Behind every great Marvel Comics hero is a loving and supporting mother – except all the times that’s not the case. While a mother’s job is to care for and nurture their children, not every Marvel mother has gotten the memo. Some created saviors, while others created villains, but each of these malicious moms has inflicted serious damage on their kids along the way.
No parent can be perfect; that’s a fact. However, somewhere in the confusion of parenting is a line that all of these moms have long ignored. Emotional manipulation, ritualistic sacrifice, and genetic experimentation are not above any of these problematic mothers, as their actions have gone on to leave irreparable damage to their children. Depressingly, very few of these moms have ever faced the consequences of their wrongdoings, leaving their victims – their children – to recover alone, if at all. While a mother should be there to guide their wayward children, these Marvel moms are about the worst they come.
1
Mystique / Raven Darkhӧlme
Throws Away Her Kids Like It’s a Hobby
The mysterious blue shapeshifter known as Mystique has existed in a thousand different shapes and forms for centuries. Throughout her many false identities, Raven has built entire lives to be discarded as she pleases, often leaving behind the children that she believes are beneath her. While Nightcrawler and Rogue are Mystique’s most well-known kids, neither X-Man is her first. Raven had her first son, Graydon, with Sabertooth following a short fling. Graydon showed no signs of power, leaving Mystique disappointed and disinterested.
Poor Kurt Wagner came into this world as a product for the X-Men and nothing more.
Nightcrawler, much like some of the other kids on this list, certainly wasn’t born through love either. As Mystique’s long-time lover and wife, Irene Adler, could see into the future, Irene knew that she and Mystique needed to create the future X-Man. Poor Kurt Wagner came into this world as a product for the X-Men and nothing more. Over time, Raven would have many more flings from Wolverine to Charles Xavier, each time tossing aside her kid for convenience’s sake.
2
Nanny / Eleanor Murch
This “Mother” Steals Other Kids
Nanny, in her own weird way, tries her best to be a good mom. She is the perfect example of acting with the best intentions in the worst ways. After taking a stand against her anti-mutant company, Nanny asserted that she would stand for justice. Sometime later, Nanny discovered a young boy named Peter, trapped and experimented on by Mister Sinister. Nanny valiantly rescued the boy, but then outfitted him with cyborg technology, attached weapons to him, and called him the “Orphan-Maker.”
Related
Chill Out, The X-Men Already Have a Contingency Plan for The Phoenix’s Bloody Return
In the Dark Phoenix were to return, Cyclops reveals his contingency plan – and the one omega-level mutant he thinks can defeat Jean Grey.
Now, Orphan-Maker has become Nanny’s closest pawn who she often emotionally manipulates to further her goals of kidnapping more children. Nanny has long fallen into a toxic bout of psychosis and believes that only she can protect the wayward mutant children, even from their families. To this day, nobody knows who Peter’s true identity really is. That said, the X-Men villain has helped contain her ward’s disastrous mutant power and would willingly throw herself into the inferno to protect her “son.”
3
The Mothers of Pride
They Choose Cult Over Kids Every Time
There aren’t many ways you can spin being a cult leader as “good mom” material. The Pride – who debuted in Runaways #1 – is a modern cult imbued with prosperity and power at the hands of eldritch powers. In exchange for the ritualistic sacrifice of innocent souls, these atrocious parents were given success and life and a promise of a peaceful death. However, once the Pride’s kids discovered their parents’ villainous actions, the newly dubbed Runaways fled, only to be violently hunted down. Members of the Pride turned against each other and pinned the deaths of their former comrades on their collective children.
In the face of eldritch contracts, no mother of Pride has had the power to defend their kids, even from themselves. From alien war criminals to blood-magic wizards, the mothers of Pride are about as evil as evil comes, but this time with a suburban flair. While some of these criminal moms genuinely care about their kids’ well-being, like Catherine Wilder and Tina Minoru, oftentimes, these loving actions come too late to save their children from irreparable harm.
