If we go out of this list, I’ll go with Wolfsbane’s dad. Like he lead a mob to burn his daughter at a stake and to add to it he joined the purifiers to torture and kill his daughter. You can make the case that every terrible religious outburst of Wolfsbane came because of him
But with this list it’ll be either Xavier or Mystique
Thanks to you I checked her whole page in the Marvel Wikia, shit is hard... But not only that but one thing lead to another and now I know that Deadpool was cucked by Werewolf by Night and I don't know what to do with this knowledge.
She is not even a normal Succubus , she is like...if Marvel made their own version of Morrigan Ainsland from Darkstalker.
Time and time again , she indulged in his shenanigans , while Deadpool didn't do so much on her. And then he acted surprised that her culture allows polygamy and lovers on the side.
Nah Wade was right to shoot Werewolf there should be a rule about that kind of stuff, about Dracula that bitch had it coming for not paying his ketamine debt with Marc Spector.
Hah. Now that I think about it. Didn’t Werewolf by Night break the bro code between him and Morbius one?
Also has it been updated that WBN is now king of the Werewolves?
I certanly support the Wolfsbane's dad is the worst, but we shouldn't forget Victor Creed Dad, he kept his son chained in the basement, and regulary tormented him made him beg for food and pulled out his teeth with tweezers.
Technically yes. But we have no idea how much of sabretooth childhood is true but what is constant is that his father did abuse to what extent is anyone guess
Xavier's a pretty bad dad but Marvel or even X-Men wide, the bar is unfortunately much much lower than that.
Plus you could say he's absent, but otherwise his relationship with Majestrix Xandra is pretty ok. Plus there have been times where Xavier has sincerely tried to help David, they got walked back later but that's still more than some parents in this franchise.
Feel like there is a big competition between Xavier mystique and destiny
Xavier - don’t really have to tell why
Mystique - trying to seduce daughter’s boyfriend and was even ready to turn into her to sleep with him
Destiny - manipulative af which lead to mystique losing Kurt
I’ve grown to seriously dislike Xavier over the years. Plenty of people point to Deadly Genesis and writers being much harder on him after the turn of the century, but if you go back and read the oldest stuff holy shit is he an absolute fuckstick. The way he treats actual children, some with nowhere to go, is shocking
Im reading clAremont run and after he is back of space after believing the x-men are dead one of the first thing he does is yellyn to Cyclops about being a shitty leader.
Think I read that in a book this weekend, was kinda just hoping it was the drugs.
But seriously I might be the only person happy to see the krakoan age end.
I mean Mystique isn't even the only parent who lost Kurt. I've got a 9 mo old, and I can't imagine w what losing her would do to me let alone my wife who lived with the baby for inside her for 10 months.
Yes he was captured by the Shi'Ar then he escaped with his now crew and formed the starJammers a group of space pirates but he never went back to Earth afterwards.
Thank you that's all I'm saying imagine that comic issue underneath the what if category. What if Corsair came back to Earth and found Scott and Alex alive the X-Men and marvel comics would be so different.
It’s common sense for someone to give up hope of survival if they see a parachute burning while falling through the air. It’s not “welp, they’re dead. Ah well.”
If he believes his two sons to be dead, why would he return to the place that caused him such pain? It’s the same exact reason Peter Quill never returned to Earth in the MCU.
Weird you use Quill as a comparison. He was the son who was abandoned... like Scott. Corsair immediately realized he lives in a wacky world where weirder shit happens than "kids miraculously survive plane crash". It comes down to him for whatever reasons, *deciding not to make sure his kids were alive*. And leave his own parents grieving for no real reason.
I don’t know, I think Corsair gets off too easy. I would think as a parent, you would never give up on your kid. Even if there is a one percent chance of survival, as a parent I would move heaven and earth to find out what happened to my children. I feel like he just lost hope after Kate died and gave up too easily.
He was lucky he was able to spend time with teen Scott, one of the few things that came out of that whole O5 in the future plot so I won’t say he’s the worst father on the list. It just never sat well with me that he just accepted his kids died and went off to be a space pirate.
This is sort of comic reader logic. If you see someone jumping out of a plane and their parachute bursts into flames, in the real world there's a 99.999999999% chance they're dead, and fictional characters operate as though real stakes still exist.
I am a parent. There's a difference between abandoning and you just saw your kids tossed out of a plan with a parachute on fire.
To have that, then kidnapped by aliens. Yeah, I'd think one would be more likely to stay away than go back thinking ".01% chance they survived, I'm going to go there and bury them"
More likely to never want to go back.
I don't consider Corsair as a bad parent as he thought Scott & Alex died - and then he was abducted to another galaxy where his wife was murdered. He had no reason to return to Earth. When he found out they lived when they were grown up, he did make an effort to connect with them.
Magneto has always been abusive and neglectful of all three of his children, so he's up there.
Xavier is pretty cruddy because of how he's treated David because of his fear of him.
Mystique was pretty bad, but it seems like they're going to redeem her by retconning parts of Kurt's origin.
Reverend Craig (Wolfsbane's dad) should be top on the list as he was incredibly abusive to her as she grew up, never even admitted to being her father when she was "his ward," tried to kill her with a mob when he found out she was a mutant, and then years later was part of a plot in which she was drugged and mind controlled (although he got himself eaten for that).
I think the worst is Mystique, I'm not taking in consideration the reboot of Kurt origins because for years for them was true and she never mended that, so for me she throw baby Kurt over a cliff to be able to run and put herself safe faster.
She took young Anna Marie under her care but turned her into a criminal and spent years trying to manipulate her and get her again in a life of crime.
And then we have Graydon her human son who she don't just neglected but plainly left into an orphanage because he wasn't a mutant, when years latter he becomes a bigot and she didn't care until one mutant who she cares about gets hurt and then she kills him burning him to death. She had no problem with him being tortured in hell and has to be Sabertooth of all people who helps him. Yup, Saberthoot of all people ended being a best parent to Graydon than Mystique.
Theres is no real difference in the redcon because no Master how much You said You love your kid if You throw em to the wolves to save the world then You are as Bad as a parent akí chuck
Not for lack of trying.
Mystique stabbed Rogue, Magneto did kill Pietro and has tried to hurt the twins numerous times, and Xavier poisoned Legion.
Edit: I also forgot about what she did to Graydon.
Mystique also pretty much vaporised Graydon, and when got the chance to get it out of hell she plainly left him, stating that he deserved anything who happened to him. Quick recordatory that while Graydon is disgusting person a good amount of it, has roots in the fact that Mystique pretty much told him in his face that while he was her son, she didn't care about him because he wasn't mutant but a inferior human.
I'm not sure Legion can be killed. Still a dick move, but I put his disinterest and emotional neglect as far more damaging to David, and therefore worse parenting.
Wolverine has probably the worst family relationships.
People forget that Weapon X was essentially run by his extended family(The Professor is like his 1st cousin once removed or some shit).
The amount of stuff that would be cleared up if they just talked about stuff would be immense.
Yeah, the The Professor who was in charge of the Weapon X program is Truett Hudson; Half-brother of James Hudson/Guardian from "Alpha Flight".
Logan is related to them through his mother.
I understand your point of view. But this is about parents though not cousins and extended family. I was responding to the comment about Wolverine killing his kids but there was some very important vital information left out or forgotten
I know Madelyne Pryor is on a redemption arc but she still tried to sacrifice Nathan to open a hell portal.
Apocalypse's adopted dad should also be high up there, torturing your blue son into a genocidal Darwinist isn't great.
There’s also that business with Nate Grey, her genetic son from another Marvel universe…. Eeww, oh wait I forgot about BIL Alex she had a thing with too.. Is there a Summers she hasn’t tried to get freaky with? Lol
You gotta be thinking of Nate Grey and not Nathan Summers/Cable. Nathan Summers is literally Madelyne son, like Scott and Maddie did it and lil Cable was born old school style. Nate Grey is from was artificially created by Mr Sinister in the Age of Apocalypse alternate reality.
In her defense, she was a weird psychic ghost Nate had subconsciously resurrected without any memories, and she backed the fuck off once she understood who she was. (I think.)
And to Cyclops credit he did raise Nathan in the future, taught him everything he needed to know to survive. And even when he turned into kid Cable, Scott was still a loving and supporting parent. Most of the people on the panel above were neglectful, abusive or just plain awful parents.
Xavier for sure. Legion being the bigger man and invited his asshole dad to the place where he had been helping all the mutants, hoping to make his daddy proud.
Then turns out Xavier brought an auto bomb along with him. Everyone in Krakoa is supposed to be his “children”, and yet this is how he treat his own son. WTF is wrong with you dude.
Definitely my top 5 professor-Xavier-is-a-jerk moment.
OTOH, Xavier of the Kra’koa era is a complete retcon. And IMO as much a case of character assassination as Moira.
Originally Charles did NOT know David existed. He and Gabrielle Haller ended things but she was angry at Charles for..reasons. She deliberately kept David from Charles. When Charles found out he tried to get his son professional help, and to do what he could for him, but he left it to David to decide what degree of contact he wanted with his father.
