That Batman is indeed currently the more popular character, but Superman is the better known character.
That....doesn't make sense to me.
Well, it's simple. Batman is the more liked among those who know them but all in all Superman is the more famous character.
Superman has a much more colorful history in media than Batman does. Back in the day a Superman animate series was produced that became pretty huge milestone in comic book history. The studio who was asked to make it wanted to polity refuse to make it and so they said that a Superman animation could be done at 1 million dollars per episode, the problem was that the people who approached them said 'OK, sounds good' and, well, how were they going to refuse back then. In case you are not getting it $1 million was a ridiculously large amount of money back then, making the production something unheard of at the time and with it's success putting Superman in the public eye as
the iconic superhero.
Move forward a few decades and Superman has become a joke outside of comic books. He is no longer take that seriously and he is not really that respected. However, move forward to 1978 when Richard Donner releases his rendition of Superman and once again Superman becomes an icon with the first 'real' superhero movie like nothing like been seen before. The first modern one that arguably has paved the way for all others that came after.
That is the two firsts in the media. Yeah, there were provably other feature films based on superheroes before Superman but none of them were as well made or well received. Superman was the first animated superhero and his film was the first that showed, to quote the poster's tag line, that a man could fly.
And those two are just outside of the influence he's had on comics. Superman is to comic book superheroes what Niel Armstrong is to astronauts. I personally like Batman better but the influence of Superman cannot be denied.
