Heartwarming / Disney Ducks Comic Universe

Take a look here for moments focusing on Donald Duck.

Carl Barks's Comics

• The ending of Ten-Dollar Dither is a definite CMOH. Huey, Dewey and Louie have found a ten-dollar bill (over 140 dollars today,) and over the course of the story Donald (in an honest mood, and telling the boys that there may be a finder's reward in it for them) tries to find the original owner and goes through some of the worst abuse ever from people who claim the money is theirs and try to get to it. At the end, though, the money turns out to belong to a poor little girl who's ecstatic to have her money back because it means she can buy food. Donald tells the boys that since she couldn't give them any reward, he'll give them one instead — and they refuse, saying that seeing the girl so happy was reward enough.
• In Barks's first Grandma Duck story, Huey, Dewey and Louie mistakenly believe that Grandma is broke and in danger of losing her farm, and so they donate all their favorite belongings to her, telling her she can sell them and maybe be able to pay her debts.

Don Rosa's Comics

• The ending of A Little Something Special, especially if you have read the Life and Times. What does Scrooge McDuck, the duck who has everything, really want? Goldie.
  • And earlier, Donald rallies the town to help Scrooge.
• Don Rosa's "A Letter From Home" where Scrooge, Donald and the triplets find the treasure of the Knights Templar underneath Scrooge's family's castle in Scotland. His estranged sister Matilda is there, angry with him for always putting money before family. However, Scrooge is unsuccessful at keeping the Jerkass Façade going (in one point stepping in front of Matilda to prevent from getting shot), and in the end he confesses to Matilda that he feels he will never be as rich as Donald, who has three nephews who adore him.
• Secret of Sampo was written by Don Rosa entirely as a gift to his fans in Finland, where his comics are much more popular than his native America.
  • At the end of that same story, Väinämöinen gives Scrooge a choice: leave with him and enjoy eternal prosperity, or stay on Earth where a "lost love" (implied to be Goldie) still awaits him. Even though the choice visibly hurts him, Scrooge does not even hesitate one second in choosing Earth.
• Yet another Don Rosa moment that deserves mention is The Dream of a Lifetime in which the Beagle Boys invade Scrooge's dreams to get him to tell the combinations to the locks, and Donald going in after them to prevent this from happening. After many amusing scenes of Scrooge dreaming about his dramatic past and Donald managing to kick out the Beagle Boys, he manages to change the outcome of Scrooge's "Klondike dream" where Scrooge is hit on the head and faints before he can save Goldie. Thanks to Donald and the Beagle Boys messing it up, it leaves Scrooge with a chance he never got in life - to spend that night with Goldie after rescuing her. Donald is kicked out of his dream, and Gyro Gearloose and the nephews want to wake their uncle up. However, Donald stops them.
  Donald: No! Don't! Wait! This brain-invasion messed up a lot of Uncle Scrooge's dreams, but it changed the course of one PARTICULAR dream —- the one he's having right now!
  Gyro: Look at that smile! Is he finding fabulous treasure?
  Donald: Treasure? Yes, you might say it's a treasure for which he's been searching for 50 years, and he's finally found it... if only in his dreams. So let him sleep. Anything we have to say can wait until morning.
  • Even better? The final panel of the sleeping Scrooge shows he’s smiling, with tears streaming down his face.
  • In the same story, Donald meets his mother when she was a baby in one of Scrooge's dreams and he's overjoyed. It's amusing but heartwarming as well.
  • Donald stopping Gyro and his nephews from waking Scrooge is even more heartwarming when one takes his own relationship with Scrooge into account. At various points, in both Barks original stories and Rosa's later ones, Donald and Scrooge are placed at odds with each other due to their different beliefs and backgrounds. The times that Donald is working for his uncle he's required to put his life on the line for at most thirty cents an hour and Scrooge often doesn't care about whatever pain or danger his nephew goes through. Yet despite all of that Donald has always supported the idea of his uncle being with Goldie and finding love, the one treasure that Scrooge has never been able to gain, and makes sure that his uncle can at least experience it in his dreams.
