Papa Wolf / Comic Books

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• Ant-Man II, Scott Lang. Go after his little girl, Cassie, at your own risk. After Avengers: The Children's Crusade, in which Doctor Doom kills Cassie, Scott makes it his life's mission to "End Doom."
• The Marvel Universe Ares could, would, and has gone to war with The Heavens Themselves to protect his son, tearing his way through both Olympus and Tengoku to save Alexander.
• Gary Hampton in The Astounding Wolf-Man which is fitting because he's in a fact a werewolf. I pity anyone who attempts to harm his daughter.
• In The Authority, Apollo and Midnighter are like this with their adopted daughter Jenny (even though, being vastly more powerful than either of them, she can take care of herself pretty well). Midnighter deserves special mention, however, for being like this with all kids.
• Bob Saetta's motive in Back to Brooklyn, especially after The Reveal of Penny's betrayal.
• In both the main DC universe and alternate universe stories, Batman has broken or has come really close to breaking his Thou Shalt Not Kill vow when either his adoptive son/sidekick Robin or his protégé/also sidekick Batgirl are in trouble.
  • In the Elseworlds story The Nail, where Superman didn't become a superhero due to him not being found and raised by the Kents, resulting in metahumans and superheroes being feared outcasts of society, The Joker brutally kills both Robin and Batgirl, which sends the distraught Batman into such an Unstoppable Rage that he kills the Joker right on the spot and then crosses the Despair Event Horizon. It takes Catwoman and Alfred more than a while to get him at least partially out of his funk.
  • Another was created when Jason Todd was killed; in this Alternate Universe, Batman kills the Joker, and figures, why stop there? He then proceeds to kill every supervillain in the DC Universe, because he's the Goddamn Batman. The irony? This world, without super-crime and with superheroes able to help with other things now, is a near utopia. And then Superboy-Prime blew it up.
  • In the main universe, the only times Batman has come really close to killing occur when any Robin/Batgirl/sidekick was threatened or killed. When Jason Todd was murdered in the A Death in the Family storyline, Batman struggled with the urge to kill the Joker (to the point where Superman intervened to help Batman stop himself from doing anything he might regret later), and the same occurred when Barbara was crippled by the same villain. When Black Mask tortured and killed Stephanie Brown a.k.a. Spoiler (who got better), Batman really tried to beat him to death, and was only stopped by Babs endangering herself on purpose. Finally, when Nightwing was almost killed by Alexander Luthor Jr. in Infinite Crisis, Batman grabbed a gun and was about to blow Luthor's brains out at point blank range.
  • It's kind of a known fact that if you want to grab Batman's attention, the best thing to do is threaten the people he works with - especially Nightwing or Robin. It's the kind of thing the more deranged villains frequently do, e.g. Joker and Two-Face. Papa Bat knows the kids can take care of themselves, but that's not going to stop him from showing up and 'dealing' with whoever dares to harm his children.
  • If you want a clue how much Batman loves Dick Grayson, read Batman (Tom King) #55-57 where Nightwing was shot in the head by KGbeast and is assumed dead. Batman, in a case of Tranquil Fury, hunts down KGbeast (with the full support of a grieving Alfred) and savagely fought him and ending up breaking the Russian’s neck with the grappling gun and rendering making him quadriplegic, so Batman arrests him as per usual right? Nope. After all, KGBeast killed his boy, so Bruce just leaves KGbeast to die in the snow while he does an Unflinching Walk away. Thou Shall Not Kill may be a golden rule but taking away Batman’s most beloved adoptee changes rules completely.
    • In Batman And Robin 2011, Batman was frightfully furious when villain Nobody decided to mock him by making Batman listening to him beating up his biological son Damian. He was prepared to leave Nobody to die in a pool of acid if he hadn't seen Damian watching them and controlled himself in time.
  • There was also a story where Batman has to do a night of crimefighting while toting a baby around...
    Batman: You all know who I am. You know what I can do. But I'm holding a small child here. And if you make me do anything that could possibly endanger this baby... you will be very, very sorry. Forever.
    • That story ends with the revelation that he was willing to risk revealing his identity in order to give the baby a chance at a normal life with his parents.
  • It goes back to his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. The good Doctor was a classic example of The Stoic: in control of himself, logical and not given to bouts of emotion. But one night at a Halloween party the Waynes attended (with Dr. Wayne dressed as Zorro and Little Bruce dressed as a skeleton), Lew Moxon needed Wayne's help with an injured man. Dr. Wayne agreed, sewed the man up and calmly informed Moxon that he was going to report the incident to the police the next day. And then, Moxon made an offhand threat against Martha and Bruce. Poor Moxon had no idea he'd just madeDr. Wayne's really angry until Wayne decked him so hard his grandkids felt it while shouting, "YOU TOUCH MY FAMILY AND I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!" It's an awesome case of Heroic Lineage.
    • Goes so far with Thomas Wayne that in the Flashpoint storyline, he becomes Batman after Bruce is killed in the mugging. Mind you, he's as good as Bruce at the job, but he's probably pushing sixty at least. It also says something that this Batman is completely willing to kill. In Earth 2, after Bruce dies saving the world as Batman, Thomas becomes the new Batman and, again, is not afraid to kill.
• Batman's fellow crime fighter and Mama Bear Black Canary's boyfriend Oliver Queen/Green Arrow isn't any different. When his son Connor was shot in the head in Green Arrow 2001, Ollie forced an arrow between Onomatopoeia's (the shooter) teeth, angrily asking why he tried to kill his kid and just a hair away from making shish-kebab out of his brain. He then decides he doesn't care why Onomatopoeia tried to kill Connor, and tells him that he will die if his son doesn't pull through, holding his bow in that position while the surgeons work. For 30 minutes. With a 200 lb. pull longbow. After giving blood. Connor later was shot again (guy has no luck), fell into a coma, and was kidnapped from his hospital bed. Needless to say, things did not end well for the guys behind it.
