Technobabble Theater: More Than You Wanted to Know About “Mother of Champions”
In Nightwing, the Mother of Champions (a Chinese super-hero who gives birth to “litters” of super-powered children every few days) has been kidnapped by Talia Al Ghul so that she can raise her own super-powered army. To make the process even more efficient, one of Talia’s (mad) scientists explains the the plan.
Chemicals that induce labor? We have them now: Pitocin (oxytocin) — it’s commonly used by obstetricians for induction of labor. It induces labor by stimulating contractions, which brings me around to the point that you can’t have labor without having contractions.
How can a chemical “mimic” contractions? And even if it could, what good would it do? The muscular contractions of the uterus are what propels the baby along and through the birth canal. If you mimicked contractions there would be no real pushing (just “mimicking”), and thus no delivery. I’m pretty sure that this would actually slow the process down.
Of course, we’re talking about a woman who gives birth to dozens of children every few days, which means that any legitimate obstetrics and medicine is out the window. I really think that this is one of those concepts that was better left unexplained.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Am I the only person who finds the entire concept behind the “Mother of Champions” the least bit disturbing? It’s always struck me as being nothing more than the product of a male writer with a pregnancy fetish.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am
It’s not just you.
Although, given that the character is Chinese, I’m not sure if it’s a pregnancy fetish so much as a play on the trope of “those foreigners are out-breeding us! and their kids are smarter and harder-working than ours, too!”
June 18th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Wow, does that concept ever sound racist. “Them wily Chinee’re gonna take our superheroin’ jobs! And then they’ll take over the world! Stop them before they dun breed!”
June 18th, 2008 at 10:30 am
But…but… wouldn’t half the super beings in the world be her kids by now?
And do they grow any faster than usual, or what?
This excerpt just raises so many questions. :(
June 18th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I think the “mimics contractions” drug is actually supposed to “cause” the muscles to contract (perhaps by targeting specific vaginal muscles).
Hey, don’t look at me like that, it’s comic-book SCIENCE!
Is it much further along than half the B.S. stuff that is sold today (like those “exercise electro-belts*” that give your abdomen a real workout and get you that 6-pack while you’re watching the TV).
* funny, but those electro-belts have been around practically forEVER.
I saw some old advertisements for those in an antique Sears/Roebuck catalog from the 40’s.
And they were all the rage about 10 years ago, as well.
The ideas just go away for awhile, and then resurface for a new generation.
~P~
PTOR
June 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
That means… POG WILL COME BACK! All my old POG’s in the loft will be usable by my children!
Though it is worrying that she breeds constantly. Is it asexual? Or is she just damned horny?
June 18th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
They age quickly and then die. Part of the plot is making the kids live longer. Good thing they don’t run out of test subjects easily.
Also, I feel that the original script may have said “Stimulates” which was typoed into “Simulates” which was revised into “Mimics.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Official Comment
Olivier,
The simulates / stimulates possibility occurred to me, but I hadn’t made the leap to simulates = mimics, but that makes sense.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
It feels to me more like a parody of that idea than anything — at least, it did in her original appearance in 52.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:10 am
RE: The racist/sexist/fetishist implications: Grant Morrison (IIRC) has gone on record as saying that the intent was to make a hero who uses the uniquely feminine “empowerment” of child birth. I believe he said that China would be more inclined than western culture to think of this as a superpower and a “feat” for MoC than just somebody who lies back and let the men do all the work.
I think Veda (or whatever her name was) from “The Order” personified the same concept better.
And was this to explain how her powers normally work, or how Talia’s drugged version of her powers work?
September 10th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
[...] "heroism incubator organization" You know what I blame the JLU on? DECADES of bad writing featuring dumb ideas. All levity aside, I found the idea of "getting the kids involved" deeply creepy, and I suspect that somewhere, somehow, deep beneath Justice Island – the Comics Code is being flouted! [...]
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