• What is Scrooge's most prized possession? All the money in his money bin (and the memories stored therein)? His #1 Dime? His Goose Egg Gold Nugget? The answer: a lock of Goldie's hair, from the events of The Prisoner of White Agony Creek.
  • Related to this in a way there's The Coin, a Don Rosa story where Scrooge loses a quarter from his money bin and spends the entire story attempting to get it back and is clearly distraught over it. At the story's end, once he does get it back, it's revealed that the reason he was so upset wasn't because he lost any random quarter. It's one of the coins he gave Glittering Goldie after they'd stayed together for a month and she in turn threw back at him out of anger. Specifically it's the coin that landed on his head.
• There are three major moments from Rosa's The Three Caballeros Ride Again!". Rosa said he was inspired to write the story (and its sequel, The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros!), because in spite of the brevity of their appearance in the animated film, José Carioca and Panchito Pistolas are the only characters in the animated continuity who treat Donald as a friend and an equal. On a regular basis, they're amazed by the adventures he's been on, praise him whenever he shows courage (even when it's by accident), and generally treat him with both a respect and acceptance that he really doesn't receive anywhere else, except occasionally from his nephews.
  • When discussing what they plan to do with their shares of the treasure, José and Panchito both mention spending their riches on things for themselves (a singing career and a ranch in Mexico, respectively), which Donald finds to be exciting. When it comes to his turn, Donald says he doesn't have as much imagination as them, but the money will be useful in putting his nephews through college. José and Panchito simply look at each other before bursting out in shame, saying they are not worthy to walk on the same ground as someone as noble as him, thinking of his nephews when they were only thinking of themselves. Donald blushes, and it is clear that he is not used to hearing this kind of praise from anyone.
  • After capturing the Big Bad, the Three Caballeros finally find the treasure, only to discover that what they thought was silver ore is mercury, and there is no silver left or anything else of value. But instead of being disappointed, the three friends just share a hearty laugh, saying that the money doesn't matter, they have had a great adventure anyway.
  • In the conclusion, Huey, Dewey, and Louie hear a commotion from their hotel's ballroom and assume Donald has caused some kind of disaster. Instead, they are flabbergasted to see the Three Caballeros performing their trademark song in the ballroom of their hotel (and receiving riotous applause from the audience), and even more flabbergasted when José and Panchito tell them what a "very fine fellow" their uncle is.
    Huey: Huh? Who says so?
    José and Panchito: We say so!
• This running theme is made even more significant in The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros, showcasing that José and Panchito are then not only two of Donald's closest friends, they're also some of the few characters within any Duck Universe that don't treat him badly.
  • At the start of the story (which is basically a condensed version of the suffering that Donald has gone through over the course of his career/life and the constant abuse he suffers at the hands of those closest to him), Donald is fired by Scrooge and thrown out onto the curb (And during this sequence Scrooge is also telling Donald to be back tomorrow to make up for the time you lost getting fired today!), verbally mocked and literally stepped on by Gladstone, berated by Daisy for being dirty for their date (Remember he's been throw onto the ground and stepped on by this point), after which she punches him in the face and says she'll never speak to him again (And then similarly to Scrooge she, ironically, reminds him not to forget that he's "taking her to dinner tonight"), and when finally asked by his nephews why he lets people treat him this way Donald sadly says that it's his lot in life to be mistreated so that others can feel better! How do his nephews respond? They secretly set it up so that Donald goes on a trip to Rio and runs into José and Panchito.
  • At the end, capturing a notorious outlaw has allowed José; and Panchito to realize their dreams - José's newfound fame will do wonders for his nightclub act, and Panchito plans to use the reward money to buy the ranch he has always wanted - but they concernedly ask Donald what he got out of their adventure. He just points to the wide, carefree smile on his face and says, "this". The Three Caballeros joyfully carouse down the beach, singing.
• The conclusion to Super Snooper Strikes Again! where Huey, Dewey, and Louie, after earlier making Donald feel inadequate as a role model due to his job as an adult delivery boy, reveal how they really think of him.