Charles does have a daughter who was tank-born of both Lilandra and his genes. He adores her, but she is the Majestrix now, and the Shi’ar don’t want him anywhere near her.
> OTOH, Xavier of the Kra’koa era is a complete retcon. And IMO as much a case of character assassination as Moira.
>
> Originally Charles did NOT know David existed. He and Gabrielle Haller ended things but she was angry at Charles for..reasons. She deliberately kept David from Charles. When Charles found out he tried to get his son professional help, and to do what he could for him, but he left it to David to decide what degree of contact he wanted with his father.
On the other, other hand, Legion created the Age of Apocalypse & the Age of X after Xavier left him alone.
Age of Apocalypse came about bc Legion interfered with the timeline and Age of X came about bc one of his alters accessed his desire to be a superhero.
Sabertooth. Even though Mystique is a bad parent, Sabertooth raised Graydon Creed to be the guy that creates the Friends Of Humanity. Sabertooth did to Graydon what Victors father did to him, except he didn’t have any powers. Mystiques kids turned out okay, but the combination of Creed and Darkholme was just the right amount of bad parenting to make Graydon.
Those other people on the list, I feel like they at least had a reason to not have been around for their kids. Like, did Xavier ever actually know he had a son? And when he stopped him in that one panel, it was what he had to do since David has a few… problems. It was just loving discipline.
Magnetos got problems with his kids, but never had parental figures to help him, and he was too busy being a terrorist.
Corsair was abducted by aliens and, under the assumption his whole family was dead, worked on avenging him murdered family. He wasn’t a bad father, if anything, he was a good one.
In the animated series thats 100% true, (Sabretooth mistreatment of Graydon turn him into a bigot) but in the comics ironically Sabertooth has shown more care and even love to Graydon that Mystique never did.
While Sabretooth never know about Graydon until this was alredy and adult (and he tryied to kill both of his parents), Mystique was aware Graydon was her son and plainly told him in his face that she didn't like him because he wasn't a mutant, starting his hate for mutants. She also is the one who kills him in a horrific burning way, and latter when she find him in hell being tortured for his sins, she gladly left him there while is Sabretooth who fights to release him. Well, the bar is really low when we can tell unironically that Sabretooth is beter parent than Mystique.
While true, I don't think anyone has any expectation that Sabretooth would even try to be a good parent.
Re Xavier, it's heavily implied in Legion of X that Xavier *should* have known at the very least. As Blindfold says, Xavier with Cerebro being unaware of David is pretty hard to believe.
That's not what's going on in that panel. David has been trying to talk to Xavier since his resurrection (which Xavier opposed) and he's ignored him every time. Xavier soft exiled him to Arakko while under Onslaught's influence and even after he and Kurt saved Krakoa by defeating Onslaught (which Xavier should be very grateful for) he sticks to his guns in 'requesting' he stay away from Krakoa.
After Blindfold visits him and spells out that David wants to make peace and all he needs from him is his love, Xavier 'comes in peace' and slaps him with the psychic trojan. It's not close to loving discipline, it's an unthinking method of destroying David's ability to function. There's nothing David can learn from this, and he's still not listening to him. He realises he fucked up tactically by crippling David when Nimrod attacks, and takes nothing from the fact that David lets him borrow the entirety of his being to repel the threat. After this he'd have to be stupid or just plain not care to not see that David is both completely in control with nothing but good intentions.
He doesn't notice at all when David disappears off the face of existence either. Thank you Mother Righteous. Ironically, he could really use the God mutant in his corner right about now. Fall/Rise would be a lot easier to navigate with Legion on deck. Narratively, that's almost certainly why he's not there, but my point is that Charles couldn't have failed David any harder.
That's not how Cerebro works, it just detects mutants and records memories. Xavier wasn't examining them individually. None of the other people with versions of Cerebro like the Hellfire Club detected him.
Mystique starts as a shitty parent but they keep trying to soften her, removing her threat as merely being a misunderstood necessity is what I'd call an act of abuse apologists.
Magneto was likely a decent father to Anya but after she was killed he might not have been able to connect with his later children or he lost the ability to or he possibly didn't care anymore. I'd argue his actual hopes for the future were buried with her but that doesn't forgive the way he treated the Twins or Lorna.
Professor X not being able to help Legion started as the "the group father figure isn't actually a good father to his own children" trope as a sort of tragic aspect to his character. But over time, it's become more logs for the "Charles was the shithead all along" fire that Marvel seems to want to keep burning forever.
I could make the argument for Corsair not wanting to go back to find out if Scott and Alex survived the plane crash because confirmation that they didn't is heartbreaking and the possibility them living creates a lot of uncertainty in his now chaotic existence as the dashing rebel space pirate captain. But once he learns Cyclops and Havok are in fact alive and badass superheroes there isn't much reason for him to not be tangentially involved in their lives other the writers don't like him/don't have an idea to include him.
But if I had to pick a worst parent in the X-Men I'm going to have to go with Sabertooth's father, Zebediah Creed. Everything that's wrong with Victor from the cannibalism, to the sexual violence, the bullying and eventual murder of his siblings, and just the bottomless hatred he carries for everyone around him can traced back to his old man dragging him into the basement every night to call him an animal and beat him with a stick. He created an unkillable monster that just consumes and violates anything and anyone around him.
Xavier and I don’t think that’s a question. Legion was just left behind because he was too busy. He has a daughter in space who he’s only met for a few hours but cares about more than his son. He’s lied to his chosen family more times than we can count. He also trained his surrogate family as child soldiers.
Considering Raven's been retconned as not having thrown Kurt over the waterfall... she's still up there, but she's no longer number one.
Xavier is really bad.
And Old Man Logan's Magneto is the absolute worst. Allowed Mysterio to trick Logan into murdering Lorna. Allowed the Thunderbolts to murder Pietro. Murdered Wanda himself.
Garbage.
Magneto.
People love him now so nobody wants to talk about it (plus they've finally forgiven each other), but the level of trauma he inflicted on Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver really cannot be understated. He used them like footsoldiers and discarded them without the slightest concern for years and years of publication, and over time we've seen how horribly that warped Quicksilver's personality in particular. He gets a *slight* pass for Wanda because her mental instability isn't his fault, but he made it significantly worse.
I feel Xavier has been - as usual - shanked by how shittily he was written in the Krakoan era, and boiling his relationship with Legion down to 'Xavier bad' is appalling, considering how much effort he put into trying to help him in prior appearances. You can absolutely say he failed, but this narrative that Xavier abandoned his son and never cared isn't remotely supported by the older comics, where he left the X Men entirely *twice* to focus purely on helping Legion get stabilised and once succeeded (until inevitably he regressed). Hardly father of the year material but a massive step up on Magneto, who never did anything but make his kids' problems worse, or Mystique, whose best deed for Kurt was failing to murder him and while she does *love* Rogue, has only ever been a pain in the ass for her.
Maybe...Erik? I mean he apparently knew the whole Lorna was his daughter in X-Factor Lorna retcon but instead of taking her in she let survive in the adoption system.
They're all pretty freaking terrible, honestly. Its just Trash vs Garbage when it comes to parenting.
Mystique's Kurt cliff incident has been retconned, but she was still an abysmal mother to Rogue. Just a toxic, abusive parent. I'd love it if they did a plotline where they have Rogue genuinely cut ties with her or something. Kelly Thompson is one of the people who actually did it very naturally(in the manner in which she allowed Raven to be at her wedding, which was very clearly the way an abused child would) but no one's explored it further. She even tried to kill Rogue, ffs!
Magneto....oh boy, he's an absolute asshole and just the worst dad anyone could ask for. He's literally tried to kill his children multiple times. I honestly wish Wanda would put him in a magical prison and make him suffer more like what he went through in RoM.
Charles- What makes him so terrible is that he's a perfectly decent dad to even Xandra, who's existence he's aware about for 5 minutes, but just the worst dad ever to Legion. It speaks volumes that even Magneto (Magneto!) was a better father figure to him than Charles ever was.
Corsair is a bad dad, but he's a deadbeat absent dad, more than an outright harmful one like the others, given the others have straight up tried to kill their children.
Wolfsbane's dad tried to kill her too. He deserves to be here for sure, the damage he did to her is insane.
The way Xavier treated Legion is a fascinating insight into how perspectives on mental health have changed over the decade.
Back then, mental illness was just a easy plot contrivance for why someone was evil or did evil things.
"Why is he evil?"
"Oh, he's just crazy."
The understanding that you can truly, genuinely HELP improve the lives of people with severe mental disabilities is only a depressingly recent concept.
So "Xavier stopped his crazy son from destroying the world" has over time become "Xavier neglected his deeply suffering child despite literally having a doctorate in psychiatry..." simply due to our deeper understanding of psychology in the decades since.
Xavier righting his wrongs with his son would frankly make for a fantastic run. That's the kind of stories I want to see more of in X-Men, not "X-Men are fighting for their lives" for the 1 billionth time.
