Calling The Old Man Out / Comic Books

People Calling the Old Man Out in Comic Books.

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• Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift: During the story, Toph encounters her father for the first time since running away from home, at which point he claims she's confused and that she isn't his daughter. Toph hunts him down later and begs him to acknowledge that while she might not be the prim and proper waif that he wanted her to be, she's managed to cement herself as a master of her craft and helped the Avatar end the Hundred-Year War. However, he ignores her and she's about to tearfully storm out before the other half of the plot demands otherwise. During a cave-in where he believes they might die, he finally admits that she's still his daughter and that he's never stopped loving her. However, the true reconciliation comes after they get out the situation, as when he falls back into his old overprotective habits, she calls him out again, at which point he apologizes and acknowledges that she is the greatest earthbender of all-time, much to her barely concealed joy.
• Batman:
  • This happens with distressing and perfectly typical regularity to Batman. The ones doing the calling out tend to be Nightwing and Oracle — the oldest son and the not-quite-daughter with the most equal standing with Batman. Oracle criticizes him openly a lot more than Nightwing does, whereas Nightwing's are more violent. Stephanie Brown unleashes on Batman in The Road Home for all the manipulative crap she's been through because of him. Tim Drake has made it clear what he thinks of Bruce unilaterally making decisions for him on multiple occasions. Jason Todd has called him out on his moral selfishness.
  • Now that Batman has a biological son, Damian, it happens with a good deal of regularity with him, too. It helps that Damian's mother, Talia, is the heir of one of Batman's arch-nemeses, so no matter what the kid does, one or the other of his parents is going to give him grief about it.
  • In Robin (1993), Tim lays things out for his incredibly neglectful biological father when said father says he doesn't even know his son anymore:
    Tim: Who is the son you know, Dad? You don’t know me, you never bothered. You shipped me from one boarding school to another and nobody paid any attention as long as my grades stayed high. You and mom were too involved running around the world. Your careers-
    Jack: Don’t think you can talk to me like that just because I’m in this chair. Just because I’m not like Bruce Wayne...
    Tim: At least Bruce cares about me. Not just how I reflect on him! You don’t know me! You don’t know a thing about me!
• Blackest Night: After he and his children Rose and Jericho dealt with the Black Lanterns attacking them, Slade suggests they start over. Rose furiously calls him out on that pointing out that she tracked him down to kill him and that he messed them up too much to ever make amends.
• The Flash:
  • Captain Cold had a violent confrontation with his father after the old man had been abducted by the New Rogues. To teach everybody a lesson, Cold and his team searched for the impostors, trouncing each with their own weapons until Cold found his father in a meat locker. He proceeded to call him out for every indignity he had ever visited upon the family. The old man, clearly not impressed, shot back with his own opinions on how weak Cold and his mother were for not taking it. Cold, furious but unable to kill him, asked fellow Rogue Heat Wave to incinerate him.
  • The Life Story of the Flash: Iris recalls how displeased she was to know that, not only was she in fact adopted like she'd always thought, but Ira knew and never told her.
    Iris: WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME I WAS ADOPTED? Don't tell me you didn't remember! I won't stand for the men in my life keeping secrets from me anymore. Do you understand that? Do you?
• The Incredible Hulk:
  • In #319, General Ross comes in to stop the wedding between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. After he accidentally shoots Rick Jones, Betty calls him a stupid, miserable, interfering, old fool. And that's not all—she also calls him out for being less of a parent and more of a strict, tyrannical bully, and says that the real reason why Ross didn't like Bruce (even before Bruce became the Hulk) was because Bruce was kinder and more supportive to Betty than her own father. Also, Betty gave her father an awesome ultimatum: if he really wants to keep Betty away from Bruce, then he has to kill her. Of course, he doesn't do it and instead breaks down emotionally while Bruce and Betty finally get married.
  • In Issue #377, Bruce is sent into a Journey to the Center of the Mind where he relives various traumas. Eventually, they reach his mother's grave, where he confronts his father. A hallucination of his father as a monster appears and calls him a "perverted monster"... but Bruce cuts loose and calls out the image for years of abuse, stating that he was the monster and that he buried his emotions for fear of being like him. The monster promptly takes Brian's form and shatters.
