I noticed Batman and Robin seem to have no special powers. Yes, they have a lot of specialized equipment and strength to scale walls, but no superhuman powers…
Isn’t this highly unusual for Superheroes?
Extra Credit: Why were the villians so weird with strange obsessions (i.e.: jokes, riddles, cats, etc.?)
The Punisher is another non-superpowered character.
Nah. Let me think of a few…
Green Lantern: without his power ring, he’s an ordinary guy.
Iron Man: guy in an armored suit. (Pretty much anybody in an armored costume fits this bill.)
Adam Strange: rocket pack and a gun. And a Zeta Beam.
Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate: mystical spells, but no powers of his own.
Conan: just a guy with a battle-axe.
Hawkman/girl: artificial wings of some kind. Actually, many of the heroes who first appeared in the 30’s (in either DC’s Justice Society or Marvel [then Timely]'s Invaders). Those coming to mind include the Atom, the Sandman, Wildcat, Manhunter, the Guardian, etc.
…ok, I can’t name any of the Invaders beyond Cap, the Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Nuts.
Also, you inevitably have stories where “powered” heroes lose their abilities, but still triumph-over-insurmountable-odds-blah-blah-blah without them…proving that a superhero’s strength is his heart, not his skills.
Enola has a point with the Punisher, but the Punisher ain’t no hero.
Green Arrow. Nightwing. The Star-Spangled Kid.
Marvel’s Elektra. Is it just me, or does Marvel have a lot fewer unpowered heroes than DC?
Rorshach. 
I don’t think any of these “unpowered heroes” qualify as “superheroes”, even though they are thrown in the mix. As for Dr. Strange, channeling mystical energy or whatever qualifies as extraordinary, so “super” applies.
Golden Age Sandman; Dr. Niles Caulder; Errata Stigmata; John Constantine claims to have great power, but in every Hellblazer story I’ve read he succeds by conning the villains- I’ve never seen him use any powers.
Batman wasn’t even unique when Bob Kane thought him up. Allow me to quote liberally from Steranko’s History of Comics Volume 1:
Earlier in the book, Steranko discusses another pulp character:
The Avenger is closer in premise to the Punisher than Batman, but the basics are still there: lifelong dedication to revenging the loss of loved ones at the hands of criminals.
If you want to see examples of non-super characters, you can pick up a few issues of DC’s 1980s series All-Star Squadron. The whole series was an exercise in renewing characters DC had created in the 1940s and had largely abandoned. Issue #60 (Aug. 1986) had two “group photos” of the Squadron’s membership; essentially every DC character of the 1940s (plus two created specifically for this series). The first photo contained the Golden Age Superman, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, etc. In the course of the story, there was a “time shift” in which all the effects of the so-called Crisis on Infinite Earths retcon took effect. This issue is significant as containing the last appearance of the Golden Age characters mentioned above.
Anyhoo, in the first (pre-reboot) image, there are 44 characters depicted. I count 18 that I know for certain had no special powers or magical devices, relying only on physical abilities and conventional weapons or sci-fi gimmicks. There are 3 or 4 that I’m uncertain about, but the number of comic-book characters at the time who had no actual super-powers was significant. Batman happens to be (by far) the most successful.
What? No mention of Bucky Barnes?
quote from Bryan Ekers
…
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question: Why isn’t Bill Finger as well known as Bob Kane? I’d never even heard of the guy until recently - I had always understood that Kane created Batman on his own…
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Whether you get it from somebody else, or build it yourself, having powers that totally defy natural law, including Iron Man’s armor, counts as superpowers, even if technically they are posessed by the suit/ring/boxers than you. And whether you call it magic or “mutant powers”, its about the same bloody thing.
Why can’t a good con artist be greatly powerful? 
Because, for years, Kane was the only one credited. His name was on every Batman comic through the 60s at least. Finger was not.
I was also under the impression that Kane did actually create the character, but Finger fleshed him out (adding Robin, for instance). Finger does deserve much of the credit, though – Kane’s Batman would have been long forgotten.
Others who had no superpowers:
Snapper Carr (OK, that’s cheating )
Dr. Mid-Night
Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Black Cat
Black Canary
Black Panther
Black Lightning (is a pattern emerging?)
