Marvel Adventures: The Avengers opens with a story about the U.S. Government wanting to replace the Avengers with a new automated defense system run by an artificial intelligence named Ultron. Iron Man is the first to point out that this sort of thing never works, commenting that if it did, he'd just make his suit do the job by itself. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it's Tony who creates Ultron with the express purpose of replacing the Avengers as the Earth's defense system, and it naturally doesn't work. The movie also introduced the Iron Legion, an entire squad of automated armors created by Tony.
Howard the Duck: During the conception of the character's MAX series, Marvel was concerned about lawsuits from Disney over the similarity to Donald Duck. Howard probably is inspired by Donald Duck, but in a court of law, they could argue it's a case of scenes á faire and that the rest of Howard's setting doesn't resemble Donald's enough for them to have a case (no nephews, no greedy uncle and he lives among humans to boot, though it's not where he originally came from), but seemingly they decided it wasn't worth the hassle. It was decided to alter Howard's design... so Steve Gerber, cantankerous as ever, decided that in the very issue, he would turn Howard into... a mouse!note Albeit a realistic-looking mouse with brown fur, but the Take That! was obvious.. This whole pissing contest is hilarious to read about today, when Howard's resemblance to Donald Duck wouldn't have caused any issues whatsoever.
The Incredible Hercules: In issue #138 Amadeus Cho balks at Athena's suggestion that he should become the new Prince of Power, pointing to his 'skinny girl arms' as the reason, and jokes that "You're going to have to bombard me with gamma rays first or something!" Well, now that he stole Bruce Banner's gamma energy, became the new hulk, and still remains a gamma-powered hero to this day as Brawn, who knows, maybe that conversation gave him some ideas after all.
The Incredible Hulk (1968) #418 featured Marlo selling her soul to Mephisto (she thought it was just a dream) in order to have a perfect wedding day. Over a decade later Spider-Man: One More Day comes out, a story which involves Mephisto convincing Peter Parker to sell his marriage to him.
The Incredible Hulk (1962) #1 declared, as General Ross named the Hulk, that it was a name that was destined to become immortal. Fast forward decades later, and Hulk's latest title is... Immortal Hulk.
Related to that, a Clue from Ed. in What If? Issue #2 ("What if the Hulk retained the mind of Bruce Banner?") said that the original events were chronicled in "the immortal Hulk #1", which is... confusing now.
Stan Lee, in the epilogue of Origins of Marvel Comics, briefly refers to the stories contained therein - the very beginnings of Marvel comics - as "Phase One".
The Marvel humor Comic What The? did a Batman parody where all the actors playing Batman's villains were being killed. Near the end it is revealed that everyone in Hollywood is afraid to work with him, including Michael Caine, who would go on to play Alfred in Batman Begins, The Dark KnightandThe Dark Knight Rises.
One for the Black Cat. In issue 3 of her 90s miniseries, Felicia Hardy: The Black Cat, Felicia makes the quip, "Sorry, was "snap, crackle and pop too much of a baby boomer reference for you? ". With the rise of the "okay, boomer" meme, Felicia mocking someone for not understanding a baby boomer reference is pretty funny.
During Mark Gruenwald's Captain America run, Jack Monroe got into a fight with D-Man and accused him of hitting on Jack's girlfriend, despite D-Man insisting that they were just friends and that he wasn't trying anything untoward. Years later during Nick Spencer's run, D-Man would be revealed to be gay, making Jack's reaction even more disproportionate in retrospect.
Also during Gruenwald's run, there was a scene where the government was looking up potential candidates to become the new Cap after Steve Rogers retired from the role. The Falcon was briefly brought up as a candidate, but one of the politicians present shot down the idea while saying something to the effect of "The public isn't ready for a black Captain America." Not only was a mini-series dealing with a black Captain America called Truth: Red, White and Black released to controversy years later, but Sam Wilson later wound up becoming the new Cap during Rick Remender's run. And, just as predicted, plenty of controversy ensued both in-universe and in real life.
Captain America #289 showcased a rather incoherent dream of Bernie Rosenthal where she was the Captain Patriotic superhero and Steve was the helpless Muggle who had to watch his girlfriend risk her life every day. The villain of the piece was a mash-up of Red Skull and M.O.D.O.K. named Mo-Skull (it was assistant editors' month and things were weird). Almost four decades later, Captain America: The End saw another mashup of both villains turn the world into a zombie apocalypse, and he looked just like Mo-Skull. Neither was this the first time Red Skull was Fusion Danced with another supervillain - see AXIS.
