The original Guardians of the Globe was a private organization funded by War Woman and Darkwing. This version of the Guardians was a pastiche of DC Comics' Justice League of America (JLA), with each of the Guardians (except Black Samson) having an obvious JLA analog. Robert Kirkman, in his author notes for Invincible: The Ultimate Collection, Volume 1, explains that he went with these archetypes because he had only 18 pages to get the reader to care for the characters before their brutal deaths.
