The Most Real Superhero

Contrary to popular belief, superman was not the first superhero ever made. Ever since

1934 when Mandrake the Magician debuted in comic books, four years before superman,

people have been taken with superheroes. With some heroes drawing their power from a

yellow sun while others get bitten by radio-active spiders, others are super through two things:

money and technology. The three in particular that achieve superhero status this way are

Green Arrow, Iron Man, and Batman. These heroes first originated in the early forties and

sixties, and each one possessed what was then unrealistic technology. Now in 2020 with more

advanced technology, many people have the same question that I will further explore here:

Which hero between Iron Man, Batman, and Green Arrow is the most realistic to be?

This paper will evaluate each of our three heroes on two separate fronts. Each one is a

mutli-millionaire or billionaire. They will be evaluated firstly on how much money was required

to become the superhero they are. Secondly, they will be evaluated on how realistic their

technology is.

One last important note. I am evaluating based on the live action versions of these

heroes. I will be using the Green Arrow from the CW hit TV series played by Stephen Amell, the

Iron Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe played by Robert Downey Jr., and Batman from

the Christopher Nolan movies played by Christian Bale.

The oldest of these three heroes is Batman. Originally debuting in 1939 Batman is one of

the oldest and most successful superheroes of all time. Having one of the largest fan bases in

the history of heros, Batman’s story is also one of the most complicated. His father built a
company, Wayne Enterprises, which is the foundation of Batman’s wealth. After watching his

parents murdered in front of him in an alley way when he was a boy after a night at the Opera,

Bruce Wayne (Batman’s alter ego) set out for revenge. He spent his life learning many martial

arts like jujitsu and karate. After getting his college education, he set out for vengeance only to

watch the man who shot is parents be killed by a crime lord of Gotham City, Bruce’s home. To

learn how the under belly of the world worked, and how criminals think, Bruce left America to

be homeless and to conquer his fears. After getting thrown in a Chinese prison he is

approached by a nameless man played by Liam Neeson. Neeson’s character tells Bruce to pick a

specific flower then go to a mountain top when released. There is where Bruce finds the League

of Shadows. It is they who train Bruce and give him the skills to become the Dark Knight. After

completing his training, Bruce returns to Gotham City to try and undermine the several crime

lords as the masked vigilante Batman.

Batman deploys and arsenal of military grade gadgets. First and foremost, among them

is his grappling gun. The bat-grappler is a staple of any batman character. He also employs his

bat-suit, a bullet resistant light-weight tech suit that covers his entire body. His bat-cape he can

send an electric current through and program it to nearly any shape, naturally he chose

batwings. The cape also doubles as a glider/parachute when he forms it to look like batwings.

Batman also employs the use of Guano bombs. These are very small spheres with nubs that

look like sticks protruding from all around them. Capable of taking out automobiles or creating

a handy doorway in a wall where there wasn’t one previously. The bat-blades which are blades

attached to his gauntlets. An audio listening device which allows the user to hear things from

great distances. Goggles laid within his cowl capable of thermal imaging. A sonic bat-beacon
laid within his boot which is capable of emitting a frequency that will call bats to the beacon. Of

course, the iconic batmobile, also called the tumbler in this particular telling of Batman. And

last but certainly not least, batarangs, which, simply put, are Batman’s version of a shuriken or

throwing star shaped like a bat.

Batman packs an arsenal that is suited for every occasion. However, it all comes at a

price. According to an infographic by Samantha Murphy, Murphy breaks down just how much a

real-life Batman would cost. His smaller weapons such as the Guano bombs cost him $10,000 a

pop, plus another $1,000 per batarang. In the movies only 3 stars are ever seen with 9 Guano

Bombs. His bat-grappler cashes in around $15,000 and his cape, cowl and suit with all their

included features would cost a net value of around $53,000. This includes his boots, belt, and all

the implants in his suit like thermal imaging, sonic bat-caller and such. The cost of his batmobile

is approximated to be 1.8 million just by itself. He also possesses the Bat-plain which cashes in

at a cool 60 million. In order to be Batman, you would also need to have the skills to use most

of these things. Batman possesses military pilot training and special firearms training, which

would cost the average person an estimated $500,000 per training. In total it costs $62,961,000

to fully equip yourself to be batman. Bruce Wayne paid for his caped cowl escapades as a night

crusader via his father’s company Wayne Enterprises. Cashing in with a net value of $999.999

million, Bruce just misses the cut for billionaire but is easily affording his night life adventures.

The second runner up is Green Arrow. Alter ego Oliver queen, Green Arrow (GA) first

made his appearance as a masked crusader in 1941. Oliver Queen’s story as a hero begins as

mentioned previously on an island in the South China sea. After being marooned there, Queen

meets a man there who was placed there in exile by the Chinese government who was an ex-
special operative for Japan. It is also discovered that there is a secret base for an unknown

organization on this island. After being taught how to use a bow and arrow by his Japanese

friend, Queen is separated from him via the Japanese friend’s death at the hands of the secret

organization. Queen is then met by an Australian secret operative known as Slade Wilson. It is

Slade who teaches Queen all he knowns about hand-to-hand fighting. After a period of five

years, Queen finally escapes his island and uses his skills to become GA.

