Do you agree that Batman is better and more complex character than Superman?

Do you agree that Batman is better and more complex character than Superman?

Better character, no but he is more complex mainly due to the relationships he's had with his sidekicks, villains and side characters like Gordon and Leslie Thompkins over the years.

No

how is superman complex?

when he tries to defend his moral superiority?
the women he's slept with?
not killing his villains?

hes vanilla as fuck

That pic looks so fucking stupid

how is batman complex?

when he tries to defend his moral superiority?
the women he's slept with?
not killing his villains?

hes vanilla as fuck

It's not his ethics and morals that make him complex it's how he interacts with the bat family which even though supes has had people like supergirl and steel it's never been close to how flushed out Bruce's family is.

MAN OF STEEL VERSUS DARK KNIGHT OF GOTHAM

DAY VERSUS NIGHT

PEEPEE VERSUS PEACH TEA

It's not his ethics and morals that make him complex it's how he interacts with the super family which even though bats has had people like batgirl and raziel it's never been close to how flushed out Clark's family is.

Easier to juggle and flesh out without stepping on toes I guess, so if you mean better in that sense sure.
More complex? Consider that whenever Superman is filtered through the premise of Red Son or Injustice or Earth Prime or Kingdom Come or dies or resurrects or, well you can see where I'm going with this, we get a full course analysis and discussion not only on the DCU but often superheroes as a concept.

Batman can be very psychologically nuanced, but I don't think his complexity is as robust as you might think. Whenever he starts doing Batgod stuff to make him seem like an Atlas worlds rest on the shoulders of it just results in absurdity that tarnishes his character if anything.
I don't think there's ever too large or small you can go with Superman with the right angle, but often writers don't go too far because the profitability or backlash makes exploring too adventurously more trouble than it's worth.

With Batman reinventing him is what every writer shows up to do, not necessarily pacify or pander to anyone. Based on their idea of him or what they think they could do different they're all trying to make him or his cast darker or more vulnerable and "real" or fast forwarding into a bleak future to place an ultimatum beyond a physical enemy over his head, or returning him to his youthful, campy caped crusader days working against the grain. So reinterpretation comes with the title, fans embrace or get over the tweaks quickly so again, more opportunity to flesh out not necessarily more to flesh out.

But like light splintering through a prism, if you look at not just the different Earth versions but all the different expies of Superman compared to others you can start to derive the true invisible spectrum of the character, and not the one people's limited vision lets them see.

Strong rigid morality is the most complex philosophical position one can take in a morally ambiguous world. Superman is great when he faces these kind of situations and shit in the classical "the villain is totes evil and that's it" ones

So you're saying that Superman has more untapped potential due to his concept, which DC is afraid to explore due to possible readers backlash, while Batman's more flashed out because readers are more ready to accept any deviations?

But i disagree with you about the Batgod aspect. There's nothing absurd about it. Specially when a story focus on him and the effect his legend might have on Gotham and its residents.

If Batgod is absurd, all the meta-wanking over Superman iconography, who started as a strongman, just be absurd as well, which i disagree.

Honest question: Why is it that Batman has SO MANY more notable quality stories than Superman?

Batman
>Year One
>Man Who Laughs
>The Long Halloween
>Dark Victory
>Knightfall
>Arkham Asylum: Serious House
>Killing Joke
>No Man's Land
>Hush
>Under the Hood
>RIP
>Dark Knight Returns

Superman
>For All Seasons
>All-Star

He brings the douche and so the publisher place their more famous writers to write his books.

short answer: depends on your opinion on what's better or complex
shorter answer: no

are you 12

because you're cherry-picking

MY PARENTS ARE DEAD

Most writers agree he is better to write for, he fits more kinds of stories than superman. A good Superman story is a white whale for all writers, but if a writer cant do a good batman story it means it's shit. Even mediocre writers like Loeb or Johns can manage to do good batman stories.

