Wham Line / The DCU

The DCU

• Aquaman: "In a fit of rage, seeking revenge, Aquaman killed Black Manta's father."
• Batman:
  • From the ads for the final issue of A Death in the Family, a direct Take That! to those who thought DC wouldn't violate Status Quo Is God: "Robin is dead, murdered by the Joker."
  • Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood: "Isn't it obvious? Your mother and I were conceiving you, Helena Rosa. Now put that crossbow down before you accidentally murder your father." To explain, Helena Rosa Bertinelli became the murderous vigilante Huntress to answer the cry for blood of her murdered family. Suddenly she, and we, are discovering that she is not a Bertinelli at all, but a Cassamento, and that her father is very much alive. We then go on to learn that her father is the one who arranged the murder of her family, with the intent of sparing her mother, not her. The very man she has spent her adult life trying to identify and kill is her father.
  • The Long Halloween:
    • "I am Holiday."
    • Also, "You both know, don't you? There were two Holiday Killers."
  • Batman: Dark Victory: "What if the message isn't None of You are Safe? What if it's Nine of you are safe?"
  • The Dark Knight Strikes Again:
    Batman: [to the New Joker] So... it's you. I changed the abort code the night I fired you... Dick Grayson.
  • Batman and Robin (2009) #12: "They're all jokes."
  • Gotham Academy Second Semester #7:
    Kyle: Olive, none of us have even met Amy yet. We couldn't even tell you what she looked like.
• DC Rebirth:
  Wally West: We're being watched.
• Doomsday Clock:
  • Clark Kent telling Lois Lane he's been having nightmares... and he never had nightmares.
  • Mime and Marionette deciding to find out who this Joker person is.
  • Lex Luthor in response to Lois questioning him about the Supermen Theory:
    Lex: You see, I've learned the person who's created these metahumans for the government is themself a metahuman. I don't know their name, but I do know one thing about them. At some point in time... they were a member of the Justice League.
  • Batman to Dr. Manhattan in issue #7: "I know who you are."
  • Dr. Manhattan reacts to a statement by Rorschach:
    Manhattan: Cancer? [he looks over at Ozymandias, then looks back] Adrian does not have cancer.
  • "Everything ends." Cue The DCU being reset.
• Flashpoint (DC Comics):
  • "You're Thomas Wayne."
  • "What did I do? Oh, Barry. My idol. My inspiration. That's the beauty of all this madness. I didn't do anything. Not a thing. You see, it turns out... You're the villain today."
• Green Lantern:
  • Blackest Night: "Thaal Sinestro of Korugar. Destiny awaits".
  • War of the Green Lanterns: "Thaal Sinestro of Korugar. You have the ability to overcome great fear. You have been chosen. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."
  • Green Lantern #12: "Hal Jordan will become the greatest Black Lantern."
  • Not for the words themselves, but who says them; Larfleeze after his ring is briefly pulled off, only to fly back to him.
    "KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME!!!"
• Identity Crisis (2004) #6:
  Zatanna: NAMTAB POTS!
• Infinite Crisis: At the end of issue 1 the identity of the shadowy figures watching over the DCU is revealed:
  Earth-Two Superman: Now this...This looks like a job for Superman!
• Justice League (2011) #50 (Darkseid War):
  Batman: The chair didn't give me a name. It said there were three.
  Green Lantern: Three? Three Jokers?
• Kingdom Come:
  Norman: He had not turned his back at us. He stands in the sky... faith rewarded. [vision of a screaming Superman, which changes Norman's mood and reaction] ... dear God. The threat of Armageddon hasn't ended. It's just begun...
• Legion of Super-Heroes: In the second-to-last issue of The Great Darkness Saga, the identity of the Master of Darkness is at last revealed:
  "Go... for your master... for Darkseid!"
