The Justice Guild of America is a pastiche of the Golden Age superhero team the Justice Society of America. The creative team wanted to use the JSA (even going as far to first designing the team based on their JSA counterparts), but DC Comics declined as Paul Levitz (DC Comics president at the time) felt the story as written disrespected the JSA and the portrayals clashed with the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths JSA in modern 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. The Justice Guild members were intended to reflect:
- Green Guardsman/Scott Mason - Golden Age Green Lantern/Alan Scott
- Tom Turbine - A combination of Golden Age The Atom/Al Pratt and Golden Age Superman (with slight similarities to Starman, Star-Spangled Kid, Captain Marvel, and Hourman)
- The Streak - Golden Age The Flash/Jay Garrick
- Black Siren/Donna Vance - Golden Age Black Canary/Dinah Lance with some elements of the Golden Age Wonder Woman
- Cat Man/T. Blake - A combination of Golden Age Wildcat and Golden Age Batman (with a name matching the Batman supervillain whose secret identity was Thomas Blake)
- The Music Master - The Fiddler
- The Sportsman - The Sportsmaster
- Dr. Blizzard - Icicle
- Sir Swami - The Wizard (with slight similarities to Sargon the Sorcerer)
The line of dialogue from The Streak to John Stewart "You're a credit to your people, son" (to which Stewart replied awkwardly "Uh, thanks") is a subtle racial comment referencing the racial issues of the '50s and '60s, which is the era in which the Justice Guild's idealism is based. The line however, was not intended to portray any kind of negativity.
Green Guardsman's line about how his ring doesn't work on aluminum is a subtle jab about how Golden Age hero Alan Scott/Green Lantern's ring could not affect wood in the Golden Age of DC Comics.
Batman appears in this episode, but does not speak.
Bruce Timm and James Tucker got the idea for this episode while in South Korea visiting Koko Enterprises Company, one of the overseas studios for the series. They came up with the ending first and wrote the story backwards.