The Hall of Justice: The Justice Gang's Unfinished Headquarters
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Hall of Justice is the original English name, which French versions translate literally as Hall de justice: it's the Justice Gang's headquarters in Superman (2025). In James Gunn's film, the building belongs to Maxwell Lord, and it's still under construction when Lois Lane walks in. Its silhouette goes back a long way: to an art deco train station in Cincinnati, which inspired the Hall in the American cartoon Super Friends in 1973. You'll discover what the film shows, scene by scene, where the place comes from, and where the comics have set it.
📋 Contents
- The Hall of Justice in Superman (2025): where it appears
- Why “unfinished”: a building still under construction
- Maxwell Lord, owner of the Hall and patron of the team
- The rotunda: Lois Lane comes looking for help
- The metahuman murals in place of the mosaics
- Cincinnati Union Terminal, the film's real building
- Super Friends (1973): where the Hall of Justice was born
- The Hall of Justice in comics: Gotham, Washington, then 2018
- From Lois & Clark to the Arrowverse, and the pitfalls to avoid
- FAQ — Frequently asked questions
- Conclusion
The Hall of Justice in Superman (2025): where it appears
Superman, James Gunn's film, opened in France on July 9, 2025, and in the United States on July 11, 2025. It grossed $618,723,803 worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. The Hall of Justice isn't its main setting, but it points back to a place born in a 1973 cartoon.
The building shows up about an hour into the film, according to the review by WOSU, a public radio station in Ohio. First you see its facade: the words “Hall of Justice” above the clock, and a green Metropolis flag on the north flagpole. In the story, then, the Hall is in Metropolis, Superman's city, even though the facade belongs to a very real train station.
This Hall is the headquarters of the Justice Gang, a team of heroes funded by a businessman. It isn't the Justice League: there is none in this film. Before the release, a clip put out by Toyota USA already showed Lois Lane walking to her car in front of the Hall, TV station WCPO reports.
Key Facts
- Original name: Hall of Justice
- In Superman (2025): headquarters of the Justice Gang, in Metropolis
- Owner: Maxwell Lord
- Status in the film: still under construction
- Filming location: Cincinnati Union Terminal, an art deco train station opened in 1933
- First appearance: Super Friends, episode “The Power Pirate,” a series aired on ABC in the United States starting September 8, 1973
Why “unfinished”: a building still under construction
The word comes from James Gunn first. In late June 2025, before the release, he answered Brandon Davis in an interview. His sentence, quoted word for word by SuperHeroHype and Fiction Horizon: “You see the Hall of Justice and you see that it's not even finished yet.” Put plainly: the Hall of Justice you see on screen isn't even complete yet. It's a line from an interview, not a line of dialogue from the film.
The film points the same way. According to CityBeat, a Cincinnati newspaper, the Hall is still under construction when Lois Lane arrives: workers are putting letters up on the art deco facade. On July 6, 2025, the site CBR looked back at the interview and at this building shown mid-construction. Gunn's interview and CityBeat's review therefore say the same thing: the work isn't done.
Unfinished doesn't mean abandoned. The name “Hall of Justice” is already readable above the clock, as WOSU notes. The place is neither in ruins nor left to decay: it's still under construction at the time of the film.
Maxwell Lord, owner of the Hall and patron of the team
In the same interview, James Gunn says who the place belongs to. The Hall, like the Justice Gang, belongs to Maxwell Lord, played by Sean Gunn. Fiction Horizon and Superman Homepage reported his remarks on June 28, 2025, and SuperHeroHype on June 30, 2025.
On screen, the film says so briefly: the Justice Gang is funded by Lord, as the site Inverse noted on July 11, 2025. English Wikipedia presents him as the team's financial backer, through his company LordTech. French Wikipedia describes a team “founded and funded by Maxwell Lord, CEO of LordTech.”
One detail is surprising: Lord never appears in person in the Hall. He only makes a cameo near the end of the film. Owner doesn't mean member. Lord pays for the walls and the team, but he isn't one of the Justice Gang's heroes. In 2025, then, the heroes' HQ belongs to a businessman, not to the team that occupies it.
The rotunda: Lois Lane comes looking for help
Inside, everything happens in the rotunda. WOSU describes a single long scene. Three members of the Justice Gang are gathered there: Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific. CityBeat even finds the rotunda too big for its occupants.
Lois Lane, played by Rachel Brosnahan, comes to bring them bad news: Superman is being held in Luthor's pocket universe. She is looking for help to find him. Mister Terrific agrees to go with her.
Keep this in mind: Superman himself never sets foot in the Hall during the entire film. The HQ belongs to another team and to another man. It's Lois who makes the trip to the rotunda, while the hero is a prisoner.
