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Shout Out / Comic Books
aka: Shout Out Comics

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Attack of the 50 Foot Superwoman!

This page lists Shout Outs seen in Comic Books.

Many, many comics' covers count as homage shots, so, without further ado, take a look at this archive for reference.

Works with their own subpages:

Other Comics

  • Arawn: Arawn's collection of enemy skulls seems to include a Predator. Which is hilariously ironic when you think about it.
  • The Dec. 18, 2008 edition of Archie had a shout out to, of all things, The Comics Curmudgeon. Josh himself explains the reference here.
  • Asterix:
  • Astro City is a massive Shout Out to the comic book industry; almost all the storefronts, streets, neighborhoods and locations are named for notable creators, most of which will fly past the uninitiated. Here are some of the more notable ones:
    • Astro City itself is overshadowed by the massive Mount Kirby, the city's prominent landmark.
    • Julius Furst of the First Family is based on DC Comics' creator Julius Schwartz.
    • A race of shape-shifting aliens is named the Enelsians, after MAD magazine and DC Comics writer E. Nelson Bridwell.
    • The Sprang Museum of Popular Advertising — which features an assortment of massive props — is named after Golden Age Batman artist Dick Sprang.
    • A high-class restaurant in the city is named Goscinny's, after René Goscinny (writer and co-creator of Asterix).
    • Kiefer Square is a reference to artist Henry C. Kiefer, who drew various Golden Age comic books as well as the Classics Comics/Classics Illustrated line of books.
    • Characters are shown drinking Haddock's brand whiskey, named for the Tintin character.
    • The main prison of Astro City is on Biro Island; Charles Biro was the editor of the (pre-Comics Code) Crime Does Not Pay comic book series.
    • Bakerville, the predominantly African-American neighborhood, is named after Matt Baker, the first African-American comic book artist best known for drawing Phantom Lady.
    • Hillman Aviation is named after Hillman Periodicals, publishers of Airboy
    • The Chesler neighborhood of Astro City is known for its sweatshops. This doubles as a Take That! to Harry "A" Chesler, an early comic book publisher infamous for his sweatshop conditions.
    • Binderbeck Plaza is named after Otto Binder and C.C. Beck, creators of the Fawcett Captain Marvel.
  • Black Dynamite:
    • The group fighting to undermine the Illuminati is referred to as a rebel alliance.
    • Black Dynamite describes himself as a hero for hire. Several covers also reference Luke Cage comics.
    • When Black Dynamite and the monks fight the man-beasts, they quote lines from James Brown's "The Payback."
    • The warehouse full of Paul "the Pole" Monroe's sneakers resembles the warehouse shot at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • In Bouncy Ball Man, the Vipers gang share their name with another motorcycle gang. Specifically, the one that Tony and Chris run into in The Sopranos
  • In the Buffy: Season 8 comics, a scene taking place in London features a small panel showing a palette-swapped Doctor and Rose standing in front of a red TARDIS.note 
  • The Female's origin in The Boys involves falling into a big canister of synthesized Compound V. The name of the person in charge of the project? Doctor Uderzo.
  • Captain Gravity: When Joshua Jones and Jaeger are battling at one point, Jaeger shouts "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!".
  • The Cartoon History of the Universe: The Gauls in the sack of Rome are portrayed as Asterix and Obelix. Once they win a battle, they even mention how they're going to go to their own comic.
  • Cattivik: In Un'avventura infernale, the sinners in Hell include a number of other comic book robbers and thieves — namely, Stanislao Moulinsky, the Beagle Boys and the Dalton Brothers.
  • Chassis: Rothchild Billings owns a company called Rotwang Electronics. And the face on the outside of its Art Deco skyscraper headquarters looks like the robotic Maria.
  • Circles: The authors have an afterword where they list the many references such as:
  • Dandridge: "Return of the Chap" has a pair of ghosts in a museum named after the hosts of a popular 2000 AD podcast.
  • Crimson:
  • The Crow: According to the Special Edition, Eric was named after Erik from The Phantom of the Opera, and Shelly was named after Mary Shelley.
