Meta-y question

[sylph_fics]

Okay, I know I have at least a few international people on my flist. This question is actually for all y'all, or anyone else that wants to weigh if you've got something to add.

I love DC comics (or at least, I love the DCU [current editorial and I aren't talking]), but some days the gaps in how the mythos is set up gets really exasperating, and I'd like some help figuring out how to fill in a particular set of those gaps.

Over in the 'Uncle Sam' corner of the DCU, we've got Uncle Sam and Columbia (at least currently. Billy Yank and whoever 'Bea was then, and Johnny Reb and Dixie... they went back to sleep a while back). The UK, they've got Britannia and have for a real long time (Canada too? Or do y'all Canadians have your own? for that matter, Australia?). France has Marianne, even if supposedly she's very weak. Russia has the Bear -- and Mother Russia, come on, DC, get it right, would you? Italy should have Italia (Roma Mater in a new guise), not that we saw that.

But, um. There's rather a lot more countries than that. So any of you from places not the USofA... What would yours be? (ETA for clarity: What would your national personification be? I can hunt wiki for DC heroes of various nations, I don't trust it for a second to get national mythologies right.)

Or, even if you are US based, anyone know enough other national mythologies to lend me a hand?

Comments

[slipstreamborne.livejournal.com]

Don't know that this is what you're exactly looking for, but DCU did a mini of "DC around the world" type comics (Planet DC, google tells me) a few years ago where US-centered heroes visited a bunch of other countries and had adventures with those countries' heroes. The only one I can remember was Batgirl in India, where she and Batman teamed up with Aruna, a shape-shifter, in a pretty cool story.

[ilyena_sylph]

Cool, but no, that's not what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for the national personifications, not so much the heroes.

[slipstreamborne.livejournal.com]

Figured but thought I'd give it a shot.

Hmm... I'm almost certain there are more specifically from the WWII era (esp. from other companies that DC has bought up over the years) but I'm completely drawing a blank.

[ilyena_sylph]

+grins+

Oh, there are. Germania and Helvetica and the Maiden of Finland and a whole host, I just don't know if those old symbols are still the ones that matter to the people that live there.

And I'm really curious about the Asian countries, since I really don't know enough there. I can get to most European nation's figures, I just don't know that area at all so I don't even want to guess.

[slipstreamborne.livejournal.com]

This may be a long shot, but if you're not too tied to figures appearing in comics specifically you may want to look into resources on Editorial Cartoons around the world, as that may turn up some other national personifications.

[ilyena_sylph]

+laughs+ that's actually a really good thought, and I know a lot of what I want to know hasn't been in DC comics, DC seems to think that the entire world is the US, except when other bits of it are useful.

That'd be a real good place to start, though, thanks! Not a long shot at all.