WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Titans Season 3, Episode 11, "The Call Is Coming From Inside the House," available now on HBO Max.
In Titans Season 3, Dick/Nightwing (Brenton Thwaites) hasn't just been blocked at every corner by Scarecrow (Vincent Kartheiser); he and the Titans have always been 10 steps behind Jason Todd (Curran Walters). It makes sense as Jason knows Batman's playbook a bit better, but sadly, as Nightwing rashly tries to counter, he almost gets killed and it's all due to a classic video game meme.
Red Hood seeds out a video from the Bat-cave, poking fun at Nightwing and asking him for a midnight showdown. Dick can tell Jason wants him out in the open, knowing the public is hunting the Titans down, so he tries to see if he can hack Bruce's lair from Wayne Enterprises to get a leg up.
Unfortunately, as he slips into the building and jacks the Bat's computer, Jason's immediately notified. He anticipated this move and emasculates Dick, taunting him with "all your base are belong to us." He riffs off of the popular Internet meme, that's based on a poorly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the video game, Zero Wing.
There, the alien cyborgs, CATS, sent this message out after taking over various Earth colonies to intimidate mankind into not fighting back. The developer, Toaplan, messed up the English translation in the '89 Japanese arcade game and since then the literary error has been used on forums such as 4chan, becoming internet gold.
It's such a powerful, funny phrase, and fans would remember when YouTube went down for maintenance in 2006, it left a message stating, "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US," which led users to think it was hacked. It gained momentum again in 2019 when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted the phrase. Ocasio-Cortez's response was regarding a poll by Hill–Harris indicating 45% of the Republicans approved of her suggested implementation of a 70% marginal tax rate for wealthy individuals, showing the party aligned with the Democrats on this issue.
In Titans, the phrase has a similar effect of intimidation and control as it scares Dick, who realizes he has to fight Jason to stop the chaos. Sadly, he falls into the trap he knew was coming, because while he's able to incapacitate Red Hood, Dick's killer instinct kicks in and he contemplates shooting Jason. Thankfully, he doesn't break the no-kill rule, but this riles a young man in the angry crowd, who shoots Dick in the neck.
Unfortunately, Jason flees as the people kick Nightwing around, hungry for his head. As reality sets in, Jason realizes he may have permanently damaged Dick or worse, created a path to his brother's death, which he won't ever be able to come back from as the episode ends.
The first 11 episodes of Titans Season 3 are available now on HBO Max. Episode 12 releases on Oct. 14.