Shout Out / Grrl Power

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• Math is basically a more sympathetic and Americanized Kunitoshi Joukyuu.
• One of the first few comics has the author name-drop Not Always Right when Sydney's dealing with an idiotic customer.
• Sydney challenges Joel to prove his nerd-credentials by, among other things, identifying a dozen different Dwarves from fantasy fiction. His answers are faultless, taking in sources like the Discworld, Snow White, The Lord of the Rings and Norse saga. As well as some more obscure 'verses.
• When describing Maxima to her co-worker, Sydney finishes off with "and huuuuuuge", which the author finishes with "Come on say it... you know you thought it. "Tracts of land!""
  • And when demonstrating her rail-gun, Dabbler's projectile makes a "Zzoo boing!" sound effect upon hitting Achilles, which is reinforced by the alt-text.
    Alt Text: Right before it fires the gun makes a noise like "ecky ecky ecky ecky".
• During a non-canon Q&A, Maxima is coerced into dressing as Lester, which is immediately lampshaded by Dabbler.
  • In the same Q&A, Dabbler is shown using mind flayer tentacles (Film version) to torture the author.
  • The first one of these advises to compare it to EGS's own Q&A sessions.
• During Maxima's Imagine Spot of Sydney getting mugged, Sydney demands that the would-be thief "Swear it on Grabthar's Hammer!"
• The DJ at Club Oontz is a humanized DJ P0n-3.
• When discussing Sydney's balls suggestions offered include Ioun stones and Dragonballs. The former netting a comment from Sydney about Maxima's background.
• Firefly: Harem goes off panel with a mischievous grin and the words "I'll Be in My Bunk", after Sydney shows some links to Arianna to illustrate the topic of hentai. See the comic's main page.
• The comic just before Dabbler's first interaction with Sydney is titled "This is how you tug on Maxima's cape"^explanation"You Don't Mess Around with Jim" has the line "You don't tug on Superman's cape"
• I Love Lucy: Vitameatavegamin.
• Aside from the Looney Tunes shoutout mentioned under Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce, the 8-star menu item is described as "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator"
• And Maxima's sigh/groan is apparently akin to Kif Kroker's resigned sighs.
• MythBusters: Sydney channels Jamie Hynamen on the fifth panel of this page.
• Sometimes the author comment does this, such as "Do not taunt Happy Fun Maxima".
  • Referenced again in this strip.
  Do not letch on happy fun Sydney.
• Sydney is so stoked about flying, she's popping tags.
• For all the soccer fans: ZIDANE!
• Seinfeld: The Jerk Store
• Goldeneye: Sydney is INWEENCIBLE!
• "Am I so transparent?" "Like a wall that's had a fish sandwich rubbed on it."
• When the first villain encountered mentions Maxima's "big bang attack", Sydney immediately interrupts to say that it's nowhere near as cool as Vegeta's.
• When he's sent flying by Concretia, Achilles lets out a Goofy Holler.
• Sydney points out how stupid it is to think the villains killed Maxima as she "stood in her own fallout" earlier. Leon responds with "Phrasing!"
• MEEP MEEP!
  • The alt-text for the same comic: "Sydney's auditing a class at Acme Looniversity."
• Vehemence's aggro aura is stuffed full of refrences, such as a ring full of Metroid upgrade symbols, another ring full of Stargate chevron symbols, Pac-Man, the design of a Halo energy sword, and Wonder Woman's logo in the outer points. The aura's detail can be seen in better detail here.
• When Sydney suggests she might have gotten her orbs from The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday^note the Alt Text has Zephan Zoeng point out that Chinese antique shops have the best MacGuffins, she specifically mentions Mogwais, and the other goods on sale are the Glaive, a lightsaber, the Sword of Greyskull, the Sword of Omens and the Master Sword.
  • Likewise, Deus' weapon display includes a bat'leth along with a number of iconic swords from film, comics and anime along with a numbered key drawing and instructions to have fun identifying them in the comments section—which won't be spoiled here until they've had their fun.
• Just look at the comic shelves. The writer's love of Gold Digger can be seen in the titles there.
• Who solves locked-room mysteries for Arclight? Jonathan Creek, apparently.
• According to The Rant, Sydney practiced quite hard to gain the ability to snore like Curly.
