Who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman? Well, that's easy. Superman, obviously. He has all those powers like super strength, flight and being able to fire laser beams out of his eyes. Batman's just a man. Same goes if you match the Dark Knight up against even the second-stringers of the Justice League, because when you think about it on a purely physical level, he's not anywhere up to the standards of the other superheroes in the DC Universe. In fact, as so many are quick to point out, he's technically not even a superhero. He doesn't even have any powers. Just money, street smarts, martial arts training and persistence. We'll unpack that incorrect assumption a little more in just a minute, but let us start as we mean to go on: Batman is absolutely, unequivocally, 100% a superhero. He's one of the earliest examples of such, even, first appearing a scant few months after the Man Of Steel's debut in Action Comics. He wears a costume, has a cape, a secret identity, a whole mess of arch enemies, a secret base. He doesn't have superpowers in the traditional sense, true, but if that's how you define a superhero then, well, you have a very narrow view of what it takes to be a masked vigilante. You're also saying that being fabulously wealthy, training your mind and body for over a decade just to fight crime and then actually going through with fighting criminals on a daily basis is something you could do if you put your mind to it. Let us be the ones to tell you, right here right now, that you could never be Batman. Nobody be could. All the stuff he's put his body through, his level of intelligence and his riches are all totally beyond anything a regular person could do. So how does he do it? Because he's superhuman. That's why he gets to stand alongside Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League. He isn't just their pal who tags along and tosses ineffectual Batarangs at intergalactic threats. He isn't an orphan who won a competition to hang out with some real superheroes for the day. He's an actual legit superhero himself and, perhaps, has even more of a right to call himself than his Justice League colleagues - he wasn't born with cool powers, or given magical abilities out of nowhere. He worked for them. He had a goal and he achieved it. That's pretty super. Thanks for asking.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/