Children of the Damned (Earth-616)

Children of the Damned
Name	Children of the Damned
Members
Leader(s)	Mother (Baroness Victoria von Frankenstein)
Current Member(s)	Frankenstein's Monster, Fritz, Igor, at least thirty others
Former Member(s)	Many unnamed members killed in combat against Frankenstein's Monster and Berserker
Affiliation and Identity
Identity	Secret
Allies	Children Gnomes (by Iron Man), Misbegotten mutated mistakes (by Dreadknight), Odd little minions (by Bruce Banner), The little ones (by Mother), These misshappen, mutated, mistakes (by Dreadknight), The Mother's Children Weird Dwarves (by Iron Man)
Origin and Status
Origin	Mutates
Status	Active
Reality	Earth-616
Base of Operations	Castle Frankenstein
Place of Formation	Castle Frankenstein
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Bill Mantlo, Val Mayerik
First	Frankenstein #18 (June, 1975)
First	Frankenstein #18 (June, 1975)

 I call them... "The Children." And so they are -- the malformed "offspring" of my father's and grandfather's damnable tests. 

—Mother (Baroness Victoria von Frankenstein)

History

The Children of the Damned are dwarfish mutants, ill-fated creations of several ancient members of the Frankenstein Family, including Victor himself, but particularly Basil, who more famously made experiments for the Nazis during World War II, and his son Ludwig, who created a doppelganger of the Silver Surfer that was defeated by the Surfer himself, while Ludwig was killed by his own manservant Borgo, who apparently sacrificed his own life so that Ludwig would not kill the villagers in the Barony. The Children were prototypes and predecessors of the Frankensteins' more successful creatures. The amoral scientists discarded these misshapen creatures, keeping them imprisoned in the dungeons of Castle Frankenstein, in the Swiss Alps.

When Ludwig died, the Castle and Barony were inherited by his older child, Victoria von Frankenstein, who had been raised to consider these creatures as a surname-related shame to be hid and ignored. Once Victoria found the jailed Children, she released them and became their guardian and caretaker instead. Knowledgeable of her family's history, the new Baroness Frankenstein knew how several of her ancestors were obsessed with their research to create monsters they then abused of; she was known to feel guilty for their actions, and chose to have what the locals (apparently unaware of the Children's existence) considered a lonely life in the castle. The Children, grateful for her protection and attention, obsessively served the Baroness, calling her "Mother", and combed the nearby forest for intruders at her request; Victoria was interested in finding the first creation of her ancestors, Frankenstein's Monster, and add him to her entourage, and the Children knew of her goal. Some of the Children remained in the castle, including Igor, a hunchback who was apparently served as her butler.

The Frankenstein's Monster eventually came to wander through the Swiss Alps, looking for his own identity while befriending his travel companion, the also confused robot Berserker. The odd couple were found by a party of at least sixteen Children, who ambushed and overcame them by sheer weight of numbers: Seven Children floored the Monster while Berserker, having beaten at least one, is a victim of the frenzy of the others, reacting to the loss of their friend: The robot was beheaded by a blow with a stick, while the Monster witnessed the death of his friend helpless before being suffocated. Discarding the robot pieces, the Children carried the unconscious Monster to the Castle, and were forced to throw him through a steep hill, as they were unable to climb down carefully with the weight and trusted that the Monster was durable. They were received by Igor, who prompted them to chain the Monster to the dungeons with old, rusty iron chains. More and more Children, including at least a dozen who had not been with the ambushing party, looked at the newcomer with interest. When the Monster woke up, he broke the chains with his extraordinary strength and attacked the little men around him; this time, he had the initiative and the Children could not overpower him. Igor, knowing of the Monster's traditional fear to fire, tried to intimidate him with a torch, but the hunchback then slipped in a slime-covered stair and was battered by the Monster. The fight was interrupted by the sudden arrival of the Baroness Victoria Frankenstein, whose voice and presence intimidated the Monster, especially when she accused the Monster of being an evil, murderous creature who should not have friends and instead live only for the current holder of the Frankenstein Barony. The Mother helped the Monster recover memories of the death of his creator, and eventually the Monster came to live peacefully in the Castle with the Mother and the Children, who came to respect him as an older sibling.