In the videogame for Deadpool, back in 2013, there was an entire mission for him to save Rogue. Deadpool's main motivation to save Rogue was to have her fall in love with him. After finding her, she kisses him to absorb his healing factor, weakening him enough to make him pass out. In one Uncanny Avengers chapter, Rogue gives Deadpool The Big Damn Kiss, after developing feelings for him, which heals him of earlier injuries. After which, they share two more big kisses, the last being cut short due to Wonder Man awakening and being released from Rogue.
When asked if Rogue would be in a relationship with someone other than Gambit or Magneto, Word of God stated that a relationship seemed to be developing for her at that moment. It's possible he was referring to Deadpool, whom Rogue started to respect as a friend and comrade. With Word of God also stating that they'd always planned the two becoming friends.
A 1996 issue of Excalibur has Pete Wisdom, in a wheelchair and a bald cap, humorously pretending to be Professor Xavier, including a reference or two to Jean-Luc Picard while he's at it. Four years later, Patrick Stewart was in fact cast to play Xavier in the X-Men Film Series.
This similarly makes the X-Men/Next Generation crossover comics/novels that much funnier, since many people pause at the resemblance between Xavier and Picard. It's even lampshaded by Storm in the novel.
Even more hilarious, Patrick Stewart related a tale from that comic while on The Daily Show promoting X2: X-Men United. Apparently, he was told about the comic during its production, as well as the fact that Picard and Xavier would be "facing off" on the cover. Sir Stewart jokingly objected, claiming "If I took that role someday, I'd be on the cover twice. That just doesn't seem fair." It's good to know that Sir Patrick Stewart himself appreciates this trope.
In issue #41 of Generation X, Skin went to rent a bunch of horror movies, the titles of which were parodies of classic horror movies (like Yell! instead of Scream). But among these horror flicks was a film called Sicko, which nowadays makes readers think more of Michael Moore and less of Psycho.
Washed-up actor Henry Hellrung, alias Anthem, was made leader of The Order, California's Initiative team, by his friend Tony Stark. Henry was famous for playing Iron Man on television, until alcoholism ruined his career. To recap, he's an actor who got fired because of issues with addiction, then came back into the fore of media attention after accepting an offer to do with Iron Man... not unlike Robert Downey, Jr. The Order ran for 10 issues in 2007; Iron Man came out in May 2008.
The Uncanny X-Men tie-in to the Acts of Vengeance crossover featured Wolverine and Jubilee facing off against the Mandarin, Tony Stark's usual Arch-Enemy. Throughout the story, it was shown that members of the Hand and the Chinese underworld didn't respect or fear the Mandarin, with it being remarked that his public defeats at the hands of a B-grade American superhero like Iron Man made it impossible for anyone to take him seriously. This insult made sense at the time, largely due to the vast gulf in popularity that existed between the X-Men and Iron Man during The '90s. Modern fans, meanwhile, would probably be baffled at seeing Iron Man belittled in such a manner, as anyone who has been following American pop culture since 2008 likely thinks of Iron Man as a household name thanks to the popularity of his movies.
In the 2021 volume, a caption underlines Frog-Man's perpetual D-list status by noting that he's never even had an action figure in real life. That same month, Hasbro released the first ever Frog-Man action figure as part of the Marvel Legends line.
During the famous "Armor Wars" storyline, there was an issue where Rhodey dressed up in Whiteface in order to pose as the villain Electro. While removing the makeup, a thoroughly embarrassed Rhodey said he hoped there weren't any black people around to see him like this. This becomes funny when you realize that in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Electro was Race Lifted into a black man.
This cover of Avengers 221◊ published in 1982 is amusing when you look at the original lineup for Brian Michael Bendis's New Avengers published 23 years later.
Back in Avengers #151, a news report cited Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Namor as three solo heroes who had turned down offers to join the team, closing with "Some people just aren't meant for teams, it seems." All three of those characters have since had high profile stints with the team, with Spider-Man and Daredevil joining in the above-mentioned New Avengers era.
Issue #30 opens with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch realizing that their mutant powers are beginning to wane. Quicksilver muses that it's possible the twins weren't real mutants in the first place, something that becomes funny (or Harsher in Hindsight) when you take into account that their mutant heritage was retconned away during AXIS.
