The Best Super-Pregnancies

I absolutely love it when Wizard has features that are "The Best Of" or count down the "Top Ten/Five/Fifty" and stuff like that.

FIVE FOR FRIDAY: THE BEST SUPER-PREGNANCIES
With the Top Cow Universe going through labor pains in ‘First Born,’ head to the maternity ward with the Top 5 comic-book births ever

By Michael Fitzgerald and Sean T. Collins

Posted August 3, 2007 11:40 AM

It’s a life-changing event, the beginning of a new life and a topic for very special sitcom episodes: Pregnancy and childbirth! As Witchblade’s Sara Pezzini gets ready to enter motherhood in Top Cow’s new company-wide crossover First Born—its first issue, featuring the casts of Witchblade, Cyberforce and The Darkness all getting ready to hand out cigars—the changes to the Top Cow U. are sure to be just as momentous. Until the blessed event goes down, just breathe, push and prepare with the five best metahuman pregnancies comics have seen so far.

5) CONCRETE (Concrete: The Human Dilemma)
When creator Paul Chadwick’s gentle giant got himself (yes, himself) knocked up, the result was a hell of a lot more entertaining and thought-provoking than that Schwarzenegger pregnancy flick, that’s for sure. After he and his long-time friend Dr. Maureen Vonnegut shared a steamy look-but-don’t-touch liaison—the only kind he can have, given the genderless, rock-hard cyborg body the poor guy’s brain got implanted in by aliens long ago—Concrete discovered that a baby stone-giant-thing had somehow been conceived, gestating in his back. Concrete’s life as a dad has yet to be chronicled, but it’ll be tough to top the way it got started.

4) JESSICA JONES (Alias, The Pulse, New Avengers)

Jessica Jones ushered in Marvel’s potty-mouthed mature content MAX line with the f-word dropping out of her mouth in ways we never even thought of, but that all ended when she discovered she was pregnant with Luke Cage’s baby. Now faced with probably the greatest dose of responsibility in their lives—forming a nuclear family—Jones and Cage stepped up, got married, and took on higher profiles in the Marvel Universe. Of course, as of New Avengers #31 we’ve learned their baby girl might be a Skrull, which means one of the proud parents might be too, but for now we’ll just bask in the glow of their bouncing-baby happy ending.


3) TALIA AL GHUL (Batman)
Many consider Batman: Son of the Demon to be one of the greatest Batman stories, with many elements later borrowed for “Batman Begins” and one of the better episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series.” But it spent years in an out-of-continuity no man’s land due to its twist ending, in which Batman and Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter Talia have a child. But now the pages of Grant Morrison’s “Batman and Son” storyline prove that the Bat-baby was real, as the young Damian Wayne reappears and wreaks havoc after being raised by the League of Assassins.


2) INVISIBLE WOMAN (Fantastic Four)
The poster-child for super-hero moms, Sue Storm Richards has had three of the most dramatic pregnancies in comics. Her first child, Franklin, would eventually develop near-omnipotent reality-altering mutant powers. Sue’s second pregnancy sadly ended in miscarriage despite the help of some of Marvel’s top scientists, including Doctor Octopus, but eventually it was revealed that Franklin had used his reality-controlling powers to rescue it. Later, the child was returned to Sue’s womb on the cusp of birth again, leading the FF on a quest that eventually ended in the child’s rebirth at the hands of Doctor Doom, who in return was granted permission to name the child Valeria after the Doc’s lost love. All in all, it’s about as crazy as regular childbirth is.


1) SCARLET WITCH (Avengers)
This is why we were all made to watch those propaganda films in middle school hygiene class. Marrying a robot isn’t a really great plan, so when the Vision’s wife Wanda Maximoff got pregnant with twins through her mysterious magical mutant powers, fans were probably about as confused as they were joyous. That all went away, however, when the dark lord Mephisto claimed the children and Wanda had their existence removed from her memory. Even though that seemed to be all wrapped up in a neat little package, Wanda’s suppressed memories of her now-nonexistent children quietly drove her mad, sending a ripple effect throughout the Marvel Universe that led directly to the Avengers’ destruction in Avengers Disassembled and the decimation of the mutant population in House of M—huge mega-events and tie-ins that still require a basic knowledge of Wanda Maximoff’s tortured brush with motherhood. There might be a happy ending here, though, as Young Avengers Speed and Wiccan may well be Wanda’s missing kids somehow made real once more…