The Children also found a weird winged horse, the Hellhorse, that had been the genetically-altered mount of the criminal Black Knight (Nathan Garrett) before the latter's death. The Mother tried to restore the creature to normal using the techniques and methods of one of her ancestors, but instead mutated it even more. She kept the horse in her castle.

The Children later found, in the wilderness, a debilitated, famished man with a weird metal mask grafted to his head, and they took him to the Castle for "Mother" to decide what to do with him. The man was Bram Velsing, an arrogant Latverian scientist who had been tortured by Doctor Doom and exiled from his native country for supposed crimes. The Mother nursed Velsing back to health and either showed him the winged horse, or Velsing found on his own. In any case, the so-called Hellhorse gave Velsing an ambitious idea to create an armor and weapon for himself to become a Hellhorse-riding supervillain, leading an army of mutated creatures in a revenge plan against Doom. Becoming the Dreadknight, he captured the Mother and threatened to kill the Children lest she give him Victor von Frankenstein's secret notebooks - but she refused. The Dreadknight tortured her, to the Children's horror, and intimidated the Children with fear, convincing them that he was invincible, so that they'd serve him.

Simultaneously, American superhero Iron Man was flying over Europe when he was shot down near the Swiss border and fell, unconscious, near Castle Frankenstein. The Children, patrolling the area with the Monster, found him and mistrusted him, as they found Iron Man's metal mask similar to Dreadknight's, and feared that Iron Man would also be an enemy; but the Monster insisted that they took him to the Castle, thinking he could help them in their plight; the Monster asked the Children to hide the newcomer from the Dreadknight until the Mother was informed. Unfortunately, Iron Man woke up at the castle's doors and, believing to be in distress, moved violently, which in turn convinced the Children to react with more violence as they thought Iron Man wanted to kill them. Iron Man understood the problem, but the skirmish had attracted the attention of the Dreadknight, who attacked Iron Man, the Monster and the Children, overloaded Iron Man's armor and sent him to the dungeon with the Monster and the Mother, his armor still inoperative and kept with a high-tech shackling device. She told Iron Man the details of the situation, and the Dreadknight again tortured the Mother, wanting to get both Victor Frankenstein's and Iron Man's technological secrets. The Monster managed to release himself using sheer strength and started a fight against the Dreadknight, and Iron Man managed to sabotage his own bindings to join the fray. The Children did not join this battle, in which the Dreadknight threatened the Mother, but Iron Man saved her, and the Monster allowed the Dreadknight to fall on a chasm; the villain survived, though, although in a coma. Iron Man then helped mend the relationship between the Mother and the Monster, so that the later two would help the Children together in a very human way. They also kept the Dreadknight in the castle for months, until the sorcerer Morgan Le Fay sneaked into the Castle and magically cured the Dreadknight to use him as a minion in her own scheme in Ireland. Frankenstein's Monster eventually decided to leave the Castle of his own volition, staying in good terms with the inhabitants.