An old issue of Thunderbolts had a scene where Hawkeye mentioned that Wolverine was the exact kind of loose cannon who would never be granted Avengers membership. Guess who joined the Avengers back in 2005 and remained with the team for close to a decade?
There was also a much older story where Captain America himself told Wolverine he'd never be an Avenger. This is such a prominent example of this trope that when a much later Deadpool issue featured Cap recounting this incident, Deadpool immediately burst out laughing at the irony.
Another Hawkeye-related one; Hawkeye decided to become a hero after watching Iron Man in action and wanted to be a superhero like him. In the mid-late 2000s Iron Man came out, and reportedly, when Jeremy Renner watched it, he wanted to play a superhero, just like Iron Man. He got his wish, how? By playing Hawkeye in The Avengers.
In an issue of Avengers Solo, Hawkeye criticized a Dirty Harry-style vigilante film by saying he longed for the days when a hero could save the day without killing the bad guys. In the Avengers films, Hawkeye kills people quite liberally, and is in fact described as a "Master assassin" by Iron Man at one point.
Hawkeye's stance against killing in general. In the original comics, he was probably one of the Avengers who was most strongly opposed to the idea of using deadly force, and was extremely shaken after he accidentally killed Egghead in self defense. Cut to Civil War II, where he murders Bruce Banner in order to save the world from the Hulk, and is even described by Banner as being one of the few Avengers who could kill someone and then live with the guilt.
In an issue of Kurt Busiek's Avengers run, Namor mocked D-Man and suggested that he go join the X-Men, since they have much lower standards when it comes to recruitment. Namor later ended up joining the X-Men and played a major role in the Avengers vs. X-MenCrisis Crossover.
In Avengers #329, there was a scene where a member of the Avengers' support crew jokingly suggested that Jarvis and the Vision might be the same person since they're rarely seen together at the same time. Avengers: Age of Ultron would eventually make Jarvis and the Vision into a Composite Character, with the latter's consciousness being formed from the J.A.R.V.I.S. artificial intelligence Tony Stark had developed in the Iron Man movies.
During the iconic "Kang Dynasty" storyline from Busiek's run, Triathlon lamented that he'd probably end up as one of those D-list Avengers nobody remembers, citing Mantis, Rage, and Deathcry as examples. While he was correct concerning himself, Mantis would later end up as one of the stars of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Avengers: Infinity War.
A major reason Marvel cancelled The Avengers and relaunched it as New Avengers was because they wanted to get rid of the "dead weight" (characters who weren't in live actionmovies) and focus on their A-listers like Spider-Man and Wolverine, with Hawkeye and the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man specifically chosen to die because editorial thought they were worthless characters. Now, of those "dead weight" heroes, Hawkeye was one of the stars of The Avengers, Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Carol Danvers have starred in successful solo films (with Captain Marvel and Black Panther both grossing over a billion dollars each, and the latter becoming one of the highest grossing movies of all time), while The Falcon, Scarlet Witch and The Vision have also appeared in the films and even gotten their own hit TVshows. Meanwhile, Marvel began downplaying and marginalizing Wolverine and the other X-Men (including removing them from merchandise and barring them from cartoons and video games) due to not having their movie rights, with Spider-Man only escaping the same fate because Sony agreed to work together with Marvel to bring Spidey into the MCU after the failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. What a difference a few years can make...
In the ultimate example of just how much the notoriety of Marvel's heroes shifted between 2005 and 2018, when Marvel did an A-list relaunch of the Avengers after No Surrender, it included several characters who had previously been dismissed as also-rans back when Bendis took over the series, but were now considered big deals because of the MCU.note Specifically, Black Panther and Captain Marvel.
Similarly, the very first arc of the 2018 Avengers relaunch featured all of The Eternalsgetting unceremoniously killed off when the Final Host arrived on Earth. As an Eternals movie was unexpectedly revealed to be in development just a short while before this issue was published, it seemed not even Marvel's publishing division seriously thought a group of C-listers like the Eternals had anything approaching cinematic potential.
A major plot point in The Last Defenders had Iron Man forming a new Defenders team that had almost nobody from the previous iterations of the team, and without the consent of any of the original Defenders. He defended his decision by basically suggesting the new members made for a better, more marketable team despite having no connection to the Defenders. Later in the series, Nighthawk even had a breakdown where he said that people were taking the Defenders away from him and destroying the team's rich legacy. Flash forward to 2017 and Marvel announces a new Defenders series to tie into the Netflix show, which stars four popular, marketable characters with no real connection to any of the past incarnations of the team.
