- Batman:
- While there's no confirmation if it was intentional, All Star Batman includes a piece of dialogue where Batman proudly proclaims that "rock and roll will never die".
- Later issues of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder also use the phrase "Goddamn Batman" repeatedly after the "I'm the Goddamn Batman!" from an early issue became a meme.
- Batman #666 featured a possible future wherein Damian Wayne (Bruce Wayne's biological son and later Robin V) is Batman, and has a cat he calls Alfred. Fandom took this and ran with it, and Damian became a Crazy Cat Kid in the fandom. Grant Morrison, writer of the issue, took this and expanded it to have Damian be an animal lover in general, with Damian later adopting a Bat-Cow and becoming a vegetarian. Peter J. Tomasi furthered this, with Damian getting Titus, an updated interpretation of Ace the Bat-Hound. Tomasi's frequent collaborator Patrick Gleason also gave him a colossal 'bat-dragon' called Goliath. Tomasi's Superman (Rebirth) run also had Damian lose his shit at Jonathan Kent's accidental murder of a cat, and when they talk later, Damian is basically covered in his pets.
- A joke had Batman ask Robin to check the Batmobile's battery with Robin responding "What's a 'Tery'?", a play on Batman adding the "Bat-" prefix to everything. Batman (James Tynion IV) #98 has Batman pulling out a small battery out of his utility belt calling it a "bat-tery". Harley Quinn, who was with him, groaned out "No, you $&%#$& didn't."
- The infamous "Batman slaps Robin" meme was parodied with two variant covers
of Batman/Superman: World's Finest, with Batman and Superman slapping each other for putting their own name first in the title. - The "Dark City" arc of the New 52 Batman origin, Batman: Zero Year, has Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb call the title character the goddamn Batman.
- Many comic book fansites, especially the LiveJournal/Dreamwidth community "scans_daily" had a running gag of Nightwing having comics' most recognizable ass. An Annual issue of Batgirl (2011) had Babs recognize the ass in question and realise that Dick was alive, since at the time he was pretending to be dead in Grayson.
- Then there's the part of the run where Midnighter gets around the Spyral technology that masks agents' faces by saying he'd "recognize that ass anywhere."
- Played for Horror in Dark Nights: Metal. It's a running gag to claim "Batman could defeat anyone given enough time to prepare". Cue The Batman Who Laughs, who even the original sees as this concept incarnated from "Batman always wins".
- Chip Zdarksky's run finally answers the age-old question: "If Batman has a contingency plan against everyone, does he have one against himself?" He does: the Nigh-Invulnerable android aptly named "Failsafe".
- The collected edition of Avengers Assemble #9-13 (2013), which focuses on Iron Man and the Hulk, is called Science Bros, in reference to the 2012 meme about their movie counterparts being Heterosexual Life-Partners. Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man #1 brings the meme in-universe when Tony mentions they picked up the name soon after they first met.
- A particularly infamous quote by British Prime Minister David Cameron note was picked up by the internet as sounding more like a supervillain speech, and kicked off a meme of photoshopping Cameron's words onto Doctor Doom and other comic book villains, such as here◊. In an issue of Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders, one of Doom's minions virtually quotes the line word for word◊.
- In Cosmic Ghost Rider Destroys the Marvel Universe, the titular Cosmic Ghost Rider — a version of Frank Castle who became a Ghost Rider, then a Herald of Galactus, then an unwilling servant of King Thanos and nearly as crazy as Deadpool — very nearly succeeds in talking Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, into taking down the Hulk. Specifically, by shrinking down, climbing up the Hulk's, ah, rear entrance, then growing once... within. It was quite clearly a take on the 'Thanus' meme, with fans speculating before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers End Game that Scott Lang would do exactly that to take out Thanos, and Frank doubling over laughing after Pym decides against it, saying that "the other Ant-Man" would have fallen for it.
- Darkseid has been saddled with a love of couches (and sitting on them) by his fanbase, ever since an infamous moment in Final Crisis (though it wasn't the first time he was seen doing this). By the time a spectral image of Darkseid was seen lounging in Mister Miracle (2017)'s living room, there could be no doubt it was deliberate on their part.