4
Black Womb / Amanda Müeller
No Wonder the Summers Family Is Problematic
Cyclops has had some questionable parenting choices over the years, but what can you expect when your great-great-grandmother is this vile of a person? In the early 1800s, Amanda Mueller, a mutant with immortality, was approached by Mister Sinister, then posing as a doctor named Doctor Milbury, with a horrific contract only fitting for the mad scientist. For a hefty sum of money, Amanda married, but with every pregnancy, she would feign a miscarriage and instead sell her infants to Essex.
There is no way to truly tell how many children Amanda Mueller has given birth to, nor the inhumane horrors she has inflicted upon those kids.
In time, Black Womb came to enjoy the scientific nature of Essex’s experimentation and eventually joined her own coalition of bad mutant parents alongside Irene Adler. Black Womb spent centuries birthing children simply to experiment on them to no end. There is no way to truly tell how many children Amanda Mueller has given birth to, nor the inhumane horrors she has inflicted upon those kids. While it’s not necessarily her fault, it’s also telling how many of her descendants also abandon their children. Looking at you, Chris and Scott Summers.
5
Moira MacTaggert
Her Kids Are Tools of War
Moira MacTaggert is a complicated character who was once beloved as an X-Men supporting star. However, in the Krakoa Saga, Moira’s character was expanded on in a devastating way that revealed her true callous nature. When Moira fully unlocked her mutant abilities, she lived through multiple lives to seek the answers to create the perfect future for mutantkind. Life after life, Moira experimented with the best ways to manipulate society and those around her to achieve a “perfect” world.
In her final timeline, the current Marvel continuity, Moira married and gave birth to Kevin MacTaggert. Moira and Charles Xavier needed an Omega-level teleporter to achieve their goals and identified Moira and her to-be husband as genetic matches to ensure that specific outcome. Kevin became a tool for his mother’s goals, and when his powers became too much to control, she had him institutionalized and left forgotten. Eventually, the mutant now known as Proteus became a critical asset in the mutant Resurrection Protocols, all according to Moira’s plans.
6
Amanda Armstrong
I Don’t Love You 3000
While Tony Stark’s legacy will always be defined by the power of the “Stark” name, he was not always a Stark. Long before Tony was born, a woman named Amanda Armstrong began working for SHIELD as a covert agent. For years, she traveled the world with another SHIELD Agent named Jude, and the two fell in love. Soon after Amanda discovered she was pregnant, Jude revealed that he had been a Hydra triple agent, selling both sides’ secrets to the other. Amanda killed Jude and left her baby to be adopted by fellow SHILED agent, Howard Stark.
Related
Marvel May Love Iron Man, But the Hero Has Been Killed In Some Seriously Awful Ways
It isn’t just the Marvel Cinematic Universe that gave Iron Man a traumatic death. Tony Stark has been through the wringer in the comics just as much.
While the pretext may sound like the loving decisions of a mother, her love ended there. The two did eventually reconnect, and it was positive at first. However, after a complicated situation resulted in Tony’s body being artificially rebuilt and technically an entirely different genetic being, Amanda no longer saw Tony as her biological son. She discarded Tony easily, now believing there was no reason to feel tied to her son. Tony may have had a better life with the Starks, but the sting of a mother’s rejection not once but twice sours this Marvel mom’s immediate kind doings.
7
Dorothy Walker
Marvel’s First Wicked Mother
In the days of Timely Comics, Marvel’s predecessor company, Patsy Walker debuted in a series of teen-girl humor comics focused on Patsy’s life as an all-American girl. However, when Marvel Comics took to the superheroic scene, Patsy and the existence of her original comics were canonized in the Marvel universe. In canon, Patsy’s mother, Dorothy, forced her daughter into modeling and acting from a young age. Despite Patsy’s repeated pleas to no longer be the face of her mother’s money-making schemes, Dorothy saw Patsy as nothing more.
