Even Evil Has Standards: Though notably, everyone has different standards that often lead them into conflict.
Evil Is Sexy: All the girls on the team. And most of the guys!
Evil Versus Evil: Though they are perfectly willing to take on heroes. The team has even been described as a neutral point, siding with neither villains nor heroes.
Noble Demon: Huntress has noted that, unlike every other villain team heroes have gone up against, these people would all willing die to protect one another.
The Notable Numeral: Both played straight and subverted. Word Of God is that only the four core members (Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll, and Scandal) are safe in the long run, though some may leave the team briefly, and across the first four incarnations of the team had three die, two leaving due to betrayal, and a sixth simply quitting. On the other hand, one of the core members was fired but still hung around, and since then two more members have joined. Depending on timing, then, the Secret Six can have five to nine members so far, though they do tend toward six.
Fridge Brilliance: Though it may not have been intentional, the fact that Scandal has reddish hair works very well when you consider that her father, Vandal Savage, is Cain, whose descendents are said to be marked with red hair.
Yuri Genre: First with Female Fury Knockout and then later with Liana, an exotic dancer.
The Lad-ette: To the point that she sleeps in boxers.
Spicy Latina: Scandal's mother was Brazilian and she was raised there, but she's a comparatively mild example of this trope.
Tenchi Solution: At the end of the series this is her solution to having both Liana and Kay, saying she wants to marry them both. Also a prime example of Getting Crap Past the Radar, since everyone is so wrapped up in September's reboot that no one seemed to notice that Gail wrote in a polygamous lesbian marriage.
Wolverine Claws: They're gauntlets worn around her forearms.
Catman
Thomas Blake used to be a pathetic joke of a villain, particularly in recent years where he was portrayed as a fat nerd. After some time in the wilds of Africa, the now chiseled and badass Catman is one of the more (anti) heroic members of the group... most of the time.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: This series has done wonders for him in terms of popularity, to the point that in his appearance in Red Robin he's considered a legitimate threat to Tim Drake. Not bad for a guy who used to be the Butt Monkey of the DC Universe, and in story more than one person has commented on it.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When you kidnap his son... heh, let's just say that he doesn't take it very well.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Deadshot. The two are pretty sure they're going to end up fighting to the death one day, but other than that they get along well.
Floyd Lawton is an assassin, a former member of the Suicide Squad and a former member of Batman's Rogues Gallery, with something of a deathwish. A supremely talented gunfighter, Deadshot is probably the most mercenary of the team, but still has some standards. Under Simone's pen, he has something of a snarky sense of humor.
Arm Cannon: Of the "mounted on the forearms" variety.
Ax Crazy: Not always, but he occasionally has the urge to kill everyone in sight.
Dark and Troubled Past: His parents openly hated each other, to the point that his mother tried to get his father killed by their sons, but Floyd wound up killing his beloved brother Edward by accident. Later he lost his wife and son, and for most of his life has been unconsciously looking for surrogate brother figures.
Death Seeker: He's not so much suicidal as completely indifferent as to whether or not he lives.
His response to being told straight from the source that he'll be condemned to eternity in Hell when he dies is simply "Ha! Figures."
Even Evil Has Standards: He has no problem shooting an unarmed woman in the back. It's when he finds out she was told that she was free that he gets pissed, since he'd been told she was an escaping prisoner.
When the Six were first put together, both Deadshot and Cheshire were forced into joining when Mockingbird held the safety of their respective children over their heads. The difference between them? By the end of Villains United, it was demonstrated that Lloyd cared more about his daughter Zoe then Cheshire did Lian, as Cheshire went out of her way to conceive a replacement with no hesitation.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Like you would not believe. Almost every single panel where Deadshot is neither masked nor eating, he's smoking a cigarette.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers multiple ones to a group of white supremacist thugs. The first one results in a thug losing an eye; they only get more humiliating from there.
Pet the Dog: After learning about how Alice thinks she gave her father cancer, he forces the doctor (who is pretty sure it was Alice who gave it to him) to call and reassure her that it couldn't possibly have been her fault. Although, he might have just done this to make her a more effective team member.