  Dewey: Poor Unca Donald! Do you suppose he thinks we're ashamed of him or something?
  Huey: We should tell him more often we think he's pretty special!
  Louie: He may not be as rich or as clever as Unca Scrooge.
  Dewey: He may not be as smart or skilled as Gyro Gearloose.
  Huey: And he may not be as good looking or successful as Cousin Gladstone!
  Louie: No, but he's still got them all beat! Unca Donald has raised us well and cared for us all along!
  Dewey: Single-handed and on his income!
  Huey: And we've sometimes been ungrateful and horrible to him!
  Louie: I'd say Unca Donald is a pretty super kinda guy!
  Dewey: Agreed!
  Huey: Yeah! Super Snooper may be the mightiest mortal to ever trod the soil, but he's no Donald Duck!
  • At the start of the story, Dewey was the one who made a snide remark about Donald's delivery boy job (he was annoyed because Donald didn't approve of their Super Snooper comic books); both Huey and Louie are furious with their brother for saying something so awful, especially considering how hard their uncle works for them, and Dewey immediately regrets what he said, asking the other two to kick him on the way home as punishment.
• In A Letter from Home, also known as The Old Castle's Other Secret, you have the revelation at the beginning of the story that Donald was the only one who knew Matilda, Scrooge's estranged sister, had been living at the old McDuck castle as its caretaker and that Donald had been attempting for some time to convince her to reunite with her brother without Scrooge ever knowing. Similarly to how Donald consistently attempts to push his Uncle to get with Glittering Goldie this is perhaps one of the ultimate signs of Donald's love for his Uncle, in that he's spent years attempting to get him back with the rest of his family, despite Scrooge's typical Jerkass facade.
• Gyro's First Invention delves into the story of how Lil Helper was first made and how it helped Gyro become a successful inventor. At the end of the story, the triplets how Lil Helper is not only a great invention, but a great friend to Gyro.
  • It should be noted that Lil Helper was created from Donald's old lamp. When Gyro was ready to dismantle it and give it back to Donald, he let Gyro keep it knowing how much Gyro grew fond of the little guy.
• W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.. When Scrooge's worker learns he was about to destroy the wood of old Fort Duckberg, he immediately stops because he was a former Woodchuck.
  • When Scrooge tries to fire the worker for stopping, several of his workforce start to protest because they were former Woodchucks too (and some were in the female counterpart to them). Scrooge rightfully decides to give up and let the Junior Woodchucks have the wood for their old base.
  • At the end of the story, Donald notes how even though the triplets are Woodchucks now, they still need him even now.

Others

• Several stories have Huey, Dewey and Louie lamenting that their uncle is such a screw-up compared to just about everyone else and try to turn him into a bigger success. Whether they succeed or not depends on the story, but one such story had them complaining to each other about Donald's many flaws — only to suddenly realize that no matter if Donald is a big success or not, he still takes care of them, cooks for them, makes sure they're clothed and happy, and on the whole uses a lot more money on them than he does on himself. Cue guilt and a resolve to start appreciating their uncle a little more in the future.
  • Otherwise, sometimes Donald is offered a job that will make him rich and popular, but he rejects it just so that he can take care of his nephews.
• One of the "special extras" in the weekly italian comics regarded the homes of various characters. Each one has a peculiar "secret" that that character hides. To name a few:
  • Donald keeps a secret stash of money for his nephews in his garden's tree. Considering that Donald is tormented by a multitude of creditors...
  • Scrooge keeps a wallet with the charitable donations he did.
  • Rockerduck has a giant portrait of himself and the label "The Number One". Except that it can rotate to show a portrait of Scrooge instead.
  • Magica De Spell has the fairy outfit from when she was a little girl.
• The Italian series "The Amazing Adventures of Fantomius-Gentleman Thief", set in the Twenties, shows Scrooge coming back to Duckburg to reunite with his sisters in 1922, with the implication he had done so at least once before. Turns into a Tear Jerker when he finds out they're out of town, says he was back only to make sure Fantomius wouldn't steal his money, and instructs Miss Quackfaster to not say anyone he had been back.