Batman is more complex, and a better character, but that doesn't mean you have to like it more. I take a good steak over coq au vin. Coq au vin is more complex, and not everyone can make a good steak, but that doesn't mean I have to like the more complex thing.


For some reason superfags in this thread seem to think that liking superman needs some validation. As if is superman isn't the bestest they love for the character means less. Retarded manchildren. I like superman more, I wanted to fly as a kid and used towels to play as superman, I don't need more reasons to like him, batman is more complex deal with it.

He's much better and easier to write than Superman and has a bigger potential for good stories.

>because you're cherry-picking
Providing examples of outstanding Superman stories with this statement would make you look less stupid. Just a tip.

No, I am no longer a teenager.

I also happen to actually read both characters, something I'd wager almost everyone else in the thread can't say.

There's no denying that Batman has been used in a bigger variety of ways, but I think Superman can be just as complex. People underestimate the meat you can get out of a good man

>People underestimate the meat you can get out of a good man

I do read both actually and I still would say that Batman is more interesting.

>Not wanting that sweet, sweet super-meat

Are you gay or something?

>he fits more kinds of stories than superman
I guess, but that's sort of on the writers too isn't it? Like I said the only truly outstanding Superman stories I know of are For All Seasons, All-Star and the two or three revisions of his origin story (I'm personally a really big fan of Birthright). I feel like writers could do a lot more with Superman exploring space, meeting strange foreign creatures but maintaining his small-town American attitude for a nice juxtaposition.

I don't know, maybe there are just as many Superman masterpieces as there are Batman and I just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Before? Maybe. By this point, Batman is a tired case, with almost all concepts regarding him explored.

Superman is not "more complex", but his message of optimism and hope feels somehow much more fresh nowadays. Instead of exploring "what could a godlike man possibly do" concept like the Silver Age did with their infinite powerset Superman, instead today Superman answers the question: "How should a godlike man behave among the mortals?" And the answer is: with love for the fellow man, compassion for those who stray from the path of justice, and with humanizing love for one's family.

Batman is vengeance, night, struggle.

Supermain is love, life, aspirations.

capeshit is for children

for the man who has everything
peace on earth
kingdom come, sorta, it's mostly a superman story
red son
what's so funny about truth, justice and the american way?

read up, up and away. It's by johns of all people and god damn fucking amazing.

It's set just after Superman loses his powers. Really goes beyond just his powers and more into his character. Something the ravenous batfags have trouble seeing even at its best, so it you might not even like it.

meme answers, but still decent books.

It's simple superman fits Sci fi, superhero and action stories great, but batman fits all those, pulp, detective, martial arts, horror, supernatural and even comedy. Also, as an artist batman is just more fun to draw. So it just attracts more talent.

why are they memes if they're genuinely good?

I'll give them a shot, thanks for the suggestions. I've read quite a lot of Batman and always wanted to give Supes his due. Batman/Superman is easily one of my favorite reads, it's a lot of fun and the dual narration is done pretty flawlessly.

What about that arc where Superman just walks the Earth, solving petty crime town-by-town as a way to dispel the thoughts that he's basically a god? Is that any good? I always thought that could be a killer idea if written right, and cheesy shit if not.

That story by Johns is a copy of Captain atom m8

because everyone always says them every time someone asks for what to read.

Almost never does anyone ever post books that show you've read more than reddits recommended lists.

...and that somehow makes the book not readable?

Fuck off. No story is new.

4 of those stories are terrible, a bunch are passable and a few brilliant.

to be fair the Batman list was also "recommended reading list" tier. There's a reason they pop up on every list you see, they're the staple stories for people getting into the character.

what are the terrible ones, oh great and powerful patrician?

>everyone says them
Because they're really good.
It's like complaining everyone says 4 when you ask how much is 2+2.

Kingdom Come, What's So Funny (...), Whatever Happened (...) and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel.

>Because they're really good.

no shit, did you idiots you miss the part where I said

> but still decent books.