  • In one of the IDW Doctor Who comic books, some characters are named after actors from Castle.
  • The Doctor Who Magazine story The First has the Skith speculating that the Doctor might be a Daxamite or Dominator.
  • Empowered has a lot of them:
    • Dungeons & Dragons — with shirts sporting "INT. 19 (supra-genius)" or "STR. 18(00)";
      • Their space station is even called "The d10" (the Dungeons & Dragons method of describing a 10-sided die) and looks the part.
    • Maison Ikkoku: Emp's "Piyo Piyo" apron;
    • Dr. Big McLargeHuge;
    • When Ninjette tells Emp how her suit sprouted wings (which Emp can't remember), Emp pictures herself as a devil. Her mental picture looks quite a bit like she's cosplaying as Etna.
    • ThugBoy wears a t-shirt with the King of All Cosmos on it at one point.
    • The Superhomeys' undisclosed meeting location is room 3B, a reference to the imaginary lecture hall where the wizards of Unseen University in Discworld pretend to have class.
    • It's the goddamn Maidman!
    • A shout-out to 4chan even made its way into one of the books.
  • The F1rst Hero:
    • In Issue #3, Basher is ordered by Fat Alvin to attack the Philadelphia Police Department and the Extrahuman Task Force. Before he does, he grabs the gas can they deployed, saying "But first, Popeye needs his spinach.". After snorting the gas, he throws it, shouting "Fwoooooo, that's Brisk, baby!".
    • Before his fight with Odinson begins, Jake calls over to him, calling him Chewbacca.
  • In Joss Whedon's Fray, a flashback page is shown while Earth-before-humans is described as a savage time filled with monsters and demons. The landscape shown is populated with the first few pages of the first edition D&D Monster Manual, including an Anhkheg, a Bullete, and so on.
  • Ghostbusters (IDW Comics):
    • In Volume 2 Issue #17, all the ghosts the gang has captured before suddenly start appearing in the real world despite apparently still being in containment. Melanie suggests they should get involved 'til the mystery gets solved.
      Peter: Wait, wasn't that from a TV show?
      Melanie: (In tiny letters) Maybe.
    • Peter jokes that Egon needs to perform a check-up on Winston to make sure he doesn't turn into a green angry giant.
    • The finale of Volume 2 results in Winston's wife forgetting that they were ever married. Not only that, but everyone else does, as well. Ray thinks it's similar to a case that happened over in Portland, while Peter comments that he remembers another situation like this happening to a photographer from Queens.
    • Ghostbusters: Crossing Over: The Ghostbusters Sanctum Of Slime main characters ask why do the Prime Ghostbusters not simply go back in time to fix the mess, since that 'almost never' backfires. Then one of them notes that it 'backfires for Barry'.
      Bridget: Oh, for- That's a TV show, nerds!
  • In The Green Hornet spin-off from Legenderry, there's a gang leader called Captain Billy "Whiz-Bang" Jones. This is a reference to Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang, a magazine published by Fawcett Publishing before they got into comics (and which lent elements of its name to Captain Marvel/Billy Batson and Whiz Comics).
  • G.I. Joe, page 4 of issue #226 has Cobra Commander and Dr. Mindbender in a food truck labeled ebirah edibles. A mail box with 1701 as the address may also count as one.
  • Hybrid Force: In one scene, Thorn has reached a space centre in Houston, Texas. When he gets there, he grabs the fence and says "I hope you're here, darling.". In response, Silver Spider, who's about to fire an explosive at him, says "Oh, I am, Sam. Sam, I am.".
  • Iznogoud: In "The Wax Museum", Iznogoud brings a wax statue of Marcus Junius Brutus to life to bump off the Caliph, but the famous assassin of Caesar falls afoul of a caveman whom Iznogoud previously brought to life. When Brutus begins arguing with Iznogoud, Wa'at Alahf turns to the readers and twirls his finger around his head while muttering, "These Romans are crazy!", the Catchphrase of fellow Goscinny creation Obelix the Gaul.
