With Superman and DC Comics in general, you had powerful heros constantly being befuddled by so-so villians. Superman especially. Here's a character that is almost a god and he's getting the run-around from Luthor, the Prankster, and Toyman.
Then there was Marvel. The Fantastic Four battling Galactus. Superheros battling villians as powerful or more so then they are. My favorite all-time story-line - FF issues 25 and 26 - the Hulk takes on both the FF and the Avengers. And beats them! Marvel was the first ones that brought up racism - first with the XMen - and then with other story lines such as the Hate Monger and the Avengers fighting the Serpent Society. And not only did the heroes have secret identities but so did the villians.
It's sad in a way that over the years, comics have been nearly preverted from their original storylines. Lee and Kirby may have been liberals, but when they did Captain America, there was no doubt what Cap stood for.
The way i look at Superman is that he is really not that super. After all, here is this 'god' (even when DC had weakened him during the Byrne era, he was still basically more powerful than your average X-men team over at Marvel ....and at his current levels of power, or for that matter his 'pre-crisis' levels of power where he was juggling planets, the guy was a veritable god). Anyways, here is this 'god' who has villains like Lex Luthor! A person who is written (more recently) as ALWAYS holding back because of his strength (in a recent arc it appeared that Supergirl was stronger and faster and more powerful than he was, but was explained to be because Superman is constantly holding back). He is in many ways liberal (think of it ....having ultimate strength, but hiding it behind the facade of a mild-mannered reporter)
Batman on the other hand is the true Super man (as in, the overman/ubermensch concept). Lex Luthor could also be seen as one (I believe there was a graphic novel by DC that showed Lex as the real super man since he had made himself). Bruce Wayne is a super man (not superman, but super man). All his attributes were built piece by piece over long years of hard labor. His fighting skills were put together over years of study. His keen mind and detective skills, escapalogy, chemistry, all of that ....due to hard work. He has no special powers, no cosmic ring, no gift from the gods. Simply a dedication that will not yield.
In many ways the above is the same for Lex.
Those are the true super men. Superman just got lucky to escape an exploding planet and land on another one that was near a yellow sun.
Although i like the new dark batman. The newer portrayals (new as in over the last 10 years) have gone a long way to showing why criminals would be afraid of a man who dresses up as a large bat! Very well done.
Stan Lee’s heroes are always with a bit of a flaw: they are not uni-dimensional, like I always find DC heroes