  • Done in epic fashion during Immortal Hulk #13, where an undead Brian serves The One Below All and continues to torture his son, before Bruce (thanks to Absorbing Man) gets a Heroic Second Wind and puts his father in his place.
    Brian: NO! You're not my son, you never were!
    Hulk: Yeah? That your new theory?
    Brian: You're the Devil's child! His son! You're son of The One Below All!
    Hulk: Look at you still trying to figure me out—learn the rules find out the secrets. Do you think you ever knew what I was, old man? Here's your special theory, dad. The only equation you'll need! HULK IS HULK! [Hulk blows Brian and The One Below away with a Shockwave Clap]
• Invincible calls his father out for lying to him and for the whole "world domination" bit. They eventually come to blows and they wreck a few continents in the ensuing, bloody brawl. It later turns out that said Calling Out resulted in the old man's Heel–Face Turn.
• In the Legion of Super-Heroes story The Great Darkness Saga, Orion's restored clone calls Darkseid out on stealing his deceased son's cells in order to create a mindless slave.
  Darkseid: It seems I erred in restoring you to life, my son.
  Orion: Restoring—? You mean desecrating me, do you not, father? You stole those cells from me in life— and warped them to make a shambling mockery of me in death. No more, father... Your cursed voice will be still!
  Darkseid: But, youth, I merely—
  Orion: Still, I say... Your tongue could seduce a planet of priests, Darkseid... But not your own son.
• This is done in Loki: Agent of Asgard #16, where Loki finally gets Odin's and the Asgardians' approval and respect, placing them at the same level as Thor... and tells them to stick it.
• Preacher:
  • This is the entire driving motivation for Jesse Custer, except instead of calling out his father, he wants to call out the Father of all Creation.
  • Jesse had a great, happy childhood until he was around six or maybe even younger, when Jesse's father was killed in front of his eyes by Jesse's uncle Jody. Jody raised Jesse brutally for the rest of his childhood, also taking Jesse's mother aside to shoot her and using horrific child abuse. All this is revealed in the third or fourth story arc of the series and by the end of it Jesse has finally killed Jody and everyone else on that side of the family responsible for his misery.
• The Red Ten: Crimson was originally Red's sidekick, but eventually left after the two started to butt heads. He ultimately cut ties with her completely upon finding out she had recruited a second Crimson Kid, a decision he finds abhorrent. Especially after she's murdered by Oxymoron.
• The Sandman (1989): Daniel when he becomes Dream and becomes an adult calls out Lyta for her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, since ultimately the previous Dream dying means that her Daniel was lost forever, and caused countless damage in that realm by unleashing the Kindly Ones. With that said, he does acknowledge she was manipulated into causing such destruction, and offers her eternal protection.
• Spider-Man:
  • In "American Son", Harry Osborn finally does this to his father Norman Osborn (a.k.a. Green Goblin, a.k.a. Iron Patriot, a.k.a. Worst Father in Comics).
  • This trope plays part in the origin of Doctor Octopus. His overprotective mother forced Otto Octavius to break off his engagement to take care of her, only for Otto to discover her going out on a date. Enraged, he finally stood up to her and called her out, leading to her having a fatal heart attack in shock that her boy did that. The emotional duress Otto had from all of this led to him not catching the warning signs his experiment was going wrong and exploding.
• In his classic appearances, Star-Lord doesn't take too kindly to his father abandoning his mother and partially blames him for his uncle sending assassins to kill her but doesn't outright consider him a villain and allows his allies to stay in his father's care. In more modern books, J'Son has become much more of a jerk, and Quill has far less patience for it.
• Star Trek: Untold Voyages: In "Past Imperfect", Dr. McCoy's daughter Joanna resents him for telling her that it would not be a good idea for her to become involved with Admiral Kirk because he was never there during her childhood due to his Starfleet career. She tells him that he doesn't have the right to stroll into her life and play Daddy after all of this time.
• Superman:
  • Through New Krypton, Supergirl followed her mother's orders and tried to forgive Alura's constant emotional abuse. By the time of "War of the Supermen", though, Kara has had it with her mother when she finds out that Alura ordered her to capture Reactron in order to torture information out of him.
