Tear Jerker / Disney Ducks Comic Universe

• From the classic Paperinik stories, "Love into Oblivion": Daisy saw him change into Paperinik, so, as usual, he fed her a memory-erasing candy... Except it had been damaged, and made Daisy forget of Donald and believe that Paperinik's her fiancee.
• The entirety of Donald and Reginella love story, because, no matter how much they love each other, they are always forced away:
  • In "Reginella's Return" they spend days alone with each other, being so happy they spontaneously create a Psychic Link... And with her forgetting that the launch window to return to her homeworld is closing, and they need her (literally: Reginella left the shelter to recover a part that will complete the spaceship to go home, and while her subjects managed to complete the ship anyway it refuses to launch without her). And while she'd gladly remain on Earth if it was only herself, she's the Queen of Pacificus and people depend on her.
    • This one gets worse in "Reginella's Wedding", as while she was stuck on Earth her homeworld had been invaded and enslaved-and if she hadn't returned the Pacificans would have remained enslaved until Bingo had worked them into making Pacificus uninhabitable.
  • In "Reginella's Wedding" Donald single-handedly defeated Bingo and his army, freeing the Pacificans and erasing the cowardly first impression he had left in "The Underwater Adventure". There's no objection to his wedding with Reginella and there's plenty of time for him to settle things in Duckburg... Then it's revealed that the terrifying violence he unleashed on Bingo's army is making the younger generation of Pacificus violent, forcing Reginella to send him away in his sleep.
  • By the time of "The Terran Threat" the younger generation have been led back into pacifism, so when Donald shows up to deal with the threat there's no trouble... Until it's discovered that the massive numbers of Terrans on Pacificus are starting a potentially deadly pandemic, forcing Reginella to unleash her immense psychic powers to chase them off planet... And have Donald go away, as by now even a single Earthling could preserve the pandemic. Their goodbye consists of her explaining what is happening to him and then having him dragged away without even seeing him, as using the full potential of her powers disfigured her and she doesn't want to be seen.
  • By "The Terrible Vampirione" Reginella's face has healed and the pandemic has been cured... But to save Donald from Vampirione she has to use her powers again, and she falls into a coma. And given the sadness he always caused her and the potential for threatening her recovery, Reginella's advisors gave them both the Forgetfulness Potion to keep them apart.
  • Sadly, "The Queen Outside Time" reveals the Forgetfulness Potion made things even worse, as the Psychic Link resisted, precipitating Reginella into a deep depression that, without knowing what causes it, she cannot deal with... Getting her to have a Gray Rain of Depression on apocalyptic scale, as it's making rain on the entire planet and it will not stop. Thus her advisors hatching a plan to break it for good without them remembering... But an attempted coup causes them to remember before she's displaced in prehistoric times. And then, after solving the situation and finding out what's happening, they willingly and knowingly go through it, erasing their memories once again and breaking the link to save Pacificus, also destroying all evidence of Pacifican presence on Earth to be safe. But they missed the giant statue of Reginella built by her prehistoric worshippers...
  • In "The Crystals of Pacificus" Scrooge goes to Pacificus for trade... And there's multiple close calls, as not only he would have brought Donald with him had he been not away on other business, he knows of her and approved of her relationship with Donald, and brought Huey, Dewey and Louie with him. Thankfully he quickly guesses that if Reginella doesn't remember Donald there must be a good reason, so he decides to not investigate further and bribes the Nephews to not tell Donald about what happened, avoiding to ruin their sacrifice.
  • "The Crystals of Pacificus" is followed by two other close calls, as "The Yawning Crapulongo" and "The Mirror of Smiles" bring Reginella in contact with Grandma Duck and Fethry respectively-though thankfully Reginella doesn't react when Grandma Duck mentions Donald by name. On the other hand, Fethry dropped a picture... And Reginella saw it.
  • Eventually "Reginella's Last Adventure" has them reunite after they both recover their memories (Reginella's having been roused by the picture, Donald's by Scrooge after he discovered he too had forgotten Reginella), there's literally nothing keeping them apart anymore... Except that, while they were separated, they have grown apart and the spark isn't there anymore.