• The Sandman (1989): From the Seasons of Mist arc: when Morpheus enters hell to free Nada from imprisonment, he sends warning to Lucifer — Lucifer being the one whom Morpheus utterly humiliated in a previous arc, and has sworn vengeance on him. Upon hearing this news, Lucifer gathers the hordes of hell and the souls of the damned and makes what appears to be a This Means War! declaration, promising that it will be a day that Morpheus and everybody else will never forget. When Dream eventually arrives, Hell is totally empty, besides Lucifer himself. Dream demands that Lucifer explain what's going on.
  Lucifer: Isn't it obvious, dream king? I've quit.
• Secret Six: "It's Aramaic. It translates to: Get Out of Hell Free."
• Suicide Squad: "Frank Rock died in 1945." This one's especially painful; it was supposed to kick off a new story arc, but the series was cancelled prematurely, which caused it to be the last line in the series.
• Superman:
  • Krypton No More:
    Supergirl: I thought we'd come to this someday! Well, now that we have, I've got to tell you, Superman — there is NO planet Krypton! Moreover, Clark — there never WAS!
  • In Who is Superwoman?, Reactron fires a Gold-Kryptonite blast at Superwoman, who shrugs it off completely. Then she utters the first hint to her real identity:
    Reactron: H-How? Gold Kryptonite shuts off Kryptonian powers.
    Superwoman: Why, Reactron— Whoever said I was Kryptonian?
  • The Final Days of Superman opens with this line:
    Superman: I'm dying.
  • New Super-Man:
    Ching Lung: Without me, Super-Man Zero, there would be no you. Without me, there would be no superheroes. For I am the very beginning.
  • The Oz Effect:
    Mr. Oz: I am Jor-El.
• From the pages of Swamp Thing:
  • After several years of fighting to become human again, Swampy's been shot in the head, and dissected by another plant-based super, the Floronic Man, who puzzles over how all Swamp's internal organs are too crude to work. Eventually, he figures out the secret of how botanist Alec Holland became Swamp Thing:
    The Floronic Man: He isn't Alec Holland. He never will be Alec Holland. He never was Alec Holland.
  • From the same story:
    The Floronic Man: He should have let me finish. He should have listened. Then I'd have been able to explain the most important thing of all to him. I'd have been able to explain that you can't kill a vegetable by shooting it through the head.
• Watchmen:
  • A less dramatic example than the rest, but there is a part in Under the Hood where Hollis is talking about reading Action Comics as a kid, and mentions Superman, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. He then says "Of course, all of these old characters are gone and forgotten now."
  • Silk Spectre thinks back on her memories, specifically an argument between the Comedian and her mother, and realizes that the Comedian didn't intend to say "old friend's daughter" at all:
    Comedian: Christ, we were just talking. Can't a guy talk to his, y'know, his...
    ...daughter?
  • While Nite Owl and Rorschach are looking through Ozymandias' office for clues about who might be targeting heroes, having been unable to speak with Ozymandias themselves.
    Nite Owl: Rorschach, I think we're in bad trouble. The person behind this, the person we're up against... I think it's Adrian.
  • The final line of chapter 11. Nite Owl and Rorschach have confronted Ozymandias and are prepared to stop his evil plan, only to find out, the hard way, that Ozymandias was prepared first:
    Veidt: "Do it?" Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Did you seriously think I'd explain my masterstroke if there was the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Amazons Attack! has this line in the final panels:
    Athena: Hmm, perhaps you're right. Perhaps "Justice" isn't the right word. But you have to admit... GOODNESS has certainly triumphed!
  • In Wonder Woman (2011): BOOM.
  • Wonder Woman (Rebirth): Diana wraps her own Lasso of Truth around her wrist and asks herself a question; trying to figure out why the Amazons and Olympians don't seem to remember things:
    You are many to many. Peace-maker and war-fighter. Supplicant, aspirant, penitent. The true friend and the boon companion, the trusted soul and the truth-speaker...
    ...And you have been deceived.

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