A Newsweek article about Spider-Man 2, which primarily focuses on the near firing of star Tobey Maguire, includes this adept observation of how America sees itself:

Much has been made of the fact that “Spider-Man” was the first post-9/11 blockbuster, and the conventional wisdom is that the film was a phenomenon because America needed heroes again. But maybe it’s something more. To the rest of the world, the superhero symbol of the United States is Superman