Not arguing against Superman being the apex hero. Just there are lots of other heroes that qualify as super.
Sure, but part of the conceit is that anything he does is super, as a given. But under a microscope that falls apart.
Had the OP set forth the ‘superhero as a powerful do-gooder in a superhero setting’ trope, this thread would be much narrower.
That’s fair, I guess they don’t need to be vigilantes.
What fun is that!?
The Flying Nun is closer to Superman than Batman is.
To be a superhero, one must have superpowers and do super-heroic stuff like (but not limited to): flying around, firing beams and fighting super-villains. The distinction between those who come by their superpowers organically or inorganically is a separate and secondary consideration.
By this definition, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Iron Man and Dr. Strange are obviously superheroes. Captain America and Spider-Man also qualify, among many others.
Doc Savage punishes evildoers, but has no actual superpowers. Neither does Batman or The Shadow (in the pulps). Rather, they are wealthy vigilantes periodically employing tech to fight crime. The salient contrast here is with Iron Man, whose suit of armor is integral to his power and identity.
A little more challenging to classify is Hulk. He has been a superhero, but at various times he’s been more like an anti-hero.
John Carter absolutely, unambiguously has superpowers. He can teleport between planets, he’s both telepathic and immune to telepathy, he’s stronger than anyone else on the planet, and he never, ever, loses a fight.
Tony Stark also has superpowers. He’s super-smart, and can design and build things nobody else can. Even if some normal (but peak human) particle physicist could come up with that custom new element he synthesized, do you really think they could have done it by adjusting a particle accelerator beam with a pipe wrench?
But even the ones that are, face the threats and criminals that government and law enforcement, for various reasons, aren’t capable of handling themselves. Regular cops go after regular criminals; Batman goes after criminals dressed like clowns. Superheroes are outliers whose job is to defend humanity against other outliers.
In other words, superheroes are the guys who fight supervillains.
True. This is also how Superman has super strength on Earth.
I think for purposes of all media, a superhero is someone who combats a supervillain to prevent them from accomplishing their “evil” or “misguided” goal. So what is a “supervillian” you say? Methinks it’s someone who uses weapons other than guns with bullets and is expert at it, or who has some special power or ability that does not manifest in ordinary humans.
Hercules has been the subject of an eponymous Marvel comic book, has powers, has a costume of sorts, and has been a member of teams such as the Avengers, Defenders, Champions, etc. He would be as much a superhero as Thor. (He also appeared in the Thor: Love and Thunder movie.)
I honestly thought you were about to loop back around, there.
Tempting, but alas I did have a point! 
Slightly off topic but about a year or so ago I read a book called “Hench.” Supervillains could legally place ads and contact employment agencies to fill the role of what used to be known as “henchman” and this young woman applied and got the job of “hench” for a major, badass supervillain. In this world, a hench could legally work for a supervillainwithout being held liable for the villain’s actions. Without giving too much away, it was an entertaining book that pondered the complexities of the whole superhero vs. supervillain relationship and which group actually caused more overall harm to society.
The emotional core of the American superhero genre is power fantasy. Or maybe the American superhero genre is a subcategory of the power fantasy genre (comprising its largest share by far).
Tony Stark doesn’t have super powers. Rather, he exists in a universe where science is a bunch of bullshit. In the context of the story, whanging on a particle accelerator until works right isn’t a super power, it’s just how particle accelerators work.
Similarly, Batman is often seen swinging from the end of a very long grappling hook. If he were doing this in real life, it would rip his arms out of their sockets. This isn’t evidence that Batman really has super strength, it’s just an artifact of comic book writers and artists not knowing physics very well.
He exists in a universe where science is just another word for magic. Tony Stark is like Hephaestus, using a nominally mundane process to create magical items.
I’ll reiterate the idea I’ve mentioned before that my personal theory is that the non-powered “suits” actually have a very subtle superpower that might be termed “super-competency”. The ability to achieve a proficiency in the skills they set out to master that’s at the one-in-a-billion level. I mean, do Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark ever drop their keys in the middle of a parking lot, slip on a wet floor during a fight, or discover at the last instant that a crucial piece of software needs updating? They’re not infallible but do you ever see them undone by the trivial accidents of everyday life?
If we assume that he starts his swing with the line horizontal, that there’s no air resistance, that the cable is much longer than Batman’s body length, and that bat-cables are perfectly inelastic, then he’s feeling three gees at the bottom of the swing. Relax any of those assumptions, and it’s even easier. Holding onto a handle with two other people hanging onto you is maybe a bit on the impressive side, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for a fit, athletic human.
And whanging on a particle accelerator until it works right isn’t how particle accelerators, in general, work, even in a superhero universe. It’s how particle accelerators work for Tony Stark. If Pepper Potts tried the same thing, she’d just break something.
A large number of Batman’s enemies are simply mafia dons in colorful costumes.
Some of Spiderman’s most dangerous enemies are mob bosses who don’t even wear colorful costumes. (And one obsessive-compulsive newspaper editor who technically isn’t even a criminal.)
In the early years of the Superman comics, he fought gangsters and Evil Corporate Executives as often as he fought superhuman foes.
I think “supervillain” means “someone who would kick my @$$ if I tried to fight them.” Watching Samson or Steve Austin or Batman take on a dozen armed thugs and win gives the reader or watcher a vicarious thrill.
Huh, I’ve always heard that Spider-Man’s web-swinging would tear his arms out of his sockets if he were a normal human. Of course, Spider-Man isn’t a normal human, he’s explicitly super-powered, so I switched to Batman doing the same thing. If the physics actually work there, we can replace “Batman swinging on a rope,” with Batman recovering fully from a severed spinal cord, or “Batman surviving a fall from orbit,” or any of the literally thousands of other examples of Batman blatantly defying physics over the decades.
So, you think Tony Stark has “super particle accelerator assembly powers”? Because I assure you, within the fiction of the universe, he does not - he knows how to build complicated machines, and in comic books, you can fix complicated machines by hitting them with a wrench. It’s not a super power, it’s something that can be done by anyone who knows how complicated machines work.
I concede that during the golden age of comics my definition doesn’t fit because superheros were often battling everyday mobsters. During the silver age forward, that changed. Even the mob boss The Kingpin had superhuman strength.
Although many of Batman’s enemies don’t have superpowers per se, I view their warped minds as special - ordinary humans simply can’t conceive and execute the kinds of diabolical schemes that these bozos constantly hatch!