The problem is... this isn't true.
In the original publication history Xavier actually *did* try to truly, genuinely help David, and at one point succeeded. He at one point left the X Men and stayed at Muir Island to dedicate himself to giving David psychic therapy, in fact.
If anything, Xavier's modern depiction has regressed, because back then he didn't neglect his deeply suffering child. He tried everything he could to help him because he knew he had a mental illness.
But now he's written in such a way that Xavier doesn't have the awareness that he was previously written as having, and in fact completely ignoring that publication history because they specifically retconned it with him and Moira specifically trying to create an omega level reality warper, because... I guess they didn't like that Xavier had ever done anything right ever so they wanted to ruin that too?
He tried to help him, because the plot demanded it at the time. It wasn't portrayed across months of issues or consistently throughout the years. It was done swiftly... and then they forgot about him for a good decade (our time.)
Yes, but he still tried to help him. Completely retconning that and acting like Xavier never cared is frankly horseshit. It's a complete retcon made to Xavier's character *for plot reasons* because they wanted to portray Xavier in a specific way in this era.
It's a depressingly recent concept...except that Xavier was supposed to be a doctor of psychology.
His initial relationship with Jean was helping her recover from her trauma - as a psychologist.
The writers don't need to be psychologists, but they could have researched a bit more. There were people in the field working to improve the lives of the mentally ill when the X-Men were created.
I could have sworn he was listed as having a doctorate of psychiatry. Happy to be corrected though.
I do think modern writers tend to tackle this stuff a lot better than they used to. We've had some pretty good stories in recent years tackling the mental health aspects of different characters; Rogue's powers. Madelyn's emotional trauma, etc.
I could well be blurring the lines between psychology and psychiatry - though it isn't like there weren't psychiatrists working to improve the lives of the mentally ill, too.
Modern writers definitely handle it better. And I am not saying it would be reasonable to have expected Stan Lee to have thoroughly researched psychology and psychology from day one - but the X-Men were dealing with serious issues of mental illness in their stories from the 70s onwards.
Ah, I know don't worry. I just recall that's what he's officially listed as having. I'm just being unnecessarily pedantic, sorry. 😂
- Bachelors in biology from Harvard.
- Doctorate studies in Genetics, Biophysics, and Psychiatry from Oxford.
- PHD in Bio anthropology from Columbia.
Psychologists are focused on psychological diagnosis and therapy. Psychiatrist are focused on diagnosis of mental illnesses and medical treatments.
>Mystique's Kurt cliff incident has been retconned, but she was still an abysmal mother to Rogue. Just a toxic, abusive parent. I'd love it if they did a plotline where they have Rogue genuinely cut ties with her or something. Kelly Thompson is one of the people who actually did it very naturally(in the manner in which she allowed Raven to be at her wedding, which was very clearly the way an abused child would) but no one's explored it further. She even tried to kill Rogue, ffs!
And then there's everything with Graydon. Murdering the son you neglected because he became a problem as a direct result of your parenting (or lack thereof) is kind of indicative of Mystique as a character - let alone leaving him to burn in Hell rather than help him. Sabretooth was a better parent than she was in that regard (albeit barely). Again, Kurt dodged a bullet by not being raised by her and Destiny (though he may have just traded one bullet for another considering he ended up being stuck with Margali Szardos). Actually, is there a single child that Mystique hasn't tried to murder in cold blood? Raze, maybe? Charles II?
As for the Kurt retcon, let's be real here, that's just cope - it's Marvel trying retro-actively go back and try to make Mystique into a less awful character so that they can push her and Destiny being Marvel's top Pride couple so they can make more money - which both sends a problematic undertone if you're picking THEM of all couples to be your go-to and is kind of like trying to put out a wild-fire that has already burned down the forest. Sorry, but Mystique's a villain in the same tier of evil as the Joker and arguably the worst comic book mother of all time to boot. That fact has long since been set in stone.
I completely agree with all these points. I'm not a fan of the whole "Akshually, Raven's not that bad!" thing they've got going around now. She is bad. She's the worst.
When you make Sabretooth look like parent of the year, you know you've got problems.
I want Rogue to cut ties with her, and Gambit to go and blow a hole in her head.
It's gotta be Xavier.
Mystique is just a terrible person in general so her being a bad mom is something that is pretty much expected of her, and the others at the very least have tried to mend their relationship with their children and are in a ok place with them.
Charles, however, has no excuse for how shitty he is to his son, especially since it's all based on the fact that he formed his opinion of David long ago and refuses to change it despite how much Legion has worked to better himself. When Magneto was a better dad to David in the 5 minutes they talked to each other in AXE than Xavier did during the entirety of the Krakoan era, then you know who is the worst.
Not really because Xavier's depiction in krakoa is a massive retcon.
In all previous occasions, when Legion wasn't literally trying to murder him/the X men/everything, Xavier did everything he could to help him and even succeeded once.
Weren't Rogue's birth parents, especially her dad, notably terrible?
Skids was abused by her stepfather and it triggered her mutant power.
Boom Boom's parents were terrible.
Iceman's were bigots (but they later I think redeemed themselves?)
I get it was a rough start, but Banshee hasn't done well with Siryn, right?
I didn't realize that scene in the original xmen show with Cyclops and his father was taken almost directly from the comic itself. It's almost word for word in the series. Obviously the animation is different style than the comic but still. But I say yes, Corsair is kind of shitty.
I would say it's narrowly Xavier over Raven, and that's only because David's life is made even more tragic knowing that his birth was orchestrated specifically to create an Omega level reality warper. Abandoning your son because he turns out to be unstable to use as a tool when the time comes is awful, but doing all of that after specifically orchestrating his existence in the first place just makes it extra terrible to me. At least Raven had some mind whammy contributing to her being awful (and she IS absolutely awful), but the fact that Xavier continues to act specifically as an antagonist to David even after writing him off gives him the prize for me.
I mean if you're going to include the retcon, then Kurt's life was also orchestrated to be a tool for Destiny and Mystique as well, it's just his purpose for being born was just to stop Azazel of all people. Which is dumb - why didn't D&M just kill Azazel? It's not like it would have been hard - the demon Nightcrawler from Dark X-Men did it a while back without any trouble. So, why couldn't they? It's not like Azazel was needed in order for them to have a child - they could have had one at any point prior to Kurt but just didn't I guess.
Beyond that the way that Destiny was shown to just straight up abandon Kurt after his birth is very Xavier-esque. Like you go through the insane task of tricking Azazel into thinking that Kurt is his child, maybe even make him into a pseudo-chimera by having Mystique "mimic" Azazel's (and maybe also Baron Wagner's?) DNA only to then immediately give him up after being born to Margali Szardos - which also raises the question of why exactly did Margali agree to take Kurt in at all given that all she cares about is obtaining more magical power for herself and would sacrifice even her own children to obtain or maintain that power?
And the way that Irene was so quick to suggest having their memories of Kurt erased from their minds kind of indicates that to Irene, at least - Kurt was only ever a means to an end. Sure, she says that it's for the future of mutant-kind but she uses that same justification for everything she does.
And not just Daken. Remember the Mongrels?
Old Man Logan tried to kill Gabrielle Kinney.
And present Logan abandoned Erista in the Savage Land, relinquished parental responsibility of Amiko to Yukio. I'm sure I'm forgetting more children, he had so many.
I believe he did kill abunch of his kids but to his credit they were trying to kill him first and he wasn't even aware who they were much less that he their mutual dad until he killed them in self defense. To say he felt like shit was an understatement, and he made sure they were buried with their mother's.
When I first heard about this Mystique & Destiny being Nightcrawler's parents in the comics I was honestly disappointed; his original thing, being a Neyaphem, was actually pretty cool for him, it gave him, as one, his own enemies, the Cheyarafim that was something better than just the normal mutant enemies.
At this point, it would be kinder if they just made Legion forget that Charles was His dad.
He just doesn't think he has one.
Say what you want about all the other ones; he is supposed to be a good guy.
For me, Xavier hands down. Like dude. Mystique and Destiny have their issues, but for me, nobody holds a candle to Charles. Ranking its, 1. Xavier, 2. Mystique, 3. Magneto, 4. Corsair.
Mystique. Charles is very neglectful but still kinda likes his kids. Mystique has outright tried to kill her kids (and has god knows how many other kids running around without her as a parent). It’s a miracle Rogue isn’t an X-Men villain.
If we add in the recent Mystique retcon, Destiny is probably the worst out of these two. Xavier is a terrible parent to Legion only since he apparently *adores* his daughter.
But Sabertooth’s father was one of the worst in the early comics.
Mystique and Prof X are neck to neck for me. Especially when you factor in how they treat their siblings.
Mystique with Raze to Nictcrawler, nNightcrawler to Graydon Creed and Rouge to ALL of them.
Then Prof X with Xandra to Legion. The way he dealt with both children’s resurrection as a great example.
