Superman Renounces American Citizenship

Let's get one thing straight: I really don't care about Superman.  Never have, probably never will.  So when it was revealed that Superman renounced his American citizenship in Action Comics #900, I decided I had no qualms with Superman losing his soul and becoming <gasp> a communist!  But still, it's a fairly big moment for comics and definitely worth discussing.  For the record, I have yet to read this comic, so take my slightly completely unfounded commentary with a few heapings of salt.

Where you going with that flag Supes?  YOU'RE TAKING IT TO RUSSIA AREN'T YOU?!?

Now, at first I never really got Superman's American obession with "The American Way".  I may be as patriotic as they come, but it never felt like Superman was isolated to just one country.  There was much more sci-fi in his origin, and as an alien it felt weird having him being restrained by geography in such a way.  Of course, I then realized the idea of Superman as an immigration story, I slightly bought into it.  But Superman never really stood for America in the same way that Cap did.  It felt like they created a protector for the world and then threw in America as something superfluous.  You could really put Superman in any setting or time period and you would have the same (boring) character.  So, why do I disagree with him no longer being a US citizen?

From what I can tell, the reason for this change is that Superman believes himself to be a "citizen of the world" and basically doesn't want to play favorites.  Which is a fair mentality.  If you have the ability to protect the entire world, I don't see why he needs to focus on America any more than everyone else (except for Canada, for obvious reasons).  However, no longer being a US citizen is going a bit too far.  A citizen means you are member of a specific social or political institution, and claim to be a part of that hierarchy (we are not going to be getting any more technical than that on this blog, ever ever ever).  Clark Kent was raised in the states, he lives in the states, and will most likely spend the rest of his life in the states.  Regardless of whether or not he wants to help the rest of the world, as long as Clark Kent has an enduring residency in Metropolis or Smallville, that's enough to count as a citizen in my book.  It's his home.  You have to admit, after 30+ years of living with the Kents and in Metropolis and with literally no recollection of his brief time on Krypton, he's essentially an American.  And that isn't mutually exclusive with being a citizen of the world.  I can be, for example, a part of Doctors Without Borders and frequently volunteer in impoverished reasons and still be a US citizen.  Or Green Peace, or the military, or simply having a job that puts me on the road for an entire year.  That doesn't change the fact that America is my home, and as far as I can tell it's still Superman's.