By advance, sorry for this long post...
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If I may contribute and for what it's worth, in a book on the history of comics, French author Jean-Paul Jennequin defined superhero characters according to these three main characteristics:
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"Extraordinary Powers" (note that it could be intentional to not say "superpower", allowing incredible capacities to be also considered)
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"Distinctive Costume"
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"Double identity"
There's also an observation that the
"superhero begins where the simple hero ends" and that, in a way, one might be tempted to see certain figures from Greek mythology, such as Hercules, as super -hero. But since the term really became commonplace in the 1960s, the author suggest the comic-book medium as an hypothetical another caracteristic.
Anyway, I quite agree with this definition, and see Batman as part of that group.
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Whether these characters are for kids or not, we definitely saw how many of them can be adapted in different way and, as others already said, that's the secret to their longevity.
But to developp a bit more, I would remind that these superheros have been created less than a century ago. Some of the most famous ones are only a few decades old. They have gone through different period, sometimes out-fashioned, sometimes successful. But I think it's only since the late 80s that these characters have, globally, solidified their presence in
pop-culture by managing to stay continuously relevant since then. It's a little more obvious outside of the US as superhero comics have never had the same cultural place as there. You can more easily identify the start of that new golden age with shows like
Batman TAS, the 90s
X-Men and
Spider-Man cartoons, and these very same characters simultanously investing theaters since then.
The result of this continued success is that, for the first time, a large proportion of the audiences around the world, from youngters to people in their forties, have grown up with these characters being an important part of their cultural baggage. And so, for the first time, there's a new market to catch, by proposing more mature stories with these characters to that older part of the audience now became significant.
My point is that while
"light stories" will likely remain the main
"way of doing things" of the genre, we'll likely see also more and more
"adult-oriented" productions as audiences will getting older.
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Coming back to Batman, beyond the secret identities, costumes, etc., the character has the advantage of having his roots in the film noir genre, which makes it easier for him to evolve in more adult stories, as we all see those past years. The next challenge will indeed to see the more fantastic part of that universe being adapted with that more serious and mature tone.
The consensus is that you have to absolutely "ground" things to achive that. After Nolan films, many people understand this as "using realism to make believe", and that's a totally valid approach, and pure science fiction in the sense of sufficiently rooting the world you're creating in our reality to help the suspension of disbelief. But I think we're forgetting too quickly how you can also "ground" something emotionnally.
For decades, fantastic literature and cinema had already been making that bridge between seemingly juvenile and ridiculous concepts and touching and mature stories. Gimmicks aside, most of the characters in Batman's world are built around personal tragedies, archetypes, which give the franchise an incredible universality and flexibility to adapt. In my opinion, all it takes is a director working in this way, whose vision allows him to use the visual language of the fantastic genre while taking care to keep the dramatic core of these characters central. Simply put, like always if the writing is solid, then the story will have the potential to speak to everyone, no matter what.
The Fly is often cited, and rightly so, because this film effectively grounded its story, both conceptually and emotionnally. But really, Matt Reeves has already shown he can work towards that in his two
Planet of the Apes films.
What strikes me about what we've seen of
The Batman is the visual stylization. Of course, this choice is not exclusive to a certain tone or genre, and the rules of the world created here could very well remain the same as in Seven, as there's visual similarities. But it's also a choice that could definitely help if the director wants to bring more
"out there" ideas later, at least visually.
That's not to say every fantastic Batman's character will show up or work within that framework set by Reeves. But if you ask me, from what seems to be his sensibility, I think he definitely left himself an open door to go a little further than what Nolan has allowed himself to touch in the
comicbookness of this franchise..
