Justice Guild of America - Homages

Homages

• Bruce Timm has commented that Ray Thompson is based on both Roy Thomas, who collaborated on the animated series, due to his famous admiration of the Golden Age comics, and science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury, because many of Bradbury's stories deal with nostalgia compared to the harshness of the present. The original script of Legends had Ray calling himself Brainwave.
• The idea of Ray's special ability is based on Marvel Comics' Rick Jones summoning the Golden Age heroes in the Avengers' Kree-Skrull War, a story written by Roy Thomas.
• The Justice League staff originally intended to use the Golden Age Justice Society of America, but access to the characters was denied by DC Comics as Paul Levitz felt the story as written disrespected the JSA and the characters' portrayals clashed with the post-Crisis JSA's portrayal in current comics. However, Levitz agreed to a compromise: the producers could change the names and designs just enough to make the team not quite the JSA, but still get the point across.
• Members of the Justice Guild were intended to reflect:
  • The Streak resembles the Golden Age Flash. His role as leader of the Justice Guild mirrors the Flash's role as the first chairman of the Justice Society. The Streak reflected his era's racism by telling John Stewart "you're a credit to your people, son".
  • Tom Turbine is a combination of the Golden Age Atom and the Golden Age Superman.
  • Green Guardsman resembles the Golden Age Green Lantern, with his weakness to aluminium a homage to Alan Scott's weakness to wood. His alter ego is given as Scott Mason.
  • Catman is a combination of Wildcat and the Golden Age Batman; however, the Batman he resembles is closer to Adam West's over-the-top live-action series from the 1960s. He is not to be confused with the Batman villain Cat-Man, whose name was Thomas Blake. His real name is T. Blake.
  • Black Siren resembles the Golden Age Black Canary. The name given on her tombstone, Donna Vance, is similar to that of the original Black Canary, Dinah Drake Lance. She reflects the sexism of early superhero comics (such as the fact that originally Wonder Woman was only the secretary for the Justice Society of America), when she asks Hawkgirl to join her in the kitchen so that "the men can talk."
• JGA enemies the Injustice Guild were modified versions of the Injustice Society:
  • The Music Master resembles the Fiddler.
  • The Sportsman resembles the Sportsmaster.
  • Dr. Blizzard resembles the Icicle.
  • Sir Swami resembles the Wizard.
• The episode ends with "Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Gardner F. Fox." Gardner Fox was a prominent writer of both the Golden and Silver Age era and co-created both the JSA and the JLA. Fox was also the creator of the concept of the DC Multiverse, and author of the first comic to feature the Multiverse, Flash #123, "The Flash of Two Worlds". This is among the DCAU episodes that pay homage to those writers, another being Superman: The Animated Series episode Apokolips... Now! which was dedicated to Jack Kirby.