The classic comic book hero has dead parents, which seems like a terrible curse. Some heroes, though, would have been better off as orphans. Other heroes should not have procreated at all. Being super does not necessarily mean you're a super parent. In fact, these messed up superhero kids prove the exact opposite. Some parents abandoned their kids to focus on saving the world, conducted scientific experiments on their babies, beat them to a pulp, or thoughtlessly put them in harm's way. Being the child of a comic book hero seems like it would be awesome.

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Your dad could fly you to school, or visit space to research your science projects. Your mom could show off her super-strength or reality-bending powers at slumber parties. Unfortunately, that is not usually the reality for superhero kids. These 15 unlucky superhero kids had their lives seriously messed up by their parents. They would have been better off with normal, non-super families. Some kids survived their super-parents, and some were lost forever in the strange events of comic books. Overall, these 15 awful super-parents prove that being a good parent is not a superpower, and that wanting to save the world is not genetic.

15 MR. FANTASTIC

The Fantastic Four seem like the perfect nuclear comic book family, and Sue and Reed were always meant to be together -- right? Unfortunately for this powerful power couple, having kids was not the best decision. You would think that with mysterious space powers and incredible intelligence, Reed would have considered the dangerous possibilities of procreation, but apparently that wasn’t a concern. Reed ended up jumping into the Negative Zone to control Franklin from the womb, because he was a dangerous weapon with uncontrollable powers.

Reed’s solution? Put his son in a coma. His daughter, Valeria, did not fare much better. Besides being too busy with science to spend time with his miserable wife and family, he let Franklin use his powers to transfer his stillborn daughter “somewhere else” for years, get her mixed up with Doctor Doom, and then magic her back into Sue’s womb to be born again. Creepy.

14 BATMAN

Batman is constantly fostering young boys into his care, becoming their reluctant father figure, and then, unerringly, getting them into trouble. Considering the unlucky, destructive streak he had with Robins that weren’t actually his, his own son was in for some serious trouble. Batman didn’t know Damian existed, at first he was raised by his mother, Thalia al Ghul, and his grandfather, Ra’s al Ghul, to be a trained killer.

So, of course, the first thing Batman does when he meets the kid is decide to take him on as an apprentice. It was kind of unavoidable -- Damian was going to be Batman, one way or another, but the least Batman could do was keep him safe, right? Nope. Batman pretty much gets him killed. Luckily he has refrained from having kids since then, which is probably good because Catwoman and Batman would be a dangerous parenting team.

13 HULK

The incredible Hulk is great at a lot of things, but parenting is not one of them. He is another comic book dad who didn’t know he had a kid. Hulk’s home planet was destroyed in an explosion, including his son, Skaar, and Skaar’s mother, Caiera, queen of Sakaar. What Hulk did not know is that his son actually survived, and was aging rapidly into a Hulk-killing rage monster.

Skaar came for Hulk, and in a weird turn of events, Hulk manages to create a very confusing parental bond. Skaar reverts to childhood, and Bruce is able to raise him again and help control his Hulk tendencies. Hulk and his Hulkling might have gotten off to a bad start, but they’re refreshing proof that super-dads can turn things around for the better.

12 POWER GIRL

To be fair, Power Girl did not have much of a chance to be a parent at all. Power Girl was fighting alongside the Justice League Europe, and the constant battles took a toll on her body and her powers. In a confusing series of events, she became pregnant. It had to do with an Atlantean Wizard, and also somehow involved "Zero Hour" messing with the fabric of time. All this convoluted birds and bees weirdness resulted in Power Girl having an inexplicably accelerated pregnancy.

Her son was born, grew up very quickly, and was suddenly an adult. Power Girl didn't get a chance to raise her son, but instead let him be transported to another dimension. He fought a demon, and then disappeared from comics forever. Having Power Girl for a mother might not have been so bad, if she had managed to keep him in her own reality.

