Batman (TOC)

Batman is the ultimate symbol of fear in DC to all, even Superman fears him, but to a little kid born in the 90s, he was the symbol of hope; hope for humanity and what I could be. Bruce Wayne is just a man, and they said it all the time in the cartoons, so you knew that amoung superpowered aliens and demigods, was this one man in a batsuit, yet somehow he was every bit as (sometimes more) formidable as the alien who can bench a planet. I was a pretty small kid, shit I couldn't bench more than 100 pounds until the end of my freshman year of high school, so the idea that this human, who looked like a taller version of me being the "most dangerous person alive" inspired me to never give up, and believe in myself when no one else did. He also taught me many other lessons on morality. Every episode a moral dilema was presented, he struggled with it, but found a solution; I learned that it is important to think about things, and consider consequences. There is one other spark of hope Batman has given me in recent years that I never expected. As I said before I basically look like a shorter Bruce Wayne (pale white, blue eyes, black hair), and how that cemented in my young mind that I was Batman; as we all know characters, like real people change over time; I became an atheist at the age of 17, and around that time I started noticing that Batman had been written as one of the smartest characters in the DC universe, and often said nonreligious things all the time; somewhere, some write made my hero an atheist like me; they made a beloved character with over 75 years of history, an atheist: just like me. The idea that such an icon would be even slightly hinted to be nonreligious gave me hope that someday, just maybe my country would trust my demographic, as atheists are currently of of the least trusted demographcis out there, but everybody loves Batman.