Batman or Goku - Who's a better father?

In line with all the Goku vs Batman threads, I thought I'd come up with one that might be a little more humorous.

Or?

Batman actually spends time with his son...so, Batman.

Tough one :I

Goku

Goku freaking sacrificed his life twice to save gohan.

@dngn4774: goku and gohan Littrally spent 11 months together inside the time chamber. Plus goku is a fun getalon guy in general

@flashback0180: THIS X100

Batman for me

Goku trained his kids enough to surpass human levels

You can argue the same thing for Batman with his son and almost all other Robins. Plus it's much harder to do without Saiyan DNA.

Never understood why people think Goku is such a bad father. He only did a few things that I would say are questionable, leaving everybody to train Uub (His kids were both pretty much grown ups by then) not grabbing Gohan and Goten when trying to escape Buu's planet buster (He explained why he did this) and then when he pitted Gohan against Cell (He knew he could win)

@dngn4774: goku still trained his son to dance with another little boy and become another completely different child.

Goku. That guy sacrificed himself so many times for his family. Sure, he wasn't there a lot, that's because he was dead.

Goku

@blade_r: well you have the author practically saying it

You have piccolo understanding gohan more than goku himself

Goku sending gohan to fight cell without even warning him first hand

Entrusting the fate of the universe to his 7 year old son and 8 year old friend (which resulted in the extinction of mankind)

Plus we know goku has a strong relationship with his son. He was able to calm down bloodlusted ape gohan.

Ape form are incredibly hard to control, Goku murdered his own grandfather when he became a ape as a kid.

I summon @nickzambuto in attack mode!

Figured ya might find this interestin.

The Piccolo thing always came off to me as because of their year of training together, Gohan clearly took a liking to Piccolo , and Gohan was pretty much first person to treat Piccolo as a friend, so of course they have a special bond. I don't think that means Goku is a bad father.

I agree with the last two points but I still don't think that means he's fictions worst father, just a little dumb sometimes.

@blade_r: considering goku lived with his son for 4 years, then 3, then another in the ROSAT, while piccolo only had 4 years with gohan, you see my point with this one

I don't think goku is a good father because he doesn't even put his family as his priority

His main 2 things he loves are training and eating

I definitely see your point, but I don't think he is too bad of a father, especially for a Saiyan. We know he trains is because he loves fighting sure, but I don't think its crazy to believe he doesn't also train so he can protect the earth and the people he cares about.

Goku

Well a good father wouldn't want his son to change who he was to please society. He'd love him for being himself! jk

TeamFourStar is funny but let's not base our opinions of the series on it. KaiserNeko himself is adamant that it's just a parody and becomes mortified when people on Kanzenshuu take it in place of the series itself. In-universe, Goku is a wonderful father. He's readily and eagerly sacrificed his life, and more importantly (at least for a Saiyan) his pride, on several occasions just for Gohan, most notably by teaming up with Piccolo to face Raditz. The idea that Goku is never there is ignorant; each arc only lasts a few days, so while there is usually some plot device to keep him out of commission until it it's time to face the big bad, you have to realize that every day in between the arcs is spent with Gohan and the rest of his family. This is like if I said Batman is a bad dad because he missed out on Damian's first 10 years of life, despite the fact that Batman didn't know he existed yet.

Yes Goku is not infallible, but people are seriously hard on him for the few mistakes that he does make, and most of them amount to his own naivety, not being a bad or uncaring father. Yes, he failed to understand Gohan's feelings about fighting during the Cell Games and needed Piccolo to explain it to him, but people act like misunderstanding your child isn't something that every single parent inevitably has to deal with, almost on a regular basis. The fact that Goku was quick to understand and tried to rectify things immediately shows that he's above most fathers when it comes to parenting.

People bring up him leaving to go train Uub, which is a more valid argument, but there's a reason fans hate the ending to Dragon Ball and many point out that Goku was out of character. Although I will say that at the least, his sons were fully grown by that point, and it's not like anything stopped them from visiting him. He didn't say "goodbye, never find me, we'll never see each other again." He just moved somewhere else, which is fine since Gohan was already living in his own home, and as for Goten, Goku was shown spending quality time with him right before the tournament started. This is more of a bad husband thing than a bad father thing, but again, fans will argue that Goku was out of character anyway.

I think the topic at hand is pretty interesting. Here's my breakdown.

Goku as a father

Pros-

• Has readily sacrificed everything from his life to his pride to make sure his sons are safe on several occasions.
• Is shown to have a very close relationship with his sons, most notably seen when he was able to get Gohan mostly in control of his Oozaru form.
• His lessons both morally and in martial arts resulted in Gohan becoming one of Earth's greatest defenders. Goten also at least tried. Both of his sons are shown to be completely pure of heart thanks to him.
• Is undeniably much more warm and overall pleasant to be around. I imagine most people would lose their minds having to sit with Bruce in the Batcave all day, atmosphere is an important part in how your child perceives you.
• Is much more fun and spends more quality time with his sons doing things like fishing and camping in addition to training, while Batman and Robin mostly hang out by just training and going on patrol.
• Goku was able to protect Gohan from BOTH Vegeta and Freeza despite being outmatched while Bruce couldn't even protect his son from the Heretic alone. The most important part of being a parent, protection; Goku excels at it while Bruce does not.

Cons-

• His naivety and isolated upbringing lead him to not understand that his actions have consequences beyond just himself and what is morally right at face-value. This can be seen as selfishness on several occasions, but personally I interpret it more as Goku is like a child and just doesn't understand. Examples include giving Cell a Senzu Bean and purposely leaving Majin Buu for the boys to deal with, even though both instances had good intentions behind them.
• His own immaturity results in him failing to understand his children on a deeper level like a father should. Besides Gohan at the Cell Games, it was also shown at the end of the series that he forces Goten to spar with him even though Goten at the time was much more interested in dates.
• In line with the first con, he chose to remain dead after the Cell Games to make sure no more threats came to Earth searching for him. Again, good intentions, but this means he missed out on most of Goten's childhood and Gohan's teenage years.