The locals living in the Barony started to like the Baroness Frankenstein, believing she was watching over them from the Castle. This led to the Baroness discovering that Borgo, servant to Baroness Victoria's father, had survived but suffered injuries that left him mute and paralysed, and was under the care of a local family, the Müllers. Borgo wanted to live in the Castle again, and Victoria, moved by family responsibility, agreed. Borgo really wanted access to the X-Machine used by Ludwig to create the false Silver Surfer, believing he could use it to restore his damaged spine and legs; and the Mother ordered the Children to remove debris from the machine and help repairing it, hoping to mend her father's crimes. The Mother personally operated the device to treat Borgo with a new lump of clay; but then Borgo became a new duplicate of the Silver Surfer - the "FrankenSurfer". Borgo then revealed that his crippledness had filled him with hatred for mankind, and he started a rampage against mankind, including American wizard Doctor Strange; he also imprisoned the Baroness and the Children in the Castle's dungeons. The locals were skeptic of the weird lights coming from the castle, and noticed how a number of people disappeared recently, and were unhappy at the Baroness not protecting them as efficiently as she had once done. Strange tracked the threat to Castle Frankenstein, finding and releasing the Mother and the Children, and discovering Borgo's involvement in his problem. Borgo then attacked the Castle again, wanting to kill Mother lest she decided to use the Machine again to take his powers from him; but Strange protected the Mother and the Children. The superpowered battle over the castle attracted the attention from the locals, especially the Mülleres who wanted to check on Borgo; and Borgo accidentally killed Frau Müller. Overcome by guilt, Borgo then committed suicide using his own powers and one of the Alps. Strange recovered Borgo's corpse and gave it to the Müllers and the Mother, before leaving himself.

Frankenstein's Monster returned to the Castle and lived there again. The Castle was then visited by Ivan, the deformed servant of Victoria's great-grandfather Vincent Frankenstein, and was still alive because of the later's treatments. Ivan had befriended the Monster back in the day, and claimed that he was then working for a researcher who could operate both Ivan and the Monster to remove their deformities and make them "real" - a Dr. Walston Kraft, who had a castle just 15 miles from there. The Monster, tempted, left with Ivan; but Ivan, fearing that Victoria could meddle in Kraft's plan, returned to Castle Frankenstein to imprison the Mother in the dungeons once again. She remained on a cell for weeks, and only survived because the Children provided her with food and drink - but they were not strong enough to release her. Indeed, when Kraft arranged the International Council on Cloning and Genetic Research at his castle to argue about the ethics of that kind of experiments, the locals were surprised that the Baroness von Frankenstein had not appeared to protest against it. The symposium was covered by American photojournalist Peter Parker, secretly the superhero Spider-Man, who investigated and, after seeing Ivan and the Monster, decided to visit Frankenstein's castle. Parker released the Mother using his superpowers, and listened to her explanations. Parker later uncovered, and foiled, Kraft's evil plan; Ivan was killed; and the Monster, understanding that he should not have trusted Kraft, left.

In the following years, the Baroness mended her relationship with the local community and helped in the economy, but the locals felt quite some activity in her castle. The Mother recovered the Monster's body - but at that point, it was suffering a massive cellular breakdown with most of its meat having necrosis. She tried her best to keep him alive, but was failing. She recruited fugitive scientist Bruce Banner (also known as the menstruous Hulk, who was being chased by the U.S. military), offering him shelter in exchange for his services; the Children provided Banner with the supplies he needed. However, when Banner failed to cure the Monster, Victoria turned to her real plan all along, narcotizing Banner so that she could arrange a blood transfusion, as she correctly assumed that Banner's plasm's extraordinary regenerative properties would restore the Monster - and also release the Hulk, which the Mother intended to use as a source of power for the experiment. Believing the Hulk to be a danger to the Mother, one of the Children, Fritz, contacted the U.S. military by his own initiative, hoping that the soldiers would kill Hulk and Victoria's conscience would stay clean. The Hulk released himself, and Fritz was unable to stop him with a torch; but the Monster also recovered and, wanting to protect the Mother, confronted the Hulk. Once the fight was not an immediate danger to anyone but the fighters, the Mother considered asking the Monster to stop, as she didn't want anyone to die; but the military intervention led to a battle against both monsters. Frankenstein's Monster attacked Fritz, believing Fritz was threatening the Mother, but she convinced the Monster to drop him; the Monster then joined the Hulk against soldiers, and eventually left with the Mother toward the forest. It's unclear what happened with the Children.