- Rob Liefeld auctioned a sketch of Deadpool battling Deathstroke to help Comic Book stores in financial straits, which ascended two memes at once: First, the many comparisons fans make about the two (Liefeld always insisted Deadpool was actually based off Spider-Man) and second, Deadpool is yelling at Deathstroke "Give me back my pouch!" (pouches in Liefeld characters are akin to belts in Kingdom Hearts.)
- The end of the End of the Spider-Verse event prominently features the "Only a science major could do X" line which initially appeared as a throw-away remark in Spider-Man's origin story and was popularised by Linkara's use of it as a running gag on Atop the Fourth Wall whenever Peter does something outlandish.
- During Fear Itself, the Thunderbolts tie-in arc features a literal Giant-Size Man-Thing, and Songbird refers to him as just that.
- The Hostess Fruit Pies ads have been parodied more times than we can count. Morlun even went to that universe at one point.
- There is a popular scene in Jem where Rio kicks over a plant. It's so hilarious that it made its way into the Jem and the Holograms (IDW) reboot. Rio kicks over a plant in agitation. People glare at him so he apologizes, and puts it upright again.
- 1980s Legion of Super-Heroes fandom came up with "Arm-Fall-Off Boy" as an extreme example of the sort of ludicrous characters who showed up for Legion Try-Outs. Gerard Jones then included him as the very first wannabe-Legionnaire in an issue of Secret Origins. (Legend has it Jones didn't realise Arm-Fall-Off Boy was a fan joke and didn't already exist.)
- When Mega Man 2's Air Man appears in the Mega Man (Archie Comics) comic, he twice tells Mega Man, is "You can't beat me."
- Issue #1 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW)'s synopsis uses the fan-coined term "Mane Six" (already more than a Fan Nickname due to being used on a couple of licensed shirts, but this further elevates the term).
- Upon being confronted by Chrysalis, Applejack and Rarity are quick to insult her, and reference the meme of Chrysalis having Swiss cheese legs.
- And of course Derpy's in the comic (though not named), including being lured into a trap by a trail of muffins. Furthermore, when one of the Changelings changes into Derpy, its companion is forced to bonk it on its head to get the derped eyes just right.
- In issue 2, one of the spiders is gray, has a bit of blond hair, one set of its two pairs of eyes in a wall-eyes fashion, and has a pattern of bubbles on its rear section.
- Sweetie Belle as a dictionary (propagated from "The Return of Harmony") pops up in issue #3.
- Hot Topic's #3 varient◊ offers up Epic Wife Throwing, which had become a fandom meme after "The Crystal Empire".
- Midtown variant covers for Issues 4 and 5 have Epic Wife Tossing across two covers.
- Midtown variant covers for Issues 4
- In My Little Pony Micro Series Issue #2, the 20% cooler meme is referenced in the beginning when Rainbow goes 20% faster after doing a Sonic Rainboom.
- Rainbow gives Tank a "brohoof".
- Rainbow pulls off a Sonic Double Rainboom. There has been a fan-made full length episode entitled "Double Rainboom" that's been in the works for a while and teased. Whether this inspired the comic's term is unclear, though it's most likely a reference to the old Double Rainbow meme from YouTube (which many bronies naturally associate Rainbow Dash with).
- The Giant Enemy Crab that shows up at the end of issue #13 is no doubt a nod to the "Rarity fighting a giant crab" meme.
- In My Little Pony: Fiendship Is Magic #1, some of the crystal pony fillies tease Sombra as "Sombrero", which has been a fandom meme since the Season 3 opener.
- New 52:
- In his new series, most people react to Aquaman as if they only knew him from the Super Friends, What Kind Of Lame Power Is Talking To Fish, Anyway? version. This leads to him working so hard to prove that he is badass that it doesn't actually make any sense for him to have that reputation he's trying so hard to shed in the first place. This changes after Throne of Atlantis.
- The hero formerly known as Captain Marvel is now simply "Shazam!"; partially because (thanks to Writing Around Trademarks) "everybody thinks he's called Shazam already, outside of comics." I Am Not Shazam no more!
- The "Dark City" arc of the New 52 Batman origin, Batman: Zero Year, has Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb call the title character the goddamn Batman.
- Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15: the bootleg Bart Simpson in "Boo-tleg" is African-American and even talks about his plans to sell shirts of himself at the flea market. This is a reference to the phenomenon of bootleg Bart Simpson shirts being sold in the African-American community in the early 1990s, a substantial amount of which can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/bootlegbart.
- Matt Groening himself lampooned the same phenomenon at least twice in his comic strip Life in Hell, once in this ad for bootleg T-shirts and again in a strip where a fan asked Groening how much money he makes from the bootlegs.
- Matt Groening himself lampooned the same phenomenon at least twice in his comic strip Life in Hell, once in this ad for bootleg T-shirts
- The Smurfs:
- A common meme among Smurf haters is to present Papa Smurf as a fascist or communist dictator. In the story "The Reporter Smurf", Reporter accuses Papa Smurf of being a dictator through his newspaper when Papa Smurf warns him to stop going after Smurfette with his "exclusives".
- A bizarre, realistic image of a Smurf with a cat-like face, dubbed as the "Blue Smurf Cat", went viral as a meme in 2023. The Smurfs' official Instagram account then later posted a picture of a blue Azrael walking while a Smurf laughs at him. The blue Azrael looks similar to Blue Smurf Cat.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- In Issue 205, an insane Dr. Eggman catches Snively sneaking around and declares that he is "Snoo-ping as usual!", a call back to the infamous PINGAS meme from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The same issue depicts Eggman saying "It's from the show!", a Shout-Out to a YouTube Poop Music Video.
- The Tails Doll, a playable doppelganger of Sonic's best friend Tails, was introduced in Sonic R, but other than that he was a rather unremarkable Living Prop. Due to the creepy nature of the design, he became rather popular to imagine as an otherwordly monster in Creepypasta, with the parodic Sonic Shorts taking a hand in popularizing the concept. When Ian Flynn introduced him, he ran with this concept for Tails Doll, who was a demonic-looking Mechanical Abomination inside the innocent-looking doll.
- One of the infamous memes associated with Spider-Man (1967) is the "Masturbating Spider-Man" macro. The first issue of Web Warriors has Spider-Gwen discovering Spidey in that pose and referencing the entire meme.
- Squirrel Girl's one-shot appearance becoming a meme in Internet forums led to her becoming a permanent recurring character in Great Lakes Avengers.
- Then she was (briefly) Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' nanny.
- Then she got her own series, written by the Dinosaur Comics guy.
- Then she joined Roberto DaCosta's New Avengers, and would go from that to the U.S.Avengers.
- And then thanks to her the Great Lakes Avengers got their first ongoing in Marvel NOW! (2016) and we completed the meme ascension circle. Will it become a spiral? Only time will tell.
- In 1994, the Street Fighter comic, Ryu and Ken's master is named Sheng Long, following the English SNES Street Fighter II instruction manuals. This all started because of an April Fools joke.
- The Super Dictionary legendarily illustrated "forty" with Lex Luthor stealing forty cakes. "And That's Terrible". Eventually a canon comic (Superman: Grounded) revealed that, as revenge for not being allowed to enter an early invention in his high school's science fair, Lex Luthor stole forty cakes from the bake sale.
- Lugnut's ultimate attack, the Punch Of Kill Everything in Transformers: Animated, had its Fan Nickname immortalized in the official Animated comic series "The Arrival — Part 4."
- The same nickname is referenced in Transformers: War for Cybertron. Among other things, one skill Soldiers can select to enhance their Whirlwind ability is called "P.o.K.E Alpha".
- A Lugnut toy was designed to execute a double dose of P.O.K.E. with both hands being spring-loaded, no doubt inspired by the nickname's popularity.
- Jim Croce's "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" has the line "Don't tug on Superman's cape." Now, in the comics, Supes gets really grumpy when people screw with the cape.
- The song gets invoked in Thunderbolts when the team takes on treacherous member Hyperion... who happens to be a Captain Ersatz of Superman.
- Two Tumblr memes regarding America Chavez from Young Avengers ("She's beauty, she's grace, she'll punch you in the face!" and "America, no!" "America, yes!") were used in the first issue of A-Force.
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