  • Dirty Frank, a major supporting character in Judge Dredd who later gained his own spinoff, was specifically drawn to resemble Alan Moore.
  • Judge Dredd often gives Judges the same surnames as various people who work on 2000 AD. It also references various other comics:
    • In the wake of the recent "mutant rights" storyline Dredd fought pro-mutant activist (but non-mutant) Dr Xerxes Clavier and his genetically-altered students, whose monstrous appearances reflect the original X-Men without actually giving them powers.
    • During the "America" story, a common graffito was "Who judges the Judges", done in a similar style to "Who Watches the Watchmen" in Watchmen.
    • Mega-City One's Blocks are named after famous people or fictional characters and are often ironic Shout Outs to something related to the storyline (a mob leader from Wat Tyler Block; mind parasites in Colin Wilson Block, etc). Dredd himself, with his similarities to Dirty Harry, lived in Rowdy Yates Block. There have been references to Trump blocks and slums going back decades, and a recent storyline namedrops a Joe Exotic Block.
  • Kick-Ass:
  • Lady Death:
    • In the Avatar Press publication, the story takes place in a dark domain in the afterlife known as "The Labyrinth", similar to the alternate dimension of the same name in Hellraiser where Cenobites come from. Lady Death could count as a Cenobite expy herself, since she is a Humanoid Abomination in bondage gear though less horrifying and much more fanservicey.
    • The main villain Sagos resembles Skeletor from Masters of the Universe since he is a powerful sorcerer with a Skull for a Head and he is revealed to be the evil brother to Lady Death's father figure Wargoth, much like Keldor was King Randor's lost brother.
    • A Balrog-like demon is encountered in the story and considered one of the most dangerous things in the setting.
  • Locke & Key:
    • The comic takes place in a town called Lovecraft.
    • Tyler is seen reading Peter Pan to Bode in Crown of Shadows.
    • In Keys to the Kingdom #2, the patient directory at McClellan Hospital is made up almost entirely of comic authors/artists including, but not limited to, G. Ennis, K. Smith, and G. Jones.
    • In one issue, the scenes told from Bode's POV are done in Calvin and Hobbes style. Later, he's seen reading a C&H book (Yukon Ho!).
    • The Lovecraft hockey team plays against Voorhees High. If it wasn't obvious enough, the opposing players can be seen at the beginning and end of the issue wearing old-style goalie masks, even though they are not playing goalie, while Tyler is barefaced. The Lovecraft goalie is wearing a far more modern "cage" helmet.
  • The title of Lost at Sea is this to the Radiohead song "In Limbo", as confirmed by O'Malley on twitter.
  • The Mall (2018): Many cover variants for the books are references to (mostly) 80s movies.
  • In Mega Man (Archie Comics), the third issue features a scene where Mega Man is overcome by his new responsibility to fight, becoming wrathful and a little bit deranged (for a ten-year-old, anyway). Dr. Light talks to him about why fighting puts his innocent heart into turmoil. The explanation the good doctor gives is practically a word-for-word transcription of the chorus of The Megas' song, "The Message From Dr. Light": "I made you in my image. I built your heart and gave you eyes. I gave you power and a sense of justice beyond any compare. I gave you hands, a child's face... heh... robot hair. But this burden, this burning in your heart, I did not put there."
  • Mortadelo y Filemón: There are tons of shout-outs, tributes to and parodies of political figures, actors, and characters of comic-books and animation.
  • Issue #3 of The Muppet Show Comic Book opens with Pops the doorman discussing the Paint Academy films. Apparently there's an actress in them called Lola VaVoom.
  • In one Paperinik story, we are told that two aliens fought over Japan in feudal times, and were remembered as a heroic samurai fighting a demon. Together with other details, it becomes pretty clear that the creators like Tenchi Muyo!...
  • The Five Swell Guys in Promethea have a very similar name to the Five Neat Guys, a parody vocal group on SCTV.
  • Quantum and Woody has a Costume-Test Montage where the duo are trying on different costumes for their super-hero identities. One of the pair is of Luke Cage and Iron Fist, a reference to Heroes for Hire and the inspiration for Quantum And Woody.
