If there is one thing I hate more than people complaining about Superman's power-set and power levels, it's his comparison to Batman! Contrary to what my very first post implies, I love Batman a lot, but I can't help but laugh at the idea of him beating Superman in a fight even with kryptonite, but that isn't what I wish to discuss. I'm sick and tired of people saying that Batman is more relatable than Superman. I will admit, Batman is definitely more believable and plausible, but NOT relatable. People base this argument on the fact that Batman is human and Superman is an alien, completely disregarding the fact that it's your personality and upbringing that defines who you are; NOT your biology and lineage. And if you're willing to drop the heritage note for a second, I will prove to you why Superman is more relatable in regards to personality and upbringing. But to be fair, because Batman is the more popular hero these days, I'm going to start with him.

Bruce Wayne comes from one of the richest and most powerful families in the world. As a kid, he stood there and watched some random street punk gun his parents down, leaving him in a rather unparalleled state of trauma. When he is older, he, possibly using his parents' money by way of early inheritance, travels the world to learn all of these mental and physical disciplines before returning home to take over his family's multi-billion-dollar company. Essentially, the earlier years when Alfred was around aside, Wayne pretty much raised himself. While he pretends to be an irresponsible and ignorant industrialist, he is in truth a hardened, stern, cynical, serious, and deceptively stoic individual, but he still CLEARLY has a kind heart. And lets not forget he deals with loss and grief in the form of allies and lovers dying, but tends to hide it from everyone VERY well.

Clark J. Kent has lived on a Kansas farm for as long as he could remember, which means he has a very strong work ethic. That aside, like average people, he had chores (farm chores excluded), went to public school, occasionally had bullies (like in the old Superboy comics and the Man of Steel movie) and girl problems (he was oblivious to Lana's feelings and wasn't the hottest guy around compared to others), and even though he went to college, he still ended up with a common job: a reporter. At times, Kent seems to be a wimpy and clumsy man (or in other adaptations a very assertive and outgoing man), but we all know he has high moral standards and cares a great deal about everyone, even his enemies, because of Ma and Pa. What ALOT of people don't know is that his awareness of being an orphaned immigrant weighs heavily on him. He knows full well those kindly farmers aren't his true parents and while he will always love them like any adoptive child would, also like any adoptive child, he must constantly face the reality that he will NEVER meet his true parents and cannot truly bond with his friends in the League, as they cannot understand him the way he needs to be understood. There's no one else like him so to some degree, he will always feel like a lonely outsider. Every adoptive child has wondered about their families and even cultures in the case of those from another country; it's really no different for him.

Now, tell me. Whom is more relatable? A man who deals with trauma and loss by fighting for what's right in a rather brutish but necessary fashion? Or a man who deals with his status as a lonely orphan while fighting for what's right despite what some (and definitely not all) have to say about him and his status as an immigrant? Sound off below, please.

Batman

I'll just say this,i love Batman as well but the only thing 'relatable' about him is that he's human and has no powers,every other facet of his being is pure fantasy. And Superman might not be the MOST relatable person but people who say he's completely unrelatable are kidding themselves...We're all Clark Kents,literally 99% of us ;) Oh and i disagree about Clark not being attractive in school, he was a football hero too but maybe his efforts to not let people find out about him made him kind of an oddball (except to Lana and Pete)

This is exactly what I've been wondering... For me, Superman is the most relatable comic book character of them all

Its personal issue for everyone to decide what s/he considers “relatable” IMO.

Having said that, I agree with many points of OP. Maybe Clark not the most relatable of all heroes, but I find such characters as him and Spiderman to be more relatable than Batman…Scratch that, I find Superman to be the most relatable in terms of characterization and life experiences.

Easily Batman. Superman legitimately has it all. A wife, his mother, friends and a city that full-on appreciates him. He is living the perfect life. He's also gotten a healthy dose of reality, such as when his father died by something as earthly as a heart-attack. He even has solace in the fact that he isn't the last Kryptonian. Superman is the one of the least relatable people in comics. Not saying that Batman is, but he has to deal with much more. He has had death and corruption in every form of family and friends, yet he didn't get the therapy he needed. So he uses Batman as an outlet, as others use things such as food and jobs as an outlet. He is relatable in the grand scheme of things.

