Being a superhero and a parent can't be easy for a number of reasons. Constant danger, blooming superpowers, multiple deaths and resurrections and a complete lack of a normal family life can pretty easily mess up a kid's psychological state. Family and raising children is already tough, but throw in the dangerous elements of living a double life as a hero, and things just get crazy complicated! Luckily, our favorite heroes tend to usually instill strong morals and a sense of right and wrong into their offspring. However, a few bad eggs sometimes get into the mix, some turning straight up evil!
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It's an interesting narrative, parent and child facing off over different ideals, and it's made even more interesting when it's the child that has turned to the dark side, and a parent has to take down their child for the sake of the greater good. Despite it being told many times over, this narrative is still one that hits you at your moral core, wether you're a parent or not, it affects you. Maybe you might not get that deeply invested, of course, but it's still a powerful story. Regardless, amongst the many children-of-superheroes stories and the parent-vs-child narrative, there are 15 particular superhero kids who are clearly just bad eggs.
15 AMON SUR
Created by Judd Winick, Ben Raab and Charlie Adlard, Amon Sur is the son of Hal Jordan's Green Lantern Predecessor, Abin Sur. One of the Unagaran race, Amon Sur's people have the ability regenerate most of their appendages, including their heads! This comes in handy since, unlike his father, Amon Sur has made an enemy of the Green Lantern Corps. In fact, it's because of his father that Amon leads various assaults on the guardians.
After his father's death, Amon was angry, upset that his death was the result of Abin Sur choosing the Green Lantern Corps over his family. Amon felt abandoned because of the Corps, so he decided to take out his anger on the other Green Lanterns. With the help of a Qwardian yellow power ring, Amon began his assault on the organization that ruined his childhood, going against everything his father stood for.
14 SKULL (EARTH-9997)
Part of the Earth-9997 Marvel universe, Skull is the alias taken up by Benny Beckly, an alternate universe version of Comet Man's son. Comet Man is a somewhat obscure Marvel hero who got his powers from a spaceship accident involving a -- SPOILER -- comet. Gifted with long-distance teleportation, energy projection, flight, and numerous other abilities, Stephen Beckly became the superhero Comet Man after his accident. Before this, Stephen and his wife Ann gave birth to a son, Benny.
Though he has a similar origin to his 616 counterpart, the Benny Beckly of Earth-9997 ended up walking a different path. After being exposed to the Terrigen Mists, Benny gained the ability to control anybody he could see. Growing up a troubled teen, Benny would go on to use his powers to kill his parents and take over California before being put down by an aging Captain America.
13 VALIDUS
Massively strong and a powerful telepath to boot, Validus is most often depicted as a villain of the Legion of Superheroes. In fact, the reason for this is because he is the child of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. You might be confused. That's understandable, since Validus clearly doesn't look like either of his parents, ya know, being a giant monster with no eyes and a clearly visible brain.
Validus' origin is a sad one. though. He was one of the twin children born to Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, taken at birth by Darkseid and cursed with a monster body. He was also made nearly mindless so as to be easily controlled by Emerald empress. Darkseid sent the monster back in time with the intention of the monster killing his parents or vice versa. Luckily, Validus was eventually restored to normal before this plan could come to fruition.
12 GENESIS
Though it is constantly disputed whether Cable is actually the father of Tyler Dayspring, aka Genesis, the time-traveling X-Man still raised the future villain. Brought up by Nathan and Aliya summers, Tyler was trained to be a part of the Askani Clan Chosen. However, at a young age, Tyler was taken by Stryfe, a villain who corrupted him and ruined him by turning the young man into one of his soldiers.
As a warrior of Stryfe, Tyler attacked Cable's friend and was shot by his father as a result. Bitter towards his father for shooting him, he followed Cable to the past where he would act as an arch-enemy to Nathan's various teams. He would later adopt the identity of Genesis, believing himself to be the new heir of Apocalypse. Genesis was eventually killed by a feral Wolverine after failing to control him.