• In the Barks story "King Scrooge the First", an immortal king and wiseman named Khan Khan tricks Scrooge and co. into leading him to the treasury of Scrooge's ancestor, which Khan Khan had raided in ancient times and taken a blue powder that gave him immortality. After being subdued, Khan Khan offers to let Scrooge keep all the treasures, since he only wants a small casket with a vial of grey powder. The powder that serves as an antidote to the blue powder he took too many years ago. After consuming it, king Khan Khan walks into the desert to join the dust of his kingdom.
• The reason why Magica is obsessed with the Midas Touch, in both versions of her Origin Story:
  • In one, Magica was a nice and sweet girl, to the point the Witches Council feared she'd become a good fairy... Then came the moment any young witch has to complete a quest as a Rite of Passage, and the Council assigned her the Midas Touch knowing she'd need to deal with multiple angry and greedy billionaires and hoped it would corrupt her. It went so well that by the time Magica arrived to Scrooge she had grown obsessed, and while the Council has seen she has proven herself and tried to assign her an easier quest just so she can progress as a witch she simply refuses to do anything but put complete that quest, and with the best of Scrooge's coins... That is the one Scrooge refuses to sell.
    • Worse of all, the story makes clear Magica is perfectly aware of this... And given her niece Minima is a nice kid, she's terrified at the idea the Witches Council will pull a similar stunt with her. And she can't stop them because they're far more powerful than she is, only hope she figures a way to protect her in time.
  • In the other, her parents, aunt and uncle tried to obtain it for years, with her parents blowing themselves up in the final attempt. Magica's aunt and uncle then gave up on magic and raised her without it to protect her, with her uncle keeping the limp he got trying to save her parents rather than curing it with magic, but upon finding her mother's journal and learning what happened Magica decided to try it herself to honor her parents... And while various What If? stories have shown she has indeed found the flaw in the spell, the fact the final coin she needs is the one Scrooge will never give up means she's fated to never complete the spell.
    • The story also shows that Leone and Magnolia, Magica's parents, had grown obsessed with the Midas' Touch... And the last entry in Magnolia's journal says that this time "we'll succeed and become rich. Rich! RICH!" in the same way Magica described the effect of the Midas' Touch to Scrooge in their first encounter. Even her face as she's dropping the magic ruby on the coin, causing the explosion that killed her, was the same...
  • A story set in the far future showed Magica as having moved on in the face of multiple generations of the Duck family foiling her and the defenses becoming too much... Then she discovered the Number One Dime had been stolen by the future Beagle Boys and brought to an undefended location, and she immediately went to try and steal it, as even after two centuries she's still obsessed with the Midas Touch and that coin.
• The opening to Don Rosa's Super Snooper Strikes Again!, when Donald berates his nephews for reading comic books about unrealistic and always-violent superheroes. Dewey, stung, sneers that a grown man working as a delivery boy isn't much of a role model either. Huey and Louie are horrified, and Dewey instantly regrets his remark, but it is too late: Donald turns away and sags over his bicycle's handlebars, his expression despairing, crushed by the thought that his nephews, whom he's raised practically since birth, think of him as a loser. The ending is not much better either: although his nephews acknowledge that their uncle is better than any comic book superhero, they don't actually tell him that. By the end of the story, Donald still thinks himself as a loser, his delivery bike is broken so that he can't go to work, his uncle kicked him out for trying to borrow money to get a new bike, while Gladstone trips him over as he dejectedly walks away.
• In the 2021 christmas special by Knut Nærum and Arild Midtun, Flintheart Glomgold tries to go back in time to Scrooge's childhood to steal the golden teeth Scrooge sold for funds to get rich. After stopping him, Scrooge goes to return the teeth, but accidentally wakes his parents, hiding behind a wall and pretending to be his younger self. Scrooge looks uncharacteristically somber, as it's his last chance to talk to his parents.
  Downy: What's with yer voice, ladd?
  Scrooge: Just... something in me throat. See ye tomorrow, ma.
