The Justice Guild of America is a superhero team featured in the Justice League animated series two-part episode Legends, an homage to the Golden Age Justice Society of America, and to a degree the Silver Age Justice League of America.[1]
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At the climax of a fight with a giant robot, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and J'onn J'onzz end up on a parallel Earth (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, Cat Man, and their sidekick Ray Thompson. These were comic book characters on the Justice League's Earth about whom Green Lantern read as a child. 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.
Probing deeper into inconsistencies found in the "perfect" Seaboard City, the Leaguers find 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 shatter reality, attacking both the JL and the JGA. The Guild heroes are initially unsure of what to do, but eventually decide that they can forfeit their false lives to rebuild Seaboard City as it genuinely is, reasoning that if they could sacrifice themselves once for the citizens, they can do so again. They all attack Ray, overwhelming his mind and causing him to die, shattering the illusion. The League then watches as the JGA dissipate 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; meanwhile, in Seaboard City, the inhabitants are freed from a web of lies, 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 team 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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