Strength Level

The average Children can lift at least 81.25 lbs, as four Children carried Frankenstein's Monster, who is known to weigh 325 lbs; but they don't have enough strength to break iron chains or the doors of Castle Frankenstein's prisons.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

If some of the Children were created by Basil Frankenstein, who died during World War II, and others by 18th-century Victor Frankenstein, and they were left alone and forgotten in a cell until their discovery in recent times by Victoria von Frankenstein, who is around 73 years old now, then it's reasonable to infer that the Children have a lifespan longer than a human, and a capacity to survive with bare minimum resources for a long time.

Abilities

The Children are not individually very good in combat, but they can outmaneuver a stronger enemy such as the Berserker android and Frankenstein's Monster, using superior numbers, surprise factor, knowledge of the terrain, and aggressive tactics such as smothering the enemy in a pond, with the advantage that they have great courage and are willing to die individually if it would accomplish Mother's goals. The Children are supposedly going into the woods to "hunt", but are apparently combing the woods around the castle for intruders, who will be taken before Mother for judgment.

The Children have limited education, but they know how to follow specific instructions (such as a protocol with a trill to be allowed access to the Castle, or chaining a prisoner), and they demonstrate resourcefulness and versatility in unforeseen situations. They have obtained food for Mother when she was locked up, have served her tea in social situations, and obtained human organs and medical supplies by means unspecified. They have also made phone calls on their own initiative to others. The Children know how to clean and maybe repair other Frankensteins' machinery, but not to operate it, even with specific instructions.

The Children seem to speak English and in some cases German as well.

Personality

The Children obsessively serve Mother in return for she having cared for them and protected them for years. In some cases, like Fritz, the fierce loyalty is complemented by the idea of love for Mother. When Frankenstein's Monster is active in the group, the other Children obey him as a field leader because they perceive him as the firstborn among the Children. In some cases, they show initiative that Mother may disapprove of or find counterproductive; the Children have shown that they do not have advanced intellectual abilities and therefore can make serious mistakes.

When Mother is captured by other people, the Children do not dare to defy the captor, because they fear anyone who is capable of breaking Mother's protection, and therefore they obey the instructions of the villain even reluctantly, without challenging him. However, they make sure that Mother is in the best possible situation, bringing her food and taking care of her while she is locked up; the villains know that the Children will not try to free her from her if she is forbidden, and so they manage to keep her alive.

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Some Children use primitive weapons such as clubs and torches. Others appear to have natural weapons such as fangs and claws.

Notes

• The Children have their first appearance in Frankenstein #18 (1975). The story ends on a cliffhanger with the announcement "Next issue: Baroness von Frankenstein", but there was no next issue. There was a direct continuation of the story, published only in Germany and written by the series' German translator, in Das monster von Frankenstein #26, in which the Children help Victoria drug and torture the Monster so that the Monster regains his memories, and this story also ends on an unresolved cliffhanger.
  • In Das monster von Frankenstein #26, some Children receive the names of Ajax, Bruno, Janos, Pjotr.
• The Children also appear in a story written by Jean-Marc Lofficier for Marvel Comics Presents, which was neither published nor apparently drawn.
• In all of their appearances, the Children visually appear to be humans with apparent genetic disorders similar to dwarfism and dressed in period clothing. Only in Spider-Man Unlimited #21 (1998), however, the Children appear as green-skinned creatures with claws and fangs, seemingly naked and with very little to do with their human origins that are suggested in his other appearances.
• The entry on Switzerland in Marvel Atlas #1 (2007) mentions the Children, describing them as misshapen creatures created by Victoria Frankenstein's ancestors and cared by her. The Children are not mentioned in the Non-Human Population or Domestic Superhumans lists (although Frankenstein's Monster is).

See Also

• 4 appearance(s) of Children of the Damned (Earth-616)
• 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Children of the Damned (Earth-616)
• 1 image(s) of Children of the Damned (Earth-616)