Verbal Tic / Comic Books

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• In ABC Warriors, Happy Shrapnel, as one of the oldest ABC Warriors still in service, is often interrupted during speech by an uncontrollable buzzing sound that sometimes conveniently takes the place of expletives.
• Alpha Flight: During John Byrne's run, Puck had the stereotypical Canadian habit of adding "eh?" to the end of his sentences. He specifically did not have that tic in thought balloons.
• In the Animorphs graphic novels, when Jake talks halfway between his human and tiger forms, he sometimes slips "meow" into his words.
• In the Asterix comic books, the title character is bemused on a visit to England by the locals' habit of adding ", what" to the end of their sentences. The original French version has them speak using British expressions (translated in French) and use French words but with an English syntax; adjective-noun instead of noun-adjective.
• Atavar: Worldbreaker begins the majority of their sentences with "We are Worldbreaker."
• Batman:
  • Scarface has a slight variation in that he pronounces the letter "B" as "G" (because the Ventriloquist is the one actually talking and this is an actual problem faced by many ventriloquists); Humorously, this means, among other things, that he cannot properly say "Batman" or, indeed, speak intelligibly at all depending on the context. When Peyton Riley became the new Ventriloquist, Scarface's "B" sounds became actual "B" sounds.
  • In a straighter example that ties into this, Scarface often ends sentences with "guddy goy."
  • This became a major plot point during the Batman: Cataclysm story arc - Robin revealed the Quakemaster to actually be another of the Ventriloquist's puppets by daring him to say his name, since he had been carefully avoiding words with B in them. Unfortunately, this creates a plot hole: in his first appearance, Quakemaster correctly pronounces the word "Burn".
  • Damian Wayne tends to insert a "tt" whenever he's annoyed or about to curse. This carries over into almost all of his appearances since.
  • Some writers like Doug Moench and Andrew Helfer will have Two-Face refer to himself in the plural.
• BIONICLE's air characters have a habit of running pairs of words together, often redundantly ("Toa-heroes" has come up more than once). There are exceptions, since this is apparently a slang that's only common in Metru Nui.
• Death's Head (Marvel Comics): The titular interstellar freelance peacekeeping agent often ends his sentences with "Yes?" or, less commonly, "no?" or "huh?", turning every statement into a question.
• When nervous, Chrysoprasia from D.R. & Quinch is "unbelievably quiet apart from the weird, squeaky little 'EE-OUK' noise that she keeps making in her throat."
• Empowered: Oyuki-chan, or as Ninjette calls her in reference to her verbal tic, "fucking Oyuki-chan".
  • That humble fucking genin seems to have a bad case of Hollywood Tourette's.
• Jaeger Ayers of Finder tends to refer to the people he's talking to as 'cousin' quite a lot.
• The Flash villain Hunter Zolomon (a.k.a. Zoom) alternates betweeeeen drrawwwing out hisssss words and speakingincrediblyquicklywithoutanypauses to reflect how he is Unstuck in Time.
• Hawkeye (2012) features Russian gangsters who say "bro" at the end of every sentence — and sometimes at the beginning, too. Their boss has clearly tamed this compulsion somewhat, with only most of his sentences ending in "bro". This also extends to the Disney+ show heavily inspired by that comic, where that mafia even has vans with a front business named "Trust A Bro".
• Several Marvel monsters as seen in Nick Furys Howling Commandos, including the Glob (who needs a special respirating device to speak and breathes with a deep "-SSSK-" a few times a sentence) and the Zombie, whose limited intelligence keeps him from completing a thought without stumbling through it with several uses of "Um..."
• Jommeke: Madam Pepermunt says the word O.K.? after finishing all her sentences.
• In Judo Girl, master villain Captain Steel succeeds in transferring his consciousness into a sentient liquid form, which for some reason causes him to repeat the last syllable in every sentence he speaks. For example: "My body is my intelligencegencegence. I am invulnerablebleble. I am immortaltaltal. At last, I am truly Captain Steelsteelsteel!"
