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The Superman Conundrum

This is my pet name for the struggle to determine the "Canadian-ness" of a character.

You must at one time or another have received the e-mail that highlights all the things that make Canada awesome, right? Smarties, basketball, and often times Superman are listed as reasons.

But Superman is not really Canadian.

Yes, his co-creator (Joe Shuster) is Canadian-born. He moved to Cleveland at the age of 10, many years before Superman was "born", making this little deal highly questionable:


That's not to knock Joe Shuster's contribution to the industry. Hardly.

The point is that at times, determining nationality is a little tricky. Spawn was a creation of Canadian Todd McFarlane, but the character's nationality is American. There is nothing about Spawn that is Canadian (to my knowledge).

Wolverine was created by Americans but the character was said to be Canadian, and it is a significant part of his history. Do you assign priority to the creator's factual background or to the character's fictional one?

Ultimately, this blog is about the latter. Yes, at times the line will be blurred and the "Canadian" label may be debatable. Windshear from Alpha Flight is "Canadian-born" but moved to Great Britain at the age of five. He was created by Argentina-born Fabian Nicieza and American Michael Bair. What to do??

Something of a judgement call is required. Windshear was a member of a Canadian team, and was based out of Canada, so he is included.  And an alien character created by a Canadian "counts" because he/she/it is not of any other nationality either.

Mind you, Superman is an alien, and he was co-created by a Canadian-born...

Ah, just forget it. My blog, my rules. ;-)