Which is the worst mentor: Batman or Green Arrow?

[godisawesome]

Jason, Stephanie, and Damian have all died as Robin.

Further, Dick died for a moment in Forever Evil, while Tim had his death faked in Detective Comics, while everyone believed him to be dead for a while.

So his sidekicks don't have a great track record of avoiding death.

On the other hand, they now all have returned in some way, shape or form, while DC often forgets members of the Arrow family.

I bet Bruce has a reusable casket now.

[married guy]

While both have a spotty history, Bruce is SO much worse than Ollie!
Ollie seems to have learned from his mistakes with Roy. Yeah, he had a rocky start with Connor, but eventually they had a solid relationship.
Same with Mia. Ollie did a good job mentoring her and using Connor to assist was a masterstroke.
Not sure about much GA related since the 52 relaunch as it scared me off (other than the Lemire run)

Bruce lost Jason, Steph and Damian, treated Helena like something he dug out of his ear, and basically told everyone to stay out of his city.

[protege]

Is it getting to point where Batman will need to be written differently soon to be acceptable to modern sensibilities and modern style of comics?

I wonder what that would even look like.

[dietrich]

Jason, Stephanie, and Damian have all died as Robin.

Further, Dick died for a moment in Forever Evil, while Tim had his death faked in Detective Comics, while everyone believed him to be dead for a while.

So his sidekicks don't have a great track record of avoiding death.

Damian has died 3 times now. Batman needs to upgrade to superpowered sidekicks maybe.

[M L A]

Oh definitely Batman

Ollie was typically portrayed as having learned from past actions (before the reboot put everything in disarray and erased them all except Roy) and Ollie hasn't messed up royally with Emiko just yet whereas writers just keep repeating Bruce's actions before the reboot and after the reboot.

[BatmanJones]

I think it’s a close race. They’re both poor mentors for allowing children to fight crime. Batman withholds emotion including love and Ollie is all emotion. Maybe Ollie wears his heart in his sleeve more than Bruce but I think most of the Robins feel/felt loved with the possible exception of Jason, though I think he knows deep down that he’s loved too. I think Roy knows he’s loved too now, but that at a formative age he didn’t. It’s a tough call but I’m going with GA. Batman would never be a deadbeat dad.

[BatmanJones]

And Ollie wasn’t just a deadbeat dad to Roy. He knew he had a son in Connor and walked away from that. Then, on meeting Connor, he lied and acted like he hadn’t known about him. Maybe Bruce is the worse mentor but the better father. They’re two of my all time favorite characters so I don’t mean to bash either of them. Great characters are flawed, often greatly.

[Frontier]

I think it’s a close race. They’re both poor mentors for allowing children to fight crime. Batman withholds emotion including love and Ollie is all emotion. Maybe Ollie wears his heart in his sleeve more than Bruce but I think most of the Robins feel/felt loved with the possible exception of Jason, though I think he knows deep down that he’s loved too. I think Roy knows he’s loved too now, but that at a formative age he didn’t. It’s a tough call but I’m going with GA. Batman would never be a deadbeat dad.

I think we can set aside the issue of letting kids fight crime and just look at their general mentoring to see that, on a base level, they did a good job preparing their protege's to fight crime and take care of themselves to where they're relatively functional adult crime-fighters.

[Aahz]

Jason, Stephanie, and Damian have all died as Robin.

No Stephanie was iirc back to Spoiler when she died. And I'm not really shure if you can really put the blame for this mess on Bruce.

But when it comes to his adopted kids, if you go for the "everything is continuity"-thing there is also Lance Bruner.

[Jackalope89]

Neither are winning "Dad" or "Mentor" of the Year awards, but Bruce is far worse than Ollie.

Ollie at least tries to learn from his mistakes. Bruce makes excuses for them. Besides, not only has Bruce lost more partners, he even did one of those very ones dirty; he tricked Jason into going back to the place he died. Why? To bring back Damian. Never mind Bruce never tried to go half as far for Jason, but didn't even try to refer to Jason as his "son". Only Damian.

To clarify; I'm not putting the blame on Damian for this. But Bruce, whom is not only a jerk (I have other words, but would rather not get banned) to villains, but also those he claims to be on the same side as. Which often makes his actions worse. Like Tower of Babel; where he not only made contingencies for the League that nearly killed them, but he never bothered to tell them he was making such plans in the first place. And this was a group that included his supposed close friends in Clark and Diana.

[Jim Kelly]

Hm, when I think about it, I realize that Denny O'Neil screwed up both these guys and their relationships with their young partners.

Before that, I think Bruce was the better mentor. The first issue of BATMAN I bought is 188 (December 1966) and has a lead story written by Bob Kanigher. In the Kanigher version, Bruce is the playboy dating all the chicks and he's encouraging Dick to do the same--giving him tips on picking up girls. The back-up story is a good Gardner Fox mystery, where Bruce is the more responsible parent. The first DETECTIVE COMICS issue I bought is 361 (March 1967)--which I always say is one of my favourite comic books of all time--that one has the Fox Batman, where Bruce is teaching Dick an important memorization technique and is an all-around supportive father figure (which made a huge impression on me as a little kid, as Bruce was the kind of Dad I wanted).

Whereas, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 188 [G-64] (October-November 1969) reprinted the "new" origin story for Speedy--"The World's Worst Archer"--in which Roy travels to Star City in hopes of becoming Green Arrow's assistant, but all his attempts at archery go astray and he's let down. And Green Arrow isn't much help. That always made me feel that Oliver Queen wasn't the best at parenting. He could have been nicer to the boy, if he had any paternal instincts.

Anyway, I consider today's Batman and Green Arrow to be fakes. Neither of them is a good enough guy to be a father. Yet, in terms of the originals, they were both okay, but Bruce was better. He took in the orphaned Dick Grayson because he had genuine empathy for the lad and wanted to give him the help that he never got--which is why Dick turned out to be such a credit to him.

[TheBatman]

Maybe Bruce is the worse mentor.

But given that Bruce trained and mentored Nightwing, one of the most respected heroes and leaders of the DCU, I'd say if he's a worse mentor than Ollie, he's also a better mentor than Ollie as well.

[prepmaster]

Dead sidekick after dead sidekick...

[SiegePerilous02]

Bruce is the worst, which just shows how badly DC has mismanaged his character over the decades that we can almost definitively say that.

[Frontier]

Maybe Bruce is the worse mentor.

But given that Bruce trained and mentored Nightwing, one of the most respected heroes and leaders of the DCU, I'd say if he's a worse mentor than Ollie, he's also a better mentor than Ollie as well.

Roy isn't half-bad.

Bruce is the worst, which just shows how badly DC has mismanaged his character over the decades that we can almost definitively say that.

I don't think it's an objective truth. People tend to just accentuate the negative.