Secret Six/Heartwarming

• You would expect that after all the hell Scandal has gone through with her relationships, after finally getting Knockout back from hell, she would have to choose between her and Liana. Instead, she takes another option. In #36, Scandal tells Liana that she can't live without her OR Knockout, and wants to marry both of them. Played completely straight, to the joy of Liana's friends and Jeannette.

Jeannette: A happy ending. I'd forgotten they existed.

• Scandal taking Bane, Catman and Deadshot in a big group-hug and calling them "The only men she has ever loved".
• Deadshot forcing a doctor at gunpoint to call Black Alice and say that misuse of her powers was not how her father got cancer.
• Spencer is moved to tears after having sex with Bane. Bane is, at first, worried that he may have accidentally hurt her. Instead, Spencer explains that she didn't expect him to be so gentle.
• Liana Kerzner is a walking Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, sprinkled liberally with Crowning Moment of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Funny. She's an exotic dancer who works at a strip club called Superior's, and plays the Hooker with a Heart of Gold trope straight and subverts it, by demonstrating to the audience that sex workers are people and not soulless trash. Liana manages to bring a little light back into Scandal's world after Knockout's death, and her optimism and faith in humanity is not hindered by her relationship with Scandal or her interaction with the Six. She even helps set Bane up with her co-worker, Spencer. Her ordeal with the psychotic Randall doesn't break her, and despite the hell he put her through she refuses to kill him.
• When the team travels to Hell, Catman is escorted by by Etrigan to explore Hell. Memories of his painful childhood still fresh in his mind, Thomas wants to see that the soul of his bastard father, Reese Blake, is suffering for his sins. So, Etrigan takes him to the tree where his father is bound, and Reese begs Catman free him. It turns out that Reese' punishment is to be tortured, disembowled, and eaten daily by none other than the Thomas' mother, -whom he murdered in cold-blood- who appears as a lioness with a human face. While Hell is his torment, torturing him for eternity is "[her] own Heaven." Apparently, it is time for her husband's daily torment, and she politely asks Thomas to leave, claiming she has a schedule to keep, and she would rather not have him see it because it's "rather unlady-like" of her. However, before they leave, she takes a moment to say goodbye to her son, proving that CMOH's can happen, even in Hell:

Catman: I understand... I love you, mom.
Mrs. Blake (smiling lovingly): I love you too, Pumpkin. Forevers and evers, my handsome boy.

---

Back to Secret Six