Which superheroes could do Batman's job?

[Pendaran]

He actually mentioned the once that he sleeps in small bursts to cover this stuff, as there are various stretches where he doesn't have such people. The Outsiders particularly he has thrown at outside Gotham stuff/assembled as a post death instruction/that sort of shmear.

On your list of sleuths..

There were a bunch of sleuths in the pre-Nu52 DCU. Mr. Teriffic, Owlman, Ralph Dibney, Dr. Mid-Night, Dectective Chimp.

Owlman, the outsiders one, is lacking in up to snuff physical capacity as far as not getting killed. Dibny does not get his powers, and thereby is massively lacking in physical capacity as far as not getting killed. Mid-Night isn't as good a detective as Batman, barring medical forensics, and that's kinda specific, Terrific is significantly impaired by the tech limitation, though of this crowd he'd do the best job. And detective chimp, again, has the physical oomph of a chimp.

But yeah, the people Batman trained could sub in for him.

[Vic Vega]

The Pre Crisis Hawkman and Hawkgirl/Woman were explictly sleuths and could handle the physical end depowered, but I from what I've seen the current version of Hawman is a lot less smart.

I don't know if there is a Nu52 Hawkwoman yet. I know the Earth 2 verson probably doesn't count.

Sandman's sidekick Sandy (later just Sand) started out as a 2 fisted sidekick to a sleuth hero before gaining various weird powers and was explicitly stated to be a skilled detective.

Depowered he could probably handle the job since he'd be funtionally just a modern era version of his mentor with a better car and a larger arsenal (in his day all he had was a grapple gun).

[Pendaran]

Okay, so "being a detective" does not make someone anywhere near as good a detective as Batman, if you're at this point just going through a list of characters who have been detectives. Owlman at least has Batman going "yeah, that guy's an awesome detective, such that when I create a team of people meant to each compensate for one aspect of me now that I'm dead, Owlman is there to be the detective".

Sandman's sidekick Sandy (later just Sand) started out as a 2 fisted sidekick to a sleuth hero before gaining various weird powers and was explicitly stated to be a skilled detective.

Depowered he could probably handle the job since he'd be funtionally just a modern era version of his mentor with a better car and a larger arsenal (in his day all he had was a grapple gun).

Based on what other than you saying so could he handle the job? You basically seem to be running with "anyone who has been a detective ever and been said to be good at it"

"Good detective" does not mean "therefore as good as any other".

[UltraMagnetic]

I'm going to co-sign on T'Challa. In Black Panther Man Without Fear, he was working on cleaning up Hell's Kitchen and took on superpowered crime boss. He did this with the use of low tech devices that he put together himself. In Priest's run he was fighting crime in Harlem, using prep, intimidation, deception, deductive reasoning, etc. pretty much the tools Batman uses. I can't think of a skill or capability that he's lacking that wouldn't allow him to do Batman's job.

[Vic Vega]

But the thing is what objectively makes for a "Batman level" detective? Outsmarting Riddler? Outsmarting Ras?

Figuring out what Joker is going to do next?

Since those guys are all now pretty much the exclusive property of the Batoffice we don't as far as I know have any Riddler or Ras versus fill-in-the-blank examples to go by other than Tower of Babel in Ras' case.

So we are stuck with just talking up Bats trainees/sidekicks at that point.

[Pendaran]

Taking on mastermind criminals of similar quality or intellect? Solving incredibly complex plots of their own deductive heft? Stopping complex plots on the same? That would be a good start. You could at least list comparative performances and details about them and note why they compare.

So for instance, I listed Nick Fury, and I gave some reasons for why about what it is he does would work for him to do Batman's job in these circumstances. As a specific example, Nick spent years on end basically trolling the head of an international espionage/terrorism organization with multiple devastating wins to his name, tricking him into thinking he had been running/corrupting SHIELD the whole time, when all along, Nick had been manipulating him. So when I say "Nick doesn't need to be a detective, he will handle this on being one of the greatest spies to ever be, along with being able to train up espionage networks from nothing". His capacity for spying on people/creating spy networks/manipulation and trickery is top shelf. His physical capacity, while not on par, is okay for what it is, and he'll assemble agents he trains up to help him take people down as needed anywho.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

If non-comic folk are allowed, I would like to nominate Jared, from the TV show The Pretender.

Very smart, a skilled combatant by real world standards, a plethora of skills both mundane and specialized, well versed history in detective work (including cracking conspiracies all the time), etc.......

He might be able to pull it off. He lacks a comic book peak human physical standard, but every other qualifier is met.

[Postmania]

I imagine the Punisher compensates for not having the personal facility to find or track down or pre empt or get a hint of the plotting of various Bat Rogues by killing people, right? Right? It's a breeze for him because he kills people, right?

Pretty easily. He just nukes the city, thereby eliminating crime as a problem.

[Surtur]

And from Dragonball, I wouldn't put it past Bulma being able to pull off a weekend as Batman. She might not last long after that due to the technology limitations, but she could maximize using all Bruce's tech at once to increase her odds of not dying.

I..what? I would totally put all that past Bulma, given the limitations of the thread.

[Charlie]

Great discussion everyone. I loved reading everyone's input. Now to clarify a few things...

If they were suddenly thrown into Gotham and had to assume Batman's role, which superheroes could do it?

They have no superpowers.
They still have access to any knowledge, training and skill they already have.
They have access to Batman's existing tech (but cannot improve on it).
They must wear the Bat-suit.

Any fictional character is fine.