Captain Klutz
Howard the Duck (other than the obvious)
Nightwing
The Phantom
And, of course, The Spirit
Leave us not forget The Spirit.
And sorry to disagree with you Chuck, but…well…I’m gonna disagree with your list.
Black Canary (granted there are several Black Canaries) had, for 20+ years a sonic cry (which is back again)
Black Lighting threw around lightning bolts for a chunk of his career,
Dr. Midnite can see in the dark,
Nick Fury is immortal or VERY long-lived (the Infinity Formula)
Black Panther currently has all sorts of super-toys that were powered by vibranium (as opposed to Bat-Knockout Gas, which is at least remotely plausible)
Nightwing got super strength in the dark (or, later after he was crippled) got mobility in the dark.
and for one horrible period (of about 6 months, during and after the INVASION series), Snapper Carr gained the ability to teleport by snapping his fingers.
There really aren’t all that many purely powerless characters.
Fenris
How about Zorro? I don’t think Batman was intended to be original, but something about him resonates with young children in a way other heroes don’t seem to, imho.
orphan–>no pesky parents, but the drive for revenge, a channel for youthful angst
rich–>all those wonderful toys
oh, did I fail to mention he is one bad@ss mutha?
A winning combo to every young boy.
Wildcat was a contemporary of the Golden Age Batman, and a member of the JSA. He was a boxer who’d donned a cat costume to fight crime.
The original Atom was just a short guy with muscles (at least until he got his powers boosted years later).
I’d still count the Black Canary. The sonic scream is no longer a part of her repetoire.
There was also Batwoman and Bat-Girl (not to be confused with Batgirl) in the 40’s and 50’s.
The Challengers of the Unknown has no super powers; they were just a group of scientists who got involved in all kinds of alien invasions and fights against supervillans. Ditto for Rip Hunter, Time Traveller.
Adam Strange didn’t really have super powers (unless you count his jet pack). He was just really clever.
Marvel’s Black Widow was an exceptionally good gymnast (and exceptionally hot!), but not superpowered.
The Sandman (Golden Age, not Neil Gaiman’s) didn’t have superpowers. He did carry a lot of cool weapons like the Batman, including a gun that shot sleeping gas.
Magnus, Robot Fighter was trained to physical perfection, but that’s about it. No super-soldier forumula, a la Captain America.
Miss Fury, one of the first costumed women superheroes, had no superpowers (other than her super-kinky get up).
I was talking about the original versions of the characters, who did have no powers. I don’t keep track of all the twists and turns afterward.
Though Dr. Mid-Nite should have been left off.
Guy: IIRC, the Sonic Cry is back.
Chuck: Fair enough! Although didn’t the NON Squardron Supreme (IE the original one from Avengers #71-ish) gain super strength in the dark? I don’t remember for sure, but I thought he did.
I think there’s something in the Gotham water…I dunno why, but Gotham DOES have some seriously mentally disturbed criminals.
I think it’s a function of the time. Many of DC’s hero concepts were created in the 40’s and based largely on the pulp heroes like Doc Savage, who had no powers. Even heroes with “powers” of the day were either mostly gadget heroes (like Green Lantern, Starman, or even the drug-taking Hour-Man) or mystics, both of which were prevalent in the pulps. There were exceptions, of course (Flash, Johnny Quick, and of course Superman).
Most of Marvel’s stable of characters, with a few exceptions, came out of the 60’s in the wake of the success of DC’s Silver Age revival and the JLA, where pretty much everyone had powers, and so most of Marvel’s characters were given powers as well. The effect was multiplied when Stan Lee & co. realized that you didn’t even need an origin for super-powers; you could just say the character was a mutant. (Having just finished my Essential Ant-Man volume, I think that Lee made this discovery when he didn’t have enough room to create an origin for the Human Top.)
–Cliffy
This is correct. Dinah was dipped in a Lazarus Pit and now is fertile again and has her sonic cry back.
How about Deadpool (or does he have something other than a annoying way to really piss people off)
Bullseye from Daredevil…Though he can make anything a weapon, it is within the realm of plausbility (I think)