Ironic Echo / Webcomics

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• Archipelago: Credenza and Raven have a bit of back-and-forth in Book 7, involving the line: "Of course. It's only okay when you do it."
• Bob and George: Jesus, Dr. Light, it's only one button
• Bobwhite, this comic. Marlene, a film major, has nothing but complaints about a movie they just saw. Georgie, unconcerned with the technical aspects, thought it was pretty good and doesn't see why Marlene's so worked up. They go to get a burger and suddenly their positions are switched.
• Daily JoJo: In the third episode of "Tomorrow's Jo" (the first arc), Eunjo gives Wan some cookies, but he recalls that she was picking her nose and touching her feet, so he tosses the cookies in the trash when she's gone. In the fourth episode of "Masks On" (the fourth arc), Wan has adopted Eunjo's relaxed mannerisms. When Wan offers the new worker, Mijo, a caramel, she recalls that he was just touching his feet and tosses the caramel in the trash when he isn't looking.
• In Darths & Droids, the session run by Pete begins with him explaining the GM has "some family emergency or whatever". At the start of the next session, the regular GM says Pete won't make it because "he said he had some kind of family emergency". Ben, still annoyed about the railroaded isn't-R2-awesome deathtrap, adds the "Or whatever."
• DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: As the punishment for the final game, X decides he would grant everyone the opposite of what their wishes are. During the challenge Dongtae manages to make it so noone, not even Mooyoung, would want to play with X, which was X's entire wish to the Final Die.
• In this Dominic Deegan strip, Rachel, an athletic female friend of Gregory's, goes to break up a fight between him and the bigot slaughterball player she used to idolize, Brett Taggerty:
  Rachel: I don't know what's going on in here, but I suggest you let go of my friend and explain yourself.
  Brett: (lets go of Gregory and raises his fist) Yeah? How about I break your face instead?!
  Rachel: I invite you to try, Taggerty.
  (Brett promptly punches Rachel in the jaw, eliciting a "KRAK"; but in the next panel, he's got a bloody hand)
  Brett: AAAAAGGH!
  Rachel: I break things with my face.
• Everything is Fine: Before Officer Tom activates red status on Charlie, Charlie tells him "Just act it out! We can go back" Tom replies "I'm sorry, Charlie. There's no going back." Later on, a bludgeoned Tom tells Maggie, who had witnessed the prior event, tells her "I'll... I'll forget! We can go back!" Maggie replies "I'm sorry, Tom. There's no going back." before repeatedly bludgeoning his head to death with her claw hammer.
• From this Exterminatus Now comic:
  Virus: Do you feel kind of bad, deserting Lothar and Rogue like that?
  Eastwood: Balls to that, this is what we pay them for.
  [Next Panel]:
  Rogue: Think we should tell them they're running towards the big one?
  Lothar: Balls to that, they don't pay us enough.
• Faulty Logic uses the "malicious" variant in a single (long) strip
• Girl Genius:
  • When Agatha awakes on Castle Wulfenbach, Moloch covers her mouth and tells her "Quiet! Quiet! I'm not gonna hurt you unless I gotta, but I will if you act stupid. Now I'm going to take my hand away. I'm giving you one chance." When they meet again in Castle Heterodyne, she does and says nearly the exact same thing.
  • When it turns out Princess Neena has stowed away on Agatha's airship, the same dialogue happens twice, reversed:
    Agatha: I do not want to make your mother angry!
    Neena: So don't tell her! I've got seventy-three sisters! She won't even know I've gone!
    Krosp: [sarcastically] You really think that'll work?
    [...]
    Rakehorn: Her Majesty will not be pleased.
    Krosp: [amused] So don't tell her!
    Neena: [nonplussed] You really think that'll work?
• Goblins:
  • The confrontation in the sewer between Delyn and Thaco when Thaco parrots Delyn's "Bleed for me" line after pinning him on a broken sewer pipe.
  • And again later, Minmax thinks that Dellyn's wooden sword shouldn't have been able to break his steel one. Dellyn says that '...there is a special place in hell reserved for those who die complaining about the rules.' After demonstrating just how broken his character is, Minmax says 'Careful Dellyn, I heard a rumor about those who die complaining about the rules.
  • Third time's the charm.
  • "I think I lost them." "I call dibs on his gauntlet(s).".
  • I find it astounding how often creatures mistake their own stupidity for a lack of fairness.
  • "I'd be tempted to say that this is 'impossible', but that is a word used only by idiots who lack the patience and reason to consider their own surroundings." ... "Impossible!"
• In Impure Blood:
  • Harassed by men as freak lover, Caspian tells a third-party he had to beat them up as freak lovers.