  • In the Justice League: Cry for Justice mini-series, the villain Prometheus's plans managed to result in the maiming of Roy Harper and the death of Roy's daughter, Lian Green Arrow's grand-daughter. This results in Green Arrow putting an arrow through Prometheus's brain via his forehead.
• Even one of the villainous rogues in Batman, Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow, is implied to have tendencies of this. When an Alpha Bitch outright bullies a distraught girl who was one of his patients, he was apparently angered enough to exact revenge on the same Alpha Bitch and her friends by gassing them with the Fear Toxin.
  • In The Batman Adventures Annual #1, Jonathan Crane begins teaching again under an assumed name and grows to care for a bright young student under his tutelage. When she gets abused by a Jerk Jock in what is heavily implied to be rape, Professor Crane goes away, and Scarecrow comes back.
• In Convergence: Titans, when Lian is brought Back from the Dead by Dreamslayer of the Extremists, Roy is given the ultimatum of choosing between his daughter and the Titans. Roy basically says "Screw that!" and manages to save Lian without betraying his friends. What's more, Roy reveals he outfitted the domed Gotham City with secret gun ports as a line of defense and sends the Extremists running with their tails between their legs. And keep in mind that the Extremists are responsible for destroying whole planets and they're ersatz versions of Doctor Doom, Dormammu, Sabertooth, Magneto, and Doctor Octopus. Roy basically schooled alternate versions of some of the deadliest villains in comic book history because he would not let them use his daughter or his friends as leverage.
• Deadpool is another example. He's protective of kids in general, and them being harmed gets him really angry. So it's no shock he's like this with his own daughter, Ellie. Shiklah is angry at Deadpool trying to leave to check on Ellie when she needs him there to help with the kingdom. Deadpool finally tells her outright that she's responsible for everything in her life, but that his daughter never asked to be a part of his, so he's going to her. This is the second time he's left Shiklah to go to Ellie, mind you. Plus the times he's just not home due to watching over or visiting Ellie.
  • Flagsmasher learned of the wolf the hard way. Deadpool is temporarily crippled due to being shot in the spine. He begs Flagsmasher to leave Ellie alone, because she has nothing to do with them. He throws Ellie out of a window, and Deadpool flies into rage. He forces his Healing Factor to kick in faster, bites on of the goons, poisons another by putting a snake down his shirt, and savagely beats Flagsmasher, who's begging Deadpool to kill him by the end.
  • Even when Ellie is 80, Deadpool is still a dad. He hugs her after not seeing her in ages, then promptly asks her about what she's wearing -with Preston, now a hologram, agreeing with Deadpool that her outfit is inappropriate.
  • How far is he willing to go for her? In the first part of Deadpool: The End, he has reduced the entire universe into a World of Chaos, he disabled/neutralized pretty much every hero and villain so they're unable to stop him (though in a major Pet the Dog moment, Spider-Man is not only excluded from this indignity, but he's being fawned over by Mary Jane, a resurrected Gwen Stacy and even Black Cat at the same time in the midst of this) and most of all, ready to kill Death herself who he loves, all because he could not bear to be in a world where his daughter died of old age while he lived (and she herself had to stop him from "choke-holding" the universe into submission).
• The assassin Deadshot aka Floyd Lawton, on-and-off member of the Suicide Squad (and one of the few good enough to survive multiple stints on it) and member of the Secret Six (pre-Flashpoint). In one storyline he discovered that he might have fathered a daughter. When he visits the mother Michelle (a former prostitute and junkie who cleaned herself up for her daughter's sake) he sees his daughter for the first time, an adorable little four year old girl named Zoe. He wages a one-man war against the three crime families fighting over their neighborhood just so Michelle and Zoe can have a better life. He pretty much wins too.
• Donald Duck can be this for his entire family within the Disney Ducks Comic Universe, but most commonly with his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. While he has gotten extremely aggravated by them constantly throughout the comics, he loves them dearly. Threatening the triplets is the absolute quickest way to send him into full wrath and violence...and Donald already has one of the shortest fuses in animation and comics history.
• Scrooge McDuck is definitely this, especially towards Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie. Ambitious and greedy he may be, but nobody messes with his family. He's even shown giving up the chance to gain immense treasure to ensure his family's safety on more than one occasion, in fact one of the few ways to make him spend a lot of money is to put him in a situation where doing so secures the safety of his loved ones. In one famous comic strip, Soapy Slick has him chained to his steamboat and tormented him with letters from home. The stupid bastard thought it would be funny to mock Scrooge about his mother's death, which he only just found out about from the letter Slick read out. The results were catastrophic... and legendary in-universe.
• Bigby in Fables. Notably, he's an actual Papa Wolf, being as he is The Big Bad Wolf.
  • His father the North Wind as well. After spending most of the series acting like a Jerkass God who never seemed to care much for Bigby he sacrifices himself destroying Mister Dark to save his son and his grandchildren.
    • And protecting them from himself, as well, as "Mr. North" was bound to an ancient vow that he would slay zephyrs (predatory wind creatures) wherever he found them; unfortunately, one of Bigby's and Snow White's children happened to be born a zephyr. North chose to sacrifice his life defeating Mr. Dark over being forced to kill his grandchild.
• Fantastic Four: Reed Richards, along with his Mama Bear wife Sue Storm, especially given that both their children (Reality Warper Franklin and Child Prodigy Valeria) do have vast powers that make them desirable targets for just about every supervillain out there.
  • Ben Grimm aka The Thing is this way towards Franklin and Valeria too. In fact, come to think of it, if you really want to make anyone who is on friendly terms with the Fantastic Four very angry, threaten Reed and Sue's kids. It's sure to work.
