Most of the Superfriends who didn't appear in comics first, including Apache Chief, El Dorado, Black Vulcan, and Samurai. However, outside Samurai, Apache Chief and Black Vulcan were jettisoned in the final incarnation, with Cyborg (who is an established character from the comics) taking the latter's place.
Justice League Unlimited later included throwbacks to the Super Friends-exclusive superheroes, but gave them names that were more realistic while still retaining an element of ethnic identity. Samurai became Wind Dragon, Black Vulcan became Juice, and Apache Chief became Longshadow. El Dorado wasn't included.
Similar to the JLU example, Young Justice (2010) brought a teenage version of Apache Chief into the show under the name Tye Longshadow. They went with a more modern take on the character and seem to be attempting to distance him from the stereotypes of the Super Friends version. "Runaways" confirms fan suspicions that they've also updated the other ethnic Super Friends as Eduardo "Ed" Dorado, Jr., and genderflipping Samurai as Asami "Sam" Koizumi, while Black Vulcan was replaced with Static, as Black Lightning had already made cameo appearances. The revival season Outsiders even sees Ed take up "El Dorado" as a codename, with both Static and Black Lightning having prominent roles. At season's end, Black Lightning even becomes the head of the Justice League.
Apache Chief was eventually introduced in the comics as the more sensitively portrayed Manitou Raven, and briefly stood as a member of the Justice League as well. The others, eh, not so much.
Samurai eventually did make it into the DCU during the JLA tie-in to Brightest Day, ridiculous costume and name still intact. There was actually a prior attempt to introduce Samurai into the DCU in the Justice League 80-Page Giant one-shot. They attempted to rationalize the name and costume by making him an actual samurai from feudal Japan who gained his abilities from a young sorceress. Unfortunately, this incarnation was pretty roundly ignored.
DC Rebirth sees El Dorado as a member of a Mexican version of the League.
When Colombia was receiving the Super Powers line of DC action figures in the 1980s a series of Superman action figures were repainted changing the red aspects of his costume to yellow and calling him El Capitan Rayo, which translates into Captain Ray (real name Francisco D’ardoine). He never actually appeared in any of the comics but presumably he was meant to be a Colombian version of Superman.
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law parodies this with Black Vulcan stating that it never his idea to call himself that, as seen in the page quote. Eventually, he joins up with Apache Chief and they form their own group of Super Friends, the Multiculture Pals. Of course, it also established that "Vulcan" is Black Vulcan's real last name, which means it makes even less sense.
The Global Guardians, an international (and originally, United Nations-funded) team of superheroes, with members like Little Mermaid (Denmark), Jack 'O Lantern (Ireland), and Tasmanian Devil (guess). These first appeared in the Super Friends tie-in comic before migrating to the DCU proper. Two of these, Green Flame and Icemaiden (after a name-change to Fire and Ice) shed their Captain Ethnic status and joined the Justice League of America.
Justice League Europe member Crimson Fox is a wealthy French perfume mogul (or two; the identity was shared between a pair of sisters) who possesses the power to seduce men and make them fall in love with her.
Subverted in the Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths, which showed Earth-D, where virtually every major DC superhero was a representative of some unusual (for superheroes) ethnicity. For example, Superman and Supergirl of Earth-D were black, and the Flash was Asian. Marv Wolfman, author of both CoIE and this "sequel" to it, stated that this was closer to how he'd envisioned the Post-CrisisDCU.
Katana, a Japanese heroine with a Rising Sun-themed costume and a magical Samurai sword. More recent depictions (such as Beware the Batman and the New 52) have ditched the nationalistic costume, at least. Batman: The Brave and the Bold, however, had her as a spunky teenager in a sailor fuku in the first season; come Season 2, she'd donned her original comic book costume. Beware the Batman has her wear a domino mask over her street clothes which consists of a black jacket and a pair of boots and grey pants.
In an issue of Infinite Crisis, Black Lightning (a black character created during the Blaxploitationcraze of the 70s) and Mister Terrific (a black character created in the late 90s/early 00s) go on a mission within the Brother Eye satellite, and the latter points out how ridiculous the former's name is. His response is that he was the only black superhero at the time of his debut, which was essentially true.
Icon had Buck Wild, a very deliberate parody of not only Luke Cage and Black Lightning, but virtually ever other black superhero created in the 70's. His role is lampshaded when Icon notes that while Buck embodied a number of negative stereotypes and often embarrassed the black community, he was also a pioneer who paved the way for the less-offensive black superheroes of today. Note that he was an explicit mishmash of a bunch of Blaxploitation-era superheroes. Black Lightning, The Falcon, and Luke Cage were among those that were parodied.
