the characters that would form the global guardians first appeared in the "super friends" comic book series. the first were introduced in a story (in "super friends" #7-9) in which an alien villain called grax (an old superman foe) planted bombs on earth's seven continents to destroy it. thanks to a warning from the wonder twins (in their first comic book appearance) the justice league discovered the plan in time and recruited the heroes of the countries affected to find the bombs before they exploded.