Scandal Savage

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Background

Powers and Abilities

The daughter of the immortal Vandal Savage, Scandal appears to have inherited some of his durability. She is hard to kill and recovers quickly from wounds. She has proven herself capable of going up against the likes of Fatality, Hawkgirl, and Talia al Ghul.

She is a highly skilled combatant, whose primary weapon is her Lâminas Pesar, the Lamentation Blade, which she claims have been in the family for a long time. These are a pair of wrist-mounted sets, each of which can extend a pair of foot long blades, or three smaller blades only a couple of inches long.

Scandal is also knowledgeable regarding financial matters, having a number of lucrative investments. She offers her team mates investments as part of their share of payment for jobs.

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É o jeitinho brasileiro

Scandal Savage’s weapons are referred to as Lâminas Pesar throughout the series (or Lamines Pesar on one occasion), which is supposedly translated from Brazilian Portuguese as Lamentation Blades.

List members fluent in the language believe this translation sounds a bit strange (in setting we can assume it’s due to Vandal Savage’s limited grasp of the language), so here are Leonardo’s translation notes:

Lâminas Pesar is not grammatically wrong, but sounds strange, at least in Brazilian Portuguese as spoken in Rio de Janeiro. It doesn’t roll off the tongue. Maybe in other places people consider it sounds better. Some others possible translations:

• Lâminas do Pesar.
  
• Lâminas Lamentação.
  
• Lâminas da Lamentação.
  
• Lâminas Lamento.
  
• Lâminas do Lamento.

Proper English translations for pesar (in this sense) would be: sorrow, regret, grief, or sadness. Pesar, lamentação and lamento can have the same meaning, but someone with Brazilian Portuguese as his first language would perceive differences between the exact feeling being described.

Pesar is closer to grief and regret. The feeling it describes is more introspective, like when someone suffers in silence and/or has feelings of guilt.

Lamentação/lamento also refers to the act of crying (especially the latter). So saying someone está se lamentando (laments) people would figure you mean sadness, or moaning and crying.

History

(A general history of the Secret Six can be found in the team entry.)

After a failed coup in Brazil, Vandal Savage took over a remote village in the Acre region. The only one there to remain resisting him was a woman he fell in love with. They married and had Scandal, but her mother had never given up her dream of hurting Vandal.

When Scandal was three, her mother killed herself with the Lâminas Pesar, leaving Vandal to mourn the loss for the rest of his years.

On her ninth birthday her father decided her childhood should end, and forced her to run a gauntlet of men armed with clubs. She was badly beaten on her first attempt, at which point her father gave her the Lâminas Pesar.

(Continuity problem: It’s claimed she had to run this gauntlet to save her mother’s life, but a later story has her mother killing herself when Scandal is 3.)

Villains United

It’s unknown how she became a mercenary, or first met her beloved, Knockout. But Scandal was first heard of as a member of the Secret Six. She acted as the middle-management for the group, although, like her team mates, she’d been coerced to join under threats against her mother.

Keeping her relationship to Knockout quiet, her lover joined the Society as a mole. When the Society finally attacked them en masse, Knockout turned on them and joined the Six. The couple remained with the other surviving members, operating as mercenaries.

Six Degrees of Devastation, part 1

When the Six came under attack by super-powered mercenaries, Scandal survived, but Knockout was badly injured. The Six hunted down Pistolera, who had fired the shot that had injured Knockout. The enraged Scandal tortured her for the information they needed, that Cheshire had hired her.

Uncertain that she could kill even Pistolera in cold blood, Scandal’s rage ebbed. But Deadshot took the decision out of her hands, executing Pistolera so Scandal wouldn’t have to.

Learning Cheshire was only a go-between, Scandal worked out who was really responsible when her father contacted her in her dreams. He said that he wanted her to produce an heir. She tried to deny him, but realised he wouldn’t stop coming after her friends.

Six Degrees of Devastation, part 2

When she found Knockout sleeping with Deadshot (the alien Knockout didn’t understand the betrayal in her act), Scandal pretended to be more hurt than she actually was. She left the group and went to her father.

When the Six caught up to her at her father’s place, she took advantage of the distraction to strike at her father. The battle ended with Scandal hanging from high battlements, her father dangling from her free hand.