11 SILK SPECTRE

The original Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter, had a daughter, Laurie, who took over the mantle. Laurie had a rough childhood, starting with her parents’ relationship. Her father, Laurence, turned out not to be her father at all. Laurie thought her father was Hooded Justice, but she was wrong about that, too. Sally Jupiter could have starred in an episode of Dr. Phil.

Laurie’s real father is her mother’s sexual assaulter and rape apologist, The Comedian. Laurie never came to terms with the truth of her birth. She never wanted to be a superhero, but her sex pot mom forced her into the family business. Her mother also never approved of Laurie’s relationship with Dr. Manhattan. Silk Spectre was self-serving and individualistic, and her daughter suffered for it. She tried to fit her daughter into her mold without ever considering that it was not good parenting.

10 SCARLET WITCH

Scarlet Witch is Magneto’s daughter, so her being a great mom to her own kids is fairly unlikely. What she did to her poor babies though is difficult to believe. She and Vision settled down, and all they wanted was to have a happy family. Unfortunately for them, a witch and a robot are not necessarily a genetic match for procreation. By some weird miracle, and a vaguely magical pregnancy, they had seemingly normal twin boys, William and Thomas.

The only real issue with William and Thomas was…they did not actually exist. The little boys were just manifestations of Wanda’s wish to be human, and without her reality-altering powers, the boys disappeared. A lot of parents are terrible to their kids, but creating fake kids from magic to fuel your own human fantasies is a whole new level of bad parenting.

9 ATLAN

Most people hear Atlantis and envision an underwater paradise, but for the children of Atlantis, that was not always the case. The seedy history of Atlantis includes a healthy helping of infanticide. There was once an evil tyrant in Atlantis, named Kordax. He was evil, and apparently Atlanteans attributed his bad attitudee to his blond hair. This resulted in all the blond haired Atlantean babies being abandoned on the reef to die of exposure.

One of these unlucky babies was Kordax’s nephew, Orin, who you might know better as Aquaman. It’s awful to think that we almost lost a beloved member of the Justice League because his father thought blond hair was an evil omen. Luckily, Orin could breathe air and communicate with sea life. He sought out better parents, including a dolphin mom and a lighthouse keeper, who raised him to be a superhero.

8 CYCLOPS

Cyclops has always been a jerk, but he goes above and beyond the acceptable level of awful, though, when he has a son. Oh, did you forget he had a son? Probably because he tried to forget, too. He ditched his wife and newborn to hang out with his resurrected girlfriend, Jean Grey, and his X-Friends. He's responsible for what happened to his wife, Madelyne Pryor, who you might recognize as her post-Cyclops self: the Demon Queen.

Mr. Sinister kidnaps baby Nathan, Madelyne tries to sacrifice him to a demon, and suddenly Cyclops decides to step it up. Well, not really. He decides to take Nathan on missions with him, because that’s a great parenting idea and not at all dangerous. All of this culminates in the worst possible thing that could happen to a kid: he gets a techno-organic virus from Apocalypse…and grows up to become Cable.

7 BEAK

There is not a huge account of Beak’s parenting skills. In fact, it seems that he might have been a decent father. Unfortunately, things don't look good if we have to question if Beak should have started a family at all. He has bird powers, but not any of the cool manifestations of bird powers. He has a terrifying beak face, brittle hollow bones, and he can’t fly.

He’s in the Special Class of the X-Men -- basically for mutants who really don’t need to exist. Why he decides to hook up with fellow mutant Angel Salvadore. His kids are creepy, insectoid bird babies with no apparent powers. Beak might not be a terrible role model, but passing on his messed up genes when they had caused him so much trouble was a terrible parenting move (as was not using protection).

6 GREEN ARROW

Oliver Queen is a straight shot with an arrow, but he’s never been on the straight and narrow. He’s not a great guy, and definitely not top choice to be a dad. It makes sense, then, that he totally abandoned his own son and ruined his life. Ollie Queen freaked out about being a dad and ran out on his girl and his kid, which is already awful. He made things exponentially worse when he actually met his son, Connor, later in life.