11 FURY (EARTH-2)
Fury has had a couple of different interpretations over the years, the most recent being her depiction in "The New 52." In this version she is presented in the Earth 2 universe as the daughter of Wonder Woman and Steppenwolf. Though the character eventually turns agains Darkseid and the forces go Apokolips, she didn't start out that way.
Being the daughter of Steppenwolf, Fury works alongside her father, wearing a costume very similar to Orion. Fury is also the last Amazon as Wonder Woman's daughter, the rest of her kind being killed off prior to the invasions of Apokolips. Perhaps missing out on the compassionate nature and values of her people is what led her to join the forces of Apokolips, or maybe she just followed her father. Either way, Fury ended up switching sides after being convinced to fight against Apokolips by Mister Miracle.
10 HOPE PYM (EARTH-982)
Not to be confused with Hope Van Dyne, the daughter of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne (aka Ant-Man and The Wasp) in Marvel's Ant-Man, Hope Pym is part of the MC2 universe. In the MC2 (also known as Earth-982) the superhero uprising occurred 15 years earlier than it did in the 616. As a result, many of our favorite heroes have retired and their children have taken over.
However, not all the children of superheroes are good, especially not Hope Pym. Hope believed the newest incarnation of the Avengers was a mockery of the original team that her parents were a part of, and that they were dishonoring both of their deaths. Hope captured the avengers and tortured Cassandra Lang, planning to blow up Avengers Mansion, only to be stopped by her brother.
9 THE MONGRELS
The Mongrels sport some of the coolest names of any villain group out there, there's Gunhawk, Shadowstalker, Fire Knives, Saw Fist and Cannon Foot. Aside from their names, there is one important aspect of the Mongrels that can't be ignored: they are all Wolverine's kids. Of course, Wolverine didn't know this until after he killed each of them individually, which is just part of what makes The Mongrels' tale so tragic.
Formed with the mission of making Wolverine's life a living hell, each member is a child of Wolverine by different mothers. It it unknown why each of them hate Wolverine, but they enacted their mission by attacking Logan's friends and family before coming for him. However, Wolverine quickly defeated each of them, killing his own children. To make things even sadder, Wolverine buried each of the Mongrels near the graves of their mothers.
8 ASHLEY BARTON (EARTH-807128)
First introduced in the Old Man Logan comic, Ashley Barton has quite the superhero origin. The Granddaughter of Peter Parker and daughter of Hawkeye (ew), Ashley grew up in the wastelands of Earth-807128. Dissatisfied with the rule of this world's current Kingpin, Ashley and her superhero friends attempted to take control of his territory. However, she and her friends were quickly captured and ordered to be killed.
Hawkeye would eventually liberate his daughter, though maybe he shouldn't have. Immediately after being freed, Ashley used her spider-strength to decapitate the Kingpin with a shotgun handle. This wasn't just revenge, either, since Ashley declared herself the new Kingpin and took over control of his territories. Hawkeye quickly bolted out of there as his daughter sent her forces after her father and Logan.
7 SKAAR
After the events of Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, the Hulk's newfound home on Sakaar was destroyed and with it, his wife Caeiera and their two children, or so he thought. His twin sons Skaar and Hero-Kala survived thanks to their mother placing them in protective cocoons. When Skaar emerged, he saw the evil that the universe had to offer and was eventually exiled to Earth.
While on Earth, Skaar began killing and destroying those that he thought caused pain and destruction, dubbing himself a killer of killers. A somewhat noble anti-hero Skaar's moral compass is a bit all over the place. Skaar would fight his father on several occasions, impaling him during one battle, and eventually joined Norman Osborne's Dark Avengers. In other words, he's got quite the diverse track record.
6 HIRO-KALA
The second son of Hulk and Caeiera and twin brother to Skaar, Hiro-Kala also survived the partial destruction of Sakaar. Following quite a different path than his father and brother, Hiro-Kala eventually came to be a conquerer of worlds. He and Skaar's mother, Caeiera, are wielders of The Old Power, an artificial form of The Power Cosmic, and Kala felt it was his birthright to inherit the power.