GA utilizes his company Queen Industries, a weapons development company, to fund is

escapades. GA’s arsenal is incredibly less complicated than Batman’s. The only gadgets GA

employs is a plethora of different forms of arrows, his bow, and throwing knives. Most arrows

seen in the TV show are simply regular arrows, however there are two specific ones that are

reoccurring: a grappling arrow, and an explosive arrow. The highest quality arrow on the

market today averages in at $13 an arrow. The average grappling hook and cable combo sold

on the market today is $15. GA is only ever seen using one grappler arrow per outing. GA’s

explosive arrows are said to carry a punch as hefty as 1lb of C4. 1lb of C4 on todays market

costs $17/lb. The most explosive arrows GA is ever known to carry at one time is three. With a

quiver totaling 24 arrows that means GA’s quiver alone costs him only $378. The largest

expense GA has is his bow. His bow is said to be a specially designed weapon costing him

approximately $1,400. At the end of the day this is all the expenses that GA from the TV show

consistently has. Totaling out at $1,778. Being the third wealthiest superhero ever totaling at a

net value of 3 billion I’d say he can more than afford his lifestyle.

Last but not least, is the Iron Man, debuting in 1963. Iron Man’s story begins with his

company Stark Industries. Like GA, Iron Man’s company made its fortune with military contracts
which like Batman was founded by his father. When Tony Stark is kidnapped by a terrorist

group known as the 10 Rings, he is forced to build a super missile for them. He learns that his

own company is double dealing under the table to these terrorists, and so he requests specific

parts he knows they will get through his company. He uses these parts to build the Mark I Iron

Man suit which he utilizes to escape his prison and return to civilized society. Upon returning

home, he builds the iconic Mk ii suit which then becomes his staple. For this particular paper, I

will be evaluating his Mk ii suit.

It comes as little to no surprise that Iron Man has the most futuristic technology of our

three superheroes. With a singular suit featuring everything from flight tech to a holographic

display and a personal virtual assistant. It even employs small wrist rockets capable of reducing

a full-sized tank to rubble in one shot. The suit itself is made from a gold-plated titanium alloy

which that alone doesn’t come cheap. The total cost of Iron Man’s suit is estimated to be $1.6

billion dollars. I will only be evaluating the cost of one suit but take a second to realize that at

one point, he had upwards of 20 suits and over the course of his lifetime 82 suits total, each

more expensive than the last. Fortunately, Tony Stark is able to fund his massive financial

escapades via a massive wallet. Cashing in as the second richest superhero to ever exist, Tony is

worth a net value of $30 billion.

With all three of these heroes’ assets out in the open it is very easy to match them up.

Obviously, their fortunes greatly vary, with Batman coming in as the poorest of the three. With

Iron Man coming in on top owning literally 30 times the amount of wealth that Batman does.

Still, these three are in the top four richest heroes ever created. The richest superhero ever

created is Black Panther. This is due to the fact that he is King of Wakanda which is the most
technologically advanced city on the planet, hidden in Africa. Black Panther is not included in

this however because his powers are super-natural. But if you want more information on that,

watch his movie.

Now it is time to get at the original question: which superhero is the most realistic to be.

I will be the first to admit that when I started this conquest, I had my guess, and I was totally

wrong. It was obvious to me that Iron Man was probably out. The suit itself uses technology

that we don’t quite have yet. The holographic display for example is still probably a minimum of

10 years in the making. While we do already have them, our current day holograms are far from

what Iron Man has. On top of that the material itself doesn’t actually exist. Gold-titanium alloy

is in fact real, but the movie explains it as being incredibly resistant. The material in real life is

actually very soft and not at all as the movie describes it. If you shot a suit of armor with a tank

made from that alloy (like in the movie) it would not only disintegrate the suit, but the person

inside of it as well. Not to mention the power source that Tony uses to power the suit also

doesn’t exist. Though MIT is currently working on a fusion reactor that would look and function

exactly like Tony’s power source, it would not be small enough to be put into a suit.

With Iron man out of the picture that only left GA and Batman. Between these two GA

not only has the significantly cheaper load out, but also the vastly larger wealth. However, my

original guess of GA being the most realistic of the three options was incorrect. Yes, Batman in

incredibly more expensive. However, GA’s shortcomings are in his arrows. The point of this was

to determine which hero is the most realistic. GA’s arrows are simply not possible. The amount

of punch his explosive arrows pack is unrealistic as well as impractical. Unlike nearly every other

superhero his load out has never actually been successfully even theorized about how it would
work. The fact is physics don’t back up being able to successfully build an arrow with the impact

of 1lb of C4 that would be able to fly farther than a few feet due to the weight of the arrow.

Basically, you would blow yourself up after shooting one shot.

I am pleased to conclude that Batman is in fact the most realistic superhero that could

exist today. Batman was actually designed to show what a person could achieve in real life

through technology if money was no object. The most unrealistic part about batman is how

many people he is able to fight at one time with martial arts. He takes on 5 highly trained

League of Shadow assassins (people with his same training) and bests all five of them. Simply

put that isn’t very realistic. But as for his technology, there isn’t anything that Batman ever

employs as a gadget that doesn’t actually exist. Even his cape does exist and is possible with our

technological capabilities. Weather or not it could be used as a glider is still up for debate, but

the material does exist. So, if one day you find yourself possessing 70 million dollars and you

don’t know what to do with it, the answer is simple: become Batman.
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