When exactly did Batman surpass Superman in popularity?

1989 was the beginning
Superman's last good movie was in 1982, since then he's had a bunch of garbage. Batman has been building an empire of good movies, good comics, good cartoons, and good video games while Superman has been getting destroyed. Bad movies, bad comics (with a couple notable exceptions), alright-but-not-great cartoons, no videogames.
It wasn't a singular moment in time, it was a slow buildup. When Batman Begins came out, and Superman Returns sucked shit, and then The Dark Knight came out, that was just an unmerciful thrashing. That's the equivalent of that scene in Dark Knight Returns where Batman is beating Superman and he says "you're a joke."

>silver age started and batman started taking a turn for more noir-esque stories and tales of intrigue?
That's the Bronze Age and hilariously those "muh noir" stories coincide with the sharpest down turn in Batman comic sales in the character's history.
The best selling Batman comics were actually the ones from the 40s, 50s and 60s where Batman was a globe trotting, adventuring super-scientist

70's and 80's.
The world became more pessimistic and Frank wrote Year One and The Dark Knight.
It was over.

Wrong.
70s and 80s actually killed Batman's sales for a bit.
It was the height of the Silver Age when Batman took over as the optimistic dad of the DC U.

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>Iron Man higher than Superman and the Hulk
LMFAO you realize this has to have been formulated after 2008

bump

Those don't look right. Where's the source?

1966, ignore the retards in this board, the Adam west series changed it forever. Superman has outsold Batman several times, but the reality is that comic sales don't reflect popularity, because they are american only things. Japan didn't had a superman manga, Batman has been more popular for over half a century when it comes to the world.

For my money, I'd bet it's for the same reason why Batman and Spider-man are so popular abroad - despite the extreme situations they find themselves in, and the fact that they're basically your average people in spite of the grand things they accomplish, the characters respond to everything they come across that beats them in the face by holding fast to their integrity and morals, and trying to fix it. Not just solve the immediate problem, but attempt to address the origin of it, and treat the people they deal with as human beings that have needs. It's why there's a lot of different ways these characters can be written, but even if you don't have a rigorous list of defining traits you can always feel when a portrayal is dishonest or just wrong because it loses the core of what makes the characters work.

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This proves that movies are more influential than comics

When Batman started having the superior films and games.

You're close

1989 was what rocketed Batman to popularity along with Batman: The Animated Series, but there was also the eventual downfall with Batman and Robin, it was sheer luck that Batman Begins did well and continued momentum, and that Batman also had a series of popular games with the Arkham series, and several cartoons in succession.

Superman still did okay on TV, up until maybe the mid-90s. STAS has more decent episodes than BTAS but their best episodes aren't as good as Batman's, and it feels like it's missing something in a way that the Batman cartoons didn't.

Then WB did the biggest blunders they could do with Superman:
>No movie between 1987 and 2006, with some bad ideas for projects (why the fuck did JJ Abrams think not blowing up Krypton was ok?)
>Superman Returns doesn't do well
>Man of Steel had a mixed reception and WB didn't think the box office was good enough which led to WB's other disastrous decisions to have Batman V Superman and a Joss Whedon Justice League made
>He doesn't have his own cartoon after 2000 (Superman and the Legion of Superheroes in 2008 comes close, but he's sharing it with the Legion of Superheroes)
>Only cartoon appearances on network TV was a few episodes of The Batman, and the Legion of Superheroes cartoon (at a time when network TV cartoons were getting shoved off)
>More appearances on cable with the Justice League cartoons, Young Justice and later Justice League Action.
>Superman 64 disaster which was possibly partly WB's fault

>Japan didn't had a superman manga,

You are so full of shit.

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I like them both, and none of you seething Batfags can stop me

Anyone think Superman would just work better in manga? All his manga expies do well (AllMight, OPM).

I definitely believe he would.

Why do you think so?

Then, please, do us a favor and never guess on something you're completely ignorant on again--okay?