While a slave on Sakaar, Hiro-Kala spent time searching for history and knowledge of The Old Power before being freed by the arrival of Silver Surfer, who warned of Galactus' impeding arrival. After the consumption of his planet, Hiro-Kala swore on the names of his parents to get revenge on Galactus, becoming a world breaker and a god amongst others to achieve his goal.
5 ROY HARPER
Like other many other sidekicks, Roy Harper is both a ward and an adopted son to his mentor. After losing his parents, Roy was raised by a Navajo medicine chief who taught him to be a highly skilled archer. Taking notice of this skill, Oliver Queen adopted Roy and took him on as his sidekick, Speedy. However, things weren't all fine and dandy forever, and Speedy veered off the path of the hero.
In a controversial and award-winning story arc, Roy Harper fell victim to drugs, struggling with heroin addiction after a series of unfortunate events. After Green Arrow lost his fortune, he began neglecting Roy, who had just lost his girlfriend and superhero team. Not exactly turning evil or anything, but the resulting arguments between Roy and Oliver ended their partnership once and for all.
4 LEGION
Because of his multiple personality disorder, which is a result of his ability to absorb the personality and powers of others, David Haller, son of Charles Xavier, is the most unique case among all the entires on this list. Featured on the FX's Legion, David is not necessarily a villain, David definitely has destructive tendencies, due in no small part to his various personalities. One of the earliest personalities that David absorbed was a terrorist leader as well as the rest of the organization.
This was just the beginning of David's psychological instability, as various other personalities that David would absorb later in life would lead him to struggle to maintain control of his body. As a result, David is sort of a bit of everything: a hero, a villain and every archetype in between. Not exactly a bad guy, he's just a bad egg, or maybe even just the result of bad luck.
3 JASON TODD
Perhaps one of the more famous examples of a superhero's son going bad is Jason Todd, the second Robin and the future incarnation of the Red Hood. Once again, we have an entry that isn't technically the son of a superhero, but through adoption and mentorship, Jason Todd, much like Dick Grayson before him and Tim Drake following, was thought of as a son by Batman.
Unfortunately, Jason found his demise at the hands of the Joker, and any future he had would never happen. However, as we all know by now, Jason was resurrected and became the Red Hood in the story arc, Batman: Under the Hood. Seeing Batman's war on crime as a waste of time, Jason decided to control crime, using firearms and other extreme tactics to achieve his goals. Though a good heart still remains in Jason, he definitely veered from the path of the more traditional hero.
2 DAKEN
Daken is the son of Wolverine and his now deceased wife Itsu, a Japanese woman who was assassinated by The Winter Soldier. The name Daken means "mongrel" or "bastard dog" in Japanese, something he was called by others as a result of his mixed race; ridicule that would cause him to have a cold personality towards most people. After being disowned by his adoptive family, Akihiro joined forces with Romulus before confronting and attacking his father, impaling him with his claws.
Daken would later fight his father again, overpowering him since Wolverine had no desire to harm his son and hoped he could change. This was a bit of a pipe dream, however, since Daken not only stole his father's moniker as Wolverine while part of Norman Osborne's Dark Avengers, but also led his own version of the Brotherhood of Mutants.
1 DAMIAN WAYNE
Okay, he's not a "villain," but he's such a little snot, ain't he? The very first Robin to actually be the biological son of Bruce Wayne was the little assassin himself, Damian Wayne. As it is with superheroes and their kids, Damian of course had the least-normal upbringing ever. The son of Talia Al Ghul and Batman, Damian was grown in an artificial womb and raised with the purpose of ruining Bruce Wayne's work as Batman.
For the first part of his life, Damian was raised by Talia and the league of assassins, becoming not only a formidable warrior, but a murderer as well. Damian essentially went against everything Batman stands for, though he hadn't met him at this point, by being a spoiled, violent and somewhat cold-blooded assassin. Luckily, Damian's desire to seek the Bat-Family's approval lead him to take up the Robin identity, which he literally stole from Tim Drake.
Can you think of any other bad apples that fell far from the superhero tree? Let us know in the comments!