I think it is a colonial thing, at least a colonial british thing, as i can't talk for colonial spain. I've lived for multiple years in Britain, New Zealand and America, and am familiar with Australia and Canada. You see this in these countries as a way to distinguish them from each other, because they all have basically the same heritage. This means they need to stress there differences. This is most easily seen between Aussies and Kiwis, though many people aren't aware of this as they're smaller countries.
Have a look at this silliness:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2007/01/2008525122354992534.html
or this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwiana (I couldn't find a link to something equivalent done by Kiwis to the australians)
This is mindless chest-puffing on behalf of these countries, but goes unnoticed by the wider world. Of course when america does it everyone looks. As for britain, it is still fundamentally a class system and thus looks inwardly for comparison. There are no big British superheros because Britain very rarely sees itself as a whole, you have Scottish, Northern Irish and welsh, and then England has its very important classes. (Though people will deny it, but what are chavs except for a PC word for lower class?)
