What I liked about Batman in the first place was that he was NOT a superhero—as the current promos keep claiming.

Superheroes have super powers. Superman, for example, came from a planet with a much stronger gravity that earth's, so his body is denser, which is why bullets bounce off his chest, and a little hop on Krypton transfers into his being able to "leap tall buildings in a single bound!"

Billy Batson, the little crippled newsboy, can shout "Shazaam!" and he is suddenly endowed with the powers of a whole pantheon of Greek gods. The strength of Hercules, the speed of Mercury, etc., etc.

Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains all kinds of kookie abilities like being able to crawl up vertical surfaces, crawl around ceilings, and swinging on webs.

[Red Green to his nerdy nephew Harold: "Harold, being able to get a date with a girl is not a superpower!"]

Bruce Wayne was a normal human being. Or as normal as one can be if, at the age of ten or so, you see your parents shot down in cold blood by a derange robber, and are subsequently raised by Alfred Pennyworth, your father's dedicated and loyal English butler, who honestly manages your father's millions which you have inherited, and sees to it that you get the best schooling.

All the time you are growing up, the murder of your parents haunts you. The idea that criminals can walk the streets and skulk through the shadows and do the kind of things that one did to your parents has become something of an obsession, and you feel that you are called to do something about it.

In your childhood, you discover that there is a large cave under your home, Stately Wayne Manor. It's full of bats. At first they scare the hell out of you. Then, the idea strikes you that a huge bat, roaming the shadows and preying on the criminals, would really strike fear into their hearts.

You get training in hand-to-hand combat techniques, gymnastics, other skills you feel you might be called upon to use, and become very athletic in general.

Then, you design a mask and costume. And you begin skulking through the streets, darting from shadow to shadow, preying on thugs, footpads, and criminals.

Not a superhero. Just very acrobatic and very good at what you do.

That appealed to me much more than the idea of someone endowed with superhuman abilities.

Early on, interest began to flag in Superman because the comic books began to lack a certain element of suspense. The Man of Steel could rescue people from danger, but he, himself, was never in danger! He was essentially invulnerable. So Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had to invent "Kryptonite," the presence of which could render him weak and powerless.

Even a superhero needs to be vulnerable to something, otherwise his adventures lack a necessary level of suspense. At least once in his career, as I recall, Batman was shot and seriously injured. He was vulnerable, and hence that element of suspense existed. If the "baterang" came loose from the cornice of the building while he was in mid-swing, he could fall to his death in the street ten stories below.

Don Firth