  • Cool Uncle Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch died protecting his nephew and niece as well his best friend Ben from Annihilus’s army. He turned out to be okay later though.
  • In addition, Doctor Doom is this way to towards Valeria. He helped Sue give birth to her, and swore than anyone who harmed the child would face his wrath. He is not above using Valeria as a pawn, however. He secretly used an incantation when she was born that would have let him use Valeria as a familiar if the need arose. Her parents were later able to break the spell, but Doom's vow to protect her still stands.
• The Flash:
  • Barry Allen (The Flash II) is this for Wally West (Kid Flash I/The Flash III), his nephew and former sidekick. He treats him like a son, to the point that his own biological kids are jealous of Wally, and has gone above and beyond to help him. This includes, before his death (as in a death he knew was coming) using time-travel to visit Wally on the three hardest days of his life. One of these includes helping Wally against two Reverse-Flashes. Once DC Rebirth happens and Wally returns after years of being retconned from existence, Aquaman at one point questions Wally's integrity. This leads Barry, the Nice Guy and embodiment of stand-up Silver Age heroes, to threaten his fellow Justice Leaguer right then and there.
  • Wally himself is this to his kids, Irey and Jai. You mess with his kids, and he will straight up wreck you. He also shows shades of this to Bart.
• Firebreather: The protagonist's dad is a Kaiju; messing with his son is something few are willing to do a second time.
• Ghost Rider: It’s a common occurrence for low life street scum, professional criminals and super demons from hell to hurt and endanger innocent little children around Ghost Rider whose sole mission in life to protect the innocent and moreover horrifically punish those who mean and have done harm to the innocent. Whether it be Johnny Blaze (who lost his own wife and son), Danny Ketch or Robbie Reyes, hurting kids around Ghost Rider guarantees a soul destroying Penance Stare if you’re lucky.
  • This is especially shown in the 1991 Marvel Christmas Special “Ghost of Christmas Present” strip where a small blind boy Willie Rockwell has been kidnapped by human traffickers on Christmas Eve. The boy manages to escape and meets Ghost Rider who he thinks is Santa Claus, the traffickers soon catch up with them and Ghost Rider subjects them to a fate so brutal the comic panels doesn’t even show it. GR then returns Billy safely home to his terrified parents on his bike or in Billy’s words “sleigh”.
• Thabian Polotsk from Gold Digger IS this trope: a super-strong werewolf gentle giant with two young children he would (and almost did) die for.
  • Adversely, Brendan, another werewolf, disdains his children to the point of homicidal hatred.
  • And don't forget Theodore Diggers, the father of our heroine(s). He's quick to bring the hurt when his wife or daughters are in trouble.
• Green Lantern: A rather twisted example would be Sinestro. Harm his daughter, Soranik Natu, and you will have the wrath of the entire Sinestro Corps bearing down on you and your entire planet, as the Weaponer of Qward learned. Of course, being Sinestro, this happens after he lets his daughter's boyfriend, Kyle Rayner, fail in a rescue attempt first just to show her how unworthy he is.
• The Incredible Hulk: Papa Wolf: May there be mercy upon you if you injure or threaten anyone the Hulk considers a friend. This also goes for anyone who harms his son. To the point where Bruce - not the Hulk, but Bruce - promised to kill Steve Rogers if he killed his son Hiro-Kala, who for the record was trying to crash a Mars-sized planet into Earth at the time.
  • The Hulk zigzags this as he usually lacks the mental stablity to be a good father, however while having a Duel to the Death with his son Skaar, he stops mid-rageout remembering his own father's abuse◊ and reverts back into Banner to give Skaar a Cooldown Hug. Played straighter later Doctor Doom is about cut Skaar down with his own sword, Bruce bursts in (not even as the Hulk) to protect his son◊ and even calls Doom a "jackass" while he does it. Hulk depending on the mood, plays straight with other characters whom he is close to such as: his sidekick Rick Jones who he saved from a nuclear blast and protected from the military, his cousin She-Hulk whom he gave his blood to so she wouldn't die from a gunshot, and even Spider-Man (no really◊). He is a Bruiser with a Soft Center at his very best and will protect anyone who he cares about, and seeing them get hurt makes him very, very angry.
  • Played with and then deconstructed with General Thaddeus Ross, he loves his daughter Betty Ross deeply and devoted his entire life to protecting her from the Hulk/Bruce whom she loves. But Ross is such a bitter Knight Templar Parent that his extreme efforts to "look after" Betty did far more harm than good and eventually turned her against him.
  • Immortal Hulk has a strange example in the Devil Hulk persona, who explicitly cares for Bruce and Savage/Child Hulk and seeing them get hurt, royally pisses him off. This even extends to loved ones like Betty Ross who hurt Child Hulk while in her Red Harpy form, Devil Hulk warns her once she’s not allowed to hurt “the kid” again. It’s theorised in-universe Devil Hulk is Banner subconsciously creating a caring father figure that he sorely lacked in his childhood.
    Devil Hulk: (to Bruce) I know you locked me away for years. I know I scare you. What I do. What I am. But before any of the others... I was there protecting you. I always protect you... ‘cause I love you stupid kid. Somebody had to. Come on home [holding his hand out to Bruce, who takes it].
• Tony Stark aka Iron Man, in a break from his usual irascible nature, displays a strong streak of this towards Kamala Khan, the second Ms Marvel. Kamala’s endangerment from other characters (even other heroes) is the quickest way for Tony to take the situation seriously. He even gives her a Cooldown Hug after she despairs at one point.
  • Overlaps with Action-Hero Babysitter but in Avengers (2018) #35, Tony becomes a Papa Wolf for the infant Brandy Selby. Tony is initially uncomfortable keeping her but the baby adores him and Tony soon goes out of his way to make sure no harm comes to her, alongside Carol Danvers.