I'm saying that the climax of the story it's the same and that is not similar. It's the same. The only difference is that captain atom has more batman on it.

opinion discarded

To be fair Legends of the dark Knight alone has more great stories than that recommended list.


Seriously Legends of the dark Knight was makes every comparison unfair.

While LL man of steel is the worst of them, none of those are 'terrible books'.

You need a brain scan, cause something is wrong inside of you.

They still continue to suck. Preachy and contrived as fuck stories.

They're bad, mang.

that's a 'get started with superman' list. Not a comprehensive best of.

>whatever happened
>cited by many writers and critics to be one of the best comic stories of all time

>Preachy
>terrible

And legends is just one book.

It's a good comics, it's not preachy, but batman's capped crusader it's better. Also, Gaiman recently said he wants to make one more batman story.

Then it gets listed as just one.

Checkmate, pleb.

Are you that ignorant? Legends was a series that started as graphic novel bait.

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tommorrow was Alan Moore making a snuff comic of Superman's supporting cast.

No amount of brown nosing Moore will make it anything better than that.

Batman has better comics than superman stop being so. Mad you dumb fanboy, very few characters in mainstream capeshit compare, Daredevil can compete, but that's about it.

>when a story focus on him and the effect his legend might have on Gotham and its residents.
I don't mean to ridicule the "man made myth" tales when I said Batgod. Those are really another layer of the psychology of Batman, not an exaggeration. They're quite engrossing in fact.

The idea that much like innocents whisper to beware criminals at night, criminals in hushed tones tell each other beware of something outside the law like them, but not on their side.

Batman's vigilantism is less a human fist and more a city shadow and, like the opportunist criminal element, because of the illusory nature of its owner it can seem to be ever watching and waiting around every corner, allowing no sense of safety to sink in.
To commit crime in Gotham isn't to do so against the will of a cop or court that can be threatened or extorted, but something without a real name, face or address. It's just exists.

Written well Batman becomes not just a crime fighter, but an antithesis to crime. Something as old as sin and punishment carved from and into man's history.

Something more than just personal or professional reactionary justice and laws. A predator tracking the blood soaked fangs of predators. It's poetic irony the fear and harm evil upholds is brought down on it, making it victim and the den of vice it calls paradise into a personal hell it can't escape. I could go further into the opposite side of the coin, how Batman can be as comforting a presence not just because his protectiveness of good rivals his retribution against evil but because he's willing to still see a human underneath the ugliness of his worst enemies and help the wayward back on the road to human decency, but I need to get to the prior point.

No, what I meant is not so abstract. I was talking of simple hyperbole of feats. Not because they're inherently bad, context matters, but because it's easier for some characters to endure the effects of escalation while retaining their meaning than others.

It's a good comic, stuff being such a cunt, but sure it wasn't that good, for the man was better, just like mortal clay was better than killing joke.

Batman is a very emotionally complex character.

>It's an edgy teenager hates Superman episode

Shouldn't edgy teens like Superman since he feed their fantasy of being wolf in sheep's clothing? You know, the nicest guy you'll ever know until he stops playing nice and show his hidden manliness proving how much of a alpha dog he is to all the other men and women.

You are using a terrible image, there's nothing Batgod about that. That's a useless idea by Johns, one of the dumbest batman ever and all his contributions to the story was saying "dodge" in the middle of a fight. Fuck Darkseid war was terrible

>Whatever Happened to the Man of Tommorrow was Alan Moore making a snuff comic of Superman's supporting cast.
When the crux of the story is Superman being pointlessly bloodied by Doomsday for the audience of Metropolis, chiefly to make sales, readers receive and recall it as one of the most iconic moments of heroic sacrifice.
When the crux of the story is Superman's associates becoming the victim of his enemies' obsession and hate for him, and what that does to him and makes him have to do, it's just tacky, typical Moore.

Nope, take a look into the normie world

There's a version of this with moore face on batman's and Morrison on catwoman.

Where are you getting this? You don't need to dislike superman to say batman is a better character.

What???

