Poland

In Poland there’s a legend of a sleeping knight who awakens whenever the country is in need. He reportedly fought off Mongol hordes in the 13th century, protected the Catholic sanctuaries from Swedes in the 1600s, and more over the years. He always wore black armor, and eventually when he reappeared in 1905 during numerous revolutions, he was simply called Ostatni Rycerz, or the Last Knight.
Despite Poland facing what turned out to be the greatest threat in her history—allied Nazi and Soviet armies—the Knight failed to awaken. The few Poles who had faith in him lost it seemingly forever when he failed to appear. The Knight was in fact captured before he could awaken by Hans Graumach, who later became the Nazi super-soldier known as Die Eule (“The Owl”). As a gesture of friendship and good will, the knight was transferred to Stalin’s infamous science city of Atomgrad-2, where it was determined that he was a sort of spirit of the nation, emerging only when Poland needed him. Both for ideological reasons and scientific curiosity, they killed the host of the Last Knight and stored his armor in Mongolia, miles from Polish soil. After Stalin’s death, the exact location of the armor was purged from Atomgrad’s records and is lost and officially considered destroyed.
If the Soviets’ goal was to literally keep the Polish people’s spirit down, they apparently failed. Poles often rebelled against Communism, eventually organizing the first free election in the Soviet Bloc. On the other hand, there were a few bloody uprisings and certainly no other Polish superhero has appeared since. Any villains in the country are either handled by the police, military, UNISON, or by the visiting Lithuanian hero Iron Wolf.
While no Pole would openly admit that his or her country needs heroes, particularly foreign ones, sometimes a situation might become too much to handle. A visiting team of American heroes might be offered a state (or even EU) sponsorship, complete with headquarters, some fairly decent gear, and, unfortunately, a couple of recurring enemies, like the European or the Dragon of Wawel Hill. Heroes with any kind of Polish ancestry could quickly become media darlings.
The Knight could manifest again, either as a hero or as a villain, twisted by Soviet super-science. The Knight’s armor grants the wearer a set of basic effects (Removable, 45 points) that the player or GM may add to if they wish.
The Last Knight’s appearances were all before the age of heroes—so he has only ever fought conventional foes. Depending on the need of the country, the powers might drastically change.

THE USTKA AMBUSH: A BLAST FROM THE PAST

Ustka is now a fairly popular seaside resort in Poland, but it used to be a German city in Pomerania. Among the heroic community, it’s best known for the infamous Ustka ambush, where William Kantor, later known as Overshadow, wanted to end the threat of rogue superhumans in Europe. Most heroes operating in Europe were lured to Ustka in December 1941, where Nacht-Krieger and other Übersoldaten were waiting. It’s perhaps appropriate that it was the Czechoslovak Romani, Polish Jewish Golem, and a French fighter that fell to the German onslaught, while the remnants escaped to found the Allies of Freedom.
Nacht-Krieger rejoiced in killing Mehire and Guillotine and destroyed Golemeth when he was weakened by his struggle with Schwarzpanzer (Black Panther). The remaining heroes distracted the Nazis, freed the hostages, and, partly in honor of the fallen comrades, decided to go on working together. The rest is history.
Most of the Übersoldaten survived the confrontation to clash with the Allies of Freedom more than once in the following years. Germans also retained control of Ustka. After the battle the bodies of the dead heroes were transported to Germany for scientific study, while Schwarzpanzer received a hero’s funeral, buried with much fanfare in a specially prepared monument (though in secret he was actually sacrificed to empower Nacht-Krieger). When the Red Army liberated Pomerania a couple of years later, they exhumed his body and sent it to Atomgrad-2 for studies of their own.
While the Allies of Freedom have been honored with a massive monument in France, their fallen comrades didn’t receive similar treatment. They’re forgotten even in their own home countries. After the fall of Communism, there were plans to put a monument in Ustka, but due to budgetary constraints, it was changed to a commemorative plaque that was defaced with crude anti-Semitic graffiti two weeks after it was installed.