Once, Deadpool claimed, "If you looked like Ryan Reynolds crossed with a shar-pei, you'd understand!" Ryan Reynolds had already outed himself as a Deadpool fan and expressed interest in playing him in a movie at this point, though.
An old solicit cast doubt on the prospect of the character dying, humorously asking if Marvel would ever kill off a character who might have a movie deal (this was when it was rumored Deadpool would be getting a spin-off from X-Men Origins: Wolverine). When you consider that Marvel has recently been accused of deliberately sabotaging characters whose film rights they do not own (such as the Fantastic Four and X-Men), it becomes easier to come to the conclusion "Yes. Yes they would."
A variant cover for the first issue of Uncanny Avengers had Deadpool listing reasons why he should be part of the group, despite lacking any real qualifications to be an Avenger. A few years later, he joined the post-Secret Wars relaunch of Uncanny Avengers as an official member of the team.
In the early days, Thor, in his human guise of Dr. Donald Blake, had a romance with his nurse, Jane Foster. However, he kept the secret of his dual life from her, and Jane, knowing that there was some deep secret that the man she loved refused to tell her, slipped into a crippling depression that took a toll on her physical health. Donald finally snapped her out of it by transforming into Thor at her bedside to prove his love, saving her from "dying of a broken heart". Guess who got to play Jane in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Natalie Portman.
In one of the first issues of Thor to feature Loki, Jane remarks that Loki must be good since he's so handsome. Especially funny considering all of the modern fangirls insisting that Loki is redeemable due in no small part to him being played by the handsome and charming Tom Hiddleston. Lampshaded by the official Marvel Tumblr, which called the issue "the first appearance of Loki, and the first appearance of a Loki fangirl."
Also, there was a famous storyline where Jane was given the power of an Asgardian, only to be stripped of said power after Odin decreed that she was unworthy of ever being a god. This is rather amusing now that she's actually proven herself worthy of wielding Mjölnir and become the new Thor.
When Thor needed a new identity in Walt Simonson's run, Nick Fury mentioned that he'd have to settle for an apartment in Brooklyn, since "Even S.H.I.E.L.D. can't find nothin' in Manhattan." With prices in Brooklyn having skyrocketed in recent years thanks to gentrification, they'd be lucky to find a place there for Thor to live nowadays.
They also had a bit where they discussed the progression of Darker and Edgier versions of characters, and theoretical Darker-er and Edgier-er extensions. One of them was named Red Hulk. Later on, Red Hulk became a Hulk villain.
There's also a moment when U.S. Agent and Spider-Woman, two American heroes, joined Omega Flight.
The Master Race is alive and well and comprises the core of the Avengers!
Year In Review '92 bashed the C-List Fodder villain group Riders of the Storm, calling them lame and saying no one would ever bring them back. Then they did come back, only now they were the "Dark Riders". They then joked that Storm must have complained to management.
Speedball's mother once told him, "If you don't stop acting like an idiot, I'll never let you show your face in public again", which led to MYiR joking that he would be getting a new, fully-masked look. As Penance, he did wear a full-face mask. And continued to act like an idiot, though in a different way than previously.
In Marvel Civil War, shapeshifting alien Hulkling of the Young Avengers replaced Hank Pym to free the anti-registration heroes. This becomes funny when Secret Invasion reveals that the Hank Pym Hulkling replaced was himself a shapeshifting alien that had replaced Hank Pym.
And before that in an issue of Fantastic Four, as a prank, it showed Hank Pym using an image inducer to pose as a car stealing skrull.
Similarly, in the (in)famous debut of the "New Fantastic Four", a Skrull named D'Lilah impersonated Alicia Masters, who was later retconned to be a Skrull impersonating Alicia Masters herself! Although D'Lilah was a traitor and might not have known about Lyja (the Alicia-impersonating Skrull)'s mission, it's still amusing that it didn't come up.
This panel◊ from an early Captain America comic becomes funnier after knowing what Cap does during the Civil War storyline.
Star Wars (Marvel 1977): An issue from 1980 (before Empire or Jedi came to theaters) had a letter to the editor complaining about how the writers of the comic were writing Luke and Leia out of character by proclaiming that "they're obviously in love with each other but you're writing them like they're brother and sister or something."