Can someone make a pros and cons list for Bruce? I tried but can't think of any particular pros, maybe someone with more knowledge than me could.

Goku sacrificed both of those to protect Gohan; his pride as a fighter by teaming up with Piccolo to face Raditz just because Gohan was kidnapped, even though normally Goku would be adamant to face Raditz alone even knowing how outmatched he was, and he sacrificed eating when he let Cell kill him, despite already knowing that you don't eat in other world.

@nickzambuto: not really

Pride as a fighter?

He has next to no problem accepting help when his enemy is far above him

It's getting power h doesn't attain on his own that he has a real problem with

He didn't sacrifice training because he just trains on king Kai's planet

And it's not that you don't eat, it's that he doesn't have to eat

False.

Batman is a better father.

@nickzambuto: you can say false all ya want

@nickzambuto: I'd do it, but as the OP, I shouldn't.

You know you want to.

Could go either way.

Piccolo

I say the one who spend more time with their kids, so I go with Bruce in here.

Superman.

Haha

I love goku but he's an asshole

Look at cell saga

His whole plan was to let gohan get beaten an inch to death, in the hopes of him getting angry enough to beat cell. It only worked on a fluke.if android 16 wasn't there cell would of murdered gohan.goku doesn't gohan at all,he doesn't understand that gohan isn't a fighter like him.

I love batman,but batman might even be a bigger asshole

Batman brought jason todd back to the place where he was beaten with a crowbar,blown up, and murdered, in the hopes that bringing jason there might jog his memory about how he came back to life,so he can apply it to Damien and bring him back to life.

Also batman DIDN'T AVENGE jason after he was murdered

Say what you want about goku,he'd avenge his sons if they were murdered

@nickzambuto:

Batman as a father:

Pros-

- Literally went to hell and back to save Damian, while wearing a parasitic death suit.

- Forgave Damian for killing NoBody, Spook and a bunch of other people

- Bruce's example caused Damian to go against his mother's teachings which had been hammered into him his whole life

- Damian was willing to sacrifice himself to save not only Bruce, but everyone in Gotham.

- The life with the Batcave and the patrolling is everything Damian ever wanted. At the end of Death of the Family Damian dreamed he was fighting crime with Bruce, saying it was a dream he "didn't want to wake up from".

- All the Robins enjoyed being Robins. Dick admitted that he wouldn't change his life for the world, being Robin was the only thing that stopped Jason from becoming a criminal etc

- Bruce raises Damian as a single parent. Chi-chi did practically all the work that didn't involve training to fight whoever their next opponent was

- Off the top of my head, Bruce and Damian have gone to the theatre, had a movie night with the rest of the family, played with Titus in the backyard, went to Bruce's space station, went on a fishing trip, took him to the Justice League tower etc. He doesn't just take his son to punch junkies.

- Heretic is an unfair example. Bruce was literally locked in a metal box in a skyscraper stories above where Damian was fighting. He didn't even let Damian out of the cave, Damian disobeyed Bruce and went himself.

- Bruce is willing to actually discipline Damian. Has Goku ever actually done that?

- Puts responsibility on Damian (like when he took him out on a mission with the League) but doesn't put him really at risk (they went with Superman, Wonder woman and Shazam)

- He's actually learned from his mistakes

Cons -

- Can be somewhat overprotective

- Once almost sent Damian back to Talia, but that was because he thought Damian would literally end the world

- Went a bit crazy after Damian died. Not sure whether that's a pro or con. Oh well.

For the record, Gohan and Goten were absorbed and later killed by Buu, where they not?

@midnightdragon18:

"Say what you want about goku,he'd avenge his sons if they were murdered"

Didn't avenge gohan (who was believed to have been killed) when he fought fat buu, heck, he let him live when he could've done it and sent his OTHER son (and best friend) after him

@dbzk1999: thats because Dragon balls

And he did average them by kill kid buu

Batman because Batman's obviously a better person than Goku. Who the hell sits back and lets the god of destruction beat the crap out of their friends so he could form a strategy? Vegeta and them were right to be pissed at Goku when he told them that lol Goku almost got Gohan and everyone else killed had Gohan not reached his full potential against Cell also

@midnightdragon18:

"thats because Dragon balls"

That's not an excuse

"And he did average them by kill kid buu"

Which he put at risk 3 times

They only succeeded because of coincidences

Hecl, he wouldn't have needed to avenge his other son had he actually killed buu when he had the chance

Goku.

@dbzk1999: it is really

If there was no othet way

Then goku would of probably avenged them

You sort of have a point

Even though what batman did to jason was worse,plus he didn't avenge him

Of all the DBZ vs ____ I would have never thought anyone would care about this lol

@midnightdragon18: so goku basically being responsible for the extinction of humanity should be excused because "oh they can be wished back"

There was another way

He could've killed fat buu

He could've killed buuhan as vegetto (then wish them back, unfortunately)

He could've fused again, but no, "gotta keep the fight fair"

Heck, he could've just had gohan or gotenks appear instead of going with most of the most dumbest plans they could've done

@dbzk1999: Pretty much,but

i already admitted Goku was an asshole,but so is batman.

@comicstooge: this. But isn't being overprotective and showing that you might go crazy after your child's death count as a pro?

Hm, well, his craziness was at the expense of his adopted sons.

@comicstooge: true but wouldn't that also show them what might happen to him if any of them dies

Good point.