rejected him, which led to Rick’s death as well. Captain America’s worst trait is his rigid view of the world and his place in it, which he refuses to change, forcing his beliefs upon those who learn from him. While some turned out fine, with Sam Wilson a great example, Cap is too unflexible as a hero to mentor someone properly.

4) Iron Man

Iron Man is a terrible mentor because, like Captain America, he sticks to his beliefs and refuses to budge or compromise when dealing with others. He has tried to help mentor younger heroes, such as when he endorsed Ironheart as she began her hero journey. Of course, she was only 15, and he offered her help to become a hero, despite her young age and her mother’s disapproval. Iron Man was also a terrible mentor to Spider-Man, as seen in Civil War, when he demanded Peter reveal his identity, which resulted in Aunt May being shot, and then had Spider-Man hunted down with an arrest warrant when Peter realized he had made a mistake. Iron Man, much of the time in Marvel Comics, is a terrible person and an even worse mentor.

3) Norman Osborn

Norman Osborn has been a villain for most of his Marvel Comics existence. He was, from the start, a terrible mentor for his son, Harry Osborn. Of course, Norman did sell his son’s soul to Mephisto for success, so maybe he realized Harry was a lost cause thanks to his deals. Later, he led his team of Dark Avengers, and although he wasn’t a mentor, he was a rigid leader who nearly destroyed the world when working with Sentry. He finally became a real mentor, though, in Spider-Man comics when he had his sins eaten by Sin-Eater and became Peter’s “man-in-the-chair.” He made several questionable decisions here, which pushed Spider-Man into some situations he should have avoided, proving that Norman should always avoid his role as a mentor to any young hero.

2) Beast

At one time, Beast might have been a wonderful mentor. However, that all changed after Cyclops killed Professor X. Beast had always done some morally questionable things in his life, but once Professor X died, he went off the deep end. He pulled the young X-Men (including his younger self) to the present day to teach Cyclops a lesson and got them stuck there. In Krakoa, he then went off the deep end when he was put in charge of X-Force and built a team that stripped many mutants of their human rights, killed anyone he felt was a threat, and embarrassed and humiliated some of the X-Men’s strongest allies. The heroes under him in X-Force were lucky Wolverine was there to balance things out, because Beast was on the way to turning them all evil, along with him.

1) Professor X

Professor X is one of the first mentors to ever appear in Marvel Comics. He was the leader of the X-Men when the team first appeared, and all the team members were teens enrolled in his school for gifted youngsters. However, consider what Xavier did to his students over the years to see why he is considered the worst mentor in the history of Marvel Comics. Xavier mindwiped Wolverine to force him to join the team. He forced children to participate in perilous missions to achieve his dream. Professor X messed with Jean Grey’s mind so much that it made her vulnerable to the Dark Phoenix. In Krakoa, he kept secrets from his students constantly and played games with their lives. Professor Xavier has always been a low-key villain, even as he claims to want peace between humans and mutants.

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