The metahuman murals in place of the mosaics
In the real rotunda of Union Terminal, the walls feature mosaics by Winold Reiss. They tell the history of Cincinnati and of America. For the film, they are replaced on screen by murals in the same style. The subject changes: these murals tell the history of the DCU's metahumans, the powered beings of this new DC universe. Local TV station WLWT pointed this out on July 10, 2025.
On July 26, 2025, the site Inverse identified the painted characters one by one. It numbered 24 entries, including two duos (Bulletman and Bulletgirl, TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite): that makes 26 characters. The last entry is Maxwell Lord, presented as the one who likely commissioned the mural. So Lord appears on the walls of the building he owns. The DC Universe wiki gives a nearly identical list, which adds Lucifer, El Diablo's horse.
This count is based on the full mural, which James Gunn posted on X. If you rewatch the rotunda scene, look at the walls as much as at the characters: they're the ones telling the story of the metahumans of this new universe.
Cincinnati Union Terminal, the film's real building
The Hall in the film is a real building: Cincinnati Union Terminal, in Ohio. It's an art deco train station built from 1928 to 1933 and opened in 1933. According to English Wikipedia, the project is by the firm Fellheimer & Wagner, with the design entrusted to Roland A. Wank, and Paul Philippe Cret as a consultant from 1930 on. Today the building houses the Cincinnati Museum Center.
The film crews moved in starting Wednesday, July 17, 2024, under the code name “Genesis,” with S&K Pictures trucks, Fox19 reports. A Metropolis flag was raised in front of the station. The Hall scenes were shot in the rotunda and along the long approach drive. The Lytle Tunnel, in the city, also served as a set. Filming on the movie wrapped on July 30, 2024. Ohio granted a tax credit of more than $11 million for Cleveland and Cincinnati combined.
On July 8, 2025, a few fans saw the film in an advance screening at Union Terminal's Omnimax, according to CityBeat. In late July 2025, in a WVXU radio report picked up by WOSU, museum spokesperson Cody Hefner felt it was too early to measure an effect on paid admissions. He did, however, see visitors coming to photograph the rotunda.
Super Friends (1973): where the Hall of Justice was born
The Hall of Justice wasn't born in a comic, but on television. It appears in Super Friends, a Hanna-Barbera animated series that aired on ABC in the United States starting September 8, 1973. The original lineup: Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, plus Wendy, Marvin, and the dog Wonder Dog.
The Hall serves as HQ from the very first episode, “The Power Pirate.” There the heroes receive alerts from a computer called TroubAlert. According to English Wikipedia, the first season has 16 hour-long episodes, aired until December 22, 1973, then rerun until August 24, 1974. The narrator's line “Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice…” stays tied to the series: Cartoon Research opens its 50th-anniversary article with it, on September 22, 2023.
In France, the series is called Le Plein de super. It aired there starting December 24, 1988, and ran on Canal+ as part of Décode pas Bunny, according to French Wikipedia. Around 1985, a follow-up series, aired in the United States, shows a bigger, pentagon-shaped Hall. You'll find these cartoons in the list of Superman series.
The Hall's design comes from Al Gmuer, Hanna-Barbera's head background artist, who took his inspiration from Union Terminal. One detail sheds light on that choice: from 1966 to 1987, Hanna-Barbera belonged to Taft Broadcasting, a Cincinnati company (SlashFilm, English Wikipedia). In 2009, Gmuer told the Cincinnati Enquirer: “I had nightmares about that damn building.” In other words, the building itself haunted his sleep.
The Hall of Justice in comics: Gotham, Washington, then 2018
In comic books, the Hall appears as early as 1976, in the Super Friends comic. Issue #1, cover-dated November 1976, is titled “The Fury of the Super Foes”: written by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by Ric Estrada. That Hall is located in Gotham City, as issue #11, dated May 1978, confirms. It stays outside DC's main continuity.
It takes until Justice League of America vol. 2 #7, cover-dated May 2007, for the Hall to truly enter continuity. The issue, “The Tornado's Path, Epilogue: Roll Call,” is written by Brad Meltzer and drawn by Ed Benes. There the Hall is in Washington. It is designed by John Stewart and Wonder Woman, and funded by Batman. Superman is among the members who join the Justice League in this issue.
Justice League vol. 4 #1, published in 2018, by Scott Snyder and Jim Cheung, sets up a new Hall. The issue credits its architecture to Martian Manhunter, who designed it based on an ancient Martian symbol related to the idea of justice, as ScreenRant noted on June 6, 2018. Gotham in 1976, Washington in 2007, a brand-new building in 2018: the comics' Hall keeps changing buildings.