    Supergirl: "Watch out for your mother." That's what father said to me as he died. "Watch out for your mother." I thought that meant I should... I don't know, make sure you didn't get hurt after he was gone or something. But that's not what father meant at all, was it?
    Alura: Kara, I—
    Supergirl: He wasn't warning me to look out for you... He was warning me about you.
    Alura: Don't you dare judge me, Kara. Reactron is a prisoner of the state, and he has information necessary for the protection of our people—
    Supergirl: "Our people"? Have you lost your freaking mind? You've been torturing someone down here, mom! Someone you sent me to Earth to bring back to New Krypton. That makes me responsible for him. Just as it makes me complicit in a war crime.
    Alura: If I have to go to extreme measures to get information out of him—information that will keep our planet safe—it's worth it.
    Supergirl: That's how you justify this? You think the safety of New Krypton is so important we have to beat information out of someone—
    Alura: How naive can you be, Kara? Or have you forgotten that this... monster... murdered your father in our streets—
    Supergirl: I know he did, mom. I was there. Dad died saving my life. In fact, where were you when he died?
  • Also in New Krypton, when Ursa complains that her son Lor-Zod—adopted and renamed Chris Kent by Clark and Lois — is a disappointment to her and his father General Zod, Chris retorts: "Neither of us got the family we wanted."
  • Superman: Lois and Clark: After Jonathan Samuel Kent learns about his powers and who his father is, he calls his parents out on not telling him sooner. To their credit, they explain that they had every intention to when he was an adult. They just didn't expect his powers to manifest so soon (or at all), as Clark's came later in life.
  • In "Reign of the Cyborg Supermen", Zor-El intends to annihilate National City to bring the people of Argo City back. Every time his daughter tries to talk him out of it, he claims he's doing it for her sake. Finally, Kara becomes fed up with his attitude and states if he was doing it for her (and not to assuage his guilty conscience), he would listen when she asked him to stop.
  • In the Superman/Shazam! crossover First Thunder, upon learning Shazam's true identity and who it was that gave him that power, Superman heads straight to the Rock of Eternity to chew out the Wizard on his behalf, for foisting this amount of responsibility on the shoulders of a child.
    Superman: What is wrong with you? He's a child! His life shouldn't be about this! Little boys go to school, play with their friends and go to bed at night. Their biggest concerns should be homework and school-yard crushes — not if their best friends are going to be murdered by assassins!!
    The Wizard: It is his fate to bear the mantle.
    Superman: Do not talk to me about fate. All of you people of magic — you sorcerers... All your talk about fate and destiny... This is wrong. No boy should have the responsibility of the world on his shoulders. It is a fate chosen by men... He's just a boy.
• Teen Titans:
  • In Geoff Johns' Teen Titans #6, an angry Wonder Woman causes a Let's You and Him Fight between the Titans and the Justice League, leading to the younger members attacking their mentors and airing out their frustrations, notably Bart chewing out Wally for not trusting him to uphold The Flash legacy and Tim attacking Bruce over his usual distrust issues. Once things calm down and Nightwing enters the scene, it becomes quite clear that the Titans are still suffering a Heroic BSoD from Donna Troy's death.
  • Rose Wilson a.k.a. Ravager does this to her father Deathstroke every time they meet. She never really got over the whole "injecting me with Psycho Serum and shoving a piece of radioactive Kryptonite into my eye socket" thing that Deathstroke pulled the last time she trusted him. That, and he's an amoral and ruthless mercenary who inevitably ruins the people close to him. In Blackest Night, after circumstances force them to fight side by side again, Rose calls him out one last time. While Rose acknowledges that part of her will always love him because he is her father (and only for that reason), she never wants to see him again. Rose also swears that if Slade tries to track down Rose's Missing Mom, she will kill him.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW)
  • It's nearly impossible for Casey Jones to have a conversation with his father, Hun, without including one of these.
  • Michelangelo drops a blistering one on Splinter in his namesake Macro-Series issue. Made even more poignant by the fact that, in this canon, Splinter actually is his father via reincarnation.
    Michelangelo: SCREW YOU!