Those 2 statements kinda contradict each other. IMO supes, spidey and flash are some of the most relateable characters in comics

So you have dealt with death and corruption? And you created villains who kill innocent people everytim they get out? Also Batman might think he doesn't need a therapy but he REALLY does need one.

Seriously I'm also tired of this topic. Batman is the one of the least relatable people in comics, hes rich and can do anything he wants. He is a master of everything and degrees in a lot of things. Hes the PERFECT human. He sends out kids to FIGHT criminals and uses them as soldier but thinks hes giving them a chance when he should give them REAL help instead. His OWN SON diead because he couldn't stop his silly war against crime which will never end.

I don't think you know what relatable means.

What a very silly thread, who is more relatable will depend entirely on the person reading.

Some people will find someone unable to deal with the tragedy in his life more relatable, some people will find someone who wants to inspire the good in humanity more relatable. You can apply this to the various different aspects of the characters.

End thread/

Everyone finds something different in every character, I too believe that Superman is more relatable than people think. He is the guy with all this power, grown up in the most human way possible and the fact that he has become a symbol gives him tremendous responsibility and burdens.

Superman, to me is more relatable. He has a loving wife, a good job (though sometimes he's under appreciated) good friends, a pretty much normal mindset on what's right and wrong. He's friendly, affable, easy going, comes from a small, midwestern town.

Batman, besides being "human" isn't that relatable. A billionaire who only pretends to have a personality, really is just a dark/brooding guy who treats his partners and friends like crap a lot of the time and is as anti social as they come, dude is borderline sociopathic.

I think superman is more relatable. We see him with normal problems when he is Clark, interacting with friends and family, having a job, trying to impress Lois...

Bruce doesn't act like a real person.

@night4345:

Instead of attempting to insult, defend your point.

@batman-hush: I wasn't insulting you... I'm just saying you're mistaking tragedy for relatability.

I can't relate to billionaire playboy at all who lives in the big city at all...not even a little bit

a farmer from Kansas on the other hand...

Neither of them

Please allow me to do it for him. The thing is that perfect life you called it has its hardships. No matter how much he tries to fit in, he knows he is an alien. He never met his biological parents which can be pretty hard no matter how much your adopted parents love you. In some versions he lost his adopted parents pretty early too. He struggles between his job and his duty. He has to keep a standard that is pretty impossible like how many of us do in our every day life(I can elaborate later). He wants a kid but can't have one with the wife he loves. These are problems more relatable to the common man. Superman is a wide character that can relate from orphans to immigrants to every day family men who want to have a kid, the guys who struggle between ethics and their works, these are problems more common than Batman's or at least thats what I think.

@redwingx:

I legitimately just said he didn't get therapy. You are so hypocritical. You talk of Batman being the perfect human, when Superman poses as a human. Batman is indeed emotionally decimated. Unless Batman gets the help he needs, he can't live a "normal" life. Batman believes he's giving them a chance because that's how he raised himself. Being Robin has given Dick, Tim and Damian so many opportunities. He taught them how to be good men and citizens. You also call his war on crime silly. Tell me, is Superman's fighting crime somehow different from Batman in the grand scheme of things? You talk of Batman as if he's calloused, when in reality he has an intense and passionate love of life. He values life. To the degree that he wouldn't kill. Superman can have a god complex at times. He sanctimoniously values himself and his beliefs over others. Such as when he sold out Batman's identity after pressuring him to trust his teammates, when he himself still hadn't given away his identity. Or perhaps when he killed Zod and his lackeys. Or maybe when he peeked through Batman's cowl. Batman treats the Robin's as his sons. To the point where on Father's Day, wouldn't go out on patrol. You argue against Batman, when you clearly know nothing of him. You defend Superman so poorly, that I'm not sure if you're in touch with the character you're defending.