One issue of the Marvel Star Wars comic, also pre-Empire, had a story about Darth Vader and Luke's father as two different people. Naturally, going off the first movie there was no reason to suspect they weren't two different people, but it's still hard to ignore.
Much of Star Wars (Marvel 1977) came out between the films. After The Empire Strikes Back, they ran a storyline involving a new Imperial superweapon called the Tarkin. During a briefing, someone says to our heroes, "It answers a lot of questions we've been asking ourselves lately. Like for instance, why hasn't the Empire constructed a second battle station like the Death Star that almost destroyed our base on Yavin?" (The writers had originally intended to depict a second Death Star, but Lucasfilm had vetoed that without explaining why.)
The entire reason Marvel declined to publish Dark Empire and gave up the license to Star Wars altogether was that they thought nobody could possibly be interested in the franchise anymore. Hindsight is always 20/20, huh?
In an early issue, a character mentioned a TV series called "Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.". This was referencing Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a then-current feature in another corner of Marvel's 'verse. 49 years later, we got Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an actual TV series. (Aw, just one letter off …)
The tie-in to Civil War has a scene where a group of NSA employees discuss the public backlash stemming from the death of Goliath, and one of them claims that it's irrelevant since the black vote won't matter in the next presidential election anyway. He was slightly off with that prediction.
Marvel Team-Up #100, the story that established that Black Panther and Storm were childhood friends, ends with a caption that's rather amusing given that they later ended up in a very controversial marriage that ultimately ended in divorce:
As friends, they may wish for more, but this is what they are, what they will remain. Forever.
In an 1960s Fantastic Four story, the titular team is teaching T'Challa how to play baseball. Fifty or so years later, Black Panther would be played by Chadwick Boseman, who played Jackie Robinson in the movie 42. Furthermore, that film has Robinson comment that a lot of racist baseball fans are "still fighting the Civil War". Boseman would later make his debut as Black Panther in the movie Captain America: Civil War.
Another one regarding the Fantastic Four: Black Panther's first appearance in that comic has him fight the titular team. Fifty years later in Civil War, Black Panther sides against Captain America (played by Chris Evans) - a former Human Torch. After that movie opened in theatres, it was announced that Michael B. Jordan, ANOTHER Human Torch, would be joining the cast of Black Panther as Killmonger.
The Jungle Action series had T'Challa fight against villains named Venomm and Lord Karnaj. Years later, Spider-Man got two villains with similarnames.
As the "One Nation Under Doom" event in the Marvel 2099 line drew to a close John Herod used a clone of Captain America as a puppet to overthrow Doom with the cover story that Steve Rogers had once again been put in suspended animation in a block of ice. In Manifest Destiny, we find out the real Steve Rogers's fate and as it turns out, history really did repeat itself.
When The Inhumans first appeared in Fantastic Four, the Human Torch initially mistook them for mutants. This becomes funny when you consider that Marvel and Disney tried years ago to make the Inhumans into Suspiciously Similar Substitutes for mutants, who at the time couldn't be used in the MCU thanks to rights issues. The same applies for the storyline in Amazing Adventures #9-10, which saw Magneto kidnap Black Bolt after mistaking the Inhuman king for a fellow mutant.
During the standoff between Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox over the Fantastic Four's film rights, Marvel did a rather childish Take That! by having Lawyer Friendly Cameos of threeofthe four stars of the ill-fated reboot get blown up in an issue of The Punisher. The only star who didn't get killed off? Michael B. Jordan, who in real life, later wound up jumping ship to Marvel Studios and playing Erik Killmonger in the Black Panther movie. Marvel must've had some serious foresight to spare his life, huh?
In another Disney-related coincidence, Fantastic Four #18 has a scene where the Thing mockingly claims that the Human Torch is a fan of The Mickey Mouse Club, with the Torch responding by saying Thing sent away for a Mousketeer pin.
In the Marvel NOW! parody Marvel: Now What?!, the High Evolutionary predicted that the next Crisis Crossover would involve the heroes and villains swapping allegiances, with Stilt-Man being forced to defend the Earth from the Avengers. Then came AXIS...
The revelation in All-New X-Men that Iceman was gay retroactively cast some older stories in a much different light:
Fans like to joke that a Cutaway Gag in an episode of Family Guy actually predicted this years in advance, as it depicted Iceman as a closeted gay man in a loveless marriage with a woman.