Unwilling to drag her down with him, he let go, falling to his temporary inconvenience. Making peace with Knockout and Deadshot, Scandal returned to the team.

Salvation Run

Knockout was among the New Gods who fell victim to a mysterious murderer, leaving Scandal devastated. Drowning in her sorrows, Scandal was abducted by the Suicide Squad. They shot her with a machine gun to keep her down long enough to subdue.

She was shipped off, along with a number of other super-villains, to a hostile distant planet, from which they ultimately escaped. Scandal was among the survivors who returned to Earth.

The Card

Still grieving from Knockout’s loss, she was slightly pulled out of it when Catman and Deadshot hired a stripper (Liana) who bore a mild resemblance to Knockout to put on a private performance for her. Knowing their hearts were in the right place she let them live. She ran into Liana again, and they began dating.

At the end of the Gotham battle, Scandal ended up in possession of the Card, which everyone else believed lost with Junior.

Bane

New team mate Bane began forming a paternal attachment to Scandal. She was initially hostile, but eventually relented. She even accepted his benching her when he took control of the team, due to her actions against Grendel.

Depths

Unwilling to work for slavers, Scandal ended up facing Grendel alongside Bane. Grendel revealed to her that Vandal Savage was also his father, although certain factors point to the possibility of this being a lie.

Scandal had taken a few of Bane’s venom capsules due to the odds against them, which enabled her to face Grendel in combat for a while. He did eventually overwhelm her, and might have killed her if Wonder Woman hadn’t arrived in time to kill him.

The Darkest House

Finally deciding to use the Card to rescue Knockout, Scandal found it missing. Her attempt to recover it from Ragdoll saw him disappear with it. Following him to Hell, she was reunited with an amnesiac Knockout, engaged to Prince Ragdoll. He eventually relented, returning the Card to her, and she used it to take Knockout home with them.

Discovering Liana had been kidnapped by a stalker, Scandal got Catman to track him down and the rescued Liana. She begged Scandal to let the stalker live, and give him to the police, not wanting Scandal to kill someone so worthless.

Scandal agreed, then had Jeanette take Liana to the hospital. She then punched her blade through the stalker’s head.

Having trouble choosing between Knockout (whose memories started returning after a fight) and Liana, Scandal proposed to both of them, and they accepted.

Personality

With most people Scandal comes across as fairly distant and standoffish, only lowering her defences around those few she trusts. A lot of her stiffness is an attempt to control the vicious temper she inherited from her father, and she exercises self-control over these passions, apparently afraid of becoming like him.

She only really allowed her emotions free reign around her beloved, Knockout. When Knockout was injured she made little attempt to control her rage.

She also allows her passions to come out in combat. But these are usually harnessed, even if it may not appear like it (such as biting Fatality’s ear off). Following Knockout’s death, Scandal became increasingly erratic and emotionally unstable as she dealt with her grief, culminating in taking some of Bane’s venom.

She seemed to calm down a bit following this, and began dating again (although Liana’s similarity to Knockout may not be entirely healthy for Scandal).

Quotes

Fatality: “Give… give me back my ear, you Earth bitch !”
Scandal: “Sorry, Fatality…Swallowed it.”

(Preparing to attack a Society base) “Let’s go drive down their market shares.”

“These checks represent our shares of the Korean receivables, minus expenses and filtered through the usual accounts. I’ve prepared a lavish investment portfolio if any of you are interested.”

(Torturing Pistolera)
Pistolera: “You’re just the same as me. You kill for money, just like me.”
Scandal: “It’s true. If our positions were reversed, you would be the one orchestrating the screams. But you’re not. You’re just some noise in my ear and some stains on my carpet. You put my heart in a coma. And my mercy has left for the evening.”
(After gaining the information)
Catman: “Do you want to kill her ?”
Scandal: “I thought I did. I actually prepared some horrible things to say to her when I did it. Up close with my hands. But… seeing her like this… it doesn’t feel like I’d thought it would.”
Catman: “Don’t be ashamed that you have a soul, Scandal.”

“You hit my girlfriend, you feathered, poxed strumpet.”

“Hate… regrowing organs.”

By Gareth Lewis.

Source of Character: DC Comics.

Helper(s): Wikipedia, Darci, Sébastien Andrivet, Leonardo Silva.

Writeup completed on the 9^th of June, 2012.