Comics & Countries

To quote Mike Timonin You know, I'd love to see a Canadian hero who isn't a) a copy of an American hero, b) somehow connected to hockey, c) Wolverine, or d) all of the above.

After some searching we found a comic book hero who is Canadian, not connected to hockey and not Wolverine.

What non-American comic book heroes do you know of? Which do you think 'work' best for the cultures they represent and why?





[from] http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=12175

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[MercuryBlue at work]

Define 'American'. I'm thinking of Storm from the X-Men, who is originally...*checks Wiki to be sure*...from NYC. Never mind me. But would a character from Kenya (such as one of Storm's parents) in a work from the US count as non-American? What about a source from an American country other than the USA?

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: But would a character from Kenya (such as one of Storm's parents) in a work from the US count as non-American?

The way I am thinking of it -- no. I can imagine a comic penned by a Kenyan that is set in the US -- but a comic penned by an American wherein the vast majority of the characters are American but which has a few "token" non-Americans wouldn't count for me.

[surprises aplenty]

Superman is half-Canadian - well the duo that created him was.

[Lou Doench]

Ummm Alpha Flight is an entire Superhero team made up of almost exclusively Canadians.

[Mike Timonin]

Alpha Flight includes the character Puck, clearly hockey derived. More to the point, though, Alpha Flight is an American comic, filled with American ideas about what a Canadian superhero team would look like - grounded in American ideas about what Canadians are all about. Further, many of the characters are clearly Canadian "skins" on American characters - Sasquatch = the Hulk, Guardian = Iron Man, and the various mutants are all clearly second string X-Men.

My original comment, IIRC, was more about Canadian produced comics rather than Canadian characters in American comics (Wolverine notwithstanding), and I was thinking, mostly, of characters like Captain Canuck, who is clearly a Canadian derivative of Captain America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Canuck). I think, clearly, Nelvana (above) sort of works (although, shades of Thor and Wonder Woman?). I'm not sure what a uniquely Canadian superhero would look like - but how about a comic based on Mufferaw Joe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Joe_Mufferaw

[analogheretic.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly limited since I only read English, but I'll give it a go.

John Constantine - British - Hellblazer was published in the US, but was written by a Brit and set in London. There's a lot of British cultural trappings in it. I say he could count.

Marvelman - British - While he started out a clone of Captain Marvel, Alan Moore's revival was something new and interesting, but also the start of a lot of deconstructivist knock-offs of what Moore does best.

V - British - V for Vendetta

Asterix and Obelix - French

Tintin - Belgian

Tank Girl - British, but set in Australia

A whole slew of assorted heroes and such from Japanese manga.

I also want to mention the global influence of 2000 A.D., which gave us such classics as Judge Dredd and brought prominence to a whole slew of the best comic writers to come out of the British Isles.

Oddly, Nelvana is the only comic book character I can think of that fits those four criteria, and that makes me sad. As a comic reader, I have to say that it can be monotonous to see a lot of the same stories being told again and again and to see the same sort of heroes come up over and over again. A lot of the "foreign" heroes are basically palette swaps of American heroes and that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Different cultures are going to value different things in their heroes. And there's no effort involved in creating a Captain Canuck or a Captain Britain. I think laziness contributes a lot to bad writing in general, and bad comic writing in particular.

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

Wait, hold on - how about .... Captain Britain!
*ducks incoming farm animals*

There's also Fleur de Lys as far as homegrown Canadian superheroes go, so don't forget about her. If you wanted to extend it to include parodies, we can talk about "Karmatron", created by Oscar González Loyo to poke fun at all things New Age. And that's before we get into heroes like Kamen Rider, Battle of the Planets, and other Japanese-inspired super/science heroes*, characters in Chinese manhua and Korean manhwa (fun fact - manga, manhua and manhwa are all cognates of each other). Superhero is such a broad term, though - one man's superhero is another man's ancient deity. Was Odysseus a Superhero? What about the Monkey King?

@Mike Timonin: Wow, that'll teach me to expect Shakespeare out of comics. For god only knows how long I thought Puck was a reference to the character Robin Goodfellow >.<

Fun fact - you'd have an easier case finding non-humans inside of a comic book than you would obvious non-Americans. Moira McTaggart is Irish and she comes to mind, while Colossus is supposed to be Russian. Nightcrawler has retained his German heritage somewhat, but for some reason, he's Catholic rather than Protestant (which I guess is a nice subversion of assumed stereotypes based on population dynamics; there's a lot of Catholics in Germany - my penpal when I was growing up was one - but the majority of Germans last checking were Lutheran Protestants). A few of the newer characters - including one named Dust - comes from some unnamed country in the Middle East. These characters, though, are foreigners as written by Americans, and it shows.

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

*Foreigners to the US, that is. Exclusionary language is not intended. My apologies.

[Launcifer]

@J. Enigma: Nightcrawler's from Bavaria, isn't he? If so, then his being Catholic makes sense, because there's still a strong tradition of it in that neck of the woods.