Nobody anywhere needed that proved, unless you're incapable of any critical thinking.

I remember when Cartoon Network was running both series they had a vote and Superman won. It stuck in my mind because I voted for him. So if Supes had fallen behind it’s pretty recent, at least among the kids.

Full of shit.

/thread

Part of the reason Mangas tend to be better received, from what I understand from a lot of readers of both comics and manga, is because they're what comic books would call a limited run, even if they're supremely long. They're allowed to develop, change the characters, have them grow over time. Western comics to a degree have to follow a Status Quo that virtually all storylines return to when enough time has passed for the current storyline, which for a lot of readers robs the comics of their weight and impact.

Not necessarily better, but more of what people who dislike Superman would like. Which is to say, shonen action. Character drama has been the bread and butter of Superman's character since the beginning

>They're allowed to develop, change the characters, have them grow over time. Western comics to a degree have to follow a Status Quo that virtually all storylines return to when enough time has passed for the current storyline
DC started growing out of this in the 80s and 90s.

Too bad the later 00s had to regress everything back.

Mmm. The constant retcons and attempts to gather new readers instead of playing to the older ones tends to drive people away and becomes a subject of mockery.

He said "early 2000's"; obviously this is after late 2000's considering Iron Man is charting over even Wolverine and Hulk, the other two in Marvel's trinity for years.

What if he was-loaned?-out for a few years? To have a limited manga run with a definitive end.

Honestly they could do that. Hell, they do that with Batman and Batman had some manga stories.

I think Marvel did some anime with this concept a while back, as a matter of fact. I distinctly remember seeing that Iron Man and Wolverine both got anime.

I remember that poll too because at the time I was really anti-Batman for some reason. I think it might have to do with Batman and Robin being that bad.

I know Yea Forumsfags lurk here but I'm gonna say it, having a good manga or comic run adapted into a TV series would make him much more popular.

You know, isn't that kind of what B:tAS and Justice League were back in the nineties? DC characters handed to creators who knew what they were doing and could tell a directed, contained story.

>implying that buffoon is actually trying to appeal to rationality
a hearty kek, my good fellow.

And the S:tAS series had the bad ending...

There was a Superman manga in 1959-1960, you dumb zoomer

twitter.com/daveshevlin/status/1405619189692485636

kino

Eh, I feel S:tAS had a fine ending for what it was doing; setting up for a future season. The fact that they skipped over that particular cliffhanger to go to Justice League tells me that it was an executive decision to dump the season they were making of Superman and move on, leaving that thread hanging.

Post Final Crisis

I mean bad as in, if you were only watching S:tAS, you'd just think it ended in this apocalypse scenario

Around this time, yeah. The Arkham games+ The Dark Knight movie+ Superman Returns failure really put Batman over the top, and WB hasn't since forgiven Superman so I don't see things getting better for him soon, either.

oh yeah, that's fair, but I think that can be said about most stories that are cut short after the second act.

Spider-Man and Batman are a dynamic duo.

99% of the problems with Superman are all on WB's poor handling. A competent company would've seen the problem with the way Injustice handles a flagship character for the larger audience

You say that and I can't help but imagine Bruce adopting Peter.

>Spider-Boy Wonder

Can you imagine? Bruce would basically go "I'll make sure your Aunt is taken care of if you agree to work with me when we're on the job" and they'd end up family after not too long, because both of them would respect each other's integrity and morals after their first adventure together.

Never forget Spider-Man and Batman both appeared in a video game as Boss characters.

>Spider-Man annoying the Joker with his banter.
>Batman dealing with the wits of the Green Goblin.
>Poison Ivy attempting to get rid of Spider-Man by kidnapping Mary Jane and using his red head fetish.
Make it happen.

They've crossed over before, to deal with Carnage and Joker.
Spiderman and Batman: Disordered Minds

Shit, I'm gonna have to look that one up.

I mean, Saitama is kinda of a joke while All Might is a supporting character.