• Sydney, lost on the way to work after taking to the air, realizes she should've taken a left turn at Albuquerque.
• Sydney swears that, if her contract contains weasely Legalese, she "will strike down upon it with great vengeance and furious" anger.
• Oobtek™, a non-Newtonian liquid insert used as armor for ARCHON uniforms, is named after Oobleck.
• Sydney quotes Dune when the properties of Oobtek™ are described to her.
• After realizing that she still has acrophobia (and it's instead canceled out by the Flight orb), Sydney realizes that she's clinging tenaciously to Maxima's buttocks.
  • The press conference also had Sydney marvel at the "Shiny, candy-like buttons" for her new wristlet, a line ripped right from the Space Madness episode. "Up and at-them!" in the final panel comes from Radioactive Man (Simpsons, again)^note Ranier Wolfcastle couldn't pronounce "Up and at'em" (atom) to save his life.
    • The Candy-like button gets a firmer nod when Sydney asks if one is a "history eraser button".
• Sydney proving herself a PR headache features Deadpool on her shirt, then a Moral Guardian holding a sign saying "Down With Things That Sort Of Look Like Other Things!"
• The Gatling Good at the shooting range comes complete with 3 crossed-out Predators, in a major one to Ol' Painless. The title of the next strip makes it even more apparent.
• The whole flying sequence is filled with shout outs: such as the sonic boom example here.
• As well as Sydney humming the theme of "The Distance" from Red Line.
• One of the many headlines about Archon is "They're Super Thanks for Asking!"
  • There's also the classic "Who Watches the Watchers?"
  • A third headline a debate about whether or not ARCHON should be sporting Capes.
• The third panel on this page includes two guests from other comics and a Youtube personality: ^note the artist says the other two were made up for the panel
  • Spinnerette
  • Giant Girl Adventures
  • Ask a Ninja
• The alien dancing with Anvil is apparently doing The Carlton.
• The Alt Text for this page is "A noble investment embiggens the smallest wallet".
• Machina Industries took their mission statement from Conan the Barbarian (1982).
• Deus shows off a literal Wall of Weapons full of pop culture references (from the well-known, like Buster Sword, to the bit more obscure, like Riddick's trench knives, to seriously oddball weapons like Excalibolg or Crescent Rose). Dave provides a handy outline to help readers figure them all out◊.
  • Later, Deus is trying to entice Maxima with the idea of what she could do with Fifty million dollars a year for an endorsement deal, and she quips that "Maybe I just want an invisible jet". The shelves behind Deus also have the statue from The Maltese Falcon and the shard from The Dark Crystal.
• Sydney's meeting a dire werewolf causes some Cuteness Proximity.
  Sydney You're so fluffy!
• Bastion shows up in the council chambers.
• The sound effect for a Dope Slap is Gibbs.
• Sydney, Krona, and Harem sit down for a card-game while on recon. Sydney's cards are:
  King: Sephiroth
  Ace: Spike Spiegel
  Eight: L Lawliet
  Two: Recoome
  • Not long after, Krona's checkpoint spell is triggered, and Sydney asks why they can't "Groundhog Day" Loop the situation and be like "Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!"
• To Doctor Who: S18 E7 "Logopolis": In one "Dabbler's Science Corner", she claims to be able to do Logopolitian block transfer calculus in her head. ^explanationBlock transfer calculus can alter the fabric of reality, and the people of Logopolis used it to stave off the heat death of the universe.
• During the briefing the day after the big fight at the steakhouse, Maxima mentions "[wiping] out all the grays and greens in thirty seconds". Given Maxima's prior nerd status, this may be a reference to the weaker enemies in One Finger Death Punch, which are color-coded gray and green.
  • This might also be a reference to superhero MMO City of Heroes, where the power level of an NPC enemy relative to that of your character was coded by the color of their name - grey and green were used for weak foes much lower level than you, and referring to enemies by their color ('greys' or 'purples') was a common shorthand.
• Lee Press On Claws is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Lee Press On Nails commercial from the 1980s.
• Sydney and Maxima were both hoping that one of her unknown orbs would give her Katara-like powers.
• The strip in which Harem has The Immodest Orgasm courtesy of Deus has "Obligatory 'I'll have what she's having.'"
• Sydney finds a marker in a hidden reliquary. Luckily, she puts it down to deal with the homunculi SWAT team.
