The initial lineup of the Team, Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash, was the lineup of the original Teen Titans, albeit with Garth instead of Kaldur.
"Fireworks" has the team taking Blockbuster out by forcing him to destroy support columns, causing a building to crush him. This is how he was first taken out in Nightwing.
Aqualad's real name Kaldur'ahm is a reference to Calvin "Cal" Durham, a former henchman of Black Manta turned ally to Aquaman. The tie-in comics include Durham as Aqualad's father, likely explaining the name. This is a piece of Foreshadowing, as Season 2 later reveals that Black Manta is his biological father.
"Schooled":
Bruce Wayne flips back the head of a bust, revealing a button used to access his costume, which was the standard means of access in Batman (1966).
The opening scene where Superboy tries to rescue a crashed schoolbus on a bridge is lifted from Superman: The Movie.
The Justice League's Washington DC headquarters is the Hall of Justice from Super Friends.
Artemis is shown carrying a small collapsible crossbow as a backup weapon. In the comic books, the adult Artemis wields a crossbow as her primary weapon.
In "Denial", Kent Nelson meets a scam artist giving false psychic readings named Madame Xanadu, whom he even comments has the "right aura for the job." In the comics, Madame Xanadu is an actual psychic and powerful sorceress, which she eventually becomes in season 4, motivated into becoming one again.
"Downtime": Topo is based and named after an insentient octopus from the comics. His story of how Kaldur became Aqualad is straight from the comics, with the main exception that Garth took the name instead of Kal.
"Targets"
Marvin and Wendy from Super Friends are students at Happy Harbor High. An adult Snapper Carr from the oldJustice League of America comics is a teacher. The Happy Harbor High cheer squad is called The Bumblebees, named for the DC superheroine Bumblebee. Whom one of them, the comics' Karen Beecher, becomes in season 2.
Artemis' student liaison at Gotham Academy is Bette Kane, the little-known first Batgirl. Bette is later seen hanging out with Barbara Gordon, the second and much better known Batgirl.
"Terrors": The warden at Belle Reve is Amanda Waller. It doesn't take too much imagination to guess what might be going on at Belle Reve. By Season 3, this has been relegated from "Mythology Gag" to "Foreshadowing" when the actual Suicide Squad itself is established.
In "Alpha Male":
Captain Marvel makes friends with a wild tiger he names "Mr. Tawny". Mr. Tawny was a talking tiger who walked upright and wore a suit in the Shazam! comics.
In "Alpha Male" Wally suggests "Krypto" as a name for Wolf, only to be told that the name was already taken.
"Revelations": The Injustice League has a secret base in some kind of abandoned observatory in a Louisiana Bayou. Its design is clearly based on the Legion of Doom's Vader-Helm-Lair in Superfriends.
In "Failsafe":
Robin briefly dons a chest harness based on the Red Robin costume from Kingdom Come.
The injured soldier Superboy saves is named Jason Bard, the name of the Designated Victim that Pre-Crisis Batgirl always had to save. The real Jason Bard is later introduced in season 4 as Artemis' new boyfriend.
Another soldier is named David Reid, Magog's real name in the comics.
"Disordered": Bear explains that the Forever People are "Young gods... New Gods!"
In the Halloween episode "Secrets":
Mal Duncan dresses like the 1990's comics Superboy, Karen is wearing an old version of the costume she wears in the comics as Bumblebee, and students dressed as Donna Troy (who later appears in season 3) and Harley Quinn can also be seen.
The sword that Harm wields is specifically the Sword of Beowulf, which might be a reference to DC's Sword and Sorcery Beowulf comic series.
In "Misplaced":
Captain Marvel says that he was on a "World Without Grownups", a reference to the Young Justice comics miniseries the episode is based on.
The place Klarion started the spell is Roanoke Island, Klarion's home town in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers.
In "Coldhearted",
There is a doctor named Pieter Cross, the secondDr. Mid-Nite's real name. The other doctor, Mattie Harcourt, was a med student in Peter David's Supergirl.
Batman mentions that the Watchtower is not weaponized, which may be a reference to how the Watchtower's Wave-Motion Gun caused constant problems with the U.S. government in the Justice League cartoon.
Wally West delivering a heart on his birthday and being stopped by Vandal Savage is loosely inspired by The Flash vol 2 #1, set on Wally's 20th birthday. The difference is that here Savage was actually seeking to stop Wally for Count Vertigo, whereas in the comic their run-in was a complete coincidence.
In "Image":
Gar owns a green monkey that gnaws on him. In the comics, Gar originally got his powers after being bitten by a wild green monkey.
In "Image", the Show Within a Show stars Rita Farr (Elasti-Girl in Doom Patrol) and Paul Sloane (an Alternate UniverseTwo-Face), plus Jonathan Lord and Sandra Stanyon (from Silverblade). And Farr is shown from a low angle, as she might be if she were using her growth power.
The episode title reflects that, in the DCU, Match wasn't created by Cadmus but by an Evil Counterpart called The Agenda. Amanda Spence was the leader of the Agenda, making Superboy's suspicion of her a mythology gag Red Herring.
