The entire game is a massive shout out to comic books. And it is glorious. Some more specific ones include....
- Omnitron's Technological Singularity card says "Assuming direct control...."
- Ra's Excavation card says "This should be in a museum!"
- In the online comic, The Wraith refers to Legacy as a "big damn hero", and the flavor text for one of Citizen Dawn's minions, who is wearing a top hat, is, "A man walks down the street in that hat, you know he's not afraid of anything." Also, the Chairman's right-hand lady is simply known as the Operative.
- Tachyon has a habit of quoting Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in her flavor text. Fleet of Foot has, "Dude, you are not my nemesis." Quick Insight has, "Goodness, look at my wrist! I gotta go!" and Research Grant has, "So close! Just a few weeks from a real tangible conclusion." In another reference to the same actor, her last name is Stinson, her office (as seen in the promotional comic) has motivational posters much like Barney's, and Synaptic Interruption's flavour texts is "Whenever I feel like slowing down, I speed up instead. True Story," a reference to one of Barney's more notable lines.
- Setback's Incapacitated side is a direct reference to Spider Man No More.
- The art for the Rook City environment cards is mostly black and white, and the sign has a spray-painted red C on the name, changing it to "CRook City", clearly evoking the art of Sin City.
- Speaking of Rook City, one of the cards is called Scum and Villainy and involves the heroes running into a Bad Guy Bar named The Wretched Hive.
- Omnitron and Omnitron X reference Mega Man, particularly with the font used for their names.
- Plague Rat's Noxious Bite's flavor text is a quote from Resident Evil 2's opening: "That guy's a maniac! Why'd he bite me?"
- The flavor text for The Wraith's Razor Ordnance is, "Compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share." Her Utility Belt card's is, "The true crimefighter always carries everything she needs in her utility belt, Tyler." Her nemesis, appropriately enough, paraphrases The Joker, with, "I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of my time."
- A street sign on Nightmist's "Mistbound" card is marked Kirby St. and Timm Blvd.
- The "Velociraptor Pack" card in the Insula Primalis environment deck's flavor text has Bunker saying, "Clever girl," in response to said velociraptors sneaking up on him.
- The Story Challenges
feature even more in the names, such as "You're all clear, kid!," "Finish Him!" and "Flawless Victory," "Lethal at eight months, and I do mean lethal," and "The Fires of Mt. Doom." - One of the Argent Adept's songs is "Scherzo of Frost and Flame."
- Tempest's incapacitated card is a shout out to Dragon Ball Z, with the scenery looking like a color-swapped version of Namek, and Tempest holding the stump of his arm, reminiscent of Nail fighting Frieza.
- The art for Tempest's Ball Lightning card is an additional reference to the Spirit Ball technique used by Yamcha in Dragonball Z.
- The foil art for Freedom Six Tempest shows his people's refugee camp slaughtered, and apparently they use the same architects as the Namekians.
- Tempest's Reclaim From The Deep card shows him salvaging the Staff of Ra and Bunker's helmet from the bottom of the ocean, but also visible are a golden lasso and a pair of bracers, and a suspiciously familiar shield with a red, white and blue design.
- By the time of the Villains of the Multiverse expansion, Ambuscade has created a team of villains named "The Slaughterhouse Six".
- Also doubles as a reference to the Sinister Six, with the members lining up fairly well with the original lineup.
- Guise's entire deck is chock full of references in the arts and quotes, including:
- Blatant Reference
- Gimmicky Character
- Gritty Reboot
- Guise the Barbarian
- I Can Do That, Too!
- Lemme See That...
- X-Treeeeeeeeme!!!
- Where Did I Leave That... has Guise reaching into Ramona Flowers' bottomless handbag.
- And a handful of references to the base game and other expansions.
- His entrance to the video game adds a few more.
- On playing Blatant Reference, Guise says, "That is a tasty burger!"
- One of his portraits for when he's below 10 HP is monochromatic, in a trenchcoat, with bandages over his face exactly where Marv has them in Sin City.
- His variant, Santa-Guise, occasionally is shown pointing his fingers like pistols and going, "Better be careful! I'm gonna put someone's eye out!"
- Expatriette's Incendiary Rounds card says that "I've yet to meet anyone who can outsmart a bullet."
- Her signature guns are Pride and Prejudice, and in turn their flavor texts read, "One for wrath..." and "...And one for ruin!"
- She pulls off a reloading trick right out of Equilibrium on her Speed Loading card.
- Fanatic's Undaunted card's flavor text echoes the conversation between Arthur and the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:Fanatic: I am invincible!