  • Elnor blames her hangover on jostling; then the injured Roan begs her not to jostle him
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Jean and Darla discuss that they haven't seen the dean of the science department around for a while, wnd wonder what he's up to. Jean comments, "Maybe he finally got a life." Cut to the Dean, in his home laboratory, preparing to create a monster, and declaring, "Now, I shall beget life!"
• In It's Walky!, Walky tells Joyce "You are beautiful, Joyce. It's the world that's ugly." Joyce later uses this line on his sister, Sal, in an attempt to talk her down from her Homicidal Rage.
• Leftover Soup has "What are you doing?" "I want my ten damn mayhem points, that's what I'm doing." In context: The cast is playing an RPG one of them invented in which, among other things, getting your character laid is worth a guaranteed ten "mayhem points", which work like action points and are awarded directly by the GM for doing something awesome. In the first case, Ellen's character is putting the moves on Jamie's, but he declines for both in- and out-of-universe reasons. In the second, which takes place immediately afterwards, Nicole's character has proceeded to jump in and try to score with Ellen's.
• In the Looking for Group NPC story, "The Hctib Diaries", every time Hctib complains about his job or something the clipboard demon did to him, the clipboard demon sarcastically says, "You know we're demons, right?" Toward the end, the clipboard demon says that he and Hctib's wife who's been sleeping with him are worried about him because of everything that's gone wrong and asks him how he's doing. After a Beat, Hctib brains and slaughters the other demon with his own clipboard and yells, "YOUKNOWWE'REDEMONSRIGHT?"
• Ménage à 3: Between this page and the next:
  Angel: By contrast, with Yuki and Sonya by my side, I'm ready to found a musical empire. I'll be like the genderfluid… I don't know… Julius Caesar.
  [The next page, with Sonya having announced she's quitting the band and Yuki eager to rejoin Zii's band]
  Angel: I'm surrounded by traitors!!! Traitors everywhere!!! I'm like the genderfluid Julius Caesar!!!
• A Miracle of Science has two, "That, gentlemen, is the sound of conquest" and "Behold, the Martian invasion fleet." The first one is used by Ben first in the flashback as a Mad Scientist trying to take over the moon, and later by Ben when he is confronting Haas. The second one is used first jokingly by Caprice, but then seriously by Ben in the end.
• Narbonic: "I love you." "Not enough." Note that both characters who say it are ironically echoing the other. Isn't time travel fun?
• In No Rest for the Wicked, Perrault tells November "You could always turn around and go home." Then, they meet Red. Somewhat later, following her through the woods, November repeats the line to Perrault.
• The Fire Red season of the original Nuzlocke Comic has Gary's declaration from the start of the original games that he 'picked the wrong Pokémon' in a much darker context with regards to how he meant it. In part of the epilogue, his Blastoise decides that he's finally taken enough of his crap, and blasts him out of his shoulder cannon into the distance after echoing the line back to him. He even finishes it up with a One-Liner Echo.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • In the prequel book Start of Darkness, wizards repeatedly act condescendingly to Xykon, a sorcerer; wizardry, which comes through study, is like a "finely-tuned watch," while sorcery, which comes naturally, is unwieldy like "a rubber hammer." Later, when Dorukan uses the same line, Xykon repeatedly hits him with Energy Drain spells, making Dorukan's own magic impossible while slowly killing him. Xykon points out that even if his magic is less sophisticated, the fact is that at a certain level of power no strategy can work against you, and right before killing him mocks that Dorukan can "keep [his] finely tuned watch — Give me a sledgehammer to the face any day."
  • Also, in the Greysky City arc, Haley derides Celia's Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude, and tells Celia to back up, because she was "going to betray [Celia's] principles all over the friggin place." Later, when Celia makes a deal so everyone lives but Haley retroactively owed 50% of everything she ever stole, Haley furiously asks if Celia knew what she had just done. Celia snaps back, "If I had to guess, I'd say that I betrayed your principles all over the friggin place."
  • Haley tells the goblins she has good news and bad news. The goblin cleric fires off a spell, and, as Haley realizes what it means: "OK, so I've got bad news, and I've got bad news."
  • "Stop talking!" From Thog to Roy, and then not too much later fired right back.
  • Don't forget the scene that just preceded it, with Thog's tusk getting broken, echoing this scene way back in the first dungeon.
    Roy: You! Broke! My! Sword!
  • During the battle in the desert with Tarquin's gang, Elan says that Tarquin can't kill Roy without going through him. Tarquin replies "You're still at full hit points, right? You'll live." When Elan lets Tarquin fall from the airship, the last thing he says to him is "You'll live."