Honestly as someone who sees the world a little differently then most people, and someone who feels different and somewhat isolated I can defiantly say I relate a little more to Superman. Although that's not really the main reason I like Superman.

I get oh so many ladies just like Batman.

@night4345:

Superman doesn't face loss. He once lost Jonathan Kent. That's about it. Batman gives you the blown up hardships of life. A bit extreme at times, but relatable if you give them thought.

Do you sleep with little boys like Batman too?

@batman-hush: Yeah it's not like he's lost his entire planet as a baby, lost his clone/son/brother, lost his people again, and lost his adopted son for awhile. Yep his life is just full of life and happiness all the time.

Relatability is relative. The reason Batman is usually the face of "the human resistance" in stories like Kingdom Come or Red Son or Injustice is because he's human and has all the essential trappings of a human, something his teammates typically uniformly lack. He's the one who has to worry about survival and recovery and injuries the most. He's made the face of the human resistance because he goes up against forces that could crush him into the dirt on paper. It's your basic David vs Goliath kind of story, and everybody relates to David when they hear that story. If Superman makes a mistake, Despero might punch him through a few buildings. If Batman makes a mistake, Despero might snap him in half. His approach to danger is, and has to be, more human than any of his teammates'. Or at least that's the general premise. Behind the fourth wall, we know the odds of DC killing or crippling Batman for any substantial period of time is unlikely, but in-universe that's how it works.

Superman's human life isn't particularly more relatable than Batman's human life for the simple reason that it's Superman living it. It's not like when Peter Parker was working for the Daily Bugle and a paycheck meant one more month without the likelihood of an eviction notice getting stuck to his door. Superman doesn't need to work for the Daily Planet. He doesn't need to be a reporter. He just likes that life. As far as his professional or personal lives go, he doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want to do. He could reverse-engineer the tech at the Fortress of Solitude and become a billionaire. He could become a brand ambassador for any of a thousand different corporations and make millions. He could fly away from Earth and make a new life for himself on an alien planet, and then do anything he feels like there. Superman can do whatever he wants. The limits in his personal life that make him "relatable" are limits that he's adopted for himself because he prefers to live a certain way. If he gets an eviction notice, it's not really a big deal for him; the Fortress is always around, and it's an undoubtedly cooler place than any piece of Metropolis real estate.

@farkam: Naw, I handle my business Alfred style!!

@saren: You can't deny that Superman's life has many elements that people can relate to. He is an immigrant, an orphan, a guy who can't have a kid with the wife he loves.
Those alone are every day problems that you ignored in your post.

I never get why people think Superman being an immigrant makes him relatable. At best, he sometimes feels bad about the fact that there aren't more people like him around. My parents were immigrants to the States and the problems they had in those early years were a lot more tangible than Superman's problems as an immigrant. Their problems were where to find employment, which neighborhoods were safest for their kids, whether the latest update on their green card applications had arrived, whether their work visas would get renewed. Those are problems actual immigrants face, and Superman doesn't face a single one of them. No one's treating him differently, they're queuing up for autographs every time he foils a bank robbery. No one's asking to see his credentials. They're not making laws to stop and frisk him based on how he looks, not that they could seeing as he looks just like them, and they're not arguing about building a wall to keep him from entering the country. He's an orphan, sure, but so is Batman, and if Batman's relatability as an orphan is countered by his wealth, I'd argue that Superman's relatability as an orphan is countered by his ability to acquire wealth anytime he feels like it in addition to being a super-luminal planet-tosser who shoots fire out of his eyes.

As for not being able to have a kid with the wife he loves, DC seems to have taken that away, because Superboy's current origin is that he's a clone of Superman's son with Lois in the future. Even allowing that, I'm not arguing that Superman isn't relatable in some senses. He's just as relatable as Batman is. Neither of them is particularly relatable, and I'm not sure where this hangup with relatability that so many people have comes from, but there are extremely few comic book characters who are completely relatable to the average reader.

@saren:

My parents were immigrants to the States

From where if you don't mind me asking.

@wolverine08: India.