• Invincible
  • Nolan Grayson aka Omni-Man was sent by his people the Viltrumites to invade Earth and weaken it's defenses, however Nolan started a family on Earth and when the time came to reveal himself Nolan tried to act like a Archnemesis Dad to his son but Mark easily saw through his lies and when Nolan was prepared to kill Mark he couldn't bring himself to do it and flew into space crying Manly Tears thinking about his son's words. Later Nolan plays this straight, fiercely protecting his wife, son and illegitimate son Oliver. During a space battle Nolan saves Mark when he had all his guts hanging out and even fought Thragg the strongest Viltrumite to protect him. At later point when, Anissa shows up unwelcome, Eve revealed she had done something to Mark at which Nolan grabbed Anissa by the neck demanding to know what she did to his son. If Nolan had learnt to the truth he probably would've ripped her head off.
  • Mark himself becomes this, as when Eve becomes pregnant any and all threat to her and the baby will become a bloody smear. When the baby (Terra Grayson) is born Mark dials it up to eleven as when Terra briefly stops breathing and Mark grabs his family and does a Speed Blitz to the nearest hospital and when the doctor initially refuses to treat a Viltrumite baby Mark "kindly" asks him to reconsider. Also since Eve has powers of her own and a Mama Bear to boot they both make a beautiful Battle Couple when Throgs try to make a snack out of them and Terra.
• Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Although Nny is a rather Ax-Crazy sort and is liable to kill anyone over anything, harming Squee like one particularly unsavoury individual tried to do will get Nny to stop whatever he's doing and give you his full attention. The bastard wasn't missed.
  • He also knocked Squee's actual dad out cold when the nasty old prick decided to badmouth Squee in front of him. But because Squee was there, Nny was holding back, as if he wasn't there to remind Nny to control himself in time, he would of probably torn him limb from limb.
• Towards the end of Enrique Alcatena's Sci-Fi strip Luc Helius the Young Cosmonaut, when the Big Bad corners Luc and gives him a Breaking Speech that sends the kid into an Heroic BSoD... he commits a massive mistake: doing this in front of Luc's beloved father, whom he has been holding hostage and is the reason why Luc embarked on this adventure. The just recently rescued Helius snaps and furiously attacks the Big Bad (who mind you, is a MASSIVE Dinosaur man, and Dr. Helius is a mere human man without any powers), then tells Luc to recover his spirits. This makes Luc react, and he's soon delivering the killing blow to the Big Bad with some help of his True Companions.
• Luke Cage: Norman Osborn learned the hard way to not endanger Luke Cage's girlfriend (now wife) Jessica and their (then unborn) daughter as in The Pulse, Luke beat the tar out of him in public, not caring if his already revealed identity took a nosedive in regards to reputation.
  • Later, after Dark Reign, Cage's New Avengers took on Norman's new Dark Avengers. Norman was savvy enough to invoke this trope beforehand, knowing it would anger Cage into doing something impulsive and make Norman appear to be defending himself from a Scary Black Man.
  • When the Purple Man tried to control Luke and force him to kill the Avengers and then commit suicide, he made the mistake of assuring him that once Luke was dead, he'd then pay Jessica and the baby a visit. The ensuing No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Luke unleashed would have killed the Purple Man had Captain America not intervened at the last possible moment.
    Luke: (While beating Purple Man into a bloody smear on the ground) You threaten my kid? You say that to my face?!
• In Marvel 1602 Rojhaz is an extreme Papa Wolf to Virginia Dare and won’t hesitate to kick ass when she’s in danger (as Vulture learned the hard way) or just make hot broth for her when she’s ill. He’s a Papa Wolf for the native Americans of Roanoke and saved them from early settlers. Given he’s a time displaced Captain America it makes sense.
  • While less emphasized than in the 1606 universe, Cap is also this to his allies in the 616 universe. Just see how much ass he kicked in WWII when his Kid Sidekick Bucky is in danger, or in the present where he’s Team Dad to the Avengers.
• The Mighty Thor:
  • Volstagg is a big, cheerful, friendly fellow, always ready for a fight or a frolic. Harm, or even threaten, any of his children, biological or adopted, and he will come down on you like the wrath of the angry god he is. This comes to a tragic point in War of Realms arc, when he bonds with a group of Light Elf orphaned children, going hungry to feed them, and making a Declaration of Protection. Then, a Fire-Demon attack results in a savage fire-storm, one that Volstagg, an exceptional durable god, survives. But the children don't, burning to ash in his arms. And the Fire-Demons laugh. Cue Volstagg's Unstoppable Rage, which culminates in him picking up the Mjolnir of the Ultimate Universe (which survived Secret Wars (2015)), which is full of the rage and pain of a dead universe, and becoming the 'War Thor'. Cue a brutal Roaring Rampage of Revenge and a spirited attempt to destroy Muspelheim and all the Fire-Demons within, guilty and innocent alike from which he is barely talked down.
  • Odin was willing to burn the entire world to ash if it meant he could avert the battle between the Serpent and Thor that was fated to end with Thor's death.
  • Even Loki, of all people, has tendencies to become this whenever his children are concerned (despite the fact that, by his own admission, he has hundreds of children). When one of his daughters was possessed by a powerful agent known as Morwen, well... let's just say it didn't end well for Morwen.
  • If you hurt someone Thor cares about, then you will truly realise why he is called the God of Storms, because he will bring one the size of a planet down on your head. In Jason Aaron’s run, Thor in the Distant Finale is a Grandpa Wolf to his three granddaughters and Papa Wolf to Earth/Midguard in general, doing everything in his power to stop Galactus consuming it despite all life on Earth being already dead. Though he manages to make it lush again thanks to his magical tears.
