Do you SEE what you get, Warriors?! Do you SEE what you get when you mess with The Orphans?! Welcome to Ten Things: Ten Super Orphans!

Whooshman-Bicarbonate Films, in conjunction with An Amateur Comics Historian and Martha’s pearls, Presents:

TEN THINGS: TEN SUPER ORPHANS!

10) HADJI

Orphaned under unrevealed circumstances, Hadji encountered the Quest family when he saved the life of Dr. Benton Quest from would-be assassins in the streets of Calcutta. Adopted by the good doctor, Hadji and his brother Jonny traveled with him and his bodyguard, Race, around the world and could be relied upon to get into some sort of mischief in every land. Hadji’s mystical powers of levitation, hypnotism, and such are attributed by him to being the seventh son of a seventh son, but by the skeptical Dr. Quest as legerdemain. Regardless, he can use them to get out of trouble almost as well as he and Jonny get into it.

9) IRON FIST

After the deaths of his parents, Daniel Rand was left as a nine-year-old orphan, stranded in the Himalayas. Fortunately, his father was trying to get back to the hidden city of K’un Lun, where young Daniel was taken in and trained for a decade in the ways of martial arts. At 19, he faced an undying dragon in combat and gained the power of the Iron Fist, then returned to the West as a masked hero. There he found a best friend, a calling, and become the most famous man ever to kick Doctor Doom in the face while wearing slippers.

He is currently training/fighting with the new Iron Fist, once the hero called The Swordmaster.

8) BLACKHAWK

The loss of his mother and father left young Janos Prohaska and siblings in the care of his aunt and uncle, but young Janos didn’t hang around long. Joining the Polish Air Forces, Prohaska fought in the Spanish Civil War before founding the Blackhawk Squadron to avenge the deaths of his siblings in a German bombing. After the war, Blackhawk reimagined his crack flying ace squadron as an aerial courier service, with inconsistent success.

It should be noted that the history of Blackhawk and the Blackhawk Squadron is subject to LOTS of retcon, so this background, real name, and sequence of events is only for certain applicable to the New Earth Blackhawk and even then only between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour.

7) DOOM

On Earth-808, Victor von Doom was slightly less arrogant at a key moment in his life, listening to classmate Reed Richards when he pointed out a flaw in Doom’s calculations. Working together Victor and Reed successfully discovered the spirit of von Doom’s deceased mother, leading Victor to search for the secrets of her freedom. After receiving a suit of golden armor from a sect of monks, he stormed Hell itself and freed Cynthia von Doom’s soul, then returned to rule Latveria with a steady and compassionate hand. Unfortunately, Mephisto didn’t take kindly to Doom’s kibitzing in his affairs, and claimed the soul of his lady-love in revenge, leaving Doom once again cloistered away to search for the right magical spells.

6) KID VICIOUS

Hand-picked by the vigilante Judge Jury as his sidekick, Beau King was subjected to a regimen of steroids, physical abuse, and brainwashing before being given a costume and sent out to wield racist “justice” in the streets of Slumburg. Bratpack is not an easy story to read, but seeing nebbishy Beau transformed into a ‘roid-raging cynical monster is tough. The fact that it’s not the most horrifying transformation of the various kid sidekicks should serve as a warning that the book’s Mature Readers tag isn’t just for show.

5) STORM

Though she was born in New York City, Ororo Munroe’s family was living in Cairo when a plane crashed on their home, killing her parents. From the age of five, she lived in the streets, learning to steal in order to survive. Her life changed when she picked the pocket of one Charles Xavier, who later recruited her for his international team of X-Men, using her weather-manipulating powers and eventually leading the team. As of this writing, she is the regent of a terraformed Mars, serving as Earth’s voice in intergalactic affairs.

4) BLUE-J

Another mutant, this time with superhuman strength, Blue-j is in truth Molly Hayes of the Runaways. When her makeshift family (formed after five sets of supervillains were killed, leaving their kids behind) fell in with Los Angeles vigilante Doc Justice, she temporarily took on the mask and mantle of a fallen hero. When it became clear that Doc Justice’s high sidekick death rate wasn’t a coincidence, Blue-J and the rest of the team fought him, eventually returning to their life in a sunken mansion known as The Hostel.

3) GAMORA

The last survivor not only of her family, but her entire PLANET, Gamora Zen Whoberi Ben Titan was adopted/abducted by Thanos the Mad Titan and sent back into the past to be raised as an assassin. Eventually, she left the service of her “father” to join with Adam Warlock to defeat The Magus, the man responsible for the destruction of her people. She has since died several times and become a mainstay in the ranks of the Guardians of the Galaxy, even once following in Thanos’ footsteps by nearly destroying the universe.

2) HARBINGER

Rescued from the sea after a marine accident killed her parents, Lyla Michaels was raised by The Monitor and trained in the minutiae of the infinite earths. She helped to overcome the Anti-Monitor, then joined the New Guardians in the reconstructed universe of New Earth. Harbinger eventually settled on Paradise Island, but was killed when Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El arrived from Krypton. Tragically, Harbinger was last seen as an animated zombie during the events of Blackest Night.

1) BLACK WIDOW

One of many young orphans trained in the Red Room, Yelena Belova was embedded with a false family including future Black Widow Natalia Romanova. Years later, she was reunited with her adoptive sister, mother, and father in destroying the Red Room once and for all. Since then, she has moved to Los Angeles, hunting Hawkeye for what she believed was his role in her sister’s death.

In the comics, Yelena is known as The White Widow and is canonically asexual, but it’s not clear whether any of that is true of this Earth-199999 iteration.

Once again, this week’s topic, Ten Female Clones, is all me, but feel free to follow along @MightyKingCobra to suggest a topic of your own! There’s always more Ten Things madness on my Twitter or check out the full Twitter archive here! As with any set of like items, these aren’t meant to be hard and fast or absolutely complete, ’cause Johns, King, and Taylor are still out there, meaning NO parent is safe. Either way, the comments section is below for just such an emergency, but, as always: Please, no wagering!

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