The very first issue of X-Men back in 1963 had a scene where all of the other male X-Men were practically drooling over the newly-arrived Jean Grey, while Iceman made it clear he didn't get what all the fuss was about.
Iceman: A girl...big deal!
Bizarre Adventures #27 had a black-and-white short story that opened with Bobby lovingly admiring an ice sculpture of Angel, noting how handsome and impressive it looked. Decades later in All-New X-Men, the time-displaced teenage Bobby would admit to Jean that he found Angel quite attractive. It also included a scene where Bobby, while modifying one of the sculptures, compared himself to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, both of whom are widely contended to have been gay by modern scholars. The Bizarre Adventures story was so heavy on unintentional Foreshadowing that it was later reprinted in X-Men #600, the issue where the adult Iceman came out of the closet.
In New Defenders #131, Bobby pranked a female college student by convincing her that he and Beast were dating.
During the 90s, Bobby got dumped by his girlfriend Opal after she got sick of being neglected. While lamenting the breakup, Bobby noted that most guys his age already had wives or girlfriends, and found his own lack of interest in Opal to be odd.
In Uncanny X-Men #319, Bobby brought Rogue home to meet his parents, which ended badly due to his dad's anti-mutant bigotry. The issue read a lot like a gay man having his female friend act as a beard in order to fool his family, an undercurrent that was possibly intentional given the way mutants are often treated as a metaphor for oppressed minority groups.
In another issue, Emma Frost sarcastically suggested that Iceman was not cut out to be a superhero, and would be much more comfortable pursuing his true passion: interior decorating. note For those who don't get the barb, interior decorating is a profession that is stereotypically associated with women and gay men. In the same encounter, Emma taunted him by creating a psychic image of his ex-girlfriend, who had this to say:
I was never really your girlfriend. You never loved me. You just needed me there to make you look good.
In Uncanny X-Men #129, new villainess Emma Frost briefly admired how well the X-Men fought. The author had no way of knowing that decades later, she would join them.
The Ultimate version of the Fantastic Four was the (admittedly loose) basis for Fantastic Four (2015). Mirroring what happened to Sue and Ben post-Ultimatum, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell, who played Sue and Ben respectively in the film, got married.
In 1993, Marvel did a line-wide stunt where each annual introduced a brand new character. Mark Gruenwald built these guys up as the next big thing while contrasting them with Squirrel Girl, whom he used as an example of a new hero who likely wasn't ever gonna appear again. In the present day, Squirrel Girl remains a fan favorite and has even had her own series, while the vast majority of the new characters from the 1993 annuals are either dead or in Comic-Book Limbo.
Disney once threatened to sue Marvel for Howard the Duck's overly close resemblance to Donald Duck, and Marvel had him finding a new outfit in-universe. And to think that Marvel itself was since bought out by Disney (and a comic in 2015 even has him taking a shot at Disneyworld).
In Linkara's review of Ultimatum, he said that Doom's plan was so stupid and full of uncontrollable variables that it had to have been thought up by a Doombot. A few years later in Ultimate FF, it was indeed revealed that the Doctor Doom seen in Ultimatum was an impostor wearing Doom's armor.
The first part of Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #2, cover-dated June 1975, is about an oil tanker crossing the Sub-Mariner's territory because the Suez Canal has been closed since 1967. When June actually came around, one of the first things to happen was the reopening of the canal.
In a case more related to real life: The Great Comics Crash of 1996 happened in part because people were stockpiling on comics hoping they'd be valuable - in spite of the fact old comics were selling for such high prices in the first place only because they were extremely rare, and the work made during the early 1990s was falling from grace heavily. Yet, as one website shows, New Mutants #98 actually is sought by many more than two decades later for being the debut of Deadpool (though the site makes clear it's probably not as rare as stuff made between the 1930s and 1970s, and thus hardly worthy of prices in the triple digits).
The Infinite Gems were originally called Soul Gems in Marvel Premiere, volume 1.
In Issue 18 of Shogun Warriors, the Shoguns (who are red-and-blue Transforming Mecha) battle an evil Humongous Mecha named Megatron. The issue was published four years before Transformers was created.
, "Sorry, was "snap, crackle and pop too much of a baby boomer reference for you? ". With the rise of the "okay, boomer" meme, Felicia mocking someone for not understanding a baby boomer reference is pretty funny.