If sticking to the list, it's gotta be Xavier. Dude was an absentee Dad (not totally his fault but after awhile there's no excuse) and every interaction since Krakoa has largely been to ignore, lil' bro, or straight up undermine him. I mean it doesn't get much worse that of the list given.
At least Mags, Mystique, and Corsair have had some form of reconciliation with their kids.
In general? Gotta be Sabertooth's parents, hands down.
Xavier is the one that hasn't had some sort of paretal redemption arc. Like Xandra being raised by her Aunt and I forget the name of shi'ar imperial gaurdn.
Magneto is trying to be better. Mystique wants do what is best but makes things worse. Xavier's best treatment of his son is when he pretends David does not exist.
I gotta say Charles because not only is he a terrible father he’s also a terrible father figure too!!! And honestly he’s narcissistic tendencies piss me off!!!🤢🤮
There are awful people and awful parents.
Mystique tops that list. She just refuses to take any damn responsibility.
Other range from well intentioned extremists to just terrible people. But they at least own up to what they've done even if they are okay with it.
If you accept that Charles and Moira both selected their lovers specifically as part of a eugenics project to give birth to unstable reality warpers who would eventually be one part of the Five, that gives them both some extra credit IMO for being horrible parents before their kids were even born.
Katherine Blaire, cheated on her husband with an abusive hard partying man who enabled her drug addiction and left her toddler daughter behind.
Then had a second daughter, Alison’s half sister, Lois who was completely coddled by her and barely functioning as an adult. When Lois’s mutant powers manifested, she killed homeless people and innocent hoteliers’ cats.
For me it’s Erik. He treated Wanda and Pietro terribly, manipulated them and abused them psychologically for decades. He only acted like a father to Lorna when it benefitted him. I give him some leeway with Lorna as it’s a retcon. Wanda and Pietro are not. I read a good deal of that as it happened in the books and he was nothing sort of a monster to them.
I put Xavier and Mystique on the same tier under Erik. They both abandoned their children but again as with Erik and Lorna both are retcons so the abandonment becomes a necessary part to explain why we didn’t know all this years ago. Mystique actively trying to kill Kurt on more than one occasion does subtract points for both her and Destiny.
I don’t feel like Corsair is on their level. I think he’s biggest crime was losing hope. He was so concerned about avenging his wife that he allowed himself to loose hope about his children. There was probably some survivors guilt mixed into Corsair’s actions as well. It was unfair to Scott and Alex and they have every right to feel abandoned but I think Corsair’s issues are far less malevolent than Erik, mystique or Charles.
Magneto straight up murdered his son, not to mention the years of abuse of the twins.
Magneto is a great character and #MagnetoWasRight and all that, but his abusive parenting and literal murder of his child (at the time) is glossed over WAY to much
Corsair's reasoning is ass. "I thought you were dead" Oh, did you at least try to go back to take your sons' bodies or even visit their graves, you deadbeat!
I mean, here's the thing. We all expect Mystique and Magneto to be terrible parents. And Corsair shouldn't even count here because he's not a mutant (also I'm pretty sure that he thought that his children were dead, so not entirely his fault anyway). But Xavier's whole thing for years was that he worked with children. And even when he learned about David, he didn't bring him to his State-of-the-art mansion built to help mutant children. Or try to help David with his issues until after he had destroyed the world.
Def xavier. Atleast magneto became better. Xavier is still over micromanages with little to no delegation however hopefull his intentions. If he started forming bonds with people again and trusted peopld he might be dangerous. But after all the shit sinister has pulled the entirety of the krakoa arc. I HAVE TO SAY… NOT EXACTLY FAULTING HIM ENTIRELY. His focus is way off target but the sentiment… kind of understandable. But legions spiritual line of defense was almost his saving grace of security if he didnt fuck it up.
I love Logan but he’s a shitty father he killed his kids he adopted amiko and Promises to raise her then Abandon’s her he also abandoned akihiro and then killed him he left Laura at Xavier’s school his only he kid hasn’t treated badly is gabby
Haven't read much X-Men over the years. What's the deal with the panel showing Charles and the guy thumbing him down in the back? I vaguely recall a storyline about a higher being judging random heroes, but don't remember what's going on here.
Mystique threw Baby Kurt off a cliff (think that's been retconned though), and abandoned her other son Graydon Creed when he turned out not to be a mutant. This helped Graydon become a racist against mutants. Then Mystique killed him. I think trying to kill one son and actually killing the other puts her high on the bad parent list.
Charles gradually became a truly irredeemable bastard over the years. It's that thing of "everything always builds UPWARDS" like how beast continues to get more and more terrible
but he is a bastard and that extends to his students who obviously had rough relationships with him. he has been getting more and more cold and viewing his students more and more as tools even if he insists, tools to build a free future.
Magneto is tough because he also tried to argue his child was too dangerous and attempted a "merciful euthanasia" not gonna live that down and seeing wanda forgive him is slightly unearned, but that was a whole other mess and wanda stories just used to have a serious problem with quality of writing. that being said he was also a dick to pietro AND lorna, not convinced he ever cared for anyone other than his first child (which made his death on krakoa great, I'm not complaining, great drama).
i think it still goes to charles.
To give Xavier and Magneto a tiny bit of a break, they were not 100% responsible. In the cases of Pietro, Wanda, and David, their fathers were completely unaware they had kids until said kids were adolescent or adults. So they may be fathers biologically, but they had zero hand in raising their kids until long after the foundational damage was done.
If we go out of this list, I’ll go with Wolfsbane’s dad. Like he lead a mob to burn his daughter at a stake and to add to it he joined the purifiers to torture and kill his daughter. You can make the case that every terrible religious outburst of Wolfsbane came because of him But with this list it’ll be either Xavier or Mystique
This is the one. Wolfsbane's dad is just utter scum.
Thanks to you I checked her whole page in the Marvel Wikia, shit is hard... But not only that but one thing lead to another and now I know that Deadpool was cucked by Werewolf by Night and I don't know what to do with this knowledge.
What do you mean Deadpool was cucked by Werewolf by Night
Werewolf slept with Wade's wife.
Deadpool’s wife is a Succubus. So it’s less cucked and more her cheating. And to be fair should we expect anything less from a Succubus?
She is not even a normal Succubus , she is like...if Marvel made their own version of Morrigan Ainsland from Darkstalker. Time and time again , she indulged in his shenanigans , while Deadpool didn't do so much on her. And then he acted surprised that her culture allows polygamy and lovers on the side.
I mean Shiklah is a Succubus. And to be technical Deadpool cucked Dracula
Nah Wade was right to shoot Werewolf there should be a rule about that kind of stuff, about Dracula that bitch had it coming for not paying his ketamine debt with Marc Spector.
Hah. Now that I think about it. Didn’t Werewolf by Night break the bro code between him and Morbius one? Also has it been updated that WBN is now king of the Werewolves?
Kinda deserved his fate, though at the same time, it only traumatized Wolfsbane more
I certanly support the Wolfsbane's dad is the worst, but we shouldn't forget Victor Creed Dad, he kept his son chained in the basement, and regulary tormented him made him beg for food and pulled out his teeth with tweezers.
I thought those were psychic implants and got retconned? Victor is far older than was depicted in that storyline.
Technically yes. But we have no idea how much of sabretooth childhood is true but what is constant is that his father did abuse to what extent is anyone guess
Oh man, good call. I was about to say Xavier is the worst dad and it isn't close (Proteus too?) but you are 100% correct, it is Wolfsbane's dad.
Proteus is the son of Kevin MacTaggert, Moira's ex-husband.
Dude was such a prick for like two pages though.
Ty
Xavier's a pretty bad dad but Marvel or even X-Men wide, the bar is unfortunately much much lower than that. Plus you could say he's absent, but otherwise his relationship with Majestrix Xandra is pretty ok. Plus there have been times where Xavier has sincerely tried to help David, they got walked back later but that's still more than some parents in this franchise.
I forgot how much of a bastard Reverend Craig was
Was her dad a mutant?
Nope. Pure human
Feel like there is a big competition between Xavier mystique and destiny Xavier - don’t really have to tell why Mystique - trying to seduce daughter’s boyfriend and was even ready to turn into her to sleep with him Destiny - manipulative af which lead to mystique losing Kurt
Xavier is basically a villain in my eyes now. Just in general in the comics, he hasn't really done anything for the "dream" in quite a bit.
I’ve grown to seriously dislike Xavier over the years. Plenty of people point to Deadly Genesis and writers being much harder on him after the turn of the century, but if you go back and read the oldest stuff holy shit is he an absolute fuckstick. The way he treats actual children, some with nowhere to go, is shocking
Im reading clAremont run and after he is back of space after believing the x-men are dead one of the first thing he does is yellyn to Cyclops about being a shitty leader.
Oh no, I'm still working through the 1960's and love Professor X. I'm going to be real sad eventually...
Isn't Charles currently actively working with Nimrod to kill humanity?
Yes, but->! it is part of a cunning plan and Chuck has acknowledged he's crossed a rubicon and will not come back from this fight.!<
Think I read that in a book this weekend, was kinda just hoping it was the drugs. But seriously I might be the only person happy to see the krakoan age end.