Eventually, Patsy did free herself from her mother’s grip and became the hero known as Hellcat. Decades after Patsy cut off ties with Dorothy, the Marvel mom was left on her deathbed with no one but a demon by her side. In a final effort to stave off death, Dorothy offered Patsy’s body to a demon in exchange for eternal youth. Yet, despite Dorothy’s repeated parental crimes, Patsy did everything possible to free her mother from Hell’s grasp. Good job Hellcat for taking the high road.
8
Vanessa Fisk
Every King Needs His Queen
Vanessa Fisk is walking, talking, hypocrisy incarnate. As the wife of Kingpin, Vanessa has become a complicit culprit in all the madman’s schemes. Vanessa loves Wilson Fisk with her entire heart, even though she can’t agree with his shady criminal ways. But what Vanessa really loves is the respect that being the wife of the Kingpin garners. Even so, when the two brought their son Richard into the world, Vanessa had the boy later sent away to distance him from Kingpin’s ways.
Time and time again, Wilson Fisk violently berated and belittled his son as Vanessa stood back and watched.
However, Richard returned years later, disgusted by his father’s criminal empire. Time and time again, Wilson Fisk violently berated and belittled his son as Vanessa stood back and watched. Richard eventually took arms against his father and enacted an assassination plot to dethrone the Kingpin for good. During this time, Vanessa had already separated from Fisk but returned to seek vengeance against her son’s actions. Vanessa promptly hunted down and killed her son to protect the very man she had become too disgusted with to look at.
9
Madelyne Pryor
She Doesn’t Need a Baby Because She’s Got Dark Magic
From the start, Madelyne gets a little credit for being on edge at the time of her greatest offense. After living her entire perceived life as Jean Grey, Scott Summers abandoned Madelyne and their son after learning that she had been a clone. Alone, dejected, and caught in a raging identity crisis, Madelyne’s mind cracked, and she soon became the target of a corrupting demon. Madelyne’s psyche devolved into a persona called the Goblin Queen, and she became motivated by nothing more than revenge against Jean and Scott.
In her infernal search to achieve this destructive power, the Goblin Queen enacted a plot to sacrifice baby Nathan alongside nine other mutant babies. To be completely honest, the only reason Madelyne included Nathan in the mix of sacrificial babies was to spite Scott. While the Goblin Queen still rides the line of morality, she has gotten better – to some degree – and serves as Limbo’s Ambassador and a haven for outcast mutants. However, to this day, Madelyne Pryor has yet to meet her time-traveling son who she once tried to sacrifice to demons to spite her ex-husband.
10
Harness / Erika Benson
What Mother Blows Up Her Son?
Admittedly, there isn’t much about Erika Benson in the comics. But what little she does appear in immediately says everything one needs to know about this wicked Marvel mother. Erika Benson’s son, Gilbert, has the mutant power to absorb different forms of energy and store them inside his body. After Moira MacTaggert’s son Proteus was destabilized, his physical body destroyed itself, releasing his uncontrollable energy across the world. Sometime later, AIM approached Erika Benson about her son Gilbert, hoping to use his powers to gather Proteus’s remnants.
Related
10 Strongest X-Men Heroes of All Time (Ranked by Physical Strength)
The X-Men boast some of the strongest heroes in the Marvel Universe – here are their most physically powerful members of all time.
Harness cruelly forced her son to travel the world and absorb Proteus’s wild power. Now being called Piecemeal, the child eventually swelled into a half-ton malformed monstrosity. When the X-Men and Moira finally intervened in this plot, the heroes were too late. Gilbert’s body could no longer handle Proteus’s power and exploded. In an instant, Gilbert died and fused with Proteus’s being, creating a new amalgamated life. While some degree of Gilbert still lives on, nothing will replace the poor child’s final excruciating moments before being atomized while his vile Marvel Comics mother looked on with pride.
