The three most popular American superheroes will be portrayed by European actors in forthcoming films, and fanboys are up in arms and down in the mouth about it.

Most moviegoers on this side of the 29-million-square-mile body of water known as “the pond” probably don’t worry too much about which accent an actor is trying to fake and which one he is trying to hide.

But die-hard American comic-book fans are as protective of superhero integrity as the French Cultural Minster is protective of French language integrity.

The casting of Welsh actor Henry Cavill as Superman was the tipping point.

It stirred up in the comic book community a shared sense of nationalism not seen since the French super-villian Cram Brûlée defeated Captain America using a synthetic weapon derived from the fungus of soft cheeses.

The backlash against Cavill raises a number of questions.

What is it about the Man of Steel that has opened up this particular can of worms, and would it be counterproductive for me to point out that China is the world’s largest producer of both steel and aluminum used in the making of cans of worms?

Superman’s days as a form of war propaganda almost qualify as ancient history, aka neo-ancient history. He was long ago embraced by the world.

His comics are translated into most of the planet’s languages and language families, including Arabic.

If he still fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” as a narrator insisted he did during the opening credits of the ’50s TV show, then we have to ask ourselves how the definition of “The American Way” has changed in the last half-century.

In 2010, “the American Way” must certainly encompass people who paint their chests and wear foam fingers at sporting events, and people who wear rubber and spank each other with paddles.

It is a more complicated world than it used to be. Or, if not more complicated, more honest.

Speaking of honesty, the faux Internet newspaper The Onion may have cut this matter to the quick.

In its earnest AV Club section in January, the ostensibly spoofish website opened up a different kettle of fish when it posted an article that proved controversial, despite its failure to disclose that the iron for kettles comes mostly from Brazil and Australia.

The gist of the article was that British and Aussie actors are called upon to portray American action heroes because American actors are wimps.

John Papsidera, the casting director on two of Christopher Nolan’s three “Batman” films, was quoted as saying, “You look at the list of American leading men, and in their 20s and 30s, they’re very boy-like. Take Jesse Eisenberg: I put him in ‘Zombieland,’ but he’s not going to play Superman.”

“I believe there’s been a certain feminization of the American male,” he added.

This touched a raw nerve and it caused some bloggers to express nostalgia for a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in movies with names like “Raw Nerve.”

Feeling nostalgic for manliness as it was showcased in action films of the ’80s is a little like feeling nostalgic for cream of mushroom soup as it was showcased in casseroles of the ’70s.

If you are going to waste time feeling nostalgic, then make the most of it and pine away for guys like Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, Sean Connery and James Coburn.

As a man who regularly cries while watching poignant insurance commercials, I am the last person who should be hectoring other men about masculinity. But if you look at the American actors who played action heroes in last summer’s movies, many of them were quite boy-like.

Sure, Jake Gyllenhaal has great abdominals, but his emotional range seems not much greater than that of the basset hound.

Ashton Kutcher also looks good naked, but I imagine that this appeal is undercut for his wife, Demi Moore, by the fact that she is always having to put him in timeout.

To dip one last time into my magic bag of canine analogies, Kutcher exudes all the existential mystery of a golden retriever.

And I am still not convinced that Leonardo DiCaprio has ever grown enough facial hair to justify the purchase of his first razor.

If you were stuck in a post-Apocalyptic wasteland with all these guys plus British actor Jason Statham, who would you put in charge of killing the nuclear mutants?

The drawback with a lot of these young American actors is that they’re merely boy toys – gym rats designed to appeal to young women, women-of-a-certain-age, and gay-men-of-certain-tastes.

So obsessed are we with these guys’ six-packs, we fail to notice that whenever they open their mouths, a tinny sound comes out.

Perhaps the problem is not one of masculinity, but of acting.

The young American actors who populate our most popular entertainments just aren’t very good for the most part. They strain mightily and achieve little.

I am not sure how well-suited Cavill is to the superhero genre, but – judging from his line readings in various YouTube clips – he seems to possess several qualities that our most recent Superman, Brandon Routh, lacked. For example, charisma, gravitas and roguish charm – just to name a few.

What you need for these overly reverential superhero and sci-fi movies is not a guy who looks good in a skin-tight body suit, but a guy who can make the silliest dialogue sound like Shakespeare.

I recall how controversial the casting of Patrick Stewart as the captain in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was.

“Who is this skinny, old, bald guy?” many people wondered.

And then he opened his mouth and all misgivings evaporated.

Years after Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry died, Paramount decided to cast Scott Bakula as a new captain. Bakula looked great in the uniform, but –– as an authority figure –– he had less in common with Winston Churchill than Screech from “Saved By the Bell.”

If you want to see actors making a silk purse (shivery lyricism) out of a sow’s ear (mouth-cramping nonsense), watch Scottish actor James McEvoy verbally spar with German actor Michael Fassbender in the trailer for the forthcoming superhero prequel “X-Men: First Class.”

They probably do far fewer sit-ups than is seemly these days, but they sure know how to make that welkin ring.