Shut UP, Hannibal/Comic Books

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of a Shut UP, Hannibal reaction in Comic Books include:

  • A staple of comic books, of course. Superman does it a lot.
    • One of the best was in the first story arc of the 90's JLA. The Justice League are finally able to fight back against the Hyperclan, a group of White Martians who have dominated the entire world by mind control and the JLA themselves with their powers. Superman has a slugfest with Protex, the leader of the Martians, and we have this little exchange between the two very different aliens:

Protex: How STUPID are you? You let those cringing human sheep do what they want when YOU could rule the world! Stunted slaves! They look at YOU and see what they COULD have become... They FEAR you and they HATE you and you don't even have the guts to admit you DESPISE them in return! You know in your heart they're INFERIOR!
Superman: (punches Protex straight through the entire continental shelf) They believe in me. And in my heart I believe them.

    • One story had Batman reluctantly team up with a vampire to deal with an evil wizard. Superman arrives halfway through the story, but the vampire incessantly mocks him, saying he is nothing but a liability, since Supes is weak against magic. Superman tells him to shut up or else he will fly him into the sun. He shuts up.
    • General Zod is beating on Supes and claiming that it was all Jor-El's fault that Krypton and their people were destroyed. If Jor-El hadn't arrested him and sentenced him to the Phantom Zone, Zod would have saved Krypton.

Superman: Oh? Tell me, Great General, how would you have saved our world?
General Zod: (loses his temper and the perfectly calm demeanor he had the whole story) I would have found a way!

  • Done comically in Young Justice. Robin, Superboy and Impulse have all been sent into manifestations of their greatest fears. Robin's is a direct spoof of The Silence of the Lambs, with the Joker parodying Lecter ("I can smell you, runt.") and lecturing Robin. The heroes discover that the best way to deal with these fears is for them to switch places. After Superboy and Impulse's fears have been dealt with, Robin realizes with horror that they left Impulse alone with the Joker. When they get there they find that Impulse has nearly driven Joker to (even more) madness by simply asking "Why?" over and over again.
  • Averted during the Mark Waid run on The Flash: there was a really epic storyline called "The Return of Barry Allen". It involved the Reverse Flash, Professor Zoom, being a lot faster than Wally. Zoom gives a Break Them by Talking , and Wally keeps trying to do this, but Zoom's so much faster he dodges/beats the crap out of Wally each time without breaking his lecture.
  • This happened a lot during the Green Lantern Arc "Sinestro Corps War". Primarily between Hal Jordan and his Evil Counterpart Sinestro.
    • Most recently during the "Rage of the Red Lanterns" Arc. After killing Green Lantern Laira, previously converted to the eponymous Red Lantern Corps, Sinestro barely finishes taunting GL Hal Jordan - 'Look at that Jordan, another broken promise.' - when the hero grabs Sinestro by the collar, flies them both to the top of the Red Lantern Power Battery, and using the ring straps him into an 'electric chair.' This act unsuprisingly leads to his initiation into the Red Lanterns. Less than 3 pages afterwards, he pulls the switch.
    • Blackest Night is practically made of these. The zombie villains are all twisted evil versions of deceased friends and family of the heroes, saying whatever they can to manipulate the emotions of their prey before feeding on their hearts. Not that delivering a Shut Up, Hannibal does much good. In a particularly brilliant moment of Genre Savvy, the Black Lanterns can feed off Heroic Willpower just as easily as fear or anger.
  • At the end of The Authority Revolution the Big Bad of the Arc is bragging that his control over the world has made it a better place. The Midnighter tears off his head, ripping out his spine in the process, in a manner that would make Mortal Kombat envious, with the words:

The Midnighter: Well then, I guess I just don't give a shit.

  • In The Killing Joke, as Batman tracks him through a carnival house of mirrors, the Joker claims to have driven Commissioner Gordon mad, thus proving his point that "one bad day" can drive anyone insane as it did to him. He then tries to convince Batman that life is all a "monstrous, demented gag. So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?" Batman crashes through a mirror and says, "Because I've heard it before... and it wasn't funny the first time!" and punches the Joker. He then tells him that Gordon is perfectly sane, thus disproving the Joker's point. "Maybe it was just you all the time."

Captured Serial Killer: Admit it, you live for the hunt as much as I do. Going after the freaks adds excitement to the game, but not as much as you need. Every time you put on that mask the craving comes back, the primal course, the push at the back of your mind. It's only a matter of time before it takes over and you--
Batman: Kill whoever's standing right next to me and calling me a psychopath?
Captured Serial Killer: I'll shut up now.

