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Oh it's ON, baby!!
Nah, it's mainly just a silly goof-con, in which case almost every sci-fi series one might possibly imagine has plainly borrowed from earlier ones in one way or another. At least, I THINK so.
That said, I seem to recall Mézières being pretty upset about this at some point. In any case, he passed on a couple years ago, so hmm...
EDIT: Whoops, pardon. This specifically appeared in the annex of the Cinebook edition of v2, The Empire of a Thousand Planets. There was a text accompaniment that I could post, if necessary. It was pretty rubbish, frankly.
Excellent, thank you.