• Paranatural: In chapter 5, Johnny mistakes Jeff for Isaac and tries to bully him to get information about the Activity Club. When he finds out Jeff doesn't know, he says, "what a waste of good violence." During the Hitball game, when Jeff is possessed by Hijack and giving Johnny a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he says these words right back.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Lunesby delivers a fast version to "a little lost amorph" after Schlock tells a little lost smartcomm "It's okay, little dropped comm, don't be scared." (He thought he was talking to the SIs the things usually have.)
  • Howard loves this trope, really. It's happened several times after the Lunesby example there; here's another occurrence, where Tailor asks for a demonstration of how fast Schlock can climb in a bag that's currently inside him, and where the results of Tailor's work are demonstrated for Tagon.
  • "It's more sporting this way." Said by Tagon to his father Karl, then shot right back at him by his dad when the commander of the opposing paintball force proved smarter than the younger Tagon thought.
• Sketch Comedy: Susan unwittingly delivers an ironic echo to Karen. In sign language, no less.
• In Sluggy Freelance:
  • In "Kiki's Virus", Dr. Schlock captures Kiki the talking ferret and threatens to dissect her, and she says "Don't hurt me! I'll be good!" Then Sam — Kiki's former owner and now a vampire — shows up and picks up Dr. Schlock, prompting him to say the exact same thing.
  • "Weird girl, Sasha" gets repeated over and over again by almost all the (sane) characters... and then Sasha gets a chance to throw it back at them : "Weird guy, Torg"
• In Strong Female Protagonist, when Alison took issue with Max's family's treatment of the illegal laborers tending to their garden (in paying them a flat day rate under table rather than a more fair hourly rate), Max described it as 'creating an incentive structure'. Later, after Alison learned that Max was a biodynamic with the ability to enhance the powers of others, and failed to convince him to willingly boost Feral's power, she threw this line back at him as she physically coerced him to do so.
• In the Touhou Project fancomic Tag Dream about a tag-team professional wrestling-style tournament, when Flandre and Meiling fight Sanae and Suwako, Flandre launches into a technique designed for fighting extremely physically tough Oni to use against the human Sanae. Meling warns her that they'll be disqualified if they kill an opponent, but Flandre says losing like that would be fine. Later in the match, with Sanae unconscious and receiving medical treatment, Flandre weakened by garlic, and Suwako systematically breaking Meiling's bones rather than pinning her, Flandre tells Suwako to stop or Meiling might die, and Suwako says losing like that would be fine.
• Tower of God
  • Towards the end of the first season, Ren is on a mission to kill Anaak because she's an enemy of King Jahad. When Endorsi (who's sort of higher in status than Ren because she's a Princess of Jahad but sort of lower and a lot less powerful because she's still just a Regular) defends Anaak and attacks Ren, Ren says "Now, this is self-defense" before striking Endorsi down. Then Princess Yuri Jahad (who's a High Ranker and definitely higher in status than Ren) shows up and threatens to kill Ren if he doesn't leave. Ren loses self-control and launches an unintentional attack at her; she No Sells it and says "Now, this is self-defense" before striking back. (It's not clear she would have even heard his earlier line, though, but the echo is very clear.)
  • Robdevil was hired as a bodyguard for the Spoiled Brat Prince on the basis of his claim to be the famous Regular nicknamed "Devil's Right Arm". During a competition of strength for Regulars, he steps forward and tells the previous highest scorer, Horyang, "Hey, pal. Have you ever seen a real devil? Let me show you one." before activating the Super Mode in his right arm and using it to take the lead in the contest. Later, after Robdevil has betrayed and beaten up Prince, Horyang shows up in their room and says "Hey, bruiser. Have you ever seen a real devil? Let me show you the one living in my right arm. Let's see who the real devil is." before activating the power in his right arm that originally inspired the nickname "Devil's Right Arm", and delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• In Weak Hero, Ben carries Gray to the hospital after the fight with Wolf. When Gerard questions why he took Gray to a hospital that was so far away, Alex flashbacks to the time in his past where he was the one carrying Ben to the same hospital.
• In the second arc of The Wotch, Anne accidentally turns Jason into a Jean Grey spoof, prompting Robin to tease him with, "At least you're hot. He he. I mean, you can provide a real distraction!" Nine arcs later, Robin is turned into a large-breasted girl to act as a crowd control diversion, prompting Jason to snark, "'At least you're hot.' 'You can provide a real distraction!'"
• xkcd. "My normal approach is useless here too." The first time it's a lighthearted joke about trying to solve love with math. The second time... not so much.
• Zebra Girl: "Doesn't it worry you that I'm not worried?"

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