[Launcifer]

Er, apologies for the sweeping generalisation there, obviously.

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

*some quick google-fu*

And you would be right, Launcifer. Nightcrawler is indeed from Bavaria.

Huh. I guess I need to read more comics.

[Froborr]

How about Paperinick? That's a USian character (Donald Duck) reimagined as a gentleman thief and occasional superhero by Italian writers...

[Mike Timonin]

J. Enigma - I would have assumed Robin Goodfellow as well, except he's small (a dwarf) and bouncy (super-humanly athletic) and wears an all black suit - the man is a human hockey puck.

Ok. As far as Canadian superheros go, the National Archives has this: http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/lac-bac/guardians_north-ef/2009/www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/superheroes/t3-300-e.html

9 heroes, with the suggestion of a number of others. Of the 9 with bios, 2 are clearly intended to be ironic send-ups of the superhero genre, two flow out of the patriotism of WWII (Johnny Canuck [well-trained human; see Batman, James Bond] and Canada Jack [extrastrong, well trained human; Batman/Captain America]) and three (Captain Canada, Captain Canuck, and Northguard) are Captain America in Canadian clothes. Which leaves Nelvana and Northern Light, who are both pretty cool. This forces me to wonder if, despite the obvious hunger for superheroes (comics sell well in Canada), the concept of superheroes is somehow not congruent with the Canadian self-perception.

[Nenya]

My girlfriend (the superhero comics expert in this Canadian household) says that in DCnU, Booster Gold is now Canadian. Also from the 25th century, and not particularly a takeoff on any other character. Although he's kind of the anti-Superman, in some ways. (I need to go rewatch that Smallville episode again, yes I do.)

[Froborr]

@Nenya: What are you talking about? DC stopped publishing comics this year, abruptly canceling all of their ongoing series, and never published anything else again. Anything you hear to the contrary is evil lies. *puts hands over ears and sings loudly and tunelessly*

[mercredigirl]

While I have never actually read the original canon, I heard many years ago of the Filipino superhero Darna (déb. 1950). The Philippines has a strong tradition of homegrown superhero comics, with the older ones dating to World War 2 and fighting the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia. I know that there was a Malaysian film parody of Spider-Man called Cicakman (Lizard-man), which was camp in the extreme. And Singapore has, recently, put out superhero comics too.

[Jake]

Does it have to be comics/superheroes? What about Benton Fraser? Okay, that's a little tongue-in-cheek, but he's kind of a hero. A lot of American tv is filmed in Canada as well, does that count? Is Bill Adama an American hero even though BSG was filmed in Vancouver? And that show is chock full of non-USian actors (although Olmos isn't one of them). It is a pretty American show though.

Xena's not American. Kiwi actor, filmed in New Zealand, set (loosely) in ancient Greece.

LotR was written by a Brit and set in a fictional universe not based on the U.S. To the extent that any of its characters are heroes, they are not American heroes.

Harry Potter?

[Mmy]

@Jake: What about Benton Fraser? Okay, that's a little tongue-in-cheek, but he's kind of a hero.

I think a good case could be made that Benton Fraser (Due South) is an example of the "colonization" of a culture by another culture's perceptions/understandings of it. -- That is, Fraser never really was an image that most Canadians who had interactions with the RCMP had of individual members of the RCMP. Taken straight that "mountie" image is one that comes right out of Hollywood movies. Fraser could be argued to be the way Canadians perceive Americans to view Canadians image of themselves rather than having anything to do with actual Canadian perceptions of the RCMP.

Actual Canadian images of/experiences with the RCMP are far more nuanced (at best) than I think most Americans realize.

My personal take is that the image of Benton Fraser was created by Canadians who were making dry fun of American misconceptions about Canada.

[Eli]

Anyone know any country-specific webcomics?

[storiteller]

Not a comic book hero originally (although he does have comic books about him, along with things in almost every other media), but my husband and I have an ongoing discussion over whether The Doctor (from Doctor Who, of course) is a superhero or not. I argue that he doesn't use physical fighting enough - especially in the old Who - while he argues that he fits all of the other tropes like fantastical villains, special powers, protecting the public, etc. Either way, he's unmistakably British.

As I know we have a lot of Who fans on here, what does everyone else think?

[Kish]

I'm not a Dr. Who fan--never seen it--but I don't see "at least X amount of physical fighting" as a requirement for a superhero...even if "X" is "any."

[Mike Timonin]

Eli - Scandanavia and the World.

Mmy - I swear I posted a comment agreeing with you re: Benton Fraser. I must have missed a captcha. Anyway, yeah, I think it is clear that Fraser is wryly poking fun at the American image of Canadians. He sleeps on the floor! He has a wolf! He's incurably polite! etc. Fraser is clearly an iteration of the Hollywood Mountie, like Sgt. Preston and Dudley DoRight.

[Michael I]

The short-lived company Virgin Comics had several series based on Hindu mythology.

(The one I'm familiar with is Devi , named for the divine half of the main character. I rather liked it, although I can't really say how well it represents its culture.)