It wasn't exactly a pleasant reunion, as Oliver Queen’s genius solution was to just pretend he didn’t know he had a kid. Unfortunately, there was some pretty damning photographic evidence that proved otherwise, and Connor knew he was lying the whole time. Oliver did finally admit he knew about Conner, but not until his son was dying. What an arrow to the heart that must have been.

5 OMNI-MAN

Omni-Man is an Image Comics hero, from the Invincible universe. He is a member of the Viltrumite race, an alien race of super humans with incredible powers, like super speed, immortality, flight, strength, and…mustaches. Unfortunately for Omni-Man’s son, Invincible, the superpowers of the Viltrumite race do not include super parenting skills.

The worst thing you can find out when your father is a superhero is that he isn’t actually a hero. Omni-Man is a villain, and spends his life lying to the world and to his family. He is really a conquer for the Viltrumite race, not the hero and best-selling author that he pretends to be. He ends up beating his son, Mark, nearly to death in his wish to leave the planet. He also has another kid, Oliver, or “Kid Omni-Man” who doesn’t fare much better.

4 ROY HARPER

Roy Harper was Green Arrow’s sidekick, and apparently he picked up some bad relationship advice and parenting skills from his mentor. Roy is a bad boy, but this former addict’s worst mistake was having a baby girl with his special villain friend, Cheshire. The only thing worse than Roy Harper for a dad is a poisonmaster villain for a mother.

Cheshire figured that Roy would make the better parent, demonstrating her woefully low standards for fatherhood, and gives him custody. Roy stopped Vandal Savage when he wanted to steal Lian’s organs, but he was trying to steal Roy’s organs too, so we can pass that one off as self-preservation. He failed to stop his kid form getting crushed by a house in a fight with Prometheus, though, so any positive aspects of his family life are null and void.

3 VISION

Wait, didn’t we already talk about Vision’s kids? The weird fake babies? Well, yes. But unfortunately for him, that was not his only terrifying experiment with fake children. His relationship with Wanda fell apart, but his desire to feel human, and to have a family, was still strong. When he was tired of being taken advantage of as an Avenger, he decided to get a regular job and settle down.

He didn’t want to settle down alone, though, so he did what any hyper-intelligent automaton superhero would do: he made a family. Vision stole a woman’s consciousness to build his wife, and then combined his mind patterns with hers to create a scared consciousness for their twins, Vin and Viv. How romantic. Unfortunately, their programming is not enough to make them fit into normal society, especially when they start murdering people. Vision should probably stop trying to have kids.

2 AQUAMAN

Aquaman has plenty of his own daddy issues. Instead of learning from Atman’s mistakes, though, Aquaman follows in his dad’s footsteps and makes some serious parenting mistakes. Like Batman, he did not have great luck with surrogate kids. He lost Aquagirl to the villain Chemo, and Aqualad was constantly being put in danger. In fact, Aquababy, Arthur and Mera’s first child, was killed while Aquaman was off trying to battle his sidekick to the death.

Aquaman proved himself to be an awful husband, too, as he ruined his marriage to Mera by blaming her for her irrational anger about the murder of their child. Aquaman also had a son he didn't know about, Koryak. Instead of raising Koryak, Aquaman let him get killed during "Infinite Crisis". These awful parenting moments, combined with a few questionable blond haired children swimming around, prove that everyone's favorite merman is a terrible mer-dad.

1 WOLVERINE

If you’ve seen Logan, you know firsthand that Wolverine is not winning any parenting awards. X-23 is a clone of his DNA, with cool new foot blades and a thirst for blood. If Wolverine had been around to raise her, maybe she would have been different…but probably not. Luckily she actually turned out OK (now that Logan is “dead”) and she is the All-New Wolverine.

That’s not the end of Wolverine’s bad parenting, though. He has another pseudo-child, Daken to worry about. Daken was ripped out of the womb, trained to be an assassin, and bred to be a Wolverine-killing machine. It’s really not Wolverine’s fault his kids were so messed up, but if he hadn’t made so may enemies, they would have been a lot better off.

Did we forget about any other horrible super parents? Let us know in the comments!