Comic Books

[Sh3ld00r]

lets talk about comic books...and superheroes

[Sh3ld00r]

Batman is the best superhero of them all

[Death Dark]

He's not really what I'd consider a superhero.  Yes, he's someone we can look up to, but if he weren't a multi-billionaire, he'd end up being a cop or bounty hunter or something more mundane.  Ergo, he's really just a Hero, nothing superhuman about him.

[MegaRock35]

Well, that's a good point, but wouldn't you say it takes a rather super person to be able to keep up with the multitude of aliens and robots and the like without having actual powers? He's not just using tech like, say, Booster Gold, but he's trained his body to the peak human limits and happens to be a brilliant tactician. Even if he's not superhuman, he's still pretty super.

[Sh3ld00r]

Well, that's a good point, but wouldn't you say it takes a rather super person to be able to keep up with the multitude of aliens and robots and the like without having actual powers? He's not just[/] using tech like, say, Booster Gold, but he's trained his body to the peak human limits and happens to be a brilliant tactician. Even if he's not superhuman, he's still pretty super.

I concur...Batman is super not in the sense that he has any "superhuman abilities" but that he has taken his extreme intellect and his brawn and trained it to the utmost of human perfection basically.  All this makes Batman pretty super.  Now the point about money is a good point.  But whether he has money or not, the real question is psycological...if he were simply a cop or a bounty hunter, would he still train himself in such a manner.  Personally, I think that he would.  Because if you read the comics, it is clear that he would do whatever it takes to fight crime, not because he has the ability, but because he feels that it is his duty to protect the innocent and bring justice.  All because he watched his parents die.  That makes Bruce Wayne/Batman a superhero in my nonprofessional opinion.

[Death Dark]

He never really appeared to me as any sort of genius, constantly being outsmarted by the opposing villains, and his physical prowess is above average, but not really "super."  Many film noir main characters portray similar mindsets and physical capabilities as he, but we don't consider them superheroes.

[Hobro]

Being outsmarted by villains is only part of Batman's plan.

Or the plot.

And his physical prowess really depends on what Batman you look at. One series's Batman could feature a much more calculating Batman as opposed to a much more hands-on-in-the-sense-of-gratuitous-amounts-of-punching type thing.

Which is why it makes it so difficult to really make statements about a comic book character's power level.

[Sh3ld00r]

Yes...plus you must consider that when talking about Batman...there are, as my friend has pointed out, so many different "types" of Batman characters that it is hard to really make a firm statement about him...but he must change his way of fighting, because if he did not then he would simply become predictable and then defeated.

[MegaRock35]

It all Depends on the Writer, I s'pose. Sometimes he's a Manipulative Bastard worthy of naming the Batman Gambit, and other times he more or less thinks with his fists. I prefer the former, myself.

[Death Dark]

With a character so varying, how can you claim any properties of him?

[Sh3ld00r]

As I said before they are different tactics he uses...but in pretty much all cases he uses the same things in different ways...less fists and more manipulation, and sometimes more fists and less manipulation...It all depends you can not let your strategies become known or you become more predictable than Erwin Rommel after George Patton read his book

[Hobro]

With a character so varying, how can you claim any properties of him?

Because regardless, he is still always been portrayed as "The Greatest Detective of All Time," even if his detecting involves more beating it out of people.

[Death Dark]

That doesn't make him a super-hero.

[Hobro]

I wasn't arguing that. I was simply stating that there are many overarching themes in Batman.

[Sh3ld00r]

Yes you are technically right. Batman can not be officially classified as a super hero because he has no super powers.  But I agree with Hobo, there are many overarching themes in Batman.  And this can not be denied.