Waxing Lyrical / Comic Books

• Near the end of Scott Pilgrim volume 5, Scott says to Ramona before she disappears, "I don't care who you are, or where you're from, or... what you did. As long as you love me."
• This exchange from an issue of Justice League upon discovering a familiar face:
  Wonder Woman: Abra Kadabra!
  Green Lantern: Gonna reach out and grab ya...
• There was a panel of Young Justice where the characters end up quoting "War" and lampshading it: "War?" "What is it good for?" "Absolutely nothing!" "I love that song." "It's a song?"
• The following exchange between Deadpool and a nightclub owner:
  Nightclub Owner: You got...you got powers right?
  Deadpool: Oh yeah, I'm a super freak.
  Nightclub Owner: A super freak?
  Deadpool: I'm super freakayyy.
  • There's another comic which has Deadpool ending a flashback with a casually-spoken "You ain't seen nothin' yet." Cut back to present day, with a two-page spread of him standing in front of a giant explosion, arms in air guitar position, belting, "B-B-B-BABY, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!!"
  • When fighting the Thunderbolts during Dark Reign, Deadpool gets shot through the left torso by the Black Widow. He sinks to the ground, wheezing "S-shot...through...the heart..." Just as the Thunderbolts think they finally got him to shut up, he springs back up with "AND YOU'RE TO BLAME! YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME!" In the same arc, Taskmaster gets in on the action while disguised as Deadpool; Black Widow asks him who he is, and he responds with "Some people call me the space cowboy... some people call me the gangster of love."
• One of the cases in Ogenki Clinic has a rock singer as a patient. All of her lines include at least two or three song titles.
• In V for Vendetta, V introduces himself to a priest by saying, "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth... and taste." You probably remember this as the first line of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil". Later, when asked where he's going, he says, "I'm waiting for the man."
• In Paul Cornell's Knight and Squire, the British superheroes include The Milkman — who once fought a villain called Two-Ton Ted from Teddington. It remains to be seen if his real name is Ernie.
• During the Salvation Run mini-series, most of DC's villains were exiled to a distant planet, where they started to form separate factions. In one scene, The Joker is walking along a makeshift watchtower with Shadow Thief, complaining, "There must be some way out of here!", in reference to the first line of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", "There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief." Lampshaded when the Joker then commented, "I must be losing my mojo, there's a joke in there somewhere and I can't find it!"
• The third issue of Mega Man (Archie Comics) has Dr. Light tell Mega Man the following: "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, the burning in your heart, I did not put there." This is almost a word-for-word recitation of the chorus of "The Message from Doctor Light" by The Megas.
  • The Megas get quoted again much later on at the end of this exchange between Break Man and Mega Man:
    Break Man: What are you? Dr. Light's assistant? His weapon? His son?!
    Mega Man: I'm all those things.
    Break Man: THEN WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?!
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) does this many times, mostly with songs from the main game series:
  • In issue 205:
    Dr. Eggman: I will destroy the blue one, you know! He's an obstacle that always gets in my way!
  • Later, in the same issue:
    Dr. Eggman: Here it comes, rodent! Right from the show!
    Sonic: "From the show"?
    Dr. Eggman: From the show! I'm gonna be on TV! I'm gonna be a TV star!
  • In Sonic Universe issue 53:
    Knuckles: Eggman and Wily, huh? Where are they? I want first crack at them!
    Sonic: Uh-huh, 'cause you're tougher than the rest of them? The best of 'em? Tougher than leather?
    Knuckles: Grrrr...
• The Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics even get in on this fun.
  Neo Metal Sonic: No more games. Tell me where my master is. NOW.
  Sonic: I never fear the fall.
• In My Little Pony Micro Series Issue #3 Hoity Toity joyously proclaims Flax Seed is the next pony every pony should know at the Canterlot fashion show.
• In Hoax Hunters #5, which takes place in 1984, Hoax Hunters agent Alan Lawson meets with Lauren Reynolds, who had recently encountered the Jersey Devil. As he tells her about his organization and offers her a job with them, he says "Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world" — a line from 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'. Earlier in the issue, he was actually singing it; he claims a catchy hook is "the most potent mind control there is."
• During Alan Moore's run on Captain Britain, "Mad Jim" Jaspers gives into this trope during one of his A God Am I moments;
  "I made you! I made everything! I made the tiger and the lamb! I put the bomp in the bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp and the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong!"
• Happens often in Asterix: In the original French version of Asterix in Belgium the Belgian chieftain claims that in "his flat country the only mountains are oppidums". This is a reference to a line from Belgian singer Jacques Brel's song "Le Plat Pays" ("The Flat Country") "...avec des cathédrales pour des uniques montagnes" ("Where the only mountains are cathedrals.")
• A common trait of Luci's in The Wicked + The Divine. When she complains about Laura being too old for her the following exchange occurs:
  Laura: I'm only just seventeen?
  Luci: You know what I mean.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
  • In the Doctor Who (Titan) Eleventh Doctor comics, the companion John Jones is a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of David Bowie. He spends most of his first trip to space quoting "Space Oddity" and "Starman". A later story has him suffering horrible hallucinations from eating alien food and muttering Non Sequiturs like "Not rock'n'roll! Genocide!!" and "Hope ... is a cheap thing". He recovers when he travels to an Alternate Dimension called the Face of God, and the sense of wonder there makes him feel like "We can be ... just for one day".
  • In the Doctor Who Magazine strip "Liberation of the Daleks" Part 12, the Doctor, recognising the sound of a Dalek control centre, says "Ba-dum, ba-dum. I hear it and I know."
• The Disney Kingdoms Figment books have a tendency to quote the "One Little Spark" song from the ride Journey into Imagination.
• In The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Peter checks in on his daughter Annie-May during a training simulation by asking "Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?" Judging from her reaction, he does this all the time.
• When Dweeb and Sleepwanker play 'the Oldest Game' in Soulsearchers and Company #3, it devolves into this:
  Sleepwanker: I am darkness and utter annihilation! And what'll you be then, huh?
  Dweeb: I am hope.
  Sleepwanker: Well, I'm Crosby! Not to mention Stills, Nash and Young!
  Dweeb: I am the walrus, goo goo job!
• Locke & Key has this bit in the Crown of Shadows arc when Dodge finds the titular crown and summons the shadows.
  Dodge: Hello, darkness... my old friend.
• The 2000 AD Sci Fi Special 2022 has a "Comic Rock" theme, where each story is inspired by a song. Three of them use actual lyrics in the story:
  • The Anderson: Psi-Division story "Half of a Heaven", based on "Suspended in Gaffa" by Kate Bush, features several paraphrases of the lyrics in the "surface chaff" put out by a powerful Brit Cit psi (who also happens to look like Bush), and again when Anderson's narration talks about "that woman in the mirror who can't have it all".
  • In the Midden-Face McNulty story "Opening Night at the Omegadrome", based on "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, McNulty is running security for a mutie rock group, and a reporter suggests that this concert heralds a new era of mutie/normie co-operation, calling it "a kinder, gentler..." before a Norm Brotherhood terrorist attacks the stage and is taken down by McNulty's Arm Cannon as he yells "Machine-gun hand!" The last panel is McNulty shouting "Keep on rockin' in the free world!"
  • The Judge Death story "Common Enemy", based on "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel, carefully sets up Dredd and Death having an Enemy Mine situation due to being trapped between two gangs of Simps, one from Bob Pennywise Block and one from Jared Leto Block, just for the sake of this:
    Death: Clownssss to the left of me...
    Dredd: Jokers to my right!

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