  • Hellboy has a habit of doing this. SCREW YOU!
    • A particularly shining example has to be when Hecate attempts to seduce Hellboy to ruling by her side:

Hecate: Accept the truth of your existence or be destroyed! You cannot escape your destiny!
Hellboy: Gonna try.
Hecate: Time is coming to ring down the curtain on man. Already, the four horsemen are loose in the world. It is for us to darken the sun, turn the moon to blood, and put out the stars. Then you and I alone, forever in the dark--
Hellboy: Shut up! Not gonna happen... 'cause you're very, very ugly... and... you have a giant snake body!
**impale**

    • Subverted during the story "The Island". Hellboy repeatedly tells Hannibal to shut up, but since he's not really in a position to enforce that command, Because he's been stabbed through the chest by a giant monster and is bleeding to death Hannibal keeps talking.
  • In a Fantastic Four comic, Dr. Doom gives Reed a Not So Different speech concerning his actions during Marvel Civil War, which causes the Thing to give him a savage beating.

Susan: Shut up. Stop trying to hurt us, you stupid, lonely, ignorant man!
Doom: How dare you? I will destroy you, Susan Richards!
Susan: Oh shut up and listen to someone else for once! Stop talking in that ridiculous way! What's your problem, Victor? What have we ever actually done to you to deserve this stupid waste of everyone's time? Are you listening to me? Sitting there with your stupid machines and your childish jealousy, when you should be curing cancer or taking your people to the stars! What's the point of talking to you? Would you like me to explain this in a language you understand? Try anything like this ever again and I'll put a thousand force field bubbles inside that mighty brain of yours and burst it from the inside. Toys. Honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself.

  • The Hack Slash one-shot Girls Gone Dead has villain Laura Lochs giving a long Break Them by Talking about God, her origin, her motives and other such things. Cassie's reply is "Keep clucking, bitch" and a punch to the face. Subverted in the sequel Hack/Slash vs. Chucky where Laura was expecting Cassie to try something during her Break Them by Talking and kicks her in the face when she tries to attack.
    • Subverted again in Something's Fishy. As Mary Shelley Lovecraft is talking, Cassie starts sneaking up behind her, baseball bat in hand. Without even turning around or ceasing to talk, Mary ensnares Cassie in her tentacles.
  • The one-off graphic novel Joker features a classic example of this, in which Batman not only brushes off the Joker's attempt to break him by talking , but turns it into a devastating Lecture of his own which sends the Joker into a berserk rage—in only three words:

Joker: Uhh, God you disgust me. You have no charm at all, just... obviousness. Dumb, dull. Disappointing. Obvious. Shame on you. Obvious... and everybody knows. You wear your shame like a badge, because you don't have the balls to actually pin one on. Yes, just look at you. Desperate to be feared, you want to be perceived as a monster, dressed in black. And yet... you leave that little window. A glimpse at the perfection underneath. Obvious -- the chiseled good looks, not the jaw, the mouth of a monster... why do you let it be seen? Tell me why.
Batman: To mock you.

  • Atomic Robo was once captured by a Soviet mad scientist and forced to endure a lecture that took up an entire page of the comic, explaining why this scientist wanted to destroy the human race in agonizingly trivial detail. Robo's summary hit all the major points.

Atomic Robo: So you're building a big dumb bomb to show everyone who the greatest scientist blah, blah, blah.

"Tell me something I don't know." * chucks a grenade inside*

Gideon: Getting rid of me... won't save you. You're your own worst enemies! Both of you!
Ramona: No, I'm pretty sure you're worse, dude.
Scott: You're definitely worse.

  • A hero-to-reporter example: Tony Stark delivers this to John Pillinger, a man who is interviewing him in regard to the weapons Tony designed for the military over a decade ago, when Tony was nineteen. Over the course of the interview, Pillinger is clearly determined to make Tony out to be as unsympathetic as possible; he interrupts Tony at every turn, gives Tony no chance to expand on his answers, and more or less dismisses incredibly significant medical breakthroughs as meaningless just because they aren't available in third-world countries. He also brushes aside the fact that Tony hasn't designed weaponry for the military in over ten years, and has in fact put his efforts and resources into venues that could improve the world.

The real kicker comes when Tony, rather than attempt to make excuses for the damage the weapons he once designed have done, flat-out admits that he knows that no matter what he does, he will always have blood on his hands—and Pillinger reacts as if Tony has given some long, rambling explanation to excuse himself from responsibility. Tony ends his statement by saying, with obvious sincerity, that he's trying to be a part of making the world a better place regardless. Pillinger responds with a caustic "...I see." However, at the end of the session, Pillinger asks Tony why he agreed to the interview. Tony responds beautifully.

