the fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly - geek alert geek alert. don't laugh at me, but

you know, I don't think the justice league could have come from any other country than america. I'm studying american dominance and whether it is an empire for my international relations paper, right, and so much of it resonates with what I know of the JLA. for instance, check out this sentence-

In a new era where old forms of deterrence and traditional assumptions about threats no longer held, it was up to America to impose its own form of peace on a disorderly world: to fight the savage war of peace so as to protect and enlarge the empire of liberty (Boot, 2002)

heh it reminds me of one of the Justice League (Unlimited) episodes (season 2, episode 22, Flashpoint) where Lex Luthor hacks into their tower, turns it into a giant nuclear weapon, fires it and the entire world subsequently fears them- and they simply cannot understand why. Superman really didn't get it, his complete and utter inability to understand where everyone else was coming from was quite laughably sad. Batman on the other hand, being one of the few non-powered heroes in the League, totally got it. I think the Green Arrow got it too.

...er I lost my train of thought, but I think my point was something along the lines of I really do think the JLA is a good metaphor for America in the international system. superman even more so; I remember having a conversation about whether superman or captain america was more 'american', and concluding that captain america was more what america is (what it actually does), and superman more what america wants to be (the lofty idealistic version). because capt seems more gritty and realistic, having to deal with military stuff, top secret things, politics, human-made wars; superman is in a class of his own, is the leader of the world's superpowers and helps others benevolently while guarding the world against twisted villains with warped ways of thinking. if you'll excuse the sometimes-false dichotomy I think it's largely true!

also I don't think the x-men could have come from China (for example) either, but I'm still working on that explanation. :P possibly it has to do with a much lower tolerance for minority groups and a tendency to crackdown/radicalisation? so the mutant-human divide (especially with radical groups like the Brotherhood and the firepower they have) would more probably have erupted into a civil war or extremely unstable and volatile situation, rather than continued to exist and simmer within a state?

(but I wouldn't make that statement unequivocally because I know very little about China .__. the impression I have of China is full of fire, pride, stern strength, steel and dragons. mind you, this mostly comes from isolated historical episodes and period drama episodes. :P)