  • A later chapter turns the existence of the Billionaires' Club into this: in 1930, at the apex of his misanthropy, Scrooge lured dozens of rich people in Duckburg for business to restart the local economy, ravaged by a year of Flintheart Glomgold as mayor.
• Scrooge's actions in the "Reginella Saga":
  • In "Reginella and the Terran Threat" Donald needs to buy a ticket for the tourist rocket and go on Pacificus to help his beloved, and asks Scrooge for the twenty thousand dollars. At first Scrooge threatens to shoot him with a cannon, but upon finding out why Donald wants to go on Pacificus he gives him the money... Plus a thousand dollars for tips and expenses. And doesn't want anything back. He's also there for Donald when he has to leave Pacificus, decoding Reginella's last message and telling him they may still see each other one day.
  • In "Donald, Reginella and the Fearsome Vampirione" Scrooge finds out that Donald needs to go and help Reginella when Donald's rocket-powered bicycle drops him in the Money Bin... And immediately provides a Space Fighter and abundant ammunition. And again he's there for Donald when, once again, he's forced to leave.
  • In "Reginella and Pacificus' Crystals", Scrooge's sheer joy when he realizes the alien queen he's speaking with is the Reginella Donald told him about, and the pride in her as he sees how she can deal with danger. Then he realizes that Reginella has erased her memories of Donald, who isn't with him... And not only decides it's not his place to interfere and remind her, he also tells the triplets not to tell Donald about that adventure-and pays them 50$ each for it when they try to question.
  • In "Reginella's Last Adventure" Scrooge returns to Pacificus to see if he can buy the sand of a certain beach due its properties, but Reginella refuses to protect her world's environment, no matter how much Scrooge offers... And Scrooge starts complaining to not explaining what he wanted before, as he wasted time and fuel for nothing. Not much, except that when the Pig Billionaire was refused business in "The Terran Threath" he reacted by introducing Conspicuous Consumption to Pacificus to break their will to keep him out and upended their society just to make some money and nearly destroyed the planet by accident in the process, a contrast that Reginella and her advisors certainly appreciated.
  • Some of Donald's other relatives have also visited Pacificus, and they always got along well with Reginella, be it Grandma Duck temporarily taking over as the royal cook (and leaving some recipes once a new one was found) or Fethry and Gyro when the former messed with the controls of the ship Scrooge used during his first visit and helping her getting back her good mood while Fethry extolled his cousin's virtues. And aside for Scrooge, none of them had any idea of her relationship with Donald, only that she was someone who needed help that they could give.
• Scrooge's main love interests are "Glittering" Goldie O'Gilt and Brigitta McBridge. Not only do they get along the rare times they meet, Brigitta is good friends with Goldie's granddaughter Dickie (that is often implied to be Scrooge's granddaughter as well).
• Paperinik, Donald's superhero alter ego, has an absolute rule about his secret identity: nobody must know, and if they find out they must either disbelieve their discovery or have their memory erased. And yet, the one time Fethry found out (he was temporarily a guest at Donald's house after demolishing his own), Donald let him know. He was about to feed him a memory-erasing candy at first (by force after Fethry started causing a mess in the hideout), but ultimately let him know. And not only did Fethry keep the secret, in the end, seeing he was too much of a klutz to help him, asked for one of the candies himself before he accidentally exposed him.
  • The debut of the memory-erasing candies in the second Paperinik story: Gyro had just finished building the hideout under Donald's house, believing it an anti-creditor refuge, Donald told him what it was actually for... And Gyro produced the candies and took one to not risk betray him. Gyro has been a collaborator of Paperinik ever since, and willingly takes one every time he finds out the secret identity for some reason.
