The Makefile from >=dev-util/debhelper-7.3.14 passes --utf8 option to pod2man, available starting from dev-lang/perl-5.10.1 Reproducible: Always
virtual/perl-podlators-2.2.2 is in the tree. It provides the latest pod2man.
Updated to 7.4.13 as dev-lang/perl-5.10.1 is finally unmasked.