As seen in: Batman Begins, V For Vendetta, Spider-Man Most notably used in Nolans Batman series (Batman embodies justice and truth, and also the virtues of being phenomenally wealthy) and V For Vendetta (V represents civil liberty and insurrection), and with sledgehammer subtlety in the post-9/11 Spider-Man (Spidey stands for the indomitable spirit and iron will of the American people, plus also truth, justice, liberty, exceptional individualism, etc), this is another good idea which is in desperate need of a revamp if its going to hang around much longer. Its just a little old hat now, and in particular the repetition of the ideas of liberty and justice being philosophically bulletproof needs to be dropped. If you have to construct this kind of conceit so heavy handedly that you might as well rename your superhero Captain Metaphor and have every other character finish each line by pointing at him and asking, "Wait, are you, like, a metaphor or something?", then clearly there are some pretty severe limitations both its usefulness and your scriptwriters. If you bang on about it too hard, you take the viewer out of their willing suspension of disbelief by making them think about life outside of the cinema a bit too hard. Real life's depressing enough without being reminded of it while you're at the cinema.
