A side effect of the fact that costumed superheroics originated and are primarily popular in America has resulted in a really poor representation of other cultures in super hero comic books. Take Ireland as a not-so-random example. Although Ireland has only about 2% of the population of America, Irishmen make up considerably less than 2% of the costumed superheroes available. In fact, I can think of only 2 notable examples.

Ireland is represented in DC Comics by Jack O'Lantern, a dude who uses a magic fairy lamp shaped like a plastic Halloween pumpkin bucket to fly and...generate fog.Marvel's Banshee is probably better known, but only because he was a longtime supporting character of the X-Men, not because of his tendency to dress in green and use his mutant power of shouting really, really loud. (He died, but his daughter, creatively named Siren, carries on the family tradition of screaming at people she doesn't like.)

Hmm. With those great examples, maybe Ireland should be pleased to be underrepresented.

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