Ra: You're a lunatic! - Sergeant Steel and the eight characters that serve as his minions correspond directly to the playable characters in Team Fortress 2: Arsonator/Pyro, Battle Medic/Medic, Bomb Specialist/Demoman, Espionagent/Spy, Field Inventor/Engineer, Infiltrationist/Scout, Mega-Gunner/Heavy, Sharpshooter/Sniper, and Sergeant Steel/Soldier. Most share weapons and features with their inspirations.
- In the Villains of the Multiverse version of Plague Rat's deck, his four different handlers are visually based off of the Ghostbusters. Another card's flavor text has a Revocorp member asking "Who are we going to call?"
- The Crushing Hallway card in Time Cataclysm's flavor text has Chrono Ranger declaring, "One thing's for sure - we're all going to be a lot thinner..."
- Friction's Supersonic Streak card has her running through terrain deliberately evocative of Green Hill Zone, with Unity's Bee Bots standing in for Buzz Bombers.
- The flavor text in one of the Magmaria environment's cards notes that while one particular creature is immune to fire, it "dislikes smoke."
- Shots of the Freedom Five's headquarters show that it's a skyscraper in the shape of an F, much like the Teen Titans' T headquarters.
- The Xtreme Prime Wardens variants are stylistic love letters to '90s comics. In addition, Argent Adept's new power is named Rebel Yell, Captain Cosmic's is named Play With Madness, and Tempest's is named Thunderstruck, to match the extreme theming.
- Their nemesis messages yield even more references. XPW Argent Adept's generic message has the line "It's time to let freedom rock!", likely a reference to a classic 60s/70s rock music compilation album with a memorable quirky TV ad that advertised it. And his message with Akash'Bhuta has him going "Alright band, time to crank it up to eleven!"
- Void Guard The Idealist has a variant titled Super Sentai Idealist. Its base power? "Form the Head".
- Chrono-Ranger's new incapacitated art in the complete hero variant set is a shoutout to this famous X-Men panel◊.
- The new Idealist incapacitated art in said set also shows Wager Master impersonating Sigmund Freud.
- The video game's Weekly One-Shots occasionally get in on the action.
- The one-shot for Oct. 3, 2016 is titled, "Don't Panic," and the description is an announcement that, in order to build a hyperspace bypass, Earth must unfortunately be destroyed.
- Benchmark's Incapacitated art shows Directive 4 activating, turning him against the other heroes on Revenant's orders.
- Unity's Incapacitated art shows her in a Tailor-Made Prison identical to the one used on Magneto in the X-Men Film Series - a transparent plastic prison suspended in a vast open room, with a wide distant window she can be observed from. In her case it's presumably intended to isolate her from anything she could use her Technopath abilities on.
- Word of God has confirmed that the art on The Scholar's "Alchemical Redirection" (which shows him redirecting a bolt of lightning) is a reference to Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who has an identical technique to do the same thing.
- Some fans have noted the analogues between the Prime Wardens lineup and the classic Defenders lineup.
- In a more real world example, there are a number of Sentinels characters named after friends and family members of the Greater Than Games creators. They mostly don't share similarities to the characters named after them, with the notable exception of Argent Adept being named after one of the creators' brother who is a professional musician, and Setback's name and overall character being inspired by a friend with similar uncannily strange luck and upbeat attitude (said friend would later go on to voice Setback in Sentinels of Freedom).
- Omnitron-X's quote for his Heroic Sacrifice on Self Sabotage, "The survival of the living far outweighs the existence of one", references Spock's quote for his own sacrifice at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- During October of 2018 for Inktober, Adam (the artistic creator of the game) decided to draw the Sentinels characters as various horror tropes. About half of them were generic horror concepts, but the others were specific references:
- Tachyon as Dr. Frankenstein and Bunker as her monster.
- Argent Adept as The Phantom of the Opera.
- Setback as The Invisible Man.
- Visionary as Freddy Krueger.
- Scholar as Sweeney Todd.
- Guise as David S. Pumpkins.
- Unity as Herbert West.
- Medico as Dr. Jekyll and Writhe as Mr. Hyde.
- Ra as Cthulhu.
- Parse as the Bride of Frankenstein.
- Benchmark as the Terminator.
- Omnitron as Pinhead.
- Mainstay as Leatherface and Idealist as Chucky.
- Lifeline as a Xenomorph.
- Stuntman as the lead zombie from Thriller.
- Baron Blade as Richter Belmont.
- The Enclave of the Endlings is a reference to the works of 50's science fiction and comic legend Jack Kirby, including Kirby Dots in the art. The music for the videogame version takes it a step further, being based on the 60's cartoon adaptations of those comics.
- The card Bridge in the Mobile Defense Platform environment deck shows a crewman playing Galaga.