There's also his interaction with his daughter Zoe and her mother. The money he makes as a mercenary gets sent directly to them.
Porn Stache: It's even specifically called this in one issue. He even mentions that some people have said unkind things about it.
The Sociopath: During the Blackest Night crossover, Yasemin (now a Black Lantern) comments that she thought he was this, but he does in fact have emotions buried deep inside. This is accompanied by a visual of his body being mostly black with a few points of color bleeding through.
Talk to the Fist: If you're on his bad side and he wants to know something, tell him in a quick and concise manner unless you want to get a hole blown in you.
Son of the Golden Age supervillain Ragdoll, Peter Merkel Jr. was born without the super-flexibility of his father and brother. Hundreds of surgical procedures duplicated and even surpassed the ability, letting him bend in strange and horrific ways. Talks to the stuffed body of former member Parademon he keeps in his room. Has no soul.
Abusive Parents: It's a wonder he isn't more fucked up when you consider the state Junior's in and the fact that in comparison he got off lightly.
Flanderization: In the initial mini, Ragdoll is explicitly not funny, coming off more as a Mad Artist assassin, but in subsequent books is the Cloudcuckoolander and Evilly Affable comic relief of the book. In Fridge Brilliance, this is a subversion, as Ragdoll's perfectly willing to be serious when he feels like it, but chooses to be funnier due to the dying wish of Parademon to make him laugh before dying.
Word Of God is that Ragdoll does have a natural superpower: he recovers from surgery at a phenomenal rate. This was explicitly shown in Six Degrees of Devastation.
Made of Iron: He can take multiple blows from superhumanly strong opponents and actually get off on it.
Mistaken Identity: Before Villains United confirmed that he's the Golden Age Ragdoll's son, a handful of fans noted that Ragdoll's flexibility, assassination training, and especially costume coloration reminded them of someone else entirely.
Neck Snap: His favorite move. Doesn't work on him, though.
Not So Harmless: A Cloudcuckoolander in a clown suit whose superpower is bending himself? Well, laugh if you want, but...oh wait, he already wrapped around you and broke your neck. Or pushed you off a cliff...or drove a wrench into your skull...
He says it himself: "You're one of those. One of those enemies who think I am only adorable, and not a threat to be measured most carefully. A joke, a jester, a jape in jammies. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE CORPSES NOW?!"
Unpopular Popular Character / The Friend Nobody Likes: Regarded as one of the series' highlights by many fans, but his teammates (especially Scandal and Deadshot) are far from shy in telling him that he freaks them right the hell out.
The man who broke the Bat, and the only A-lister in the bunch, Bane has recently assumed control of the Six from Scandal. Having kicked his Venom habit, he now uses his cunning mind and natural strength to great effect. Has a weird-but-sweet fatherly relationship with Scandal. See the Batman character sheet for more.
Adorkable: Bane has a few moments of this, most notably when holding a small child Bane initially thinks that he "broke it" when the child begins bawling uncontrollably, apparently forgetting that said child just saw Bane shot repeatedly AND kill the assailants bare-handed and when trying to ask a woman on a date he says her hip size means she'd be good at producing children, and offers flowers and candy in ritual exchange for sexual favors later.
The Atoner: He's not proud of his former dependence on the super-steroid Venom.
The Determinator: Bane shrugs off bullet wounds, even arterial ones after he applies a modicum of pressure. See also. Junior's entry for Sadistic Choice.
Villain Decay: Mostly removed. While not quite up to the level in Knightfall, where he was the Evil Doc Savage, he's so far proven to be highly competent.
Jeanette
A friend of Scandal's, the mysterious Jeanette is a centuries-old banshee who joins up with the Six in the first storyline of their ongoing. Created just for the series.
Minor Injury Overreaction: A justified one that also serves as a Kryptonite Factor: injure her neck in any way and she starts to panic, thinking she's being executed all over again.
The team's new employer, who essentially shanghais control of the team around the time of the Devil's Island mission. Actually Amanda Waller, government agent and founder of the Suicide Squad. The Six only recently learned this Mockingbird's identity.
