By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
S.T.A.G.E. said:
NYANKS said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
NYANKS said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
NYANKS said:

Superman to me is as boring as things get. His power levels change drastically based on whoever is writing, whatever was written first isn't necessarily what should be followed. There would be no plot for him at all if he was literally just like God, flying so fast around the earth that he turns back time and such.

Batman is human, and his status as a badass Everyman is the reason he is more popular. He has normal struggles, so we can relate.

A lot of writers consider Batman to be smarter, possibly in the top 5-10 of DC intelligence. He has literally had a story where he single-handedly beats the entire Justice League. He obviously cannot beat Superman in a bare hand fight, but Batman gets to play dirty while Superman never strikes first.

Basically, Batman is a better character. No matter what old stories about Nazis in the early days of Superman might say, he's really boring if he's invincible. So writers have tried to make it more canon that he's not as smart as Batman, on top of being weak to a rock , one that Batman has been shown to possess and keep on him many times.

His relevance is what you choose to believe. In the new DC Batman is a genius (as always really), and Superman gets nerfed, because writing a story for God is boring.


Its not that writing for a god is boring, the question for Superman always is, how do you create a fall for a man who is a basically a god? DC has found so many ways to hurt superman and even tried to kill him off with sun poisoning. He just keeps coming back. We're in a time period where no one likes the good two shoes, but in the 70's and 80's Superman would've been considered much cooler than Batman. In the 90's peoples mentalities changed and they started liking anti-heroes like Wolverine and Spawn. Even Cyborg, himself, could potentially create greater wonders than the tech Batman has since he's considered to be a more advanced inventor than his father. Wonder Woman can use the lasso of truth to interrogate people, Flash to bend time and change the course of history if he wanted to. Really...it just goes on and on.

So, then isn't this completely subjective?

DC has been trending toward making Superman not super intelligent.  Batman has only gotten more intelligent than before if anything.  His power lies in being a peak human (sometimes a metahuman) who is so intelligent and intuituve that he can predict what all the pawns around him will do in advance.  He's got the Batman Gambit named after him lol.  And last I checked, a tactician is often more important than the individual warriors in a fighting unit.  Superman may be exempt because he can usually just punch the story to a conclusion, but I think it applies to many of the lesser members of the league.


LOL its funny, I just stated the powers of the Justice League though. Any of them could come up with tactics. Wonder Woman is basically the comic book version of Athena. She and Aquaman could lead their people into war at any moment because they are leaders and were always raised to be. I am sure they know battle tactics and are used to fighting superhuman beings all the time. Yes, Batman created tactics for getting rid of the Justice League because he knew he had to just incase things got out of hand. If Superman wanted to he could, but he doesn't like to think about the worst case scenario with the people he calls friends hence why he wasn't dumb, found out and confronted Batman. He got Batman on the moral angle because Superman came up with a plan to kill them all it wouldnt really need much planning like Batman's would, which would take weeks to months of tactical planning. Again, even though Superman could probably create the technology himself after studying the work of his ancestors and talking to holograms with them he understands his potential to create and do things. For the sake of story people like Lex Luthor need to exist to balance out the story of Superman because essentially superman needs no one. As I said before, Lex Luthor spent years trying to figure out what makes superman tick. Until he got Supermans powers for a short period of time he never realized that you really don't need to think so much, you kind of at at peace with all of the power around you.

You seem hell bent on proving that Superman is stronger.  He is, we all know this.  But everything depends on who's writing.  No one thinks of Superman as super intelligent any more, because for a lot of people he isn't.  No one in the JL show and many comics is smarter than Batman, not recently at least.  Leading people and being smarter are two different things.  You can find a comic book written at some time that would contradict many of the things you think about any hero.  No longer can they come up with tactics as elaborate or far reaching than Batman.  Wonder Woman's lasso is woefully inadequate in many situations, and Batman has been deemed fit to wear at least two of the Lantern rings.  That was pretty scary.


Its so true that it always comes down to the writer and I've never disputed that. I mean, the Flash is a forensics scientist and they've turned him into a joke character.

Exactly.  Not to mention that in some comics the sheer power of the Speed Force he can communicate with can allow him to time travel and do Superman level crap.  Marvel's pretty bad too, it's just hard to gauge how strong characters are when they keep changing all the time.  Manga is that way too, try and figure out who wins in Superman vs. Goku.  That shit cray.  There's an hour long youtube about that one, pretty informative, they try to calculate exactly HOW strong they both are and you realize it's almost impossible, so they just estimated it lol