But Holmes meets all of these criteria! He’s widely referred to as “The Great Detective,” and his stage and film incarnations have provided him with an extremely distinctive costume; If someone shows up at a masquerade wearing a deerstalker hat, Inverness cape, and a magnifying glass or meerschaum pipe, you’d know exactly who they were trying to portray. And as mentioned previously, Holmes maintains not just one secret identity but many, creating them as the need arises.
I don’t think anyone’s linked to this article yet, but it’s a good read.
Something that was bugging me was how it’s written. Superhero? Super Hero? Super hero? Apparently Marvel & DC jointly own Super Hero, and everyone else is a superhero.
I’d buy off on Sherlock Holmes being a superhero if he appeared in a comic book universe that had other superheroes, but wouldn’t consider him one based solely on his appearing in a Sherlock-only comic adaptation of his stories. Of course, there’s a cartoon about Sherlock Holmes in the future, and he acts quite a bit like a superhero.
Then there are the Greek, Roman & Norse gods. Some of them certainly fit the superhero bill, but we don’t really consider them superheroes until a comic book adapts them.
I don’t feel that just because you wear a costume, have a name, and attempt to fight crime, you are a super hero. Hell, Police wear a uniform (looks kinda like a costume), I’ve seen police officers that have nicknames (some go by Sarg,Cheif(and I am aware that Sargent or Cheif might be their title, still), and police do try to fight crime. This doesn’t mean they are super heros.
We wouldn’t have to take off Captain America( as I recall, he was dunked in a vat of super juice that made him a super human, or thats how it was done in the Spider Man TV show explanation of Cpt. America) I also wouldn’t take out Hawkeye ( I thought he had some inchanted bow and arrow. If he doesn’t, then bump his butt of the Super Hero List). We would have to get rid of Iron Man and a bunch of the others.
If we took Batmans abilities and examined them against normal life, we can see that nothing he does is super.
He flys ( with the aid of his jet or his glider wings) —Pilots fly. I see hangliders all the time. They sure aren’t super because they do those things.
He can repel from buildings and can fly up them (with his grapling gun)— All kinds of people can repel from buildings. I saw a guy climb up a building using suction cups.
He can beat all kinds of things up. And He’s really strong----Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee are all kinds of strong. In Northern Indiana, there is man that runs a type of Karate studio where he can block all kinds of pain out. He can get hit by four guys in the throat and not even flinch. Thats pretty strong, but it sure aint’ super.
He has a batcave/lair and can do all kinds of research—Bill Gates could have a bat cave if he wanted. There are tons of millionares that could afford his computers and bat lair. They aren’t super heros.
In the end, I guess it comes down to a persons definition of a super hero. In my opinion( and in the face of dictionary definitions) a super hero is only a person who has an incredible ability, beyond that of mortal men. He/She would have to be able to do something unique to them (unfortunately, some super heros and super villians have the same powers).
Again, superheroes are a genre, and genres can be slippery to define.
Let’s take the Lone Ranger. Western or Superhero? Well, he wears a mask and uses a flashy descriptive psudonym, so he’s a superhero. But he fights with a gun and other mundane means, he doesn’t even have Batman’s cool gadgets, and he’s in the old west, so let’s so western.
It’s hard to say. The difference is in how bright the colors are, how splashy the villains, how spectatcular the fights. The only way to know for sure is if the creators themselves say if the character’s a superhero.
Batman’s been in most version of the Justice League alongside Superman and Wonder Woman. It’s pretty clear he’s a superhero.
Two points.
First, Hawkeye has a regular bow, and trick arrows. He might have an enchanted one hanging around, but he generally uses a regular (if custom) bow. The arrows are technologically enhanced, or else left as standard arrows.
Second, even if he did use magical weaponry, if (super)scientific gagetry doesn’t make someone a superhero, how in the world would an enchanted weapon do so?
What would make Hawkeye any different if he had an enchanted bow instead?
(And, no, Cap’s not superhuman. He - like Batman - is as good as a normal human can get, but he’s still a normal human.)
Question is, can any one man do all that?
Yes.
If he’s prepared.
Is that retconned? What about the super-soldier serum that transformed him from the 98 pound weaking into Captain America?
The Super-Soldier Serum didn’t turn him into a superhuman, it brought him from a sickly type who was going to be classified 4-F into the pinacle of human perfection and war hero. A superior human, not superior to humans.
I don’t know if it’s ever been different. Perhaps back in the 40s, but not recently.
And this, ultimately, is what it all boils down to. He hangs around with superheroes, so he too must be a superhero. He’s a member of the Justice League, ergo he is a superhero. But the point of the Justice League is combined power: bringing together a group of superheroes to handle threats too large for any to handle alone. But Batman has no powers.
It’s sometimes claimed that Batman is an asset to the JLA because of his unparalleled tactical skills. Never mind where or why he would have picked up said skills, since he prefers to work alone, or why his expertise would be applicable to the threats the JLA faces, since Batman isn’t bulletproof whereas almost everyone else on the League is. I know it’s not going ever to actually happen in the comics, but say Batman came down with the flu, and the JLA had to engage a military tactician from West Point as a consultant for the next interstellar invasion. This wouldn’t suddenly make the consultant a superhero, even though the JLA would probably make them an honorary member after the aliens were inevitably beaten back.
Batman is considered a superhero because of an accident of history; Bob Kane designed the character with a costume style that aped Superman’s. In all other regards the character owes more to Dick Tracy; his foes are generally low- or unpowered themselves, and often deformed in some manner. The mere fact that Batman has so much obvious difficulty with a group of unpowered, mostly mentally disordered individuals is telling; his first adversary of significant magnitude, Ra’s al-Ghul, didn’t even appear until the 1970’s, and even he is more akin to Fu Manchu than a comic villain.