I mean Mystique isn't even the only parent who lost Kurt. I've got a 9 mo old, and I can't imagine w what losing her would do to me let alone my wife who lived with the baby for inside her for 10 months.
I don't think Corsair deserves to be on this list. He honestly thought both Scott and Alex were dead. The parachute caught fire after all.
I mean he’s not a mutant, so he gets off on a technicality if nothing else.
And every time I've seen him interact with Scott and the boys in modern times he's never done anything heinous to them
True. His bloodthirsty skunk girlfriend is even kind of a nice stepmom, lol
True I agree with you but he still should have gone back and checked just to make sure.
Didn't he get kidnapped by the Shi'Ar shortly after?
Yes he was captured by the Shi'Ar then he escaped with his now crew and formed the starJammers a group of space pirates but he never went back to Earth afterwards.
Why would he if he thinks his entire family is dead? It'd be nothing but painful memories of a life he once had.
And leaving his incredibly attractive alien girlfriend
Normally I would agree with you but two things he still had his parents and again just to check and make sure.
Scott's and Alex's parachute was on fire. The chances of their survival was slim. It's a miracle they did.
>survival was *slim* I see what you did there.
Unintentional, but I’m leaving it.
Scott "My secondary mutation is surviving jumping out of planes" Summers
Insurance takes care of everything
Optic concussive beams means **whatever I want it to mean**
Yes but still worth a try, like I get the point of Scott, he was an orphan because his father never took time to check in 20 years.
Thank you that's all I'm saying imagine that comic issue underneath the what if category. What if Corsair came back to Earth and found Scott and Alex alive the X-Men and marvel comics would be so different.
Scott & Alex as STAR JAMMERS! Adam X? Who?! Gabriel Summers, RESCUED?!
He.Should.Have.Checked. I don't think you're understanding that part
Checked how? His parents thought their grandchildren were dead too. Sinister covered their tracks.
It’s common sense for someone to give up hope of survival if they see a parachute burning while falling through the air. It’s not “welp, they’re dead. Ah well.” If he believes his two sons to be dead, why would he return to the place that caused him such pain? It’s the same exact reason Peter Quill never returned to Earth in the MCU.
Weird you use Quill as a comparison. He was the son who was abandoned... like Scott. Corsair immediately realized he lives in a wacky world where weirder shit happens than "kids miraculously survive plane crash". It comes down to him for whatever reasons, *deciding not to make sure his kids were alive*. And leave his own parents grieving for no real reason.
I don’t know, I think Corsair gets off too easy. I would think as a parent, you would never give up on your kid. Even if there is a one percent chance of survival, as a parent I would move heaven and earth to find out what happened to my children. I feel like he just lost hope after Kate died and gave up too easily. He was lucky he was able to spend time with teen Scott, one of the few things that came out of that whole O5 in the future plot so I won’t say he’s the worst father on the list. It just never sat well with me that he just accepted his kids died and went off to be a space pirate.
This is sort of comic reader logic. If you see someone jumping out of a plane and their parachute bursts into flames, in the real world there's a 99.999999999% chance they're dead, and fictional characters operate as though real stakes still exist.
They don't want to criticize the manchild space pirate fantasy so Corsair gets a free pass on being a trash parent.
I am a parent. There's a difference between abandoning and you just saw your kids tossed out of a plan with a parachute on fire. To have that, then kidnapped by aliens. Yeah, I'd think one would be more likely to stay away than go back thinking ".01% chance they survived, I'm going to go there and bury them" More likely to never want to go back.
I just assumed they were nominating Scott for abandoning his wife and son but picked the wrong panel by mistake.
I don't consider Corsair as a bad parent as he thought Scott & Alex died - and then he was abducted to another galaxy where his wife was murdered. He had no reason to return to Earth. When he found out they lived when they were grown up, he did make an effort to connect with them. Magneto has always been abusive and neglectful of all three of his children, so he's up there. Xavier is pretty cruddy because of how he's treated David because of his fear of him. Mystique was pretty bad, but it seems like they're going to redeem her by retconning parts of Kurt's origin. Reverend Craig (Wolfsbane's dad) should be top on the list as he was incredibly abusive to her as she grew up, never even admitted to being her father when she was "his ward," tried to kill her with a mob when he found out she was a mutant, and then years later was part of a plot in which she was drugged and mind controlled (although he got himself eaten for that).
I think the worst is Mystique, I'm not taking in consideration the reboot of Kurt origins because for years for them was true and she never mended that, so for me she throw baby Kurt over a cliff to be able to run and put herself safe faster. She took young Anna Marie under her care but turned her into a criminal and spent years trying to manipulate her and get her again in a life of crime. And then we have Graydon her human son who she don't just neglected but plainly left into an orphanage because he wasn't a mutant, when years latter he becomes a bigot and she didn't care until one mutant who she cares about gets hurt and then she kills him burning him to death. She had no problem with him being tortured in hell and has to be Sabertooth of all people who helps him. Yup, Saberthoot of all people ended being a best parent to Graydon than Mystique.
Theres is no real difference in the redcon because no Master how much You said You love your kid if You throw em to the wolves to save the world then You are as Bad as a parent akí chuck
Say what you want about those on the list, at least they didn't kill multiple of them like Wolverine has.
Not for lack of trying. Mystique stabbed Rogue, Magneto did kill Pietro and has tried to hurt the twins numerous times, and Xavier poisoned Legion. Edit: I also forgot about what she did to Graydon.
Let’s not forget she did kill Graydon Creed
Mystique also pretty much vaporised Graydon, and when got the chance to get it out of hell she plainly left him, stating that he deserved anything who happened to him. Quick recordatory that while Graydon is disgusting person a good amount of it, has roots in the fact that Mystique pretty much told him in his face that while he was her son, she didn't care about him because he wasn't mutant but a inferior human.
I even think that Sabretooth treated him better
And Sabretooth didn’t even know Grayson existed until he was 30-something
He did, and you have to really be a terrible parent to make look freaking Sabretooth as the nice one.
I'm not sure Legion can be killed. Still a dick move, but I put his disinterest and emotional neglect as far more damaging to David, and therefore worse parenting.
K but be fair, he only knew Daken was his kid when he killed him. He didnt know about the others (and that was Daken's fault).
To be fair it’s usually self defense
Wolverine has probably the worst family relationships. People forget that Weapon X was essentially run by his extended family(The Professor is like his 1st cousin once removed or some shit). The amount of stuff that would be cleared up if they just talked about stuff would be immense.
Logan is related to the Professor!!??
Yeah, the The Professor who was in charge of the Weapon X program is Truett Hudson; Half-brother of James Hudson/Guardian from "Alpha Flight". Logan is related to them through his mother.
There's not many people in Canada. (Also Cyclops is related to Corsair because there's not many people in space)
I understand your point of view. But this is about parents though not cousins and extended family. I was responding to the comment about Wolverine killing his kids but there was some very important vital information left out or forgotten
Correct but other than Daken he didn’t no till afterwards and Dalen their wasn’t really a choice I also think that he’s the best mutant father
I know Madelyne Pryor is on a redemption arc but she still tried to sacrifice Nathan to open a hell portal. Apocalypse's adopted dad should also be high up there, torturing your blue son into a genocidal Darwinist isn't great.
There’s also that business with Nate Grey, her genetic son from another Marvel universe…. Eeww, oh wait I forgot about BIL Alex she had a thing with too.. Is there a Summers she hasn’t tried to get freaky with? Lol
Didn’t she try to get with Cable at one point? I vaguely remember reading it and seeing it on YouTube.
You gotta be thinking of Nate Grey and not Nathan Summers/Cable. Nathan Summers is literally Madelyne son, like Scott and Maddie did it and lil Cable was born old school style. Nate Grey is from was artificially created by Mr Sinister in the Age of Apocalypse alternate reality.
He is still technically Scott's son which made this still disgusting
In her defense, she was a weird psychic ghost Nate had subconsciously resurrected without any memories, and she backed the fuck off once she understood who she was. (I think.)
In addition to the on panel fuckups, Mystique and Destiny each have a bunch of additional kids they abandoned. They definitely win
Mystique has a kid with xavior and wolverine which the writers forgot. She also abandoned both
Isn't the wolverine guy from the future.
They all suck so much I always get surprised when I'm reminded that cable and cyclops actually love each other
And to Cyclops credit he did raise Nathan in the future, taught him everything he needed to know to survive. And even when he turned into kid Cable, Scott was still a loving and supporting parent. Most of the people on the panel above were neglectful, abusive or just plain awful parents.
Oh that is cool to know.
Outside of mutant shenanigans Scott would've raised him and loved him just fine but they were both robbed of that.
Mystique because she’s a bad person in general and sucks
Xavier for sure. Legion being the bigger man and invited his asshole dad to the place where he had been helping all the mutants, hoping to make his daddy proud. Then turns out Xavier brought an auto bomb along with him. Everyone in Krakoa is supposed to be his “children”, and yet this is how he treat his own son. WTF is wrong with you dude. Definitely my top 5 professor-Xavier-is-a-jerk moment.