Additionally, Luthor's trigger phrase to incapacitate Superboy is "Red Sun". Kryptonians gain superpowers from yellow sun energy, and red depowers them. This also refers to the comic Superman: Red Son, which features a Superman raised in Communist Russia who battles a morally grey Lex Luthor, but in the last panels Superman is revealed to have been Lex's descendant sent into the past by his parents.
Captain Marvel says "You thought I was a Kryptonian?" to Superman. Before they obtained the rights to Captain Marvel, DC sued the creators of the character, alleging that Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman.
In "Insecurity":
The reporter Artemis and Green Arrow save is Bernell Jones, father of Cissie King-Jones (Arrowette) from the Young Justice comics. We also see his (unnamed) daughter, who is very impressed by the bow-slinging heroes and eventually becomes one herself by season 3's time.
Green Arrow stops criminals from robbing a "Save-Big" store, in a mirror of the first scene of Justice League Unlimited. The Save-Big itself is on the corner of Weisinger and Papp, who were the creators of Green Arrow.
The logo of the Justice League team is the logo of the Justice League animated series.
The six members of the League who go missing for 16 hours in "Auld Acquaintance" are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Hawkwoman and John Stewart, the primary cast of Justice League. According to series creator Greg Weisman, Flash was not included in the group so he could be present for Impulse's introduction in Season 2. (Besides, it would have been the wrong Flash; the JLU version was Wally.)
Incidentally, those six are the ones that comprised the Justice Lords, a group of alternate universe duplicates that went evil and took over the world. Which is fairly similar to what the missing six were supposed to have done.
Seasons 2:
In season 2, Batman refers to the Light as a "secret society of super-villains", which is the exact name of a similar group from the comics.
The "Justice League" title that appears in Godfrey's broadcast is the one usually used for the DCAU.
Jaime Reyes mentions that Captain Atom was the one who told him about Ted Kord, the previous Blue Beetle. In the comics, Captain Atom and Ted were both Charlton Comics characters, and the latter even debuted in a back-up feature in Captain Atom's series.
In "Bloodlines", Flash tells a woman and her son to hide out in a shelter located at "Fox and Gardner," a reference to prolific comic writer Gardner Fox.
In "Depths", Carol Ferris appears wearing violet, the primary color of her comic identity, Star Sapphire.
In "Satisfaction" Lex Luthor has a security guard named Otis, who calls him "Mistuh Luthohr."
In "Cornered":
Mal Duncan temporarily adopts the identity of the Guardian, which he later uses throughout season 2. This might be surprising unless you know that there was a time in the comics when he was the Guardian.
Virgil Hawkins, while talking to Black Canary, mentions that the Reach began their experiments on him by prodding him with "little static shocks" to start with before amping up the juice, making sure to emphasize the last two words.
"Juice" is a reference to the Black Vulcan Expy in Justice League. Virgil himself serves as the Black Vulcan Expy in Young Justice, with the black and yellow color scheme of his jacket acting as a nod to Black Vulcan's costume.
Captain Marvel uses his "Shazam"-summoned magic lightning as an attack, like in Kingdom Come and Justice League.
The episode "Runaways" finally confirms that Asami Koizumi and "Ed" Dorado Jr. complete the set references to the Superfriends ethnic heroes, being a gender-flipped Samurai and El Dorado with a more defined powerset, respectively.
It's also very reminiscent of his predecessor Barry Allen's iconic sacrifice in Crisis On Infinite Earths.
The Zeta Beams that the team and the League use to travel originally come from Adam Strange's comics, although they function somewhat differently.
Wally's black outfit is similar to the one he wears in the 2004 limited series Justice League Elite, which was also about a covert ops Justice League, only this one was closer to black ops. It's also similar to that of the Black Flash, The Grim Reaper for DC speedsters.
The goggles on Wally's Kid Flash costume don't come from his comic counterpart, but from his daughter Iris "Irey" West II, who becomes Kid Flash in the future (initially in the alternate future of Kingdom Come, but her time as Kid Flash was confirmed as canon to the main timeline in the Chain Lightning storyline).
Tie-In Comics:
Issue #2 reveals some details about how the Secret Sanctuary was compromised; Snapper Carr accidentally revealed its location and security protocols to the Joker. This is broadly the plot of issue 77 of the original Justice League of America comics.
Issue #24 of the tie-in comic references Robin's Mad Libs Catch Phrase from the Adam West TV series when Dick cuts himself off after saying "Holy—!!"
Season 3:
The entire premise of an ideological rift growing within the Justice League that eventually leads to the creation of a more proactive new team calls to mind Justice League: Cry for Justice.
Black Lightning derisively refers to the aforementioned Justice League splinter group as “Batman, Incorporated” after turning down an offer to join.
Batman deciding to start his ownSuper Team because of his dissatisfaction with the Justice League is nothing new, as this happened in the comics, but instead it was The Outsiders rather than Batman Incorporated.
The original comics Outsiders team included Halo and Geo-Force and Black Lightning. They join the Young Justice team in Season 3: Outsiders.
