So why are you reading it then, dumbass?

DC has not been able to do this. A large part could be that Batman/Superman feud that was taking place for the past 25 years. It was generally Batman vs. everybody for the past 25 years. So it’s no suprise that most Batman fans at the DCU boards don’t like Superman or pretty much anyone else. Not exactly the best sales approach.

You’ll note that you don’t have Wolverine or Spider-Man making snide comments about Captain America or Thor. Certainly not at the consistant rate Batman had towards everyone else. Even this current Captain America/Iron-Man fued will ultimately heal itself.

DC’s change in Batman’s personality is a step in the right direction. The new DC Nation approach is trying to mimic what Stan started. It could be too little, too late.

So a Marvel fan is a Marvel fan. A person who likes Spider-Man doesn’t dislike other Marvel heroes, that’s a huge help when your trying to sell an entire line.

It’s not so much that Marvel and DC “rip each other off” (after all, as the story goes, Stan Lee was tasked with creating a superteam specifically as a response to DC’s new Justice League of America) as it is the relative extent to which one has borrowed from the other.

DC Comics used to show Superman Batman and Robin literally skipping down the street together arms linked together.

Several decades later, now Superman Batman and Wonder Woman and other heroes started to distrust and fight with each other in INFINITE CRISIS. Marvel was doing this decades ago when heroes would fight and argue with each other all of the time. DC is still just catching up.

But Marvel also has billionaire industrialist Tony Stark so it’s not like being wealthy in and of itself makes a character unrelatable.

And both comics companies have characters without superpowers, just training and/or fancy weapons.

No, I think what makes Batman the most “Marvel-like” of the DC characters is the fact that Frank Miller wrote one of the (re-)defining treatments of the character – just as he did with Daredevil, another “street-level” crimefighter. (Is it any wonder why people want to see another Batman/Daredevil team-up?)

Frank Miller’s DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, for better or for worse, made the character grittier and more driven and emphasized the tragic nature at the core of the character – his sense of helplessness and guilt at watching his parents gunned down before his eyes. While not a “flaw” in the classic Marvel sense, it does in some way make the character more human to us, as we can all relate to the anger, guilt, and helplessness that drive Batman to right the injustices of the world.

Add a few tweaks and I don’t think it would be too difficult to make Batman work in the context of the Marvel Universe.

Maybe if Quesada spent less time on meaningless things like this and more time actually reading the crap he puts out, he could raise the quality of Marvel’s books out of the gutter. (Same applies to Didio)

What I think Joe means is not the concrete construction of character (white teenage underwear model turned adventurer, wealthy tax accountant turned child molester) but rather personality type and the personal issues that the writer addresses.

Spider-Man, in its classic age, deals with adolescent and family troubles. Peter Parker has real conflict, some of his own making, that any reader can appreciate.

Batman is similar to that (recently) because he has become so paranoid and withdrawn that he doesn’t engage others in a genuine way, aside from the worldwide gay romp he and the boys are on right now.

This is different from Superman whose chief concerns are classically avoiding a shiny green rock and duping his girlfriend into thinking he’s not a God.

I think the writer of the above comment knew all this, but couldn’t help himself from making a douchebag argument.