    Splinter: (after a period of stunned silence) What did you say to me?
    Michelangelo: I said Screw! You! You betrayed everything you taught us! Everything you told us to be! These kids lost all they've ever known, and instead of helping them, you want to turn them into weapons?! You're worse than Shredder!
• In The Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Starscream does this to Megatron in issue 20.
  Starscream: My people control Iacon, and more Cybertronians will come home and join us. We'll enter a new golden age. A real golden age. Not the corrupt lines of Primes, not... not you. Because you were just as bad as them. At least they knew they were oppressing us. Might doesn't make right, Megatron. Not anymore.
• In Viz, this happens with a lot of characters. Spoilt Bastard is constantly insulting his mother in order to get what he wants. Biffa Bacon often insults his parents and gets beaten up by them. In The Modern Parents, Tarquin is always insulting his parents because of their hypocritical beliefs.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Volume 1: When Diana learns that Hippolyta had her memories erased and altered in an attempt to manipulate Diana's relationship with Steve Trevor she gives her mother a cold speech about trust and how Hippolyta will never regain hers and then leaves Paradise Island with a promise that her mother's actions mean it will never be home to her again. Diana remains the Amazon champion, but her relationship with her mother is permanently soured by the manipulation.
  • Volume 2: Diana is furious with her mother when she realizes Hippolyta manipulated The Contest because she'd seen a vision of Wonder Woman's death and decided to have another Amazon unknowingly take the fall. Her speech to her mother is short as she wants to hurry and rescue Artemis but she ends up being too late.
  • Wonder Woman: Warbringer: While Jason is her brother, not her father, he's been raising Alia since their parents' deaths. Once she realizes that he's decided to usher in the apocalypse and kill millions in his quest for personal glory as a war hero she tears into him for an entire paragraph about, among other things, why powers alone do not a hero make, and how his backhanded manipulative tactics, grabbing every power source available and destroying other's ability to fight before anyone else is even aware there's a fight coming is not heroic by any measure.
• X-Men:
  • Scott Summers' father, Christopher a.k.a. Corsair, was abducted by aliens when he and his brother were fairly young; when Dad showed up many years later, Scott vented his displeasure that a) he hadn't bothered to come back and look for them earlier, despite having plenty of opportunity, and b) he'd become a ruthless space pirate in the interim. The animated series uses a similar storyline, with even more shouting on Scott's part.
  • Any time that Quicksilver and Magneto appear in a book together, Quicksilver issues one of these since his dad recruited him into a terrorist supervillain team and all. Magneto actually tends to take it in stride because he knows he was a terrible father (and, frankly, doesn't seem to care that much about Quicksilver's opinion), sometimes offering a token "I was trying to toughen you up" defense.
  • Mags' daughters Scarlet Witch and Polaris have also called him out a few times, and Magneto usually doesn't respond to them any better than he does with Quicksilver. However, in a few comics Magneto acknowledges and regrets being a poor father, when confronted by his daughters on separate occasions, often using the I Did What I Had to Do excuse.
  • Whenever Mystique shows up in her kids' Rogue and Nightcrawler lives, you can bet that there's a likelihood that they'll rip into her for being a less than stellar mother to both of them. However, Kurt's scolding of his mother generally tends to be far less vicious and violent and more merciful than Rogue's (despite the fact that Mystique at least bothered to parent Rogue; Kurt she tossed off a cliff as a baby). Depending on the Writer, Mystique's responses to her kids calling her out range from indifference to pleading with them for forgiveness to outright attacking them for their insolence. Nightcrawler in Amazing X-Men (2013) #6 furiously calls out his mother and his father Azazel during a family fight, at which both Mystique and Azazel unite to cruelly tell Kurt not to take that tone with them.
  • Gambit delivers one to Wolverine on X-23's behalf in her solo series, telling him off for allowing the reforming and emotionally damaged Tyke-Bomb to participate on X-Force, when she really needed someone to help her cope with the things that she'd been made to do, rather than be allowed to do them all over again.
  • In Astonishing X-Men, Cyclops "fires" Professor X after he finds out that Xavier knew the whole time that the Danger Room had become sentient and that he continued to use her (and keep the secret to himself).

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