• MonsterVerse:
  • Serizawa's father Eiji in the prequel graphic novel Godzilla Awakening. Getting back to his baby son was the first thing he thought of right after surviving the blast on 6 August, 1945, and he acted on it.
  • In The Birth of Kong, Kong's father held off the Skullcrawlers while his mate gave birth to and hid their son away.
• A villainous example: The Raider from Paperinik New Adventures. Sure, he is a time-travel thief (of the Noble Demon variety) and he may have several disagreements with him, but the safety of his son Trip is always at the top of his list. He changed the whole timeline just to find him after he disappeared.
• The Punisher MAX: Aside from the fact that Frank's one-man war on criminals started when his wife and children were killed in the crossfire of a mob hit gone wrong, one surefire way to really get his blood boiling is hurting and harming children. To list off some specific examples:
  • During the arc The Long, Cold Dark, Castle's vengeful nemesis Barracuda targets the Punisher by kidnapping the daughter Frank unknowingly had with Kathryn O'Brien. When Castle finds out, he is pissed, to say the least, and at one point, he spends an hour running electricity from a car battery through Barracuda's genitals in retribution before unloading a whole assault rifle into Barracuda's head for good measure.
    • Just to add a little more elaboration, at the beginning of the comic, Barracuda actually gets the drop on Castle and handcuffs him to a chair before revealing Frank's daughter Sarah, and holds a knife to the little girl (and it's very clear Barracuda was going to torture the little girl to death to get Revenge by Proxy with Frank). Frank flies into an Unstoppable Rage and has to piece together the following events by examining his injuries in a hospital bed (he snapped his wrist in a heartbeat to get out of the chair, lunged across the room, and tore a chunk out of Barracuda's cheek with his teeth; if 'Cuda hadn't thrown him out the window, Frank definitely would have torn him limb from limb).
  • In the story arc Mother Russia, Castle is charged to rescue a little girl from Russian bad guys (to put it briefly, there's a big plot about germ warfare). Upon entering the complex where she is held and meeting her, he says "My name is Frank. If anyone else tries to be mean to you, I will be much, much meaner to them. I promise." Soon after, a skinny, half-naked Asian super agent comes and kicks the crap out of Castle with the butt of an AK-47. In a daze, he sees the agent slap the girl. He gets up. The agent throws a kick. Castle grabs his ankle, twists and slams him against the floor, walls, and ceiling until the agent is a pulpy mess and twists his leg off "like a drumstick." Do not fuck with kids around Frank Castle.
    • Even then, the only reason he stops is that he's scaring the kid.
  • Castle is conversing with one of his hooker informants. He's glaring at a pimp, who's guarding a young girl. He asks the hooker how old the girl is. She says she's about 13 and mentions drugs. Castle walks to the pimp, pulls him into an alley, and emerges from the alley alone.
    Punisher: Tell the new guy to behave himself. [walks off]
    Old hooker: ...that was not my fuckin' fault.
  • Kitchen Irish features a Grandpapa Wolf in Napper French, a retired mob cleaner and the best of his kind. French was legendary for his ability to pull a "Houdini" on a body, to make it disappear completely off the face of the Earth. Irish gangster Maginty kidnaps Napper's grandson to force him to pull one last Houdini...on a live man. He has no choice but to comply, but near the end of the job, Maginty, for his own amusement, shows Napper's grandson what his grandfather had been doing, traumatizing the young child. So Napper decides to give Maginty a firsthand demonstration of how one pulls a Houdini....
  • The Slavers is another Papa Wolf moment for Frank. The villains of this arc are human traffickers who make money off of kidnapping and selling young women and girls into sex slavery, and Castle is so enraged with what these scumbags do to their victims (including killing the baby of one of the girls who tried to escape) that by the end of the arc, even he's shocked at what he has done. This includes knocking one of the ringleaders out unconcious, cutting the man's belly open, wrapping his intestines around a tree, and then waking the man up.
• Rat-Man has two examples:
  • Janus Valker, Rat-Man's adopted father, is also an utter sociopath and so good at killing that he once killed two near-immortal eldritch minions of an Eldritch Abomination while dead (his heart had stopped, and the minions, who knew better than come close while he was still alive, came to claim his body, only to be choked. Then Valker's heart restarted). Threatening his son or granddaughter means he will come after you and kill you. The only thing that has ever stopped him was when he was dealing with a young Rat-Man's bully, as the bully was still a child and that was the one thing he wasn't willing to do... But he could wait for his eighteenth birthday:
    Bully: "I've been waiting for this moment for so long!"
    Valker: "So did I."
    BANG
  • Rat-Man himself is one once he finds out he has a daughter-and that she's been kidnapped. The responsible party was left broken and paralyzed, and when he claimed that if he didn't kill him now he'd come back and kidnap her again Rat-Man was about to do just that before Valker brutally finished him off.
• Rick and Morty (Oni):
  • Like in the main series, while Jerry is cowardly, he'll become this to protect his family:
    • Upon finding out that Morty has been kidnapped by drug lords in Issue 18, he doesn’t hesitate to pick up a gun and demand that Rick take him to go rescue Morty.
    • When Doofus Jerry has the rest of his family cornered and is about to shoot them, Jerry Prime tries to fight him to protect them, despite knowing he has no chance.
    • In issue 31, when the family is abducted by aliens, Jerry doesn’t hesitate to step up to be the first for the Anal Probing. Even Beth is surprised.
      Beth: Geez, Jerry really throwing yourself on the proverbial sword there, eh?
  • Also like the main series, Rick has his moments with several different family members, most commonly Morty:
    • Rick does not take kindly to people kidnapping Morty and/or using him as a hostage. He slaughters a gang of drug lords and the top subordinates of a galactic gangster when each group tries this, immediately tries to kill an alternate Jerry after he accidentally shoots Morty while holding him hostage, and relentlessly hunts down and battles Peacock Jones after he abducts Morty to get revenge on Rick.