• Magica's relationship with many of her known relatives:
  • Her parents, Leone and Magnolia, are dead: in their attempts at creating the charm that would give them the Midas' Touch they never figured out why it never worked (they were using the wrong coins), so they tried to brute force the process with more magic, eventually using a magical ruby that blew up in their face.
  • Her uncle and aunt helped her parents during much of the quest, but eventually decided it wasn't worth the effort... And were there when they died, with her uncle getting crippled when he tried and failed to save them. They took Magica in and raised her without magic, even hiding from her how her parents had died... And when she, as a child, discovered her mother's journal and decided to try the spell herself, her uncle threw her out convinced she'd soon give up and come back to live without magic and safe. It's implied that was the last time they talked.
  • Her good fairy cousin Adelia - that Magica can't stand because of her job. Or rather, because Magica as a child actually mused about becoming a fairy and seeing a reminder of what could have been angers her too much.
  • Her grandmother Caraldina and niece Minima, that she really likes, to the point Magica once stated Caraldina is the only person who actually knows her and implied she'd be willing to fight the Witches Council (that she's terrified of) to keep Minima safe... But Caraldina is overbearing, embarrassing, and obsessed with getting Magica to marry her suitor Rosolio (that she can't stand due his stupidity) and Minima has the bad habit of treating Ratface as a doll, so at some point she cast a spell that keeps them (and Rosolio) trapped in the Witches World most of the time because they were driving her insane.
• Dragonlords features a surprisingly somber moment in its penultimate chapter. Early in the story, Huey, Dewey, and Louie befriended a trio of young dragons, Huey riding one named Sniffles. During the final battle, Sniffles' mother is the steed of the hero Brendon, who nearly gets killed by a seemingly defeated morg, until Sniffles bursts out of the hiding spot the boys were surveying the battle from and takes the hit for them. Brendon and the mother tries to catch him as he falls... and fails, Sniffles crashing into a swamp. The final page of the chapter shows the mother screaming in grief as Huey cradles Sniffles' head and cries, all done with no dialogue or sound effects.
  • Sniffles thankfully survives, but it doesn't lessen the impact, nor the impact of the opening to the next chapter. Continuing the silence from last chapter, Huey is shown gathering roots and vegetables, carrying the load that is clearly too heavy for him through the city to the stable where Sniffles' is recovering. Dewey, Louie, and Donald are watching him, implying that Huey chose to do the work himself and refused help.
• The Tz'oook from Threath from the Infinite have a surprising amount:
  • At first they're introduced as mystery aliens that are damaging Earth while looking for something without even their name being revealed, then the Space Police arrives and reveals their name, that they've polluted countless worlds when they stopped with their Cityship for resupply... And that they're actually from Earth and the survivors of the Permian-Triassic extinction event, also known as The Great Dying... That they caused by accident. And by survivors we mean that they're the same guys that escaped, as the Cityship traveling at relativistic speed allowed them to age more slowly compared to the rest of the universe. And now that Earth has recovered they just want to come back home... No matter if they have to exterminate the lifeforms that evolved and took over their homeworld while they were away.
  • The fact a number of Tz'oook, including a few high-ranking officers, would rather talk and settle things peacefully... But the Hypercommander is set in retaking the planet and would kill them as traitors if they spoke out.
  • Then, The Reveal they aren't from our Earth, but they accidentally crossed the interdimensional boundary during their relativistic travel. Meaning they were invading our world without realizing it wasn't theirs. Thankfully this is enough to make the Hypercommander abandon the invasion of Earth - he wants to give his people their homes back, not steal the ones of people who don't have anything to do with them.
  • After finding out they crossed the dimensional boundary, the Tz'oook quickly figure out how to repeat the feat and go back to their home... And find out that their Earth did not recover but is now a lifeless rock. The Hypercommander and others looked on the verge of suicide before the Junior Woodchucks (that opposed their invasion and discovered their real origins) point out they can cross the dimensional boundary and find another inhabitable Earth to live on, this time without polluting everything into destruction or attacking sapients.