Booksology 
This formula of a small fictional country, caught up in a conflict between democratic-loving freedom fighters and rebellious guerrillas led by greedy, ambitious dictators, set the standard for how comics portrayed Latin America for decades to come. You can see it A journey to mystery #84…
…the avengers #35…
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…and Justice League of America #98, give some examples.
In later stories, the creators tried to add a bit of “local flavour” to the fictional countries. Still, the source of their inspiration was minimal and not extended completely, not revolutionary Mexico and Cuba. The characters they meet there are thieves, tyrants, oppressed peasants, mysterious beautiful women: the same, cut out of worn cloth.
Another thing they had in common was the need for our white spray stars to recharge with terrible heroes and save innocent locals from confusion, incompetence and violence. Not once It had something to do with foreign interference. No matter how brave and determined the freedom warriors are, they cannot protect or promote themselves or their nation.
Until the 1970s Church Commission hearing, US CIA interference in Latin American issues was not a general knowledge. (It appears in later stories, like Flash #53 in 1991.) It’s natural that the main characters in the comic should save the day. After all, they are the heroes. The problem is that all the main characters are white and Latin American characters are usually not the case despite their lazy coloring. The whole thing reads like a story of a very powerful white savior.
Due to the nature of superhero comics, we still tend to travel south of the border and elsewhere. However, these days, this issue is likely to be environmental and/or imperialist rather than civil war. I’ll see this Absolute Superman #1…
…Similarly Nubia: Queen of the Amazonwith the added advantage of featuring Brazilian superhero Yara Full and Alias Wonder Girl.
These are certainly necessary stories to be told. It’s great to see superhero comics acknowledge that Latin America’s problems are more subtle than the overly simple “our rebels are good/rebels are bad” dichotomy. The next step is for the comics and their creators to spotlight the good things in Latin America, rather than defaulting a long and problematic history of conflict and exploitation.