• #671 has Sydney takes shelter in the lee of a Space Jockey ship.
• When she tries asking aliens for directions on a Hub World, she uses a bunch of pop-culture references: Nanoo Nanoo, Bah weep granna weep ninny bong, Klaatu Barada Nikto, Qapla, Tonk'peh, Achuta, M'athchomaroon.
• When Sydney ends up on an interstellar Hub World, there are loads and loads of ships and aliens from other media;
  • #676 has a Goa'uld Ha'Tak and the Titan.
  • #677 has most of the ships from Star Control, along with Kerbals, Vorlons, Mondoshawan, Verhoven's Bugs and Hector.
  • #680 has the first Marvin the Paranoid Android and Maximilian among the robots.
  • #685 has the Titanic and the Planet Express ship from Futurama, the Starship Titanic, and the Fhloston Paradise.
  • #686 has M'ress, Zeiram, a Jabba slave girl, a Cyberdemon, a Slayer and Wraithia.
  • #689 has Helix, Florence, Sam and Sergeant Schlock. As well as a reference to Warhammer 40,000's method of FTL — both of them.
  • #693 has The Orville and the Protector.
  • When Sydney briefly returns in #981 Morbo is seen reporting on Earth.
• On page 727, Harem claims that Halo was gone for 57 years (it was actually 53 days).
• A non-standard alien is obviously a Chaos Space Marine, as he comments that Slaanesh wants him to have more "artisanal flare" for his crab-claw.
• A mushroom alien exclaims "By the light of Juffo-Wup!" upon seeing who the superheroes just beat up.
• One of the In-Universe news stations is MXNN.
  Vic Romano: So alien women seem to come in all sorts of colors! What do you think about that?
  Kenny Blankenship: Hah hah! I want to taste the rainbow!
  Vic: Right you are, Ken.
  • The Rant, referencing a blonde bombshell's assessment of how alien viewers will mean an increase in porn revenues, simply says "I for one welcome our porn star billionairesses."
• The evil aliens who go from planet to planet, consuming and corrupting wherever they go, are called the Fell.
• Sydney becoming a Hormone-Addled Teenager got sparked by watching 300.
  • The teenaged succubus she's talking to was Distracted by the Sexy at school - namely by Ron Stoppable, Marco Diaz, Ben Tennyson, and Johnny Test.
• The Punchomatic 6000 in the ARC-Swat gym caps out at Maxima, but the three preceding settings are Demon, Dragon, and Tiger.
• When Ray Cosmos manages to skeeve out Cora and Dabbler, Dabbler's new duds are that of Captain Amelia's.
• Two of the aliens attempting to abduct Maxima are Vindaloovians from Red Dwarf
  • Later, two of the aliens are discussing War Mechs, with Eson the Searcher, The Iron Giant, and a God Warrior shown lined up in an attempt to bring down Maxima.
• When Dabbler employs her "Declothesifying Spell" it occurs with the Unsound Effect of "a million microscopic Pac-Men."
• Another Avatar: The Last Airbender reference popped up in the Alt Text when Concretia reveals she has vibrolocation, leading Sydney to quibble about the exact nature of it.
  Alt Text: Come on, Sydney, the power is clearly called Toph Tingles.
• When Maxima flies out of the ocean, the water disturbance includes a "super duper cavitation" effect; in the panel below, Jonesy is tapping his headphones in confusion.
  • And a background picture in Hench Wench's apartment is of Danny Devito in his Ongo Gablogian disguise.
• "Goon Squad"'s real name is "Ted", solely so Dave could reference this scene from The Naked Gun.
• While trying to guess what Cthilia is, Sydney suggests SCP-040, 049 and 088.
• In Episode 910, Sydney is given a truth serum to induce her to tell everything. But this is Sydney. She obliges by telling... everything. Basically, she overwhelms her captors with the sheer torrent of unfiltered irrelevant trivia that spills out. This is reminiscent of a similar scene in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, where a witness in a court case takes the instruction to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth absolutely literally, and is still there a century or so later, telling the Whole Truth in an unbroken stream-of-consciousness.
• The Curse of Oak Island gets a combined shout-out and Take That! in #1246 as Lapha and Dabbler discuss it being a show about treasure hunting that's really a Reality TV show about a spectacular failure to actually produce anything of real value.

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