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The DCU

  • The "Year One" stories are built on these.
    • In JLA: Year One, the League's security system is made by Kord Industries. "Screw taking over the family business," says young Ted Kord to himself when the JLA come to pick it up, "I want to be one of those guys!"
    • In World's Finest: Seventh Year (published 1999, but set shortly after Action Comics #643 from July 1989), Batman and Superman discuss situations in which they'd be tempted to kill. Bruce asks Clark what he'd do if a being of pure destruction was destroying Metropolis. The image of this hypothetical beast is shadowed, but unmistakably Doomsday.
    • Ninth Year has a gang of crooks take advantage of the confusion following The Death of Superman by posing as even more claimants during Reign of the Supermen. One of them, claiming to have "evolved to the next life-stage of Kryptonian development", has energy powers and a blue-and-white costume with a lightning-bolt "S". It doesn't look exactly like the Superman-Blue outfit, but it looks similar enough to make the point.
    • And Tenth Year ends with Clark warning Bruce "Don't expect Superman to look away again if Gotham needs help, just because Batman declares it's off limits", and Bruce responding "And don't expect Batman to stand aside the next time Superman decides he's the only one who can solve the world's problems." At the time of publication the Bat Family Crossover Batman: No Man's Land (in which not Batman, but the US Government declares Gotham off limits) was ongoing, and the Super Family Crossover Superman Rex (in which Superman seemingly takes over the world for its own good) had recently finished.
    • In Robin: Year One, Dick defeats Mark Desmond, Blockbuster, by tricking the Dumb Muscle into knocking himself out. He comments that he'd hate to fight someone who was like Blockbuster only smart. In Nightwing, his archenemy was Desmond's brother Roland, who took the Blockbuster formula after Mark's death, and then made a deal with Neron to become superintelligent as well. Also in the same story, The Joker reacts to Two-Face's desire for revenge on the Boy Wonder by unsmilingly telling him he's already claimed Robin's death.
    • In the Brave and the Bold miniseries featuring Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, Barry, who is a scientist, mentions using the parallax effect to calculate distance. Hal Jordan notes the word.
  • In Batman: Lovers & Madmen, one of the Joker's many origins, "Jack" gets inspired to go from bored hitman to Mad Artist after a conversation with a blonde waitress who wants to be a psychiatrist. When the Joker anonymously pays her tuition, she turns out, of course, to be Harleen Quinzel. Later on in the story, Batman asks for help from a Dr.Jonathan Crane for help with figuring out how to beat "Jack".
  • Batman: Snow is set a bit over a year into Batman's career, and shows him taking on a team of agents. When this doesn't work, he comments to Alfred that he still needs back-up, but it would have to be one person he could train properly. He concludes "I'll know it when I see it", while the newspaper page opposite the one he's reading announces that the Flying Graysons are touring New England.
  • The Young All-Stars' Millennium (1988) crossover, where the Green Lantern was guided by his ring to save three individuals who would become the parents and grandparent of three individuals that would be candidates for The New Guardians.
  • In The Flash (Rebirth), the storyline "Legion of Zoom" has Zoom assemble Barry's worst villains from across time, including the Turtle and Gorilla Grodd. Grodd, still in his early New 52 persona where he saw himself as the rightful heir to the Speed Force, says that one day he will seize control of the Turtle's Still Force as well, which is exactly what his present-day counterpart does in DC Year of the Villain.

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