The Chessmaster: Successfully manipulates the Six against the Suicide Squad in an attempt to get Deadshot to rejoin the latter. It doesn't work, but it's really a win-win situation.
Too Dumb to Live: How could he not know that carrying out a hit on Giganta's boyfriend was a bad idea?
Well, until they were in Skartaris, he didn't know that Ryan was Giganta's boyfriend. He's still an idiot, but let's give him some credit.
Oh, but he only gets even more stupid. Sure, he lived (albeit with every bone in his body broken), but considering that he told Ray Palmer about Slade Wilson being the one who offed Ryan... yeah, once Wilson finds out, Rundine isn't going to be alive for much longer.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Vanishes from the book without a mention after the Skartaris arc, presumably due to being involved in alternate-history shenanigans over in Wonder Woman.
King Shark
Currently a member of the first Secret Six.
Berserk Button: He is a shark. Do not suggest otherwise.
Bi the Way: In a sequence in issue 33, a reporter asks if it's true he's dating Aquaman. While he doesn't answer, he doesn't object either.
Butt Monkey: But only before he joined the team, where every encounter with him ended with him getting maimed somehow.
Cloudcuckoolander: While nowhere near as out there as Ragdoll, he is a fairly odd fellow. His habit of randomly namedropping B-movie titles is the prime example.
Ensemble Darkhorse: Popular enough that he's the only one of the four replacements who looks to be sticking around for a while. Not bad for someone who in recent years is mostly known as a punching bag for Conner Kent.
Man Bites Man: Comes with the territory. Although almost everyone on the team has done this at one point or another, it's basically his whole fighting style. In the Six's promotional video, his specialty is simply listed as "biting and chewing."
Because the team always tends toward six members (though it's had as many as eight at once), and the missions they go on tend to have high body counts, there's a high rate of turnover in the Six's ranks.
Mockingbird
The team's mysterious founder. Actually Lex Luthor, who formed the team to fight against the Secret Society formed by his doppelganger Alex Luthor in Infinite Crisis.. Left the Six to their own devices after they were no longer of use to him. See the Superman character sheet for more.
Fiddler
An old man with a magic fiddle; he was one of the Golden AgeFlash's enemies. One of the first recruits into the Secret Six, the Fiddler proved a liability in his first outing, so Deadshot executed him on Mockingbird's orders, and he later returns as an undead Black Lantern during the Blackest Night crossover to get revenge on the Six. See the Flash character sheet for more.
Harley Quinn
Better known as The Joker's Perky Female Minion. Briefly joined the Six in one of their earlier outings under their own command. Quit the team when she decided to reform. See the Batman character sheet for more.
Knockout
One of the New Gods from Apokolips, a former member of Darkseid's Female Furies. When the Six were hired to infiltrate the Secret Society of Super-Villains, Knockout was their contact on the inside. She turned on the Society and joined them, revealing that she and Scandal were lovers. Like the rest of the New Gods, killed by the Infinity-Man. See the New Gods character sheet for more.
Mad Hatter
Was brought in when the team started out under its own leadership; they needed his expertise in mind-control devices to counter their enemy, Doctor Psycho. Was ingloriously pushed off a cliff by Ragdoll because there's "only room for one dandy freak on the team." See the Batman character sheet for more.
Parademon
One of the millions of airborne minions of Darkseid, it's unlikely that Parademon even knew his own name. Blew himself up in a fight with the Society. He had an off-beat friendship with Ragdoll, who stuffed his corpse and keeps it in his bedroom.
He doesn't mind that Ragdoll ultimately decides to leave him in Hell. He likes it there!
Black Alice
A newcomer to the team, Lori Zechlin is a teenage girl who can "borrow" the powers of any magically powered character in the DCU. She quit the Secret Six team after transporting them to the entrance to hell.
Fridge Horror: The characters who she borrows the powers of...what happens if they happen to be flying at the time? Word Of God eventually cleared this up by saying that she doesn't steal all of the power and leaves a little behind, and a flyer would instinctively land before anything happened.