• JLA (1997): Grant Morrison gave unique pseudo-tic catch phrases to several characters in his run (most of them were Gotham-based) including Batman: "hh", Huntress: "tt", and Commissioner Gordon: "ff". They even use Damian Wayne's "tff" and "tt" as subtle cues that he really is Bruce's son.
• Final Crisis: "hh" is Batman's dying word.
• Wingman, the member of the Club of Heroes who spent his whole life trying to be Batman and thus emulates him even in this sense: he uses "tt", and his own dying word is "kk".
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has Griffin's distinct "Aheheh".
  • Though this isn't without purpose, as it would otherwise often be impossible to know that he was indeed in the scene; especially when he's doing espionage.
• As The DCU's Metal Men began to develop more distinct and expressive personalities, Dumb Muscle Lead couldn't complete a thought without interrupting it with "Uhh..." Tin's stammering may also count, and Mercury boasts about the fact that he's the only metal that's liquid at room temperature so often it might as well be one of these, too.
• Bug, of Micronauts, Annihilation: Conquest and —*Tik!*— Guardians of the Galaxy takes this to its logical extremes, as his tic is that his speech is randomly interrupted by "TIK", a side effect of his speaking difficulties.
• In Arthur Suydam's "Mudwogs", the monster loves to say "Roop Doop Doop". If that's a reference, it's extremely obscure.
• In My Little Pony Micro Series Issue #3 Flax Seed always says "like" every other word. It's even lampshaded by Rarity and an irate Wheat Grass.
• Nero: Abraham Tuizentfloot adds the word aha in the middle of each sentence he speaks.
• Nova introduced an alien Corpsman who abuses the prefix "ultra-".
• The Messiah in Preacher frequently uses the nonsense word "Humperdidoo", or some variant thereof.
• Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel: Turul the peacock, "yaaahr."
• In The Sandman (1989), the character Fiddler's Green (a part of land in the Dreaming who walks the world as a human named Gilbert), always interjects the word "Hoom." into his statements.
• Parodied in Avenging Spider-Man #5, when The Avengers get hold of one of Steve Rogers' extremely patriotic Golden Age comic strips, and suggest that the only way to read it is that all the characters are compelled to say "Liberty Bonds" in every sentence.
• Spider-Man: Mary Jane Watson has a tendency to refer to people (especially Peter but he's not the only one) as "Tiger" (or in Gwen's case "Tigress").
• Superman story The Living Legends of Superman: When Herzog Bendix feels frustrated or annoyed by something someone else said, he repeats the last word, adding "You say?". Thus: "Phase? Phase, you say?", "Odd? Odd, you say?"
• In The Walking Dead, Axel ends most of his sentences with a "You follow me?"
• Watchmen: Rorschach's "Hrm." According to Jackie Earle Haley, who plays him in the movie, it's impossible for him to do without wearing the mask.
• Wolverine: "Hell're you lookin' at, bub?"
• Wonder Woman:
  • In Wonder Woman (1942), Sensation Comics and Comic Cavalcade Golden Age (Earth Two) Etta Candy uses "woo woo!" reflexively when she's excited, surprised or stressed to the point that it's not clear if it's even intentional on her part.
  • Wonder Woman (2006): When facing down a Khund warrior, a more Modern Age Lt. Candy sarcastically muttered "Woo &^%$ing woo!"
  • Whether Etta Candy's "Woo-Woo!" was a Catchphrase or tic seemed to vary by the story, but she always said it when agitated or excited.
• X-Men:
  • As she's having a conversation with you, Blindfold sounds like she's giving yes-or-no answers to someone just offscreen.
  • Litterbug is a giant bug-like mutant who has difficulty forming words without being interrupted by a distinctive "KHKK".
  • Warlock, a New Mutant, he prefaces every sentence with a descriptor like "Query:" or "Imperative:" and refers to all of his teammates as "Self-friend (name)".

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