I am a huge fan of Batman.  In my humble opinion he stands out among superheroes because of his lack of superpowers.  He doesn't have super strength, or alien physiology, or mutant powers.  He doesn't have a "metagene" or any "metapowers."  He is simply a mortal man who has dedicated his life to fighting evil.  Because of his lack of special powers, he is truly acting in a heroic manner, unlike some other superheroes I could mention.  Allow me to explain:

If an ordinary person was to see two five-year-old children fighting on the playground, and that person stepped in and separated them, how much danger would there be?  Sure, that person did something good and worthwhile, but was it heroic?  I would argue that it was not.

Each time a hero like Superman rushes into an armed robbery, he does so with the foreknowledge that he cannot be harmed.  If he is shot at, the bullets bounce off him.  If he is punched or kicked, he won't feel the slightest pain and his attacker will most like injure himself instead.  If the robbers attempt to take hostages or harm innocent people, Superman can move at nearly the speed of light, disarming them and whisking innocents away before any harm can befall them.  Without question, he is performing a service by intervening in that robbery.  But is he truly doing anything even remotely heroic?

If Batman were to intervene in that same robbery, he would do so knowing that any slip in concentration, any mental mistake, or even a brief run of bad luck could result in his death.  Bullets won't bounce off him, knives won't break when they strike his skin, and punches and kicks will hurt him the same as any other man.  Despite all this, he would still intervene in the robbery, without hesitation, in order to save lives.  Because of this, his actions are truly heroic.  In several different stories Superman has admitted that doesn't know if he would be able to face danger as Batman does if he knew he was just as vulnerable to injury and even death.

There is just something so compelling about Batman.  He has such a dark and cynical outlook, yet he also has perhaps the most hope of any of the superheroes.  In the Justice League, he not only fights alongside, but is considered a leader by beings who, in Batman's own words, "can shift the course of planets in their orbit."  Superman called him "the most dangerous man on the planet," and still he chose Batman as the one being in the universe to guard a Kryptonite ring which could be fatal if used against him.  Batman is truly a knight, the Dark Knight, and his fight against evil is even more admirable for his vow not to use deadly force, despite his enduringly deep desire to do so.

I have an extensive collection of Batman graphic novels, which I reread all the time.  I thoroughly enjoyed Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" and "The Dark Knight Strikes Again."  The stories created by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are favorites of mine, along with the terrific art work of Jim Lee. 

The movies about Batman have, to this point, been somewhat disappointing.  I thought that Tim Burton's rather dark vision of not only Batman's psyche, but also of Gotham City itself was a good start, but both of his movies ("Batman" and "Batman Returns") spent too much time developing the villains instead of the hero.  The Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman are interesting, certainly, but the movie should be about Bruce Wayne and Batman.  The two movies by Joel Schumaker ("Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin") were far too light-hearted to appeal to me.  I should have known I would be disappointed in them when Schumaker was quoted during production saying: "They are based on comic books, with an emphasis on COMIC!" 

I also enjoy following the stories of Nightwing, since he's another guy without super powers.  For those of you not familiar with Nightwing, his real name is Dick Grayson and he used to fight alongside Batman as Robin the Boy Wonder.  He's grown up a bit and moved from Gotham City to Bludhaven, where he fights evil mostly on his own, though he does get help from Oracle.  The role of Robin passed to a know-it-all punk named Jason Todd, who was almost universally disliked by readers, so much so that they voted (via telephone) to have him killed by the Joker.  The current Robin is a kid named Tim Drake, who used his detective skills to figure out that Batman is really Bruce Wayne.  He then confronted Bruce Wayne because he had also figured out that Batman needed a Robin in order to keep in touch with his humanity.  Batman took him on as Robin, reluctantly at first, but I think he realizes now that Tim Drake was right.

Oracle is actually Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon and the superhero formerly known as Batgirl.  She was shot in the spine by the Joker (in "The Killing Joke") and was paralyzed from the waist down.  She cranked up her computer skills and now assists Batman and his allies by supplying them with information.  Incidentally, "The Killing Joke" is the example I usually give whenever someone says something like: "Why do you read comic books?  Aren't they for kids?"  In this particular graphic novel, the Joker is out to prove that anyone can go insane if they have a sufficiently bad day.  He is going to prove his point by driving Commissioner Gordon insane, and one of the ways he goes about his is to shoot Gordon's daughter in the spine and then take pictures of himself raping her paralyzed and unconscious body.  Hardly the kind of stuff designed for a child's comic book.

Batman Picture Gallery:
 

Some final words about a couple of rather lame superheroes:  Green Lantern and Aquaman.  I enjoy reading the JLA comics, but if Batman wasn't in the Justice League with these two morons I highly doubt I would still be interested in the JLA.

Green Lantern - There have actually been four Green Lanterns that I can recall; Alan Scott (who went on to become Sentinel), Hal Jordan (currently the Spectre), Kyle Raynor, and John Stewart.  All of them possessed some incarnation of the famous power ring.  The ring enables anything the wearer thinks of to become reality.  Anything at all - you think of it while wearing the ring and the ring manifests it.  The only way to add some drama to their stories was to give all four of these lame-asses an IQ of about 30 so they could never think of anything useful.

Aquaman - He's been in the JLA since it began, always ready to help by jumping into the ocean and seeing what the lobsters can tell him.  And that's about it - unfortunately his powers are somewhat limited.  There was a great skit on the MTV show "The State" a few years ago.  All the superheroes are gathering in their headquarters, trying to come up with a plan to stave off some villain-inspired apocalypse.  Superman is assigning tasks to everyone, and when he gets to Aquaman he says: "and you...  um, let's see...  um...  You go talk to the fishes!"  And the whole room breaks out in laughter while Aquaman hangs his head in shame.  It was perfect.