The trans mother carried on being happy, smiley and reassuring until she got murdered by a stalker so that the het folks could learn that Life Goes On
WHAT. THE. FREAKING. FUCK. Seriously, that's beyond fail. Or at least definitely smacks of author-fail to me, too.

On the other hand, your thesis sounds utterly awesome. I'd say you could include Watchmen purely for the fact that they did at some point hunt down something, right? XD