The Hall of Justice, from the train station to the DCU
From Lois & Clark to the Arrowverse, and the pitfalls to avoid
On screen, the name comes back in other forms. In Lois & Clark, the episode “Lethal Weapon” (season 4, episode 12, aired in the United States on January 5, 1997) mentions a “hall of justice.” It's a public building in Metropolis, police headquarters according to English Wikipedia, threatened by Mr. Gadget. Lois rushes there to warn Superman. It's a nod, not the heroes' HQ.
In the animated series Young Justice, the Hall is only a public front: it hides the teleporters to the Watchtower. In the Arrowverse, a S.T.A.R. Labs hangar shaped like the Hall serves as the heroes' base in “Invasion!”, aired in the United States in 2016. It becomes their rallying point again at the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, aired in the United States from December 2019 to January 2020. You also run into it in DC animated films, such as Justice League vs. Teen Titans or The Death of Superman, and in games like Injustice: Gods Among Us or Lego Batman 3.
On the toy side, Mego turned it into a playset in 1976, then Kenner made a “Super Powers” version in 1984: something to interest action figure collectors. One last trap: Peacemaker season 2 (HBO Max, released August 21, 2025, in the United States and August 22, 2025 in France). Lord, Gardner, and Hawkgirl put Peacemaker through a job interview in it. The scene doesn't take place at the Hall, but in an abandoned toy store, Krank Toys.
Don't mix these up
- Hall of Justice and Justice League: in 2025, the Hall houses the Justice Gang, a sponsored team. The film has no League.
- Hall of Doom: the HQ of the Legion of Doom, in Challenge of the Superfriends, a series aired in the United States in 1978.
- Watchtower and Fortress: the Watchtower is the League's satellite; the Fortress of Solitude is Superman's.
- Real Halls of Justice: in San Francisco or in Los Angeles, these are courthouse buildings.
- Cincinnati and Metropolis: Union Terminal is in Cincinnati; in the film, the Hall is in Metropolis.
FAQ — Frequently asked questions
What is the Hall of Justice in Superman 2025?
It's the headquarters of the Justice Gang, the team of heroes funded by Maxwell Lord. In the story, the building is in Metropolis. To film it, the production used Cincinnati Union Terminal, an art deco train station in Ohio.
Why isn't the Hall of Justice finished in Superman?
The film shows it still under construction: when Lois Lane arrives, workers are putting letters up on the facade, according to CityBeat. James Gunn had said so in an interview in late June 2025: “not even finished yet.” Yet the name is already readable above the clock. The building is under construction, not abandoned.
Who owns the Hall of Justice in the DCU?
Maxwell Lord, played by Sean Gunn. James Gunn made it clear in an interview, and the film briefly says that Lord funds the Justice Gang. Yet Lord never appears in person in the Hall, only on the mural: he just makes a cameo near the end.
Where was Superman's Hall of Justice filmed?
At Cincinnati Union Terminal, in Ohio, in July 2024. The scenes were shot in the rotunda and along the long approach drive. The building, opened in 1933, now houses the Cincinnati Museum Center.
Does Superman go to the Hall of Justice in the film?
No. It's Lois Lane who goes there, while Superman is a prisoner in Luthor's pocket universe. There she finds Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific. Mister Terrific agrees to help her find Superman.
Where does the Hall of Justice come from?
From the animated series Super Friends, aired on ABC in the United States starting September 8, 1973. The Hall is the heroes' HQ there from the very first episode, “The Power Pirate.” Its design, by Al Gmuer, draws on Union Terminal.
What is Super Friends called in French?
Le Plein de super. The series aired in France starting December 24, 1988. It also ran on Canal+ as part of Décode pas Bunny, according to French Wikipedia.
Does the Hall of Justice exist in DC comics?
Yes. It appears as early as 1976 in the Super Friends comic, in Gotham City, outside continuity. It enters continuity with Justice League of America vol. 2 #7, dated May 2007, where it's located in Washington. A new Hall arrives in 2018 in Justice League vol. 4 #1.
Does the Justice Gang meet Peacemaker at the Hall of Justice?
No. In Peacemaker season 2, Maxwell Lord, Guy Gardner, and Hawkgirl give him a job interview in an abandoned toy store, Krank Toys. The Hall isn't the setting of that scene.
Conclusion
The 2025 Hall of Justice comes down to a few facts: a Maxwell Lord building still under construction, one long scene in the rotunda, metahuman murals, and a Superman who never goes inside. Behind the facade, there's a 1933 train station and a 1973 cartoon.
To go further, start with the Justice Gang, then with Superman's place in the Justice League in the comics. And if you're wondering how good the film really is beyond this setting, it has its own article.