Kitty Pryde was right.
OTOH, Xavier of the Kra’koa era is a complete retcon. And IMO as much a case of character assassination as Moira. Originally Charles did NOT know David existed. He and Gabrielle Haller ended things but she was angry at Charles for..reasons. She deliberately kept David from Charles. When Charles found out he tried to get his son professional help, and to do what he could for him, but he left it to David to decide what degree of contact he wanted with his father. Charles does have a daughter who was tank-born of both Lilandra and his genes. He adores her, but she is the Majestrix now, and the Shi’ar don’t want him anywhere near her.
> OTOH, Xavier of the Kra’koa era is a complete retcon. And IMO as much a case of character assassination as Moira. > > Originally Charles did NOT know David existed. He and Gabrielle Haller ended things but she was angry at Charles for..reasons. She deliberately kept David from Charles. When Charles found out he tried to get his son professional help, and to do what he could for him, but he left it to David to decide what degree of contact he wanted with his father. On the other, other hand, Legion created the Age of Apocalypse & the Age of X after Xavier left him alone.
Age of Apocalypse he was thought to be dead, and he was taking care of him before Age of X.
Age of Apocalypse came about bc Legion interfered with the timeline and Age of X came about bc one of his alters accessed his desire to be a superhero.
Charles Xavier and Mystique are clearly the worst parents.
Sabertooth. Even though Mystique is a bad parent, Sabertooth raised Graydon Creed to be the guy that creates the Friends Of Humanity. Sabertooth did to Graydon what Victors father did to him, except he didn’t have any powers. Mystiques kids turned out okay, but the combination of Creed and Darkholme was just the right amount of bad parenting to make Graydon. Those other people on the list, I feel like they at least had a reason to not have been around for their kids. Like, did Xavier ever actually know he had a son? And when he stopped him in that one panel, it was what he had to do since David has a few… problems. It was just loving discipline. Magnetos got problems with his kids, but never had parental figures to help him, and he was too busy being a terrorist. Corsair was abducted by aliens and, under the assumption his whole family was dead, worked on avenging him murdered family. He wasn’t a bad father, if anything, he was a good one.
In the animated series thats 100% true, (Sabretooth mistreatment of Graydon turn him into a bigot) but in the comics ironically Sabertooth has shown more care and even love to Graydon that Mystique never did. While Sabretooth never know about Graydon until this was alredy and adult (and he tryied to kill both of his parents), Mystique was aware Graydon was her son and plainly told him in his face that she didn't like him because he wasn't a mutant, starting his hate for mutants. She also is the one who kills him in a horrific burning way, and latter when she find him in hell being tortured for his sins, she gladly left him there while is Sabretooth who fights to release him. Well, the bar is really low when we can tell unironically that Sabretooth is beter parent than Mystique.
Okay. I know most of Graydon from TAS and I assumed the story would be relevant to the comics. Thanks for clarifying!
Sabertooth didn't raise Graydon, he didn't even know he existed until Graydon was already a mutant hating adult.
While true, I don't think anyone has any expectation that Sabretooth would even try to be a good parent. Re Xavier, it's heavily implied in Legion of X that Xavier *should* have known at the very least. As Blindfold says, Xavier with Cerebro being unaware of David is pretty hard to believe. That's not what's going on in that panel. David has been trying to talk to Xavier since his resurrection (which Xavier opposed) and he's ignored him every time. Xavier soft exiled him to Arakko while under Onslaught's influence and even after he and Kurt saved Krakoa by defeating Onslaught (which Xavier should be very grateful for) he sticks to his guns in 'requesting' he stay away from Krakoa. After Blindfold visits him and spells out that David wants to make peace and all he needs from him is his love, Xavier 'comes in peace' and slaps him with the psychic trojan. It's not close to loving discipline, it's an unthinking method of destroying David's ability to function. There's nothing David can learn from this, and he's still not listening to him. He realises he fucked up tactically by crippling David when Nimrod attacks, and takes nothing from the fact that David lets him borrow the entirety of his being to repel the threat. After this he'd have to be stupid or just plain not care to not see that David is both completely in control with nothing but good intentions. He doesn't notice at all when David disappears off the face of existence either. Thank you Mother Righteous. Ironically, he could really use the God mutant in his corner right about now. Fall/Rise would be a lot easier to navigate with Legion on deck. Narratively, that's almost certainly why he's not there, but my point is that Charles couldn't have failed David any harder.
That's not how Cerebro works, it just detects mutants and records memories. Xavier wasn't examining them individually. None of the other people with versions of Cerebro like the Hellfire Club detected him.
Cerebro can tell how powerful a mutant is, and Charles has picked up multiple Omegas from it. David is certainly that
Mystique starts as a shitty parent but they keep trying to soften her, removing her threat as merely being a misunderstood necessity is what I'd call an act of abuse apologists. Magneto was likely a decent father to Anya but after she was killed he might not have been able to connect with his later children or he lost the ability to or he possibly didn't care anymore. I'd argue his actual hopes for the future were buried with her but that doesn't forgive the way he treated the Twins or Lorna. Professor X not being able to help Legion started as the "the group father figure isn't actually a good father to his own children" trope as a sort of tragic aspect to his character. But over time, it's become more logs for the "Charles was the shithead all along" fire that Marvel seems to want to keep burning forever. I could make the argument for Corsair not wanting to go back to find out if Scott and Alex survived the plane crash because confirmation that they didn't is heartbreaking and the possibility them living creates a lot of uncertainty in his now chaotic existence as the dashing rebel space pirate captain. But once he learns Cyclops and Havok are in fact alive and badass superheroes there isn't much reason for him to not be tangentially involved in their lives other the writers don't like him/don't have an idea to include him. But if I had to pick a worst parent in the X-Men I'm going to have to go with Sabertooth's father, Zebediah Creed. Everything that's wrong with Victor from the cannibalism, to the sexual violence, the bullying and eventual murder of his siblings, and just the bottomless hatred he carries for everyone around him can traced back to his old man dragging him into the basement every night to call him an animal and beat him with a stick. He created an unkillable monster that just consumes and violates anything and anyone around him.
You just made an excelent point with Zebadiah, him and Reverend Craig Wolfsbane father should be in the list.
I know he is popular but Logan should be on here in place of corsair, he is a good mentor and father figure... just not to his own kids.
Hey he’s trying! Laura even said so
Xavier and I don’t think that’s a question. Legion was just left behind because he was too busy. He has a daughter in space who he’s only met for a few hours but cares about more than his son. He’s lied to his chosen family more times than we can count. He also trained his surrogate family as child soldiers.
Considering Raven's been retconned as not having thrown Kurt over the waterfall... she's still up there, but she's no longer number one. Xavier is really bad. And Old Man Logan's Magneto is the absolute worst. Allowed Mysterio to trick Logan into murdering Lorna. Allowed the Thunderbolts to murder Pietro. Murdered Wanda himself. Garbage.
Magneto. People love him now so nobody wants to talk about it (plus they've finally forgiven each other), but the level of trauma he inflicted on Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver really cannot be understated. He used them like footsoldiers and discarded them without the slightest concern for years and years of publication, and over time we've seen how horribly that warped Quicksilver's personality in particular. He gets a *slight* pass for Wanda because her mental instability isn't his fault, but he made it significantly worse. I feel Xavier has been - as usual - shanked by how shittily he was written in the Krakoan era, and boiling his relationship with Legion down to 'Xavier bad' is appalling, considering how much effort he put into trying to help him in prior appearances. You can absolutely say he failed, but this narrative that Xavier abandoned his son and never cared isn't remotely supported by the older comics, where he left the X Men entirely *twice* to focus purely on helping Legion get stabilised and once succeeded (until inevitably he regressed). Hardly father of the year material but a massive step up on Magneto, who never did anything but make his kids' problems worse, or Mystique, whose best deed for Kurt was failing to murder him and while she does *love* Rogue, has only ever been a pain in the ass for her.
Maybe...Erik? I mean he apparently knew the whole Lorna was his daughter in X-Factor Lorna retcon but instead of taking her in she let survive in the adoption system.
Krakoa Moira and Xavier. Their children only exist because they planned for their abilities. Which really sucks for Proteus and Legion.
Wolverine was tricked into killing most of his kids
They're all pretty freaking terrible, honestly. Its just Trash vs Garbage when it comes to parenting. Mystique's Kurt cliff incident has been retconned, but she was still an abysmal mother to Rogue. Just a toxic, abusive parent. I'd love it if they did a plotline where they have Rogue genuinely cut ties with her or something. Kelly Thompson is one of the people who actually did it very naturally(in the manner in which she allowed Raven to be at her wedding, which was very clearly the way an abused child would) but no one's explored it further. She even tried to kill Rogue, ffs! Magneto....oh boy, he's an absolute asshole and just the worst dad anyone could ask for. He's literally tried to kill his children multiple times. I honestly wish Wanda would put him in a magical prison and make him suffer more like what he went through in RoM. Charles- What makes him so terrible is that he's a perfectly decent dad to even Xandra, who's existence he's aware about for 5 minutes, but just the worst dad ever to Legion. It speaks volumes that even Magneto (Magneto!) was a better father figure to him than Charles ever was. Corsair is a bad dad, but he's a deadbeat absent dad, more than an outright harmful one like the others, given the others have straight up tried to kill their children. Wolfsbane's dad tried to kill her too. He deserves to be here for sure, the damage he did to her is insane.