The "job" part was probably not a good word to use. I meant more of Batman's "role" as protector of Gotham. Which means reducing the criminal influence in the city and stopping threats. This includes dealing with different tiers of crime. The common crime, serial killers and assassins, and the much more specialized issue of stopping super villains. Can we split these up? Which characters could only deal with common crime in Gotham? Which could also stop serial killers? Which could go all the way and stop super villains?

It does not mean do everything Batman is able to do at his level. I didn't mean to make this into a "Who can be a perfect Batman replacement?" question but rather who could assume Batman's role in Gotham and do an acceptable job. I understand "acceptable" is very subjective, but stopping and reducing crime and saving the city are the most important tasks.

Again, this is only relating to Batman's role in Gotham as directly related to crime. Not to accomplish everything else Batman has.
They are allowed to use whatever methods and tactics they need as long as they can accomplish the task.

And to add a levell of fairness. Each of these characters receives the same resources Batman does, including all of his allies and sidekicks based in Gotham (to their current level of assistance, so as not to allow the response of "Well character X simply lets Nightwing take over").

Thanks again everyone very interesting read.

They have access to Batman's existing tech (but cannot improve on it).

Regarding this stipulation, as many correctly pointed out. I meant it as a limit against the super geniuses who could build ludicrous tech to solve every issue. However, I didn't mean this to be a strict restriction. I should have worded it better. What I think is a fair restriction is not being able to modify it beyond what Batman himself could do. They are allowed to modify the tech in order to fit their abilities and tactics in order to prep. However, the upper tech limit is that it can only be something that Batman himself could do.

If anything needs clarification, please feel free to ask.

[Pendaran]

Regarding this stipulation, as many correctly pointed out. I meant it as a limit against the super geniuses who could build ludicrous tech to solve every issue. However, I didn't mean this to be a strict restriction. I should have worded it better. What I think is a fair restriction is not being able to modify it beyond what Batman himself could do. They are allowed to modify the tech in order to fit their abilities and tactics in order to prep. However, the upper tech limit is that it can only be something that Batman himself could do.

This still super limits a lot of people who are vastly better at tech than Batman as far as what they could do and what Batman has done. Stark aint building a drone army for instance of any heft. You have to start dipping into tech accomplishments for Batman that I honestly find... really dubious to let them do anything especially good.

And to add a levell of fairness. Each of these characters receives the same resources Batman does, including all of his allies and sidekicks based in Gotham (to their current level of assistance, so as not to allow the response of "Well character X simply lets Nightwing take over").

Their current level of assistance would then mean almost no aid at all. They're all pretty scattered to the four winds at this point but Batgirl, who in NU has had.. something of a competence downgrade honestly.

The "job" part was probably not a good word to use. I meant more of Batman's "role" as protector of Gotham. Which means reducing the criminal influence in the city and stopping threats. This includes dealing with different tiers of crime. The common crime, serial killers and assassins, and the much more specialized issue of stopping super villains. Can we split these up? Which characters could only deal with common crime in Gotham? Which could also stop serial killers? Which could go all the way and stop super villains?

It does not mean do everything Batman is able to do at his level. I didn't mean to make this into a "Who can be a perfect Batman replacement?" question but rather who could assume Batman's role in Gotham and do an acceptable job. I understand "acceptable" is very subjective, but stopping and reducing crime and saving the city are the most important tasks.

Again, this is only relating to Batman's role in Gotham as directly related to crime. Not to accomplish everything else Batman has.
They are allowed to use whatever methods and tactics they need as long as they can accomplish the task.

By these terms a lot of people will still fail as far as villains they just don't have particularly useful skills to deal with or compensate for as far as preventing their crimes, saving people, even saving the city.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Though not Super Heroes, per se, Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa and Kaitou Kid, from Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid should do a respectable job if they work together.

They probably can't beat some people in a fist fight, but they're used to using knock out darts or special tech to bypass the need for melee, as well as luring criminals into traps/ambushes, and Conan works extremely well with cops and international federal agents and has coordinateed deep cover infiltrations of competent and powerful criminal secret organizations.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Hm...

Anyone hear familiar with the manga Akumetsu? Cuz the character(s) of the same name would probably do well, though they might qualify as a decent Batman villain than traditional heroes.

[Alan2099]

On a side note, how much time a day do we think Batman uses to do "his job"? We know it's unrealistic in real life where it takes like millions of hours to master all of this sciences, martial arts, etc. But what about comic book time? Doing crime lab stuff, chasing down some small timers, doing some research on a specific case, renewing his connections (forcibly if needed), catching up on rumors and news about the underworld, etc. He automates lots of things I'm sure, like a Bat-computer feed of all crime activities with tons of filters to narrow down his rogue's gallery and possible big time crime, throwing Robin at the small stuff like bank robberies and minor burglaries of middle class citizens.

Like 16-20 hours per day? Or is it like MIB the movie, where Zedd says they use 37 hour work days? And every once in a while he goes insane and needs a few 24 hour days to recover?

I remember reading somewhere that Batman "works the streets" from sundown to sunrise. On days where he doesn't have to do Bruce Wayne stuff, he does his lab work in the daytime hours.

Apparently Bats has mastered the art of the 15 minute power nap.

In post Zero Hour pre New52 comic, at one point they revealed Batman had learned some technique taught to him by Tibeten monks or something that had adapted his body so he only needed 3 to four hours of sleep to be fully rested. Always thought that was kinda lame myself, but there ya' go.

[Postmania]

Hm...

Anyone hear familiar with the manga Akumetsu? Cuz the character(s) of the same name would probably do well, though they might qualify as a decent Batman villain than traditional heroes.

From what I recall he was basically a super violent low-level Batman