Grant Morrison's Great Ten, a Chinese superhero team, would probably be Banned in China, and they are supposed to be. Its members are heavily tied into Chinese Mythology and tradition and modern Chinese Communism, or at least the Western view of said. One of them is the Mother of Champions, whose whole superpower is based on rapidly producing litters of super-strong expendable children. The team was created not to be offensive per-se, but the creator commentary for their reveal in 52 says that they were intended to be self-caricatures in a way. The writers were not trying to be offensive, but were deliberately making a team based on foreign perceptions of a culture and outside viewpoints. Maybe a Take That! against the comic industry as a whole? Of course, considering the Japanese teams also created by Morrison... well, the only way it could get any more badass is if the two teams fought bloodily through Nanking.
Grant Morrison also invented the "Super Young Team", who embodied Japanese stereotypes for much the same reason.
In New 52's JLI, August General in Iron is a member of the titular Multinational Team and is a much broader caricature than he's ever been depicted as before, being a rude, anti-Western government drone.
New Super-Man introduces the Justice League of China, which was created in part due to embarrassment over the Great Ten. Not that they are much better: Wonder-Woman of China replaces the original's stars-stripes-eagle motif with a dragon-themed Anime Chinese Girl look and Superman of China's powers turn out to be heavily tied to Ki Manipulation. Not to mention they are literal Chinese knockoffs of Western superheroes, which is lampshaded by the aforementioned August General in Iron, no less.
The Knight; a second generation British Batman ripoff with a knight theme, with a subversive theme of him also being a broke ass noble taken in by a woman and her daughter, with the daughter becoming his new sidekick "The Squire". The latter became a player in recent issues of Batman, striking up a friendship with the new Robin, Damian.
Joining him as examples are all of the other members of the Batmen of Many Nations, such as the French Musketeer, the Argentinean Gaucho, the Italian Legionary, and the Native American Chief Man-of-Bats and his sidekick Little Raven. Thankfully, Grant Morrison revamped the characters into being less stereotypically offensive, right down to giving them their own "Club of Villains" enemies, including Pierrot Lunaire (a murderous mime), El Sombrero (a suit wearing luchadore who specializes in elaborate death traps), Charlie Caligula (who lords over a vast and hedonistic criminal "empire"), and le Bossu ("the Hunchback", whose henchmen dress as gargoyles).
The Swedish Wingman was a rather odd case: how many comic-book readers in the early 50s would have known just how much Sweden was into flight at time?
What's more, Batman, Inc revolves around appointing a local hero to act as Batman in countries all over the world. Thus Nightrunner, a French practitioner of Le Parkour, the Hood, a British secret agent, and the Japanese Mr. Unknown, a nerdy Covert Pervert whose secret base is underneath an anime hobby shop, are recruited into the company. That's in addition to the surviving members of the Club of Heroes, mind you.
Nightrunner is also a French-Algerian Muslim, which led to the spectacle of certain bigots (the kind who would likely spend every other hour decrying France) sending up a row about how Nightrunner wasn't "a real Frenchman."
The writer who created Nightrunner also claimed he did so because he felt that for once, France deserved a superhero who wasn't a complete cliche.
A "Batman of Moscow", an alcoholic Husky Russkie with an AK-47, has also made scattered appearances in the Bat-books.
Speaking of Batman Inc., the Knight and Squire miniseries introduced a whole slew of heroes and villains from the U.K., most of which were obscure British pop-culture references (which the trade paperback thankfully explains).
Batwing, the ex-child soldier from Congo who was orphaned after his parents died of the AIDS virus. Not that the individual members of Batman Inc. aren't badass mind you (most are), they just rely on a lot of cultural stereotypes.
Batwing's comic averts this with the Kingdom, a team of African heroes who don't embody any cultural stereotypes (unless you count "black guy with electrical powers", that is). Of course, it's also played straight not only by Batwing himself, but by his growing Rogues Gallery, including Massacre (a merciless, death-obsessed warlord), Lord Battle (a crazed dictator), and the Jackals (a brutal crew of Ruthless Modern Pirates).
The Ultramarine Corps had Vixen (African woman with animal powers), Goraiko (Japanese monster with a rising sun motif), and Fleur de Lis (French swordswoman with a name and costume inspired by her namesake symbol) just to name a few. Vixen is the only one with any character development, and that's only because she subsequently joined the Justice League. Vixen was an existing character who had previously joined the Justice League. Other pre-existing characters in the Corps included most of the former Global Guardians as well as the aforementioned Knight and Squire....
Captain Boomerang, though his (illegitimate) son is American. Even In-Universe, pretty much everyone in Australia hates him for being a stereotype.