Tony: I wanted to meet you. You've been making your investigative films for what, twenty years now? I wanted to ask: Have you changed anything? You've been uncovering disturbing things all over the world for twenty years now. Have you changed anything? You've worked very hard. Most people have no idea of the kind of work you've done. Intellectuals, critics, and activists follow your films closely, but culturally you're almost invisible, Mr. Pillinger. Have you changed anything?

  • In issue 74 of Archie Sonic comics, after the freedom fighters find Robotnik on the walkway of some outer space facility, (note that up until that point they thought he was dead) there are at least two varieties (or maybe three) of Shut UP, Hannibal in a row:

Sonic: You're toast if you don't tell me what happened to my family and the other roboticized mobians, Ro"butt"nik!
Robotnik: Come now, hedgehog. Can't you at least take a moment to welcome me back from the dead? Didn't your parents teach you better manners?
Sonic: Why, you lousy...
Sonic runs at Robotnik, but Robotnik smacks him aside.
Bunnie: Ah'll show you manners!
Bunnie then punches Robotnik in the face, and Sonic and Tails stumble upon Robotnik's sweatshop.
Tails: Sonic, look!
Sonic: I see it, Tails! ALL of the missing robians being forced to work in this suped-up outer-space sweat-shop!
Robotnik: Forced? Quite the contrary, Sonic. I've merely RESTORED their LACK of free will. They have absolutely no say in the matter. How can you say that I've done something wrong? Why, look at all the new jobs I've created!
Sonic: Create this!
(Sonic then runs up at Robotnik and knocks him off the walkway.)

    • Sonic's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Eggman in issue 200 is essentially a retort to a similar speech Eggman himself gave Sonic twenty-five issues earlier.
  • Deadpool is riddled with these.
    • First there is Deathtrap, lecturing Wade about the virtue of silence, having strapped Wade to a table with a giant teddy bear above that will smother/crush him to death. If The Merc with the Mouth doesn't shutup, he will die. What does he do? He doesn't shutup.

Deathtrap: "Fascinating! Teddy has approached ramming speed."

    • Next there is Deadpool's encounter with Batroc. You can't expect to use Popinjay in a sentence and not have Deadpool mock you. Subverted in that Batroc proceeds to kick Wade's ass for this. He makes the mistake in pushing Deadpool's cripple/friend out of a window, followed by another Shut UP, Hannibal moment, and Deadpool wiping the floor with Batroc.
    • In the same series, Deadpool delivers a Shut UP, Hannibal to the Messiah, the bringer of peace to the world. Why? Because the peace the Messiah brings is Peace through lack of free will. Coincides with kicking Captain America in the nuts. All Canon.
  • In the finale of the first arc of the Spawn spin-off Sam & Twitch, Twitch has caught criminal responsible for all murders in that story. She gives him very good Hannibal Lecture about how she will go free thanks to her connections and, at worst case, will have to keep low profile for few months. And how she will then come back and slowly, for years, destroy his life and kill everybody he loves. At first it looks it worked as Twitch puts his gun down, but he immediately points it at her again and starts telling her her laws. When she continues to lecturing him Twitch shoots her.
  • In Birds of Prey, the villain Mortis has been mind-raping Black Canary with visions of all the people she has regrets about, only to have this happen:

Mortis: "Your friends have dumped you again, haven't they? Haven't they?"
Black Canary: "Heh *sniff* No. No, lady, they haven't. You pulled the wrong trigger. Don't you know that?"
Mortis: "How do you know? How can you be certain?"
Black Canary: "Because they're my friends. Because they love me. Now get the holy hell out of my brain. I won't warn you again."

  • Superman's only line in Lex Luthor: Man of Steel. After the more benevolent Perspective Flipped Villain Protagonist we've seen of Luthor throughout the series, it hammers home the fact that Lex's justifications for committing atrocities in the name of "exposing" Superman as a threat are really twisted, and that he really is the bad guy.

Superman: You're wrong. I can see your soul.

  • The Captain Britain & MI13 tie in with the Secret Invasion storyline of Marvel comics revealed that the global invasion force was just a cover for pretty much every Super-Skrull they had to invade Britain and steal all the Earth's magic straight from the source. After succeeding at killing Captain Britain and taking control over Earth's source of magic, the Super-Skrull Sorcerer Supreme stands over a woman who is, at the time, a civilian. A simple Muslim Doctor standing in the way. The Super-Skrull describes how Britain will be erased from existence, so that it had never been. When the Skrull empire takes us as slaves, then we would know true pride and glory. Cue the return with Excalibur.

Captain Britain: I think you'll find, we already do. We just don't like to make a fuss.

  • Hero-to-hero example - in 200th issue of X-Factor Guido gets into a fight with The Thing, who tries to provoke him by mocking his superhero career. Guido just tells Ben that he played in a better football team. It worked a little too well, because enraged Ben beat the tar out of him.
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