Synopsis
At the climax of a fight with a giant robot controlled by Lex Luthor, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and J'onn J'onzz accidentally end up on a parallel Earth when the Flash tries to stop the robot falling onto the other Leaguers (existing in a different vibrational frequency from the JL's own) in an idyllic 1950s locale, Seaboard City, that more than a little resembles Pleasantville or other such havens. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to The Village of The Prisoner and features an ice cream van which plays "Pop Goes the Weasel", a tune regularly employed on that show.
There they meet the Justice Guild of America members - Tom Turbine, the Streak, the Green Guardsman (not to be confused with Green Guardsman of Amalgam Comics), Black Siren, Catman, and their sidekick Ray Thompson. They first fight when Green Lantern and the Flash stop a robbery by Justice Guild enemy the Music Master, and the Guild mistakes them for the thieves. However, after the Streak sees Flash save Ray from pieces of a falling building, he realises the League aren't criminals and stops the fight. The Guild were comic book characters on the Justice League's Earth about whom Green Lantern read as a child. He claims without them he may not have the ring today, as they taught him to be a hero. Tom Turbine hypothesizes that the JGA writer was psychically tuned in to their Earth during flashes of "inspiration"; this is a nod to the explanation Gardner Fox provided for the JSA/JLA link in his September 1961 story Flash of Two Worlds in which the Barry Allen Flash of Earth-One encounters Jay Garrick, his Earth-Two counterpart. They help the JGA fight a group of their enemies, the Injustice Guild of America, who are based on Golden Age DC supervillains.
Probing deeper into inconsistencies found in the "perfect" Seaboard City, such as an ice cream van that never stops and gravestones of the Guild which Hawkgirl finds, the Leaguers find from newspapers in a boarded up library that contains books with blank pages that the JGA actually died when their world's Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into World War III, and they perished in the resultant U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange.
The JL confront the JGA with this knowledge; shocked, the JGA deny that their existence is a mere illusion. J'onn suspects that Ray Thompson is the key to the bizarre state of this reality. Ray denies knowing anything, but J'onn makes a telepathic link with him, causing him to reveal his true form: a disfigured mutant with the ability to warp reality. Ray's abilities were activated by the holocaust, and he created the time warp as a consequence of their manifestation. With a distorted and nostalgic view of reality, he recreated the world of his childhood and resurrected the heroes he worshiped. Angrily, Ray goes on a rampage and tries to kill the JL, while distracting the JGA with a giant red robot. The Guild heroes are initially unsure of what to do, but eventually decide that they can forfeit their false lives to save the JL, reasoning that if they could sacrifice themselves once, they can do so again. They all attack Ray, overwhelming his mind and causing him to die, shattering the illusion. John Stwart then watches in dismay as the JGA fade away with smiles on their faces.
The Justice League members return to their own Earth using a space-time machine Tom Turbine was working on before his death, powered by Green Lantern's ring; meanwhile, in Seaboard City, the inhabitants are freed from a web of lies, thank the League, and begin to rebuild their shattered world.
On his own Earth, John Stewart ponders on how much the JGA comics meant to him when he was young and the impact the comics' cancellation in 1962 (the year the actual Guild died) had on him. He remarks to Hawkgirl that the JGA taught him the meaning of the word hero, a commentary on the bright, optimistic Golden and Silver Age's contrast to the Modern Age's grittiness and angst.
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