Beast Boy is revealed to have retired from the world of superheroics and started acting in a popular sci-fi series called Space Trek 3016. This is a nod to the period in the comics where he started working as an actor after his teammates on the Doom Patrol were murdered by Madame Rouge and General Zahl. What’s more, the purple and black uniform he wears on Space Trek is based on his costume from the Teen Titans (2003) animated series. "Nightmare Monkeys" later reveals that the Doom Patrol did exist up until they were killed and Beast Boy was a member for a while. The relevant flashback/hallucination has the team modeled after how they were depicted in the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon (aside from replacing Negative Man with Negative Woman and having The Chief included when he was Adapted Out) and is done In the Style ofTeen Titans Go!, as Gar imagines himself on a cartoon called Doom Patrol Go!
"Nightmare Monkeys", in addition to featuring the classic Doom Patrol, has a cameo from paramedics Casey Brinke and Sam Reynolds, from the Young Animalincarnation.
Courtney Whitmore appears as the host of an entertainment series called Stargirl.
M'gann goes bald and turns her skin back to white, a reference to the Titans Tomorrow storyline, where one of the adult Titans is an adult M'gann. However, in Titans Tomorrow, it was to show that she had a Face–Heel Turn, whereas here, she's becoming more comfortable showing her true self to others.
In "Evolution", Conner is shown listening to a sports show hosted by Steve Lombard, a longtime Superman supporting character. The show in question mentions a teenage football star named Victor Stone (a.k.a. Cyborg of Teen Titans), who attends Henry Heywood High School. Additionally, Steve's list of promising high school athletes is called the "All-Star Squadron" (of which the namesake has already been established to have existed in this continuity). A later episode mentions that the mascot of the school are the Steelworkers.
Which Henry Heywood that the school is named after is not made clear, but the second Commander Steel (Henry Heywood III) was a member of Justice League Detroit (Detroit being where the Stones live), while the first Commander Steel (Henry Heywood I) fought in World War II as part of the All-Star Squadron (as schools that name themselves after people tend to be for historical figures), and the third Commander Steel (Nathan Heywood) was a member of the Justice Society of America, which could point to him being a Composite Character.
One of Victor's classmates is named Cisco Ramon, likely Francisco "Paco/Cisco" Ramon, who is Vibe in the Justice League of America comics.
Victor himself is in fact a gold mine. His father and one of his football teammates are voiced by Khary Payton, keeping him surrounded by his most common voice actor (who isn’t portraying him this time around). Naturally, his football team yells “Booyah!” a lot. Before and after his transformation, he wears a jacket strongly resembling his costume from Smallville. Finally, said transformation was due to his father hooking him up to a Father Box after his accident, and as such, his cyborg parts are actually Apokoliptian hardware that has a mind of its own and Victor can’t always restrain it; other than it being a Mother Box instead of a Father Box, that is his DCEU origin word for word. (On top of that, there’s not actually much difference between a Mother Box and a Father Box.)
The white-haired young woman whose purse Beast Boy recovers in "Influence" is Angel O'Day, one half of the obscure 60s DC detective duo Angel and the Ape. Beast Boy doing this action in the form of a gorilla, and being in a photo with her, completes the duo.
The teenage girls who record the Outsiders' fight with Intergang in "First Impression" are all Gender Flipped versions of the members of the Newsboy Legion, an old Golden Age DC property created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Tommi's dad even calls them the "Newsgirl Legion" at one point. Additionally, Sheriff Maguire is named after Patrick "Scrapper" Maguire, another member of the team.
In "Elder Wisdom," Batman poses as an Irish father named Matthew Malone, a play on Matches Malone, Bruce's commonly used underworld alias from the comics.
One of the Promethean Gods the heroes encounter at the Source Wall in "Quiet Conversations" is Gog, a character who was prominently featured in the "Thy Kingdom Come" storyline from Geoff Johns' Justice Society of America run.
The distortion effect the heroes' spy cameras add to their faces looks a lot like the effect of SPYRAL tech in Grayson.
Season 4:
Wonder Girl's new costume is based on the one worn by the Justice Lords incarnation of Wonder Woman from the two-part Justice League episode "A Better World."
Robotman's appearance is based on that from Doom Patrol (2019), with Khary Payton even doing an impression of his actor in that show, Brendan Fraser. His status of coming back after he appeared to die with the rest of the Doom Patrol and attempting to reconnect to Beast Boy also takes from the Paul Kupperberg run on Doom Patrol and the arc in New Teen Titans where he and Mento teamed up with the Titans to try and get even with Madame Rouge and General Zahl for killing the rest of the original Doom Patrol.
The episode titles from Rocket's arc (which takes place on New Genesis) are intentionally done in the bombastic style of Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics.
After falling under the sway of General Zod, Superboy threatens Phantom Girl by telling her "You will kneel before Zod."
Nightwing is knocked unconscious and fools Lor-Zod into believing that he killed him in the Fortress of Solitude when debris is dropped on his head, recalling Infinite Crisis where his mission into the area led to him being knocked into a coma (or killed outright in the original outline for the story).
Black Canary suggests the heroes, young and old, need a larger special place to help their stressful lives - a Sanctuary.
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