Originally Posted by
Myskin
Sorry, but you keep bringing up the world "realistic", but that's not the point here. I have never thought that Batman is realistic. The point is, the elements of the Batman lore work and click together. They are coherent. As for the stories themselves - they can be allegories, thriller stories, horror stories and - in some very specific cases - also semi-realistic thrillers. There are some archetypes in the Batman lore which are not realistic and cannot be otherwise because that's what "the rules of the game" are. For example, the idea that someone could seriously think about wearing a mask and hunting criminals. As for the elements themselves, well, just think about the difference between the Adam West Batman and, I don't know, Rucka's Batman.
I am oversimplifying here, but let's say at one point Frank Miller said: mmh, ok, Batman has no superpowers; he's basically a man driven by an obsession; why don't we write a story about that and examine the inner working of such obsession (Yes, I know that it is more complex than that and Englehart and O'Neil came before Miller - I repeat it: I am oversimplifying here), including the darkest elements? After him, Alan Moore came up and said: mmmh, but if Batman is disturbed maybe the Joker has something in common with him; let's write a story about that. After him, Bryan Talbot came and said: mmmh, what if Batman is just a psycho? Let's write "Masks" about it. After him, Rucka came and said: mmmh, Batman is obsessed , but maybe his surrogate family saved him, let's put this in "No Man's Land". And so on and on and on. So at this point you have a very multi-faceted character, who can work in surreal, nightmarish stories like Arkham Asylum, or more realistic ones like Nolan's Dark Knight. Because they worked so well on him and experimented so much with different types of narrative that now Batman is way "stronger" than Superman is - even the secondary characters of his cast are strong enough to be main characters in stories or movies.
For Superman, nothing like that came up because the closest thing we had - Byrne's Man of Steel - was decent enough to relaunch the character in the 1980s, but to weak to really start a long list of experimentation like "Dark Knight Returns" did. Let's say that if Gerber or Moore or Miller had written a "Man of Steel Returns" story int he 1980s, maybe Superman would be in a very different place right now. As for the elements which don't "click" together, I'd say that the list is pretty long and IMHO Superman's morality, relatability and mission are high in that list. But the secret ID thing in it too. It's another archetype, but a very dated one and while you can accept that a masked man is not recognizable, it's way harder to accept that a man could cheat the entire world for years the way Superman did in his stories, mostly because we have never seen it happen in functional ways with real people (in movies, for example).