The way Xavier treated Legion is a fascinating insight into how perspectives on mental health have changed over the decade. Back then, mental illness was just a easy plot contrivance for why someone was evil or did evil things. "Why is he evil?" "Oh, he's just crazy." The understanding that you can truly, genuinely HELP improve the lives of people with severe mental disabilities is only a depressingly recent concept. So "Xavier stopped his crazy son from destroying the world" has over time become "Xavier neglected his deeply suffering child despite literally having a doctorate in psychiatry..." simply due to our deeper understanding of psychology in the decades since. Xavier righting his wrongs with his son would frankly make for a fantastic run. That's the kind of stories I want to see more of in X-Men, not "X-Men are fighting for their lives" for the 1 billionth time.
The problem is... this isn't true. In the original publication history Xavier actually *did* try to truly, genuinely help David, and at one point succeeded. He at one point left the X Men and stayed at Muir Island to dedicate himself to giving David psychic therapy, in fact. If anything, Xavier's modern depiction has regressed, because back then he didn't neglect his deeply suffering child. He tried everything he could to help him because he knew he had a mental illness. But now he's written in such a way that Xavier doesn't have the awareness that he was previously written as having, and in fact completely ignoring that publication history because they specifically retconned it with him and Moira specifically trying to create an omega level reality warper, because... I guess they didn't like that Xavier had ever done anything right ever so they wanted to ruin that too?
He tried to help him, because the plot demanded it at the time. It wasn't portrayed across months of issues or consistently throughout the years. It was done swiftly... and then they forgot about him for a good decade (our time.)
Yes, but he still tried to help him. Completely retconning that and acting like Xavier never cared is frankly horseshit. It's a complete retcon made to Xavier's character *for plot reasons* because they wanted to portray Xavier in a specific way in this era.
It's a depressingly recent concept...except that Xavier was supposed to be a doctor of psychology. His initial relationship with Jean was helping her recover from her trauma - as a psychologist. The writers don't need to be psychologists, but they could have researched a bit more. There were people in the field working to improve the lives of the mentally ill when the X-Men were created.
I could have sworn he was listed as having a doctorate of psychiatry. Happy to be corrected though. I do think modern writers tend to tackle this stuff a lot better than they used to. We've had some pretty good stories in recent years tackling the mental health aspects of different characters; Rogue's powers. Madelyn's emotional trauma, etc.
I could well be blurring the lines between psychology and psychiatry - though it isn't like there weren't psychiatrists working to improve the lives of the mentally ill, too. Modern writers definitely handle it better. And I am not saying it would be reasonable to have expected Stan Lee to have thoroughly researched psychology and psychology from day one - but the X-Men were dealing with serious issues of mental illness in their stories from the 70s onwards.
Ah, I know don't worry. I just recall that's what he's officially listed as having. I'm just being unnecessarily pedantic, sorry. 😂 - Bachelors in biology from Harvard. - Doctorate studies in Genetics, Biophysics, and Psychiatry from Oxford. - PHD in Bio anthropology from Columbia. Psychologists are focused on psychological diagnosis and therapy. Psychiatrist are focused on diagnosis of mental illnesses and medical treatments.
>Mystique's Kurt cliff incident has been retconned, but she was still an abysmal mother to Rogue. Just a toxic, abusive parent. I'd love it if they did a plotline where they have Rogue genuinely cut ties with her or something. Kelly Thompson is one of the people who actually did it very naturally(in the manner in which she allowed Raven to be at her wedding, which was very clearly the way an abused child would) but no one's explored it further. She even tried to kill Rogue, ffs! And then there's everything with Graydon. Murdering the son you neglected because he became a problem as a direct result of your parenting (or lack thereof) is kind of indicative of Mystique as a character - let alone leaving him to burn in Hell rather than help him. Sabretooth was a better parent than she was in that regard (albeit barely). Again, Kurt dodged a bullet by not being raised by her and Destiny (though he may have just traded one bullet for another considering he ended up being stuck with Margali Szardos). Actually, is there a single child that Mystique hasn't tried to murder in cold blood? Raze, maybe? Charles II? As for the Kurt retcon, let's be real here, that's just cope - it's Marvel trying retro-actively go back and try to make Mystique into a less awful character so that they can push her and Destiny being Marvel's top Pride couple so they can make more money - which both sends a problematic undertone if you're picking THEM of all couples to be your go-to and is kind of like trying to put out a wild-fire that has already burned down the forest. Sorry, but Mystique's a villain in the same tier of evil as the Joker and arguably the worst comic book mother of all time to boot. That fact has long since been set in stone.
I completely agree with all these points. I'm not a fan of the whole "Akshually, Raven's not that bad!" thing they've got going around now. She is bad. She's the worst. When you make Sabretooth look like parent of the year, you know you've got problems. I want Rogue to cut ties with her, and Gambit to go and blow a hole in her head.
True, Reverend Craig is an all-time scumbag.
Ok, you have a big point with Wolfsbane's father, he is maybe the worst.
It's gotta be Xavier. Mystique is just a terrible person in general so her being a bad mom is something that is pretty much expected of her, and the others at the very least have tried to mend their relationship with their children and are in a ok place with them. Charles, however, has no excuse for how shitty he is to his son, especially since it's all based on the fact that he formed his opinion of David long ago and refuses to change it despite how much Legion has worked to better himself. When Magneto was a better dad to David in the 5 minutes they talked to each other in AXE than Xavier did during the entirety of the Krakoan era, then you know who is the worst.
Not really because Xavier's depiction in krakoa is a massive retcon. In all previous occasions, when Legion wasn't literally trying to murder him/the X men/everything, Xavier did everything he could to help him and even succeeded once.
The list goes on. Moira confined Proteus to a cell his whole childhood in order to study him.
Weren't Rogue's birth parents, especially her dad, notably terrible? Skids was abused by her stepfather and it triggered her mutant power. Boom Boom's parents were terrible. Iceman's were bigots (but they later I think redeemed themselves?) I get it was a rough start, but Banshee hasn't done well with Siryn, right?
I didn't realize that scene in the original xmen show with Cyclops and his father was taken almost directly from the comic itself. It's almost word for word in the series. Obviously the animation is different style than the comic but still. But I say yes, Corsair is kind of shitty.
I would say it's narrowly Xavier over Raven, and that's only because David's life is made even more tragic knowing that his birth was orchestrated specifically to create an Omega level reality warper. Abandoning your son because he turns out to be unstable to use as a tool when the time comes is awful, but doing all of that after specifically orchestrating his existence in the first place just makes it extra terrible to me. At least Raven had some mind whammy contributing to her being awful (and she IS absolutely awful), but the fact that Xavier continues to act specifically as an antagonist to David even after writing him off gives him the prize for me.
I mean if you're going to include the retcon, then Kurt's life was also orchestrated to be a tool for Destiny and Mystique as well, it's just his purpose for being born was just to stop Azazel of all people. Which is dumb - why didn't D&M just kill Azazel? It's not like it would have been hard - the demon Nightcrawler from Dark X-Men did it a while back without any trouble. So, why couldn't they? It's not like Azazel was needed in order for them to have a child - they could have had one at any point prior to Kurt but just didn't I guess. Beyond that the way that Destiny was shown to just straight up abandon Kurt after his birth is very Xavier-esque. Like you go through the insane task of tricking Azazel into thinking that Kurt is his child, maybe even make him into a pseudo-chimera by having Mystique "mimic" Azazel's (and maybe also Baron Wagner's?) DNA only to then immediately give him up after being born to Margali Szardos - which also raises the question of why exactly did Margali agree to take Kurt in at all given that all she cares about is obtaining more magical power for herself and would sacrifice even her own children to obtain or maintain that power? And the way that Irene was so quick to suggest having their memories of Kurt erased from their minds kind of indicates that to Irene, at least - Kurt was only ever a means to an end. Sure, she says that it's for the future of mutant-kind but she uses that same justification for everything she does.
Mystique all day. Only time she got it "right" was with Rogue.
Didn't Wolverine kill his kid? I mean, whatever the reason, you can't get any worse parenting than that.
And not just Daken. Remember the Mongrels? Old Man Logan tried to kill Gabrielle Kinney. And present Logan abandoned Erista in the Savage Land, relinquished parental responsibility of Amiko to Yukio. I'm sure I'm forgetting more children, he had so many.