  • Requiem Vampire Knight:
  • Rocky has Shout Outs to Peter Bagge, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Seinfeld, and rappers like Kool Keith, Jay-Z, Little Brother, Nas, and Wu-Tang Clan.
  • Seconds:
    • Red capped mushrooms, standard Bryan Lee O'Malley fare.
    • After waking up from Revision #6, Katie looks like she outright cosplaying Radical Ed.
    • Katie watches all of "Baking Bad" in one sitting at night, and she makes a revision to have gone to bed earlier.
    • At one point Hazel is shown telling Katie about Spike's Heel–Face Turn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
    • Hazel and Katie have a brief conversation about how bread makes you fat, with Hazel being as surprised as Scott Pilgrim was.
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Horror of Frankenstein contains several to the Universal Horror Frankenstein films:
    • Upon reviving the monster, Dr. Pretorious shouts "IT'S ALIVE!" as Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) famously does in Frankenstein (1931).
    • The Mad Scientist Dr. Pretorious, who rescues the monster and attempts to create a mate for him, shares his name with the villain from Bride of Frankenstein, a Mad Scientist who rescues the monster and attempts to create a mate for him.
  • The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis:
    • There are several Star Wars references:
      • The Action Figure Moon has at least one Star Wars action figure.
      • When the Brain Spawn make everyone dumber with their powers, Nerdanus XII (who became dumber as well) says that George Lucas was right to make Greedo shoot first in the Star Wars special edition.
      • When he gets arrested by URL, Comic Book Guy agrees to surrender, but only on the condition of having a metal slave bikini like Princess Leia's from Return of the Jedi. Even though he has no stomach, URL openly admits the image makes him nauseous.
      • While doing deliveries, the Simpsons and the Planet Express crew end up on an ice planet in the Lucas Galaxy. What happens afterwards is a parody of Luke Skywalker's encounter with a wampa in The Empire Strikes Back.
    • On Nerdanus XII, some of the comics that can be seen include Action Comics, Batman, G.I. Joe, and Fritz the Cat. Also, there is a lampshade with Daffy Duck's face on it.
    • When Apu and Comic Book Guy accidentally crash their cars into each other, Comic Book Guy exclaims to Apu "You are as blind as Matt Murdoch!"
    • The hardcover edition adds two extra pages to the second issue of the first miniseries. On the second of those pages, a ball of dark matter produced by Nibbler goes through all the floors at the Simpsons' house before ending up in Hell. There, the Devil is shown watching Family Guy, with Brian Griffin appearing on the TV screen.
    • Fry and Bart use the anti-gravity gum to make their skateboards fly and go to the Simpsons' house faster. Comic Book Guy sees this and points out that they're ripping off Michael J. Fox's flying skateboard scene from Back to the Future Part II:
      Comic Book Guy: Worst tribute, ever!
    • Lisa tells Leela that the latter is like Xena and Madeleine Albright all rolled into one.
    • After Lisa explains how she and her family ended up at Planet Express:
      Fry: And now you're sitting in our chairs.
      Zoidberg: [looking sadly at a bowl he's holding] And they ate our porridge!
    • Fry claims to Smitty and URL that the Simpsons in the Planet Express are just his life-sized Simpsons action figures. The two cops fall for it, but URL comments that Fry having action figures at his age is just as sad as the end of Old Yeller.
    • In a commercial starring Malfunctioning Eddie and Gil, the latter shows a few sci-fi vehicles, namely George Jetson's flying car and the Doctor's TARDIS (except they're both red instead of green and blue respectively).
    • The second delivery the Simpsons do with the Planet Express crew result in them having to deal with a xenomorph and facehuggers.
    • The third delivery has them delivering a Monolith to Dave Bowman, the latter appearing as a Star Child.
    • Smithers is dressed like Captain Harlock after he stages a mutiny on the Nimbus and becomes its captain instead of Zapp Brannigan. Also, the song "In the Navy" is playing when he explains how he became the Nimbus' new captain.
