Catastrophe in Substitute Springfields!/References

References/Trivia

Cultural references

The story's title is a reference to the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline from DC Comics.
In the story's opening text, the imperfect duplicates are referred to as "Berzerkos", which is a play on Bizarro, a DC Comics villain who is an imperfect clone of Superman and who often speaks in opposites. Bizarro also appears briefly as the Homer clone begins mutating.
On the last page, when the panel displays all of the substitute Springfieldians, a substitute appears that looks remarkably similar to Fry from Futurama, Groening's other television series.
Kang and Kodos' miniature city in a bottle is a reference to Kandor from the Superman comics, a Kryptonian city best known for being shrunk and captured by the supervillain Brainiac.