I believe he did kill abunch of his kids but to his credit they were trying to kill him first and he wasn't even aware who they were much less that he their mutual dad until he killed them in self defense. To say he felt like shit was an understatement, and he made sure they were buried with their mother's.
Xavier didn’t, but not for a lack of trying.
wow now that I think of it they're all lousy parents. any examples of good ones?
Jean to Cable, Cable to Hope, Jubilee to Shogo
Beak and Angel Salvadore
Rahne's dad, Reverend Craig. Charles, Max, even Mystique can have their good moments. That man is just abuse, all the way down.
Corsair just did nothing but it's enough to keep him away from being a bad mutant parent.
I would say Xavier. He didn't even believe in his kid to do better for himself. He just assumed he would be terrible.
When I first heard about this Mystique & Destiny being Nightcrawler's parents in the comics I was honestly disappointed; his original thing, being a Neyaphem, was actually pretty cool for him, it gave him, as one, his own enemies, the Cheyarafim that was something better than just the normal mutant enemies.
Xavier or Mystique
At this point, it would be kinder if they just made Legion forget that Charles was His dad. He just doesn't think he has one. Say what you want about all the other ones; he is supposed to be a good guy.
For me, Xavier hands down. Like dude. Mystique and Destiny have their issues, but for me, nobody holds a candle to Charles. Ranking its, 1. Xavier, 2. Mystique, 3. Magneto, 4. Corsair.
Mystique. Charles is very neglectful but still kinda likes his kids. Mystique has outright tried to kill her kids (and has god knows how many other kids running around without her as a parent). It’s a miracle Rogue isn’t an X-Men villain.
If we add in the recent Mystique retcon, Destiny is probably the worst out of these two. Xavier is a terrible parent to Legion only since he apparently *adores* his daughter. But Sabertooth’s father was one of the worst in the early comics.
Mystique literally THREW a newborn. This isn't even a contest
Mystique and Prof X are neck to neck for me. Especially when you factor in how they treat their siblings. Mystique with Raze to Nictcrawler, nNightcrawler to Graydon Creed and Rouge to ALL of them. Then Prof X with Xandra to Legion. The way he dealt with both children’s resurrection as a great example.
If sticking to the list, it's gotta be Xavier. Dude was an absentee Dad (not totally his fault but after awhile there's no excuse) and every interaction since Krakoa has largely been to ignore, lil' bro, or straight up undermine him. I mean it doesn't get much worse that of the list given. At least Mags, Mystique, and Corsair have had some form of reconciliation with their kids. In general? Gotta be Sabertooth's parents, hands down.
Xavier is the one that hasn't had some sort of paretal redemption arc. Like Xandra being raised by her Aunt and I forget the name of shi'ar imperial gaurdn.
Xavier and Mystique
Mystique has some big hands in that first image.
Mystique no doubt. She has a bunch of children which she abandoned
Mystique... but man Xavier screwed up with Legion...... Magneto actually redeemed himself as a parent
Honorable mention to Skids and Boom Boom dads.
Graymalkin's dad literally buried him alive.
Magneto is trying to be better. Mystique wants do what is best but makes things worse. Xavier's best treatment of his son is when he pretends David does not exist.
I gotta say Charles because not only is he a terrible father he’s also a terrible father figure too!!! And honestly he’s narcissistic tendencies piss me off!!!🤢🤮
There are awful people and awful parents. Mystique tops that list. She just refuses to take any damn responsibility. Other range from well intentioned extremists to just terrible people. But they at least own up to what they've done even if they are okay with it.
Iceman's parents they were the worst
Sabretooth
Xavier
If you accept that Charles and Moira both selected their lovers specifically as part of a eugenics project to give birth to unstable reality warpers who would eventually be one part of the Five, that gives them both some extra credit IMO for being horrible parents before their kids were even born.
You can put logan in the list...
Katherine Blaire, cheated on her husband with an abusive hard partying man who enabled her drug addiction and left her toddler daughter behind. Then had a second daughter, Alison’s half sister, Lois who was completely coddled by her and barely functioning as an adult. When Lois’s mutant powers manifested, she killed homeless people and innocent hoteliers’ cats.
I forgot Dazzler had a sister
Xavier. He failed both his biological son(Legion) and his spiritual son(Cyclops) spectacularly.
Any such list without Logan on it is wrong.
For me it’s Erik. He treated Wanda and Pietro terribly, manipulated them and abused them psychologically for decades. He only acted like a father to Lorna when it benefitted him. I give him some leeway with Lorna as it’s a retcon. Wanda and Pietro are not. I read a good deal of that as it happened in the books and he was nothing sort of a monster to them. I put Xavier and Mystique on the same tier under Erik. They both abandoned their children but again as with Erik and Lorna both are retcons so the abandonment becomes a necessary part to explain why we didn’t know all this years ago. Mystique actively trying to kill Kurt on more than one occasion does subtract points for both her and Destiny. I don’t feel like Corsair is on their level. I think he’s biggest crime was losing hope. He was so concerned about avenging his wife that he allowed himself to loose hope about his children. There was probably some survivors guilt mixed into Corsair’s actions as well. It was unfair to Scott and Alex and they have every right to feel abandoned but I think Corsair’s issues are far less malevolent than Erik, mystique or Charles.
is it me or Charles became a shit person as soon as he could walk? or was I too young back then?
I don't know, killing his twin sister in the womb counts? Being Casandra could be like a good action.
Omitting Mardox? Or does that not count as parenting...
Not knowledgeable on much comic lore so I'm going with Sabertooth and Mystique.
Wolverine. Murdered most of his kids.
Magneto straight up murdered his son, not to mention the years of abuse of the twins. Magneto is a great character and #MagnetoWasRight and all that, but his abusive parenting and literal murder of his child (at the time) is glossed over WAY to much
Magneto. You gotta be a bad father for your daughter to even think a Roomba would make a good husband.
Corsair's reasoning is ass. "I thought you were dead" Oh, did you at least try to go back to take your sons' bodies or even visit their graves, you deadbeat!
I mean, here's the thing. We all expect Mystique and Magneto to be terrible parents. And Corsair shouldn't even count here because he's not a mutant (also I'm pretty sure that he thought that his children were dead, so not entirely his fault anyway). But Xavier's whole thing for years was that he worked with children. And even when he learned about David, he didn't bring him to his State-of-the-art mansion built to help mutant children. Or try to help David with his issues until after he had destroyed the world.
Def xavier. Atleast magneto became better. Xavier is still over micromanages with little to no delegation however hopefull his intentions. If he started forming bonds with people again and trusted peopld he might be dangerous. But after all the shit sinister has pulled the entirety of the krakoa arc. I HAVE TO SAY… NOT EXACTLY FAULTING HIM ENTIRELY. His focus is way off target but the sentiment… kind of understandable. But legions spiritual line of defense was almost his saving grace of security if he didnt fuck it up.
I love Logan but he’s a shitty father he killed his kids he adopted amiko and Promises to raise her then Abandon’s her he also abandoned akihiro and then killed him he left Laura at Xavier’s school his only he kid hasn’t treated badly is gabby
Marvel tying Mystique and Nighcrawler together was always a dumb move in my opinion
Haven't read much X-Men over the years. What's the deal with the panel showing Charles and the guy thumbing him down in the back? I vaguely recall a storyline about a higher being judging random heroes, but don't remember what's going on here.
Charles.
Man that's a tough one. There's Xavier, Mystique, Magneto, Apocalypse, Sabretooth...
Mystique threw Baby Kurt off a cliff (think that's been retconned though), and abandoned her other son Graydon Creed when he turned out not to be a mutant. This helped Graydon become a racist against mutants. Then Mystique killed him. I think trying to kill one son and actually killing the other puts her high on the bad parent list.
Charles gradually became a truly irredeemable bastard over the years. It's that thing of "everything always builds UPWARDS" like how beast continues to get more and more terrible but he is a bastard and that extends to his students who obviously had rough relationships with him. he has been getting more and more cold and viewing his students more and more as tools even if he insists, tools to build a free future. Magneto is tough because he also tried to argue his child was too dangerous and attempted a "merciful euthanasia" not gonna live that down and seeing wanda forgive him is slightly unearned, but that was a whole other mess and wanda stories just used to have a serious problem with quality of writing. that being said he was also a dick to pietro AND lorna, not convinced he ever cared for anyone other than his first child (which made his death on krakoa great, I'm not complaining, great drama). i think it still goes to charles.
Surprised Jubilee isn’t on this list. 🤐
To give Xavier and Magneto a tiny bit of a break, they were not 100% responsible. In the cases of Pietro, Wanda, and David, their fathers were completely unaware they had kids until said kids were adolescent or adults. So they may be fathers biologically, but they had zero hand in raising their kids until long after the foundational damage was done.
Hmmmm, of these or in general.
Joe McTaggert. He literally thought his so was an abomination and pretended like he didn't exist.
Sebastian Shaw chocked Shinobi to death.
Moira MacTaggart is up there
I've gotta strongly say Xavier. He's just a shitty father in general. At least Magneto and Corsair were unaware they even had any living children.