I actually find Batman more relatable. It's not becaue he's a human though. I find Batman relatable the same way I find Reed Richards relatable.

@saren:

• Well, my point was that he is an outsider in a foreign land. My uncle went to find job at germany years back. And no matter how much he tried he missed his "real" home. Now I know Superman never meet Krypton but we have seen in many stories so far that he misses the home he never met. So that was my point to make it more clearly.
• If you notice in none of my posts I compared who is more relatable(well in one I did mention Superman's problems were more common but thats it).
• I DON'T accept Jon Lane deal with it! In all seriousness now, Jon Lane is a stupid kid from a terrible future that should never existed. Plus because they had a kid in A possible future that doesn't say much...Actually it doesn't say anything at all considering Lois and Clark aren't together. Still they might have troubles having one. People sometimes go at great lengths to have a kid. I still hate DC's decision to abort Chris Kent, I don't know who to blame but Chris opened so many new doors storytelling wise.
• Relatability has became another stupid excuse to hate a character you don't know anything about. Personally I don't read DC's ARCHTYPES for relatability.

How if you don't mind me asking? I can see the workaholic and father but thats pretty much it.

And in Post-9/11 world, racial hate has plagued Asian immigrants, something which Superman will....never represent/relate to.

Your uncle has actually lived in the home he misses. Superman missing Krypton makes little sense given that his life on Earth is the only one he's known. Characters like Martian Manhunter and Power Girl have a better claim to missing home than Clark does.

@saren: Well, his character still does, and why wouldn't he?
He wants to meet the parents that to give him a full life send him away(I don't know anyone who is adopted that didn't want to know his real parents, then again I don't know many), he wants to meet the world he is actually from, that world of wonder he originates and he didn't have the chance to live in. He isn't human and he knows that, he feels out of place, its pretty logical. And lasty everyone misses what they can't have.

Well, being an element stronger to MM and Supergirl doesn't take away from the fact that Superman owns it too.

I think I want to be your number one fan. I completely agree, Batman while he is one of my least favorite heroes, at least is good at being the human spokesperson of representing humanity. Superman lives like a God amongst men, deluding he is one of them because he's a hick from Kansas when he's the last alien scion of the strongest most advance race of the cosmos after the New gods. And he always like indulging himself since on top of super powers he's got to have the spoils of human achievement as a reporter or a devoted husband. Super in the 52 acts like he should, he's a freakin alien who isn't anymore than what he says(humanity incarnate my ass), he just likes to save humans.

@jimishim12: Um he was raised by humans.

My first initial thought

No mainstream superhero is relatable to me, especially in DC where they have to be the best at everything. Spider-Man's "relatabilty" is wouldn't survive the slightest scrutiny and it's easily solved by anyone who has an 85+ IQ... before I say Super-Genius Peter Parker.

Naruto Uzumaki is a total loser. Not good at anything, not rich, nothing to his name. His entire village hates him. Sasuke is better than him at everything, every girl loves Sasuke, Sasuke excels at everything. His parents are dead...

Naruto is relatable. Batman, Superman and Spider-Man aren't relatable.

@superguy1591: naruto is one of the crappiest mainstream manga/anime in years. Naruto's character is the definition of Gary Stu and plot armor.

@bsaa: What's wrong with Naruto?

@superguy1591: .....................

The hero is right cuz the hero is right syndrome, not to mention law of diminishing returns. Naruto was at its best pre-shippuden, and even then it wasn't great.

@bsaa: I said Naruto Uzumaki was relatable, never said it was a masterpiece.

@superguy1591: He lost all relay ability when he kept rejecting the obvious affections of a wallflower cutie to chase after a certain pink haired ho.

i think i relate to Luke cage or Spider-man, more than Batman or Superman or Spider-man.

i don't relate to Batman because he filthy rich knows every martial arts.

i don't relate to Superman to because he too powerful and he can get any job he wants.

@superguy1591: Batman, Superman and Spiderman are all relatable.. Just apparently not to you.

@bsaa: He's never rejected Hinata, he's just never noticed she's into him. Something I can relate to.