I have quite a few comics and other references, tributes and such in my story. Let me show ya and explain them all.
“Security.” Shrall said plainly as he and Tayalla made their way to the throne room’s double doors. “Lots of it! Unless you all want a superhero battle in the palace foyer?”
Referencing any superbattle in which public or in this case private property'd be demolished.
“Friendly computer.” Mateo looked back at Aquita as she stood behind him. “Bill Gates would love this thing.”
“He tried to get one from Dad last year.” Aquita laughed and placed her hands behind her head. “Gates got a rude awakening when he tried to plug it in and Microsoft almost went down.”
Just felt like having a dig at Bill Gates. Alien computers wouldn't work with Microsoft. Higher security, firewalls etc.
“I couldn’t agree more, Whitefox.” M’anta appeared on stage completely covered in his armor. His voice rang with confidence as he walked to the podium and Whitefox stepped aside, proud of his student. “For my father, family and for my friends, I will find them. This armor is all that I have left of my father here on Earth. It’s the armor of Delclina and it was used during the Occupation by him and came to symbolize hope. Today, it’s a symbol stating that my father lives on. So long as I wear this armor, he lives and Terra Nova can’t take that away from me.”
Referenced any imagery you ever see of Spider-Man talking about Uncle Ben. The suit he wears carries a deep meaning and it's deeper because of his dad's death. M'anta has to live up to his dad's legacy so, this is also similar to how Captain Marvel's son, Genis-Vell has had to live up to his late father's legacy.
“I don’t kn-“ Jenna started to say.
Jenna felt something touching her chest and something else beginning to unzip her uniform as well as something wet on her neck, which felt like lips and landed on her own a second later. Manta wasn’t sure what was happening and charged his hands up. He was worried though that a close electric attack would hurt Jenna. As a result of the intrusion, Jenna panicked letting loose a gale force wind in the direction of Baxter and zipped her uniform back up. She had a flashback of her rape while in high school and heard her screams in her head as well as that same voice from before.
“C’mon Jenny. You know you want this!” she heard Baxter’s voice from high school in her head.
“Oh, God!” Jenna panted and M’anta looked at her quizzically. “No! It can’t be him! He’s in jail! He’s in jail!”
“Who?” M’anta asked as he scanned her mind to find out what she meant and watched a tear roll down Jenna’s face. “Oh no. Not, Baxter.”
M’anta relived the memory along with Jenna thanks to their telepathic bond and started to feel angry that anyone on Earth was capable of such violations and tried to place the memory of the time in the Agents’ pool in Jenna’s head. That day M’anta called her Nuchalla O’ayar, which meant courageous person and Jenna worked hard herself to remember that moment and the time afterward.
Not referencing anything but that was damn creepy to write. Then again, it just shows what kind of a perv Baxter was. Moving on...
Baxter looked at Jenna and back at M’anta and became more enraged that his ex had more confidence than ever. In his mind, Jenna was still the beautiful and smart student council president of their high school that everyone liked. In his mind, this Jenna was a different person than she was in the past and she grew to love disgusting things like aliens who may have looked human but did not act human.
“Jenna.” Baxter began as he undressed her with his eyes. “You forgive me for everything don’t you? You can’t possibly love this monster! He’s just a blue freak and I’m all man.”
“I do love M’anta.” Jenna smiled. “Watch.”
Jenna slyly looked at M’anta and stole a kiss on the lips while breathing in as Baxter tried firing his rifle once again with no result. Unknown to Baxter, there was no charge left in the rifle and he held it near his waistline as he readjusted himself near the edge of the roof by having one leg on the slope of the roof. He tried to fire again, with no result as the two continued to kiss, ignoring Baxter.
“Stop kissing my girl, you blue f-.” Baxter fired the rifle again with no result and ended up stumbling backward.
The rifle’s recoil hit Baxter in the crotch and sent him staggering over the roof. He fell and became impaled by the sword of a statue of the Aquan God of justice, Xazes. The emerald colored statue was posed with the sword held high and the God looking to the sky, holding a large shield with his other arm. The statue had been a gift from king Sirak to Richard Dastara as a reward for his humanitarian aid.
“That was for my family.” M’anta grumbled as he powered down and looked over the side of the ledge at the impaled murderer. “Xazes, juga saa ene Elaria.”[Xazes, judge him in Hell.]
Ahh the death of Baxter. Heights is always a good medium when you want to have something dramatic happen. It's always been used in comics and the like. Here, though Baxter gets impaled by the sword of the Aquan God of Justice. Poetic Justice isn't it? He killed M'anta, Aquita and Shrall's dad and now he really FELL for it. What a HEART piercing moment. Okay, I'll stop.
Next...
Aquita smiled as her mother continued to speak. “Mom’s not really talking about her role in the Occupation. She rallied women all over the planet together to fight against being concubines and essentially sex slaves. Women were forced to mate with our oppressors. No children could be conceived due to our genetic makeup because Mosqukatara aren’t humanoid. That didn’t stop them from attempting to mate with any young Aquan girl.”
This takes place at Sirak's funeral. Here I'm referencing both the German Occipation of many countries during World War II. Aquans were occupied and were treated like Jews were. Hoever, I'm also referencing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine here. The main aliens in the story, the Bajorans were occupied in the same fashion by a race called the Cardassians. I figured I would blend the two so people can get a feel for what the Aquans went through. The Cardassians were without heart, much like the Mosqukatara and ever since the occupation, the two races were at odds. The Aquan Occupation ended a year before Aquita was born. Her grandfather freed the planet with the help of her parents and thousands of Aquans.
“NO!” Mateo cried. “Come on! I saved you! I saved you, Aquita! Please don’t be-”
Referenced the death of Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #121 there. Of course, the outcome was different than the comic. Aquita lives. But, the imagery if the same scene is in my head and I transfered it to paper.
“Don’t.” Mateo growled as his hands glowed bright blue. “Don’t disrespect mi raza. Mi familia.”
My tribute to the wrestler from the WWE known as Eddie Guerrero. Eddie was of hispanic descent like Mateo and Eddie often said "Viva mi raza!", which meant "Long live my family/people". He died and I offered to pay tribute to him in the story.
“We’re the Starbolts, Vecto.” Aquita placed her arm around Mateo’s neck as he prepared to fly, once again. “’Nuff said.”
Nuff said is term Marvel usually used in comics. It was used all the time by one of the greatest comic writers of all time. Stan Lee. Stan co-created Spider-Man and countless other Marvel heroes so, I used that as a reference to him.
"Starbolts! Charge!" Jenna and M'anta called in unison.
The Avengers say "Avengers Assemble!" as a battlecry. I needed something along those lines and yeah, that pays homage to Earth's Mightiest heroes. It's not "Starbolts Assemble!" But, it works just the same, I think.
There was also a training session in chapter 13 where I referenced any training session in comics. Plus, I used it as a means to get the Starbolts graduated to full Agent status. They became full Agents and essentially had to run the gauntlet and prove themselves much like Robin proving himself to Batman or the New Mutants proving themselves to the X-Men.
Also, there was a scene where I used an Aquan police commisoner named Jymgord. That references Commisoner James Gordon, the person in chargwe of Gotham City's police dept. And he like many commishs' let the heroes conduct their interrogations. In this case, Mateo and Aquita had a little fun with Vecto. Re: dropping him off a building and catching him. Heights again are used as a visual aid.
That's all I can think of now but as you can see, I use a lot of comics references in the story and other things, too.
LX
