A Question Of Self-Reference

It's funny the stupid stuff you never notice for 35 years of comic book fandom, that suddenly leap out and smack you in the forehead.

Two panels from Fantastic Four #326 (1989). First:

"I stopped by to see how "Inferno" went"?? Really?

And later in the same issue...

"In the Secret War"???

Don't ask me why, but it just suddenly strikes me as odd to see comic book characters referring to their mega-events by the same titles the writers gave to those events. It just seems...off.

I mean, I know it's convenient shorthand for the readers, but do the heroes really go around referring to the demon invasion of New York as "Inferno"? Do the participants in Secret Wars all refer to those events as 'The Secret War" (at least until Bendis came along and used the title again)?

It just seems very...meta...to me, you know? Do the X-Men wander around saying, "Geez, that was pretty rough, back during the X-Tinction Agenda!" (and more importantly, do they actually leave the "E" off , in their heads, when they say it?!?)?? Did DC heroes call the events of Armageddon: 2001 "Armageddon" (obviously not 2001, for sliding timeline purposes...but still)? Do Marvel heroes call that one time every villain switched up heroes "Acts Of Vengeance" when they tell the story???

It just seems weird, that's all...like a Dickens character coming out and saying, "Well, this is indeed a Tale Of Two Cities..."

Sure, they always used to refer to a vague "Crisis" post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, but they never actually called it "Crisis On Infinite Earths". And I doubt you had a JLA meeting where Booster Gold said, "Wow, that Infinite Crisis was really something, eh?" Nor, I'm fairly certain, did you ever hear, say, Ms. Marvel opine, "Man, this sure is a Dark Reign we're experiencing, isn't it?"

Then again, people in DC's future keep referring to the "Flashpoint," so who knows. Maybe a few months from now we'll hear Avengers referring to "X-Sanction", or Hank McCoy saying, "You know, back during The Messiah Complex..."

Yeah, yeah, I know--I'm an idiot. But seeing it happen so explicitly there, twice in the same issue, just made my brain tickle. Blame Steve Englehart John Harkness, not me...