What influenced George Lucas' Star Wars? A lot of classics went into the creation of Star Wars. Here's ABC World News webcast on what inspired George Lucas.
For instance, did you know that Yoda was modeled after Einstein? Link - Thanks Natalie Raabe!
GLC: a group of universe-trotting cops who share a similar weapon and travel in pairs. Their bosses live on a central planet and are tiny and blue and wear robes. Their arch-enemies were prototypes for Green Lanterns but instead want to hunt them down and destroy them.
New Gods: the main bad-guy in this series was named Darkseid. Sound familiar? His arch enemy was his son, who lived on the edenic planet of New Genesis. Darkseid lived on the machine planet Apokolips which features a smoldering circular pit or two.