gladiator and the imperial guard were created by writer chris claremont and artist dave cockrum as an homage to dc comics' legion of super-heroes, with all the imperial guard's original members created as analogs of legionnaires. gladiator was the analog to superboy; the name "gladiator" was a conscious homage to the philip wylie novel "gladiator" (1930) on which superman was partially based. gladiator's name, kallark, is a combination of superman's kryptonian and human names: kal-el and clark kent.