    • Rick also immediately tries to fight Doofus Jerry again, despite having lost to him numerous times already, after the latter easily defeats Morty, and shields Morty from Krombopulos Amy when she wants to kill him.
    • He defeats Peacock Jones and frames him for drug trafficking after Jones threatens to rape Summer, and puts Summer in a pocket dimension to keep Doofus Jerry away from her.
    • He gets super pissed with Jerry after Jerry accidentally causes Beth to get kidnapped by aliens, and promptly goes to rescue her.
• Scandal Savage and Bane of Secret Six have something of a father-daughter relationship, with Scandal's biological father being... well, Vandal Savage and Bane being a Genius Bruiser when not on his venom, and it seems the one surefire way to get Bane to use said venom again is to put Scandal in danger, at which point anyone who happens to be in the way gets to experience what the Batman went through in Knightfall — that is, a broken back.
  • Catman, also of the Secret Six, discovers that he has a child with a supervillain named Cheshire. When the child is kidnapped by a gang of other superhumans, he systematically tracks them across multiple countries, murders each of them in extremely violent and soul-destroying fashion and then does the hardest and most gut-wrenching thing a Papa Wolf can be asked to do... He tells Cheshire that the child is dead, even though he knows it has been happily adopted by a normal couple, so as to make sure that it can never be found and threatened by his enemies ever again.
• Sin City:
  • Marv is like this to the girls at Kadie's Bar, especially Nancy. He mentions one moment when a frat boy roughed up Nancy, and he "straightened him out but good," mentioning that he maybe went a little too far (implying that the other guy didn't survive). There's also the short yarn "Silent Night," where Marv hears about a mother asking after her missing daughter, then hunts down and kills her abductors (who had been planning to sell the poor girl for sex) and cradles the terrified child in his arms in a rare tender moment before taking her home.
  • John Hartigan towards Nancy taken up to eleven, he'll plow through armies of men, let himself get shot dozen times and hospitalised, let his reputation get ruined, spend years in prison and risk the wrath of a senator all to make sure Nancy is okay and happy. Then there's what Hartigan did the subhuman garbage who tried to rape Nancy twice, no Extreme Mêlée Revenge is putting it too gently, Hartigan just kept punching the Yellow Barstard's skull until he was just "pounding wet chunks into the floorboards". Hartigan even kills himself to make sure Nancy goes free, a "fair trade" in his own words.
  • The corrupt police commissioner Liebowitz turns against the Wallenquist crime organization in "Hell and Back" after his Dragon The Colonel orders the assassin Mariah to break Liebowitz's son's arm to remind Liebowitz of the organization's power over him. Liebowitz responds by organizing a police raid on the organization's human trafficking operations. Then he personally blows The Colonel's brains out and orders his officers to "make a missing person out of the fucker."
• Spider-Man:
  • Peter Parker has his moments in Spider-Girl. Sure, he may be retired and missing a leg, but you shouldn't mess with his kids.
    • Kaine also shows this trait from time to time when his "niece" is in danger. Must be genetic.
  • The mainline version of Kaine is quite protective of his Kid Sidekick Aracely, although he'll never admit it either to himself or others.
  • Pretty much every incarnation of Peter Parker has this to some extent... Granted, most versions don't have children, but they all have a big blinking button somewhere in their psyche labeled 'someone hurt my loved ones', and the majority of the New York underworld can tell when some idiot has pressed it.
    • Hint: the reason the motor-mouthed superhero hasn't talked in the last sixty seconds is because he's using all his superior intellect and enhanced nerve conduction velocity (IE: ability to think faster than normal) to consider the merits of the 6,000 different ways he intends to hurt you.
  • There's also The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #645. Peter's led to believe an infant he was trying to protect is killed. He then proceeds to go on a rampage. It's so bad that some of his rogues gallery don't believe it... until he comes for them. And those that do turn themselves into the police in the vain hope that it will protect them. It doesn't.
  • Played unabashedly straight and dialed up to eleven in The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, when Spidey returns home to find Venom has taken Mary Jane and his daughter Annie hostage◊. Cue Spider-Man punching Venom in the face harder than he's ever punched anyone before, breaking bones in his hand... BUT HE DOESN'T CARE◊. Does it end there? Nope. Venom, not taking the hint, goes as far as to explicitly◊ threaten to kill little Annie, causing Peter to take a note out of The Punisher's book and drop a burning building on Venom◊, killing him stone dead◊. So it just goes to show, "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” is usually an All-Loving Hero, but so much as touch his family and you're dead fucking meat, pal.
  • Also, a few flashback stories show that his Uncle Ben could be like this too. A former MP in the army, he wasn't a violent man by nature, but was more than capable of getting tough with anyone who threatened his nephew or his wife if talking them into balking down didn't work, as the unfortunate incident regarding Peter's friend Charlie Weiderman proved.
• Being the nice guy and great hero he is, Superman obviously falls under this trope. Especially mess with Conner, Kara, his adopted son Chris or his biological son Jon, and you'll be under a worse ass-beating than usual from Supes.
  • He's stood up to the U.S. government when they wanted to take Chris away. And there was that time when General Zod tries to slap Chris, and Supes catches his hand at the last second and crushes it.
  • Also, when Atlas looks over an unconscious Supergirl, who had just been shot by a Kill Sat, he makes a comment that implies that he's going to rape her. Superman's all "HELL NO!" and knocks him into the sky. Sure, Supes would save anyone from that, but Kara is practically his daughter.
  • While the level of violence usually stayed lower than modern day (it was Lighter and Softer, after all), the Silver Age Superman did not take threats to his "boy pal" lightly. On one occasion, he backhanded a criminal flat and told him that that was a "light tap" and if he caught him messing with Jimmy again, he wouldn't be so lucky.
