# Worlds Greatest Hero **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2003, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089 "2003-07-22T04:16:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/21 "2003-07-23T07:09:12Z")
While I hold a special place in my heart for Batman, the true world’s greatest hero will be the person who stops the “Batman vs…” threads. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/22 "2003-07-23T11:54:05Z")
This isn’t a Batman Vs… Thread. ANybody can come an nominate anyone they want, just defend your postion. I’ve had way too much free time lately so that explains the long “Batman Rules” posts ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/24 "2003-07-23T14:04:35Z")
Batman? Yes, he survived a horrific trauma and used it as motivation to help people. It’s truly impressive that he can stay on an equal footing with Superman and Wonder Woman while being just a man. **Personally** I still and will always have a slight dislike of him due to his refusal to commit what would be, to me, the most practical and intelligent act he could, that of killing the Joker, but that aside he is a great hero, no doubt. Spider-man? Same. He’s fought against all of the troubles and hardships others have mentioned and come out on top. However, my pick is The Martian Manhunter. The measure of a hero is not in what he can do or has done, but in what he must overcome to become a hero. This is a guy whose very apperance would frighten most people and whose abilities as a telepath require an incredible amount of trust from others and discipline from himself. He’s alone, the last of a dead world, but unlike Superman he knows what he lost, such as a wife and child. He’s seen the evil of humanity from the inside a hundred time over, and been in the heads of the bad guys on a level that Batman never will. He is truly an alien, by birth and self (Superman can just put on glasses and go down to the corner store, MM has to change his whole shape AND hear what people think about him while he’s doing it). He’s the most alone, the most dangerous (and yet the most vulnerable) and the most stable of the JLA. I pick him, for all of these reasons and more. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/25 "2003-07-23T16:18:04Z")
Superman. It’s not because of the powers, it’s because of his nobility. His concern for everybody and the fact that, as powerful as he is, he treats all people as equals. In the recent Zod storyline, he convinced a bunch of villains to help him save the world. At the end of the battle most of them turned themselves back in. When President Luthor asked one of them why he didn’t just kill Superman when he had the chance Coldcast (the villain) replied: He treated us like men, we acted like men. That’s what’s impressive about Superman. ---
**Author:** ![Balle\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/13edae/32.png) [@Balle\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balle_M)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/26 "2003-07-23T17:03:20Z")
The Ambiguously Gay Duo? ---
**Author:** ![Wolverine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/27 "2003-07-23T17:12:19Z")
What distances me from Batman is that he is essentially the perfect human. Almost no one (that is not enhanced) can match his intelligence, his martial arts, his aim, his machismo, his anything. He is James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Bruce Lee all rolled into one. I can’t connect with that since I can never achieve that level. Spider-Man, I can connect with. He was the average guy made into a superhero. Batman, Superman, and Martian Manhunter were never average, normal people. Peter Parker was a geek in high school that got super-powers through an accident (not original, but hey, something has to make him a hero). Then he didn’t immediately become a hero but he tried to exploit his new abilities. He doesn’t feel comfortable risking his life, but feels compelled to make a difference in the world. By this time, Spider-Man has quit and come back so many times, it has lost much of its dramatic effect. But he is a reluctant hero, trying to prove that one person can make that difference. I can connect myself with the experiences that Spider-Man is having. The problems of personal responsibility, feeling special without others recognizing it, balancing the many aspects of life (getting a job, dating, school, friends, family) are all things that teenagers and college students go through. Spider-Man plays it out on an exaggerrated stage, as super-heroes do, but it connects to the average reader. If I was a super-hero, what would I do? Spider-Man explores this question better than any other hero. Batman can never explore this question because I could never be Batman. Superman always knew he was special, there was no strange new powers thrust upon him. But I can always wait for that irradiated spider to come along. That is why Spider-Man is the world’s greatest hero. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/28 "2003-07-23T17:29:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Peyote Coyote \* > \*\*The first superhero is still the best. > > Long live Doc Savage, the Archenemy of Evil. \*\* I agree, Doc is grand. But Superman is the greatest. His character, not his powers, make him shine. Here’s something I wrote a few years back– > [@](#): > > _edited by **Bosda** _–The story of Superman is the story of the American Immigrant. > He comes from far away (very far away) > with nothing. No material goods. No name or family or home , except his new one. > > He come to the heartland of America, the Midwest. He is adopted into a family of farmers; people of the soil who love him as if he were their own , & raise him in their values. > > He discovers that he has something **unique** to give to others. He gives this gift, unselfishly & unstintingly; asking nothing in return, other than the chance to help others in need. > > He can never go home again-- but , although he remembers his “old country”–Krypton–he **is** home. > > He wears his costume, not merely to conceal his identity, but to become a symbol of hope to those in need. His Clark Kent glasses could be viewed as a mask, worn for the sake of modesty as much as disguise-- he is humbly living a simple life as Clark Kent. He does not wear his costume to be famous–he is , at heart, a simple man (simple **doesn’t** mean stupid) whose goal is to live in the service of others. As a reporter, he is dedicated to Truth. As Superman, he is dedicated to Justice. As a man is is definitively what Americans wish they were (well, most of us). > > On our good days, we occasionaly come close. (I don’t ignore or deny the days when we don’t even try–but they are outside the scope of this thread.) > > Yes , Superman is a hero. And a very ordinary man. Perhaps he is the realization & the symbol that ordinary men can do extraordinary things, if they try. Superman forever, indeed. 🙂 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089/29 "2003-07-23T17:48:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MonkeyMule \* > \*\*This isn’t a Batman Vs… Thread. ANybody can come an nominate anyone they want, just defend your postion. I’ve had way too much free time lately so that explains the long > “Batman Rules” posts \*\* I didn’t mean to knock your thread, sorry if it seemed that way. My nomination has been made, and I feel my position requires no defence. We can but wait for that hero to emerge. Or, y’know, for me to find the next “Batman vs…” thread interesting enough to change my mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-greatest-hero/190089.md?page=1)