  • In Sin City, there are many shout outs:
  • Sonic the Comic:
  • In Issue 4 of Spawn, two boys argue over whether Youngblood (Image Comics) or Savage Dragon is cooler. The boys are named Rob and Erik, after the creators of those series.
  • Stabbity Bunny: One of the cover variants for Issue #7 is modeled after the movie poster for AKIRA.
  • Star Trek: Early Voyages: "Future Tense, Part Two" features several references to A New Hope. The design of the Bounty, the commercial freighter commanded by James T. Kirk in the Alternate Timeline, closely resembles that of the Millennium Falcon. When Mia Colt speaks disparagingly of the Bounty, Scotty says, "She may not look like much but she's got it where it counts." These are the exact words that Han Solo used to defend the Falcon after Luke Skywalker called it a piece of junk. Kirk later says that taking Mia to Algol II will reap a greater reward than his crew can possibly imagine. His helmsman Lamek says that he can imagine an awful lot. Han said much the same thing about the reward that the Rebel Alliance was offering for Princess Leia's rescue.
  • In Steven Universe: Ultimate Dough-Down, when the Crystal Gems offer to help Sadie in a donut competition, she has them first watch a training video (that was "updated" last time she saw it). It's basically Mr. Smiley reenacting the music video for Drake's "Hotline Bling" while explaining the rules for working at Big Donut. Complete with the "Drake format" too!
  • The Gronk in Strontium Dog is from the planet Glas in the Gallego system, a reference to Scifi author Blas Gallego.
  • Super Agent Jon Le Bon:
    • In The Brain Of The Apocalypse, when all the agents are sleeping, we see that Jon has a Nintendo 64 in his room.
    • In The Brain Of The Apocalyopse, when Jon suggests the air vents to get out of a locked room, John McClane and Batman show up to agree with him. Miss A. asks them where they came from, to which they reply "Through the air ducts.".
    • In The Brain Of The Apocalyose, after Jon and Henry escape the bathroom through a toilet, they end up in the sewers. Jon contemplates the sorts of mutants that are down there, we see a bunch of turtles about to eat a pizza.
  • Superlópez: To the whole Super Hero genre, starting with the main character and working down. In early stories, when Francisco Pérez Navarro -a much bigger fan of Superhero comics than Jan- did the writing, these were much more frequent.
  • Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars: One of the rollergirls has the Stage Name "Hanna Barbarian".
  • Thin Blue Line: When a bunch of police supporters show up to help the Hagen police with the anti-police protestors, one of them is seen wearing a black t-shirt with a big stylized skull on it.
  • The plot of Uncanny Valley (2024) is described by the author as Firebreather "but what if it was cartoons", while the presence of cartoons in the real world is done in a manner strongly reminiscent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
  • Quite a few in Usagi Yojimbo:
  • Zodiac Starforce wears its anime influences on its sleeve, with various characters from Sailor Moon making cameo appearances at the house party in the first issue.
  • In the Danish comic Valhalla, based on Norse mythology, Odin has in one story left Valhalla to win a bet with the Valkyries: that he can find the three greatest warriors of Midgard (he thinks they don't bring in any good Einherjar-material any more). His absence causes trouble in Asgard, so Thor, Baldur and Loki disguise themselves as three mortal warriors to trick Odin to come home again. They give their names as Fandral (Baldur), Hogun (Loki) and Volstagg (Thor), and are dressed as the three characters with those names from Marvel Comics' Thor (who aren't from original Norse myth but Lee/Kirby creations).
  • In softcover volume five of The Walking Dead, Philip says "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on..." while looking at a bunch of tanks with zombie heads in them. That's the name of a Bruce Springsteen song from the album Human Touch.
  • In the German comic Werner:
  • In Youngblood (2017), Shaft gets an arm ripped off. Considering he was based on Roy Harper, it's hard not to see this as a blatant reference to Justice League: Cry for Justice.
  • In Ziggy Pig - Silly Seal Comics, Silly Seal has a vault full of money and swims in it every day, just like Scrooge McDuck.

Alternative Title(s): Shout Out Comics, Comics

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