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Comment by ishansharma | Hacker News Reader

I choose Batman.

While Superman is a good superhero, I think he just got the powers handed to him on a silver platter.

Batman on the other hand was a normal human who got his powers with hard work.

With Batman, it is exciting to see him fight crime because if he gets shot, he is dead! Superman doesn't have much to fear, you can shoot a bullet in his eye and you'll end up breaking the bullet only.

Batman has also been portrayed as more intelligent most of the times and that is another quality I like!

So yes, Superman is fine. But I choose Batman.

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Hard work, and a massive amount of inherited money.

I actually really like Spider-Man for that reason. Yes, he had the luck to be bitten by a radioactive spider, but he also built a ton of his gadgets himself (in the comics, for example, the web shooter is all him) and took on a ton of responsibility at a very young age.

Yes, I watched quite a bit of Spider Man and he's fine. But for some reason I don't like him. Maybe just because he's all good and nice guy while Batman works alone and can be a badass at times. And not to forget that he's mysterious as well. In Justice League series, others are open books but no one knows his plans.

Well, Batman's powers are handed to him on a silver platter as well, being born into wealth and given access to technology. When talking about story cop-outs, just as Superman is usually invulnerable to things due to superpowers, Batman ends up being invulnerable to things due to convenient technology. E.g., if Batman was shot, he'd just so happen to have been wearing bullet-proof armor.

Not all of them though. His strength(both mental and physical) comes from hard practice.

Agreed about technology though. Technology and wealth combined make him Superman born on earth most of the times.

The reason more people choose Batman is he's more identifiable with. You can look at him and say:

"If only I really applied myself, I could make some money, learn Kung Fu, set up a base, invent some cool toys, do a lot of planning and do what Batman does."

Superman, on the other hand goes something like this:

"If only I was an alien... Aww screw it. Nevermind."

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad." -Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

Batman didn't have to apply himself to make his money. He's what happens when you give billions of dollars to an angry orphan with no social life.

As a Hercules-like demigod character, it's partly the point that Superman is more than the mere mortals he saves, but he can be written to be identifiable, usually through his alienation, his angst over not being able to help people, or having his morality tested.

Batman can be tough to relate to as well, depending on the portrayal. It's a very fine line between theatrical act meant to scare criminals and lonely billionaire dressing as a giant rubber bat. Just look at how people reacted to Bale's overdone Batman voice in the films; it crossed that line of silliness.

Now that's a long list for Batman but yeah, he can be identified with more easily. Superman, he just has the powers! No way we punny humans can get those.

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