Unlike Metropolis, say, or Central City, which the Flash is able to police reasonably well despite his sizeable rogue’s gallery, Gotham City continues to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy despite Batman’s best ongoing efforts. It must be extremely awkward for the other members of the JLA; they have to pretend not to notice that Batman’s turf is a sagging urban nightmare, because if they were to go in and fix it themselves it would imply that Batman isn’t capable of it. And so the innocent citizens of Gotham continue to suffer.
As I recall, the Super Soldier Serum was like steroids, so for awhile he lost his Super Soldier abilities (since the all-American hero can’t be a steroid user), and had to continue on as a superhero based solely on his own skill and tenacity. Eventually, his Super Soldier abilities were restored, although I don’t recall if it’s still Super Soldier Serum induced, or something more PC that mimics the SSS.
That’s a common theme among superheroes. You lose your abilities, prove yourself worthy of being a superhero anyway, and your abilities get restored.
Ultimate Captain America is a super hero i.e. he is not human. “Regular” Cap is borderline. A good explanation I once heard was that Captain America isn’t human because he can do anything physically better than anyone who’s human. There are fast runners, and strong guys, but the two very rarely mix, and if they do the person is noted as being special. Cap is faster and stronger AND has a tactical supercomputer for a brain, apparently.
Batman is not a normal human in that he manages to do an insane amount of work to keep himself as Batman. He may be a polymath with really good genetics, but to remain at his level of ability **while remaining up to date on current technologies in both the normal and costumed world while keeping a secret identity is impossible. ** No one could do that. Batman is a “super” hero. He keeps his place in the League by being incredibly paranoid and intimidating, and I agree with Terrifel. Someone should have cleaned his clock (I pick Aquaman, just to piss off the fanboys) a while ago. His whining in the current Crisis annoys me.
yeah, that’s because billy-boy gate$ is CLEARLY a "super"Villian, his super-evil powers are causing computers to crash for no readily apparent reason, and assail their victims with spyware/adware/viruses…
lets not even bring up his sidekick, “BSOD-Boy!”
Because magic and science are different. If Hawkeye could buy a scientific bow, anyone could buy it. Thus making it not extrordinary.
However, if a gem was lodged in an asteroid, and it fell to earth, and lets say Hawkeye found it, inserted it into his bow. Then Boom, he got all kinds of crazy abilities to hear really well, and shoot straight, always straight, and could shoot faster and reload quicker than anything. He would then be a super hero.
If he can buy it then it does not make him super powerful.
If he finds it, and the item cannot be reproduced, then he is a super(hero/villian, thats up to him)
Utter nonsense. If Hawkeye’s bow was enchanted, it would be completely identical to having a bow that technologically gave him the same advantages. Including being exactly as likely to be unique.
And by your ‘one of a kind’ logic, Batman becomes a superhero - nobody but he can get his gear, since he makes it himself - whereas Superman is not - every single Kryptonian would have the same powers if they left Krypton, as would every single Daxamite, and at least one Rimborian.
I think I might be toying here with someone who knows a bit more about Superman and the comic world than I.
But yes, it is different. Batman isn’t the only one who can make his gadgets. I bet with alot of money, I could rig up some kind of air compression shooter that propells a grablin hook in the air. I bet its not that hard. Hell, you could do a small one with CO2 cartriges. But Superman is a superhero (even if there are a bunch of em) because you cant replicate his power (only in the rare cases where he was struck by lightning while carrying people did his power get replicated)
Hawkeye couldn’t replicate that gem,(the hypothetical one from my earlier post) Batman’s tools however can be replicated
Because Hawkeye isn’t a wizard.
Dr Strange could likely make as close a copy as a Roxxon scientist could make of Stark’s power armour. In both cases it won’t likely work exactly the same way, but you could get the same effects. Hypothetically. If you had the skills needed. And an assload of money. And, yet, you don’t see villain after villain - or even heroes who aren’t affiliated with Stark who wear Iron Man armour (or, rather, armours based on them). Why is this? (Beyond the obvious real world answer of ‘it would make Iron Man less special’.) Because it’s not trivial to recreate tech without knowing how it actually works, and Stark doesn’t mass produce them.
Magicians are rarer in both the Marvel and DC universes than scientists, but they’re not lying all that thin on the ground - look at the right corner of the universe, and you can’t swing an undead cat without hitting one.
Nobody but Nabu could copy the Helm of Nabu, but, likewise, nobody but the Controllers could create a Miracle Machine.
To tackle another part of the argument, that Mother Boxes and Green Lantern rings are mass produced doesn’t make them any less special - or recreatable by anyone but the Gods of New Genesis and Apokalips or the Guardians of the Universe respectively.
(And, it just occured to me…there are (Were? Will be?) at least two Emerald Eyes of Ekron - multiple copies of an insanely powerful magical artifact.)
And as to a third aspect - that there are thousands of Mother Boxes or GL rings throughout the universe doesn’t make what they do any less fantastic, any more than the fact that two entire species (at least) are capable of doing what Superman does - and that his powers can be duplicated technologically - makes his powers any less fantastic.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Batman is a superhero.
–Cliffy
I forgot to make my point in my first post. My point was that Batman is a superhero 'cause that’s how he’s written. Even in the world of comics there are superheros and ordinary people. Alfred or Gordon could not replace Batman, even with access to his equipment. Batman is written as a character who can fight supervillains, is entitled to a seat on the JLA, and can perform superhuman feats, even without a specifically defined superpower. That makes him a superhero.