Notably, when she steals Spectre's power, he is rendered insubstantial, but still coherent and capable of speech. This, despite his power also being his very identity: he's the literal Wrath of God.
Instant Expert: She seems quite skilled at using the magic powers she borrows, but it is eventually subverted when she reveals that she tried to use healing magic to cure her father's asthma, but accidentally messed up his insides and gave him cancer.
It's also further subverted when she clarifies that she suffers from Power Creep, Power Seep, with exceptional levels of power being difficult to maintain for more than a few moments, and in the difference between calling upon people with limited or natural magical abilities, and someone who requires training — Doctor Occult's one of the least powerful people she's tapped into, but his abilities proved too difficult to use reliably.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She quit the team rather than go with them to Hell. her previous encounter with the place left her that traumatized. Ragdoll notes, when they return, that her room was so bare it was like she was never even there.
Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: As Catman notes during their first meeting, she saw them set up a pedophile killer for death at the hands of the father of one of his victims and didn't even blink.
And then asked for a job.
(Worse) Villains
Junior
A mysterious crime lord, who controls the entire West-Coast mob from a crate, using only a pad of paper and a phone. Actually Ragdoll's sister Alex.
Complete Monster: To give you an idea, Intergang, which is run by a God, is afraid of Junior. Even The Joker is implied to be scared shitless of what Junior does.
Depraved Bisexual: Mentions "forced relations" with both men and women, but this may have more to do with how severely fucked up Junior's concept of sexuality is, thanks to the below Freudian Excuse.
Never Found the Body: After being blasted by a large group of villains and diving off a bridge in flames, is assumed dead. She survived, and is currently menacing the Birds of Prey.
Sadistic Choice: Junior's preferred means of torture is to threaten to kill someone, or else kill their family and friends, the victim's choice. It's a lie, and the victim is usually the only one to die. Junior leaves their body where the family — preferably the children — can find it, with a tape recording of their dead loved one begging Junior to kill the family instead.
Averted with Bane. When Junior attempts the above on him, counting out several dozen bricks in a pile and throwing them at him, counting down each time, before offering the Sadistic Choice to save himself or the rest of the Six. Bane interrupts her, tells her that he picks himself, and reminds her of her place in the counting. This is juxtaposed with the rest of the Six voting four-to-one to abandon him.
A poison-loving assassin and former member of the Six, who betrayed them to the Society in the opening story arc and has popped up again a number of times since. See the Teen Titans character sheet for more.
The Chessmaster: What's the best way to manipulate a superhero and a supervillain who both hate your guts? Have their kids.
The Chew Toy: Just about any time Gail uses her, Cheshire inevitably gets her ass handed to her. She's been thrown out of a helicopter, tortured, shot in the chest, forced to eat Solomon Grundy's cooked flesh, beaten within an inch of her life by Jeannette and then kicked upside the head by Tarantula, left as a bloody heap on the floor by three mercenaries hired to steal her son, and then told said son was killed when he's really alive and been adopted by a loving couple.
Evil Matriarch: She set out to murder Black Canary because she's taken care of Lian, and the girl comes to see Canary as more of a mother than Cheshire. Of course, whether or not her love for her child is genuine is still up for debate.
Freudian Excuse: She was sold into slavery at a very young age.
I Have A Family: When Jeanette is dangling her off the roof of a casino by her hair Cheshire tries to get out of it by saying she has a baby, while Jeanette simply responds that she doesn't care.
Moral Event Horizon: Nuked an entire country just because she felt the rest of the world didn't have the balls to do it.
Morality Pet: Her daughter Lian, and later her son by Catman, Thomas Jr.. Now Lian is dead, and Catman convinced her that her son was too, so the Morality Chain may be severed. However, when Lian's safety was held over head to ensure her cooperation with the team, she was more than willing to conceive a replacement child.
Mugging the Monster: The mercenary who went after her and tried to rape her probably should have read up on her history first. Let's just say it doesn't end well for him.
Poisoned Weapons: Tends to use her fingernails, among other things.