• Not quite sure if this counts, but during the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey arc, Cyborg Superman has Doomsday rampaging across Apokolips. Darkseid heads off to face him (admittedly pretty arrogant, considering this is, well, Darkseid) with a comment that, roughly paraphrased, amounts to "My subjects are mere worms. But they are MY worms, and thus WILL be protected." To put this in perspective, Darkseid has faced Doomsday before and watched him SLAUGHTER his best friend with a look of absolute terror and shock on his craggy face. And Darkseid goes to face him. All to protect his subjects, whom he makes quite clear he really doesn't care about normally. Though, to be fair, he probably assumed that since Superman beat Doomsday, it couldn't be THAT hard.
• Swamp Thing: Anyone who's dared to cause harm to Swamp Thing's daughter Tefé ended up suffering the wrath of her plant elemental daddy.
• Lord Tarr from Swordquest, who immediately attacks the king when the latter calls for the execution of his infant twins. It doesn't end well for him, unfortunately.
• When Marvin and Wendy suffered their utterly ridiculous, cruel, and pointless death and maiming respectively at the jaws of a demonic Wonder Dog while working with the Teen Titans, their father the Calculator was somewhat understandably pissed. Being a villain, he acted as a very dark Papa Wolf. His vengeful scheming claimed the life of Eddie Bloomberg aka Kid Devil, and he even went so far as to search for the Anti-Life Equation in the hopes that it could restore Wendy's ability to walk. It didn't work out.
• Thanos usually averts this hard, given he killed his numerous illegitimate children to please Death, horrifically tortured his "granddaughter" Nebula and is at odds with his son Thane, but Thanos does play it straight with his adoptive daughter Gamora who's the only one he shows genuine affection to besides Death. When she was a girl, Thanos rescued Gamora from the genocide of her people, got her a doll for space Christmas and promised to replace the doll after it got burned in an enemy attack and in one particularly dark moment when Gamora ran away and was beaten and gang-raped by thugs Thanos obliterated them and cradled Gamora in his arms apologizing for ever leaving her side. Of course, the subversion is that Thanos is just twisting her into a murderous Tyke Bomb but worth noting even after Gamora does a Heel–Face Turn, they still care for each other, though he did almost kill her at least once and she succeeded in killing him. Taken up to eleven in the Thanos (2019) miniseries as Thanos is a explicit Papa Wolf to Gamora though he would never admit it.
• Ultimate Marvel
  • Ultimate Iron Man: Howard Stark. Who, for the occasion, had come prepared with a 26-man SWAT team and a team of paramedics, all of which he had (presumably illegally) bribed to do his personal work. "Exactly where is my boy, and how many people do we have to kill to get to him?"
  • Ultimate X Men: In a short story arc focused on Gambit, the mutant finds a recently orphaned girl who immediately clings to him. Resigning himself to looking after her until he can find somewhere permanent for her to stay, Remy quickly grows fond of her. Then Hammerhead, the one responsible for making the girl an orphan, kidnaps her to remove the witness to his crime. Cue Roaring Rampage of Revenge to save her.
  • The Ultimates: Nick Fury adored Hawkeye's kids, so when they're brutally murdered, he's not in any mood to listen when Cap is framed.
• The Vision although he's mostly a Benevolent A.I. who is often distant even to his closest loved ones, still loves and cares for his all children whether it be Billy and Tommy whom he had (through mystical means) with Scarlet Witch or the ones he built himself Vin and Vivian. In his more recent solo series when Victor Mancha spying on the family got Vin killed, Vision goes on a Unstoppable Rage powering through the Avengers guarding Victor (which for refrence were: Iron Man, Jane Foster Thor, Captain Marvel, Blue Marvel, Beast, Nova, Medusa, Crystal, Sam Wilson, Monica Rambeau, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Ms Marvel, Doctor Strange and even Scarlet Witch) just to get to the kid's cell. Subverted though as Mama Bear Virginia (who's brainwaves are ironically based on Wanda's) is the one who kills Victor, making sure her husband doesn't go off the deep end and remain a hero, whilst she takes the blame. After losing both Vin and Virginia, Vision only doubled his efforts in looking after his daughter Vivian and though she can mostly look after herself in Young Avengers he will regardless flip his lid when she's in danger◊.
• Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead will do almost anything to protect his son Carl.
  • When a couple of bandits attack them on the highway, one of them attempts to rape Carl while another restrains Rick. Rick RIPS THE BANDIT'S THROAT OUT WITH HIS TEETH and proceeds to mercilessly stab the other to death.
• In DC Rebirth Wonder Woman #36, Diana along with her brother Jason are facing a rejuvenated Darkseid and getting throughly wrecked and then tortured by his Omega Beams, but then her lawyer Mr Hooper interrupts and reveals himself as her father Zeus (who has gotten some Adaptational Heroism) and fights Darkseid to protect her and Jason.
  "Release my daughter at once... (transforms into full God Mode) OR FACE THE WRATH OF ZEUS!"
• X-Men:
  • Charles Francis Xavier aka Professor X is mostly a very peaceful man who just wants peace for mutantkind, but hurt or threaten his students, family or loved ones in general and you will learn why he's most powerful telepath on the planet. Even in the earliest issues Charles has stepped in to help his students out against the likes of the Vanisher, The Juggernaut and once punched out a Skrull (while naked) to protect his X-Men. Also while the Professor has a very rocky relationship with his son David aka Legion who's a Person of Mass Destruction he'll still drop everything to make sure David is okay whenever they meet and David in return does state that he loves him.
    • House of X dials this up to eleven as Xavier states he simply can't stand any of his students dying on him again so he makes sure they can be resurrected using the powers of Hope Summers and others.
