I’m going to start this article with something Grant Morrison said.
In Wertham’s diagnosis, then, children were too underdeveloped to separate the outlandish fantasy in their comic books from everyday reality, and this made them vulnerable to barely concealed homosexual and antisocial content. I tend to believe the reverse is true: that it’s adults who have the most trouble separating fact from fiction. A child knows that real crabs on the beach do not sing or talk like the cartoon crabs in The Little Mermaid. A child can accept all kinds of weird-looking creatures and bizarre occurrences in a story because the child understands that stories have different rules that allow for pretty much anything to happen. Adults, on the other hand, struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it’s not real.
Back in 1938 we had the very first Superhero come on the scene, the man of steel himself Superman, he was a widely popular character and still is to this day, people and specifically kids seemed to love the idea of a guy who did all these amazing things like being more powerful than a locomotive, running faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings in a single bound. He was one of kind and became the staple for the entire superhero genre
Then in 1939 a very different kind of superhero came on the scene, the dark knight the second superhero arrived, he had no superpowers at all, he was dark, in fact when he was conceived he carried a gun and killed, much like the pulp hero the shadow. Later on he was changed into the character we all know and love today. If you ask around in the comic book fandom who is better most today will say they prefer Batman over Superman, he has more of a “cool” appeal to him and he has no powers instead he had to train all over the world to achieve his current level of skills.
Since Superman and Batman appeared there have been a pantheon of superheroes created, but it seems like the more grounded characters have been the one’s that are the most popular among this generation of fans. Me personally I much prefer the more fantastical superheroes like Superman, Thor, The Flash to me they fully embody the term “Fiction”. I love the idea that anything can happen in a superhero comic book, it’s a genre that has endless possibilities and I really love when writers like Grant Morrison or really creative guys like Jack Kirby gives us interesting and far out characters like Galactus or Silversurfer. I enjoy the grounded characters like Batman, daredevil or any other non powered hero, they bring a new perspective to the genre of superhero.
I think non powered superheroes teach us a lesson about working hard to get what you want and need, not letting anyone or anything get in the way of your goals. Super powered heroes can teach us a lesson about not letting your gifts and powers go to your head, just because you have the power to destroy cities or planets doesn’t give you the right to, Spiderman’s tag line is "with great power comes great responsibility" and honestly it applies to all superheroes not just peter parker.
So which type of hero do you enjoy more? Of course I think for the most part with all enjoy both. But I'd really like to hear what you ladies and gentlemen have to on this subject.