You need to be blind to say that

Hey at least while fighitng Doomsday, Superman was allowed to save people.

Almost all of Whatever Happened is Superman finding out which member of his supporting cast was dead, if not helplessly witnessing their deaths himself.

He saved Perry, he saved Perry's marriage while he was at it.

Or not a fanboy, I get that you get triggered due batman popularity. But no one that isn't a fanboy would say that superman is a better character.

>this is what batfags believe

I'm a superman fan tho

Batman gets the better writers. Look at the last two writers Batman got. Both King and Snyder were two of DC's hottest writers. While Superman gets saddled with bland writers like Tomasi and Jurgens.

>bland writers like Tomasi
Easy
EASY.

>a simple black and white morality is more complex than the grey of the world because isn't the norm.

not saying either is better but to argue that supes is more complex is just silly.

You are not arguing with rational people but with fanboy that believe liking something means said thing it's better.

Absolutely. Superman just doesn't work anymore in the modern age. His fanbase consists entirely of elderly people that are dying off.

No

Only edgy faggots like you would say that.

>His fanbase consists entirely of elderly people that are dying off.
I wish, but his fanbases is mostly edgy teenagers who want to pretend liking a character gives them moral superiority over people who doesn't.

And gym rats.

his street level stories keep the stakes low

fighting thugs and mobsters won't be a total snooze fest since they have a (almost negligible) chance of killing him. he's so fucking malleable too. Pulp, detective, espionage, martial arts, super hero, horror, etc. so many genres he can work in.

Batman is easy mode for writers.

Superman needs weird aliens or robots or demons capable of fucking planets to be a direct threat to him. he only really works with action and sci-fi.

writer's have less room to work with when it comes to Superman

But it is more complex. Batman is complex too, but the character superman faces isolation when coming to terms with his own nature, hiding in plain sight and being lonely surrounded by the crowd, the thankless job of the superhero and even the futility and powerlessness of his role sometimes, keeping his rigid rural simplistic morality in the face of challenges that can't be solved with that kind of thinking.

Batman is some rich kid playing detective and being edgy, his absurdly good rogue gallery and the fact that most people who like him are rich kids who can relate to him are some of his biggest appeals really, more than the ethos of the character

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

>Batman is some rich kid playing detective and being edgy, his absurdly good rogue gallery and the fact that most people who like him are rich kids who can relate to him are some of his biggest appeals really, more than the ethos of the character
This,

>But it is more complex. Batman is complex too, but the character superman faces isolation when coming to terms with his own nature, hiding in plain sight and being lonely surrounded by the crowd, the thankless job of the superhero and even the futility and powerlessness of his role sometimes, keeping his rigid rural simplistic morality in the face of challenges that can't be solved with that kind of thinking.
What comic are you reading?, Superman is surrounded by loving family, and friends, the population loves him and idolizes him, and most of the challenges he face are solved without any major moral conflict.

>but the character superman faces isolation when coming to terms with his own nature, hiding in plain sight and being lonely surrounded by the crowd, the thankless job of the superhero and even the futility and powerlessness of his role sometimes, keeping his rigid rural simplistic morality in the face of challenges that can't be solved with that kind of thinking.

You're saying as if those same aspects weren't the bread and butter of Batman as well. Doubt me?

>Batman's self-imposed isolation when coming to term with his mission, hiding in plain sight playing the role of a fool and being lonely while surrounded by a crowd that has no idea of who he really is or does, the thankless job of the superhero and even the futility and powerlessness of his role sometimes because no matter the sacrifice or years put in this will ever changed Gotham in a meaningful way, keeping his rigid morality in the face of challenges that can't be solved with that kind of thinking.

That's Batman to a T. I can even play the asshole with Superman despite loving the character.

>Superman is some all powerful jock playing god and being boss, his absurdly good rogue gallery and the fact that most people who like him are chads who can relate to him are his biggest appeals really, more than the ethos of the character

No, not at all.

Either can be, depends on the writer

It's called bait you dumbass

this