• The Beagle Boys get one in "Being Good For Goodness Sake" - after breaking out of prison in order to use a fellow inmate's cabin to break into Scrooge's Money Bin, they learn that a poor widow and her son live there. Immediately, they abandon all thoughts of pulling off the heist, and give the widow all their money (even making sure that it's real money, not forged stuff). This causes them to win the award the city is giving out for the most generous deed, but here's the thing - they had no idea that there WAS such an award going, so unlike Scrooge and Donald (who were only being generous in order to win the award), they were doing this out of nothing but the kindness of their hearts. To top it off, they decide that since the award money will be no good to them, they will give it all to the widow and her child.
• In one story, Magica uses a spell on Scrooge that forces him to give her that which is most valuable to him, which she obviously assumes is the #1 dime. It isn't. It's Donald.
• In the Les Misérables' parody, the moment Javert finally catches up to Scrooge Valjean, for multiple reasons:
  • First there's Scrooge not escaping anymore, because Cosette has finally found love and escaping again would ruin her life, either by leaving her without her father or by taking away from her boyfriend.
  • Second, there's the fact Javert has been chasing Scrooge Valjean... Because he's been pardoned five years earlier, and since someone had to tell him but nobody else had a chance to find him he took upon himself to find him.
  • Finally, there's why he's been pardoned: when mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, he's been so good at his job that the locals repeatedly petitioned to the king for his pardon until he relented. At which point Javert, who had been chasing Valjean to recapture him for five years straight, changed his end goal to inform him about the pardon.
• "Gladstone and the Solitude of the Four-Leaf Clover" has a very rare heartwarming story concerning Gladstone Gander. In it, he has had enough of his luck-filled life and decides to rough it out in the countryside, where he experiences true loss and humility and develops genuine friendships with his sparse neighbors over the course of three months. When he hears that Duckburg literally cannot go on without him (his luck had been actually keeping disasters at bay for years and nobody knew), while saddened that he has to give his new life up, Gladstone willingly goes back and saves the city. And despite his expectations that he'll have to get back to his lucky life, he discovers that his countryside friends do in fact want to keep in touch with him—meaning that every once in a while, he can just be a regular duck among ducks.
• Magica rarely gets respect from her fellow magicals in spite of her impressive abilities due the years of failures against Scrooge (that and most of those who go against Scrooge to show her up not telling how they were humiliated). Then The Archmage Mondor challenged her to train Scrooge and his family for a soccer match against eleven of the strongest players in history and the universe (ten being aliens from the future and the last one being Carlo Parola) broadcast to the entirety of the magic world on pain of losing her powers... And when Magica turns out to be that good as a soccer coach that Mondor had to cheat to have his team win (and only by one point at that), the magicals finally admire her, protesting her impending loss of power even before Mondor is exposed, with their admiration being so great they restore her magic without even trying.
• In one comic, Gladstone decides to rub some of his luck onto Donald and give him a turn at a lottery machine. Donald's lucky number comes up, and he wins an all-expenses paid trip for four. What Donald doesn't know is that Gladstone rigged the lottery to display nothing but Donald's lucky number, allowing him to maintain his pride and to disguise his urge to want his cousin to take a much needed break.
• Whenever the relationship between Magica and her family is looked at, it's shown she really cares for them... Especially her grandmother Caraldina and her niece Minima, who are so annoying she trapped them in the magical world:
  • When it comes to Minima, her beef is that, being a child, she devastates her home every time she visits and is violently affectionate to Ratface, but she also hopes Minima won't end up angry and bitter as it happened to her.
  • In spite of how overbearing Caraldina is, Magica listens to her advice and recognizes she does it because she loves her. And during her 10-Minute Retirement she moved in with her.
• Scrooge's Workshop has Scrooge buying up Santa's workshop to try and to see if he can make profit off the whole Christmas business. When that doesn't work, he returns back grumbling about how everyone likes Santa's way of giving stuff for free, when he stumbles upon an elf working on a toy train. This causes Scrooge to remember how he received a toy train from Santa when he was a kid, which makes him have a change of heart and give back the land. The story then ends with Scrooge fixing up his old toy train to pass on to the triplets as their gift.