Batman: The Greatest Superhero of All Time

In an ambitious collaborative effort with our sister comic site BamSmackPow.com, we took painstaking effort to breakdown, evaluate and vote on the 50 greatest superheroes of all time. The list sparked heated and healthy debate as we compiled the names and when the dust settled we had all agreed on something we can be proud of.

Much to our delight, Batman came in number 1 on our countdown and we had the honor of writing exactly why we all came to these conclusions. Here’s a snippet from the article:

"Sifting through the immense number of great super heroes created over the last 75 years or so is an immense task — one that’s too big for a single person. So we tackled it by committee, asking each of the writers and editors here at Bam Smack Pow, the editors of FanSided’s Batman and Spider-Man sites and one special guest to help craft a consensus of sorts."

This is a small part of our breakdown of The Dark Knight:

"Batman is a man — just a man — who was created out of the evil men do. He didn’t seek revenge or retribution. He didn’t repeat the sins of the people who wronged him. Instead, Bruce Wayne devoted his life to fulfilling the complete potential of a human being in hopes of preventing the same tragedy befalling anyone else. He’s sacrificed his wants, spending his vast fortune on philanthropy and tools to fight crime. He sacrificed his needs, never being able to live a normal life with loved ones. He became the world’s greatest detective, strategist, warrior and scientist without special abilities because he truly believes he is the only person willing to do what it takes."

This was a great project to work on and a great example of why we are all so lucky to write about Batman for a living.

Do yourself a favor: read the article. Talk about it with your friends. Discuss what superheroes mean to you and our society. Comment, interact and debate. Step back and consider comics as the important facet of literary genre that it is.