The BATSUIT Thread

Batman is whatever Gotham needs him to be.

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Also, if Batman isn't a superhero because Bruce Wayne doesn't have superpowers, then neither does Tony Stark, so by that logic Iron Man isn't a superhero either.

I don't think that argument holds up.
 
But it does. Every bit of tech that Tony uses is pretty much the equivalent of a super-powered being. He achieves what other superheroes can pull off with his crazy high tech. Batman has gadgets but it’s not even 10 percent on the level of Iron Man who, in his suit alone can do just as much as most members from the Avengers, X-Men and Justice League.

I’ll die on this hill. A detective vigilante is not a superhero.
 
Batman is more than capable of designing suits that could give Stark a run for his money. He even uses them on occasion. The only reason he doesn’t is because, in real life, everyone would complain and start calling him an Iron Man rip-off (and rightly so).

Batman is absolutely a superhero. Superhero =/= superhuman.
 
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The way I see it, batman can and has gone toe to meta humans and supervillains (killer croc, clay face, bane, mr. Freeze and man bat are all either powered or armed with super human weaponry.) and comes out victorious. He's super because he can do these things even though he has no powers.
 
Batman by definition is not a superhero.

He’s just a man. A very determined man with mental illness.

Heroic? Yes. Altruistic? Yes. Dark Hero? Yes. Vigilante? Absolutely. Mental illness? Absolutely.

And yes there is a significant difference between:

Iron Man when in his super powered suits of armor ... does physical super heroic feats. You know, like flying.

And Batman who wears a suit that features slightly advanced forms of body armor, like soldiers or swat team members.
 
Again, Batman can be whatever he needs to be for any given story or version.

Sometimes he’s a detective vigilante solving a street-level crime, or a creature of the night rooting out mafia corruption. Other times he is definitely a superhero, accomplishing feats of wonder while protecting Gotham or fighting alongside the Justice League and facing off against multiversal threats in space.

The character is very malleable. He can be redefined or reinterpreted infinitely. Batman is many things and not just one thing, so there is no right or wrong answer or viewpoint.
 
Again, Batman can be whatever he needs to be for any given story or version.

Sometimes he’s a detective vigilante solving a street-level crime, or a creature of the night rooting out mafia corruption. Other times he is definitely a superhero, accomplishing feats of wonder while protecting Gotham or fighting alongside the Justice League and facing off against multiversal threats in space.

The character is very malleable. He can be redefined or reinterpreted infinitely. Batman is many things and not just one thing, so there is no right or wrong answer or viewpoint.

This is spot on. In general, yes, Batman is a superhero. That's par for the course in being one of the most immediately recognizable characters in comic book history, especially when you reside in a world chockfull of other superheroes and regularly go toe-to-toe with supervillains.

However, as The Shape here just put it, part of Batman's appeal is that he can be reinterpreted in a smaller scale as detective vigilante taking on crime and corruption in Gotham City, where the point of his disguise isn't to "be a superhero," but to act as a scare tactic and keep his identity safe.

To me, a number of Batman's best stories typically involve him not being "a superhero" and instead being "a detective vigilante." He's certainly not a superhero in Year One, for instance and I'd argue that the super-y elements in books like The Long Halloween or Dark Victory are downplayed significantly while the film noir and detective elements are scaled up to compensate.
 
C Prometheus is right. Superhero is not about the powers he may or may not have.

It's about the genre batman belongs to (a very wide one at that). Even if not all the elements of "Essential superhero" are there, he is still one, as a lead in the type of comics he is in, the groups he is associated, the stories he is told into, the way he is presented, etc.
 
Batman may not technically have superhuman abilities, but I think it's splitting hairs to argue that he shouldn't be called a superhero. A superhero (IMO at least) is not defined by their physical abilities, but by their purpose and what they stand for.

I mean, the Justice League - in any media, be it comic or movie - are a team of superheroes, right? Is anyone really going to argue that the guy in the black cape should technically be left out of that term because he can't fly? He has the ability to take down the other members of the league despite his lack of superpowers, so it's not like he's in any way compromised.

If arguing that Batman isn't a superhero, then by the same logic neither is Robin, Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Iron Man, Black Widow, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and more. You could even argue that Captain America technically isn't a superhero either; it's been stated many times in the comics that the serum has pushed his body to the extreme limits of human physical ability, but he doesn't actually have any super powers like the ability to fly, produce energy blasts, etc.
 
Batman by definition is not a superhero.

He’s just a man. A very determined man with mental illness.

Heroic? Yes. Altruistic? Yes. Dark Hero? Yes. Vigilante? Absolutely. Mental illness? Absolutely.

And yes there is a significant difference between:

Iron Man when in his super powered suits of armor ... does physical super heroic feats. You know, like flying.

And Batman who wears a suit that features slightly advanced forms of body armor, like soldiers or swat team members.

Batman's not a traditional superhero in the sense that he doesn't have super powers, that's fair to suggest. But while I get what you're saying about him being "just a man," the implication there is that virtually anyone can do what he does, which we know to be untrue. Contrary to the politically correct narrative that all human beings are exactly the same, we actually vary quite a bit in our potential and limitations. The average person can devote every waking minute to studying quantum physics, for instance, and still come away with an inability to comprehend the subject matter. Most people no matter how hard they try will never have as gifted an intellect as that of a Gauss or a Leibniz. Others, by virtue of their genetic limitations, will never be able to compete with world class gymnasts. The point I'm trying to get at is that you can be extraordinary or gifted in a way that separates you from the average Joe and still be entirely devoid of super powers, as they're commonly defined in the pages of a comic book.

Bruce, in being a natural-born athlete with a near unparalleled intellect, is a similarly gifted polymath. But, as a human being with his own set of limitations, he still has to keep himself sharp with hard work and dedication. That's what makes him "super" in my eyes. Plus, he has "all those wonderful toys", as Nicholson's Joker put it.

The task ahead of Reeves, as I see it, is to get all that across without veering too far into Batgod territory.
 
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I wonder if he will have more than 1 costume in this movie....

I'd be a little surprised to see him switch to another costume. That said, perhaps, he'll see fit to make an upgrade or two so as to increase mobility and protection, or in response to any damage incurred.
 

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