  • James Howlett aka Wolverine is very protective of Kitty Pryde and Jubilee. Too bad his relationship with his biological son Daken isn't nearly as good... since said son is a supervillain. Fortunately, he does have a good (and very protective) relationship with his biological (sort of) daughter, X-23.
    • It's pretty much tradition for Wolverine to have a female Kid Sidekick Morality Pet whom he will fiercely protect. Deadpool actually exploits this at one time to pick a fight with him.
  • Remy Lebeau aka Gambit will go out of his way to protect Jubilee◊, X-23◊ and kid Storm◊. During the Morlock massacre, Gambit got slashed by Sabretooth but remained conscious so he could save a little mutant girl (Marrow) and get her to safety. Also can't forget the time Gambit broke into Mr Sinister's compound to save his own kids he had with Rogue in Earth-41001.
  • Nathan Christopher Charles Askani'son Dayspring Summers aka Cable is the trope image, with Hope in his arms for a damn good reason. He took on the Purifiers, the Marauders, and Bishop to protect her when she was first born. Then, he spent the next 16 or so years jumping through time, through more than one post-apocalyptic dystopia, to protect her from Bishop (who was convinced that she was the cause of his Bad Future) and Stryfe, repeatedly almost killing himself to do so, as his techno-organic virus just got worse. Oh, and then, after coming to believe that the Avengers were going to try and kill her to potentially prevent a Phoenix event, he went and took down all of them. While dying from the effects of the virus. And then tries to ensure that she has a normal life, despite her best efforts otherwise. It's safe to say he'd do anything for his little girl. Hard to believe he used to be an amoral Liefeld character, but Characterisation Marches On. Though his earliest steps towards becoming this trope began since his first appearance, when he became the gruff drill sergeant type father figure and new teacher/mentor to the New Mutants. Taken even further with his movie version in Deadpool 2, where he travels back in time to assassinate the future man who murders his daughter Hope and his wife.
  • It carries over to his alternate reality counterpart, Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man. Don't threaten an innocent around this guy, particularly not a child — he wanders up and down the multiverse like it's his personal step ladder, effortlessly flattens entire teams of X-Men (including Jean Grey, Storm, Iceman, and Psylocke), and singlehandedly, effortlessly, demolishes Apocalypse and Legion. He can also one-shot planets. He's got a nasty temper and he gets creative — as demonstrated when, early in his run, he tracks down an arsonist he'd encountered earlier and found that the guy had set fire to a building full of a community of homeless people, including an infant. Nate, Glowing Eyes of Doom at full blast, promptly rescued the homeless, and took the child, whose terrified memories of the heat and choking on smoke he then downloaded into the arsonist's head, before affectionately tickling the child as the arsonist gibbered in a corner. Later on, during Zero Tolerance, despite his powers being crippled, he personally protects Gailyn and Joey Bailey (children of Jean's older sister, and thus his first cousins) who'd just seen their parents murdered, along with Roust, a street kid, from the Prime Sentinels, going hand to hand with them. He even takes the time to use what scraps of his power he has left to create a construct of Joey's teddy bear to comfort the kid.
    • None of the above is especially surprising: both of them are, after all, Jean Grey's sons.
  • Both Cable and Nate get it from the other side of the family, too - Scott Summers is emotionally stunted at the best of times, but he's also extremely protective of his children, as Cable's backstory (what he did with Hope, Scott and Jean had basically done with him), the fact that he pushed Nate out of the way during The Twelve storyline to take the metaphorical bullet of being possessed by Apocalypse, and most of his behaviour towards Rachel Grey-Summers, attest. It's generally not obvious, since all three children can more than look after themselves. Nate and Rachel are generally two of the most powerful characters on Marvel's slate, and Cable sometimes is too. And even when Cable isn't, he's still an incredibly skilled and experienced general and time travelling cyborg super-soldier. However, when they do need him, he's there, and usually with about two dozen plans, a small army of mutants, and a bazooka behind each eyeball to back them up.
  • Shockingly Sabretooth! Of all people reveals himself as a Papa Wolf in Weapon X (2017). As when he finds his normal human Mutant hating son Graydon Creed in Hell (after he was killed by his mother Mystique), he is about to smother Graydon who despises him but in a rare moment of heroism decides to rescue his son from damnation and get him resurrected. It also helps in the few times Sabretooth met Graydon prior to him dying he was actually proud of Graydon (unlike Mystique) for growing up to be ruthless like his old man.
  • Magneto displays Papa Wolf traits in Avengers: The Children's Crusade toward his daughter (Scarlet Witch) and grandsons (Wiccan and Speed), though this behavior is somewhat out of the ordinary for him. Whether he's doing it out of paternal feeling or some hidden agenda is up for debate — Quicksilver and even Wiccan assume it's the latter — but he spends a lot of time coming to their rescue. He also reacts purely defensively to the Avengers' totally unprovoked attack on him^note In TCC, Magneto is an X-Man and one of the "good guys", of which the Avengers are well aware., not even lashing out at Iron Man when Tony blasts him in the chest, but when Wolverine goes after Wiccan with clear intent to kill, Magneto immediately goes on the offensive for the duration of the fight.
    • This trait also turns up in Avengers Disassembled, when Wanda is unconscious and helpless, descending on the Avengers like a wrathful god, with only four words: "Give me my daughter." The Avengers, wisely, comply, and Magneto takes her to Genosha, to get Xavier to try and help her.
    • Mags has a similar attitude towards Polaris his biological daughter, albeit less often given she can look after herself most of the time. Still, there was an epic moment in Mutant X #32 when Lorna seemly dies in his arms, Magneto kissed her forehead while shedding Manly Tears and then became enraged.
      Magneto: Those that did this to you my child... WILL PAY WITH THEIR LIVES!

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