In 2000, every DC series' annual featured a new heroic character from a foreign country. This flopped so badly that Geoff Johns killed off both characters he was ordered to create, in the pages of JSA and Infinite Crisis. The characters themselves varied wildly in how obnoxious they were about their national origin or how effective or interesting they were as characters (the Janissary from Turkey is generally regarded as one of the only decent-to-good ones).
In a montage page of Kingdom Come, one panel shows a fight with a quartet of Japanese superheroes. Their themes? A samurai, Kabuki Kommando from the Fourth World, a Humongous Mecha, Jade Fox (who has the kanji for "alone" tattooed on her face) and Tokyo Rose, a Chun Li lookalike.
It also featured a few new allies of Batman who, in a Shout-Out to the Club of Heroes mentioned above, are all foreign vigilantes who put a local twist on Batman's dark knight persona. They include the Cossack from Russia, the Dragon from China, and the Samurai from Japan (the same Samurai mentioned above).
There were a few other background characters who invoked this, such as the Indian villain Shiva, Mongolian villain Black Mongul, the Japanese villain Buddha, and Russian villain Iron Curtain. More prominent were Huntress III, an African version of the character who often appeared next to the new Wildcat (a werepanther), and Yugoslavian terrorist Von Bach.
Jean de Baton-Baton from Hitman's Six Pack is an outrageous French stereotype (unless you consider the fact that his bravery is unwavering). He is armed with a large baguette and baton, blinds or incapacitates villains with spices used in French cooking, wears a beret and a horizontally striped suit, is very gaunt, etc.
The New Guardians had a whole bunch of Captain Ethnics. These include an Aborigine with mysterious powers connected to the Dreamtime, a Japanese with a circuit board pattern covering his body whose power is remotely affecting electronics, and a Chinese who channels the powers of Dragon Lines.
Parodied when Nelson Jent at one point is banned from leaving his house by Marteau after the Dial turns him into Chief Mighty Arrow, a ludicrously stupid and offensive Native American stereotype.note His magic flying horse ends up saving the day without him. What should be noted about this parody is that Chief Mighty Arrow originally appeared in the original Dial H For Hero stories as a hero Robbie Reed dialed, so the writer was also mocking how this trope had been played straight in the first stories.
Another character mentioned but never shown (thankfully) was Golliwog, based off an incredibly racist type of doll that can only be called a grotesque caricature of Black people.
Chris Claremont has always had... problems with this trope. He's big on having diverse teams, thus he creates characters with a wide variety of backgrounds. But he's never very subtle about it, with the characters' dialogue always peppered with reminders their ethnic status. During his run on Gen13, he had a Muslim superhero, which was an admirable gesture. Thing is, the kid started nearly every other fucking sentence with, "Oh, Allah!"
One of the founding members of Stormwatch is Toshiro Misawa, alias Fuji. Nicknamed in high school for his Japanese heritage and mammoth size, Toshiro was a sumo wrestler until he developed a condition that forced his wealthy businessman father to invest in a cure. Stormwatch had a solution: turn his body into plasma and put him in a cybernetic containment suit — essentially turning him into Briareos. The head of Fuji's new body is patterned after the Japanese flag, with the red dot covering his face. Also his head is shaped like Mount Fuji. This got a bit of play in early Stormwatch, to be honest. The Russian guy with heat-absorbing powers named Winter? The Italian sonic screamer opera singer named Diva? Fuji was just the most brazen.
Gerard Jones featured Eurocrime, a group of European supervillains in his Elongated Man miniseries and Justice League comics. All of them wore ridiculous costumes and took their names from different types of international dishes: Toad-In-The-Hole (Britain), Escargot (France), Gyro (Greece), Calamari (Italy), and Lutefisk (Sweden). But probably the worst was the subgroup Wurstwaffe, a bunch of German guys who dressed up as sausages and were led by a guy named Knockwurst.
Geoff Johns pushed this trope to the extreme in Doomsday Clock by revealing the increasing global tension caused by suspicions of the American government's hand in creating most of the U.S.'s metahumans led to multiple nations creating their own knockoffs of the Justice League. Johns proceeded to pull together teams of increasingly obscure characters based on their ethnicities, until the ending implied the United Nations and Wonder Woman are working to reform the Global Guardians with each of the aforementioned international teams appointing one hero to join.
Wonder Woman (1942): In the Earth-Two Huntress stories Helena Wayne's African American friend Charles Bullock takes up the identity Blackwing after hearing one too many times about how the downtrodden of Gotham City have been put through the grinder after Batman's death.
also created by Morrison... well, the only way it could get any more badass is if the two teams fought bloodily through Nanking.