Batman Vs. Superman

This is a simple matter of professional success. Being a superhero is absolutely no excuse for failing at the more unsuper aspects of life. Certainly the dual life of a professional crime fighter is huge amounts of difficult; no one is contesting that fact. It demands quite a lot from the not so super identity of the hero. How do you go about balancing your super life with your mundane one?

You've got to thaw out most of West 33rd Street because of the menstrul Mr. Freeze, and maybe carve out some time to attend the Wayne Enterprises Board of Directors meeting where they'll be deciding which Japanese computing firm to partner with, but hasn't the Batmobile been making an awful rattling sound when you hit the jet booster, and isn't it Alfred's birthday, and my God, you've forgotten to pick up another batch of Depends since God knows Alfred can't drive himself anymore and he's probably deuced himself all over the manor by now.

Look at him. He knows what he did.

There's a lot on the proverbial plate. We know.

We're not saying Clark Kent doesn't have just as much super responsibility to juggle. We're saying that, while we understand that it's hard to be a hero and still find time to put in 40 a week, Bruce Wayne can do it. Even Peter freaking Parker, a twenty-something, by and large a genetically predisposed irresponsible creature, finds time to attend college, be a photographer, and sling webs of saving grace. So this should be no problem for Clark Kent, right? At least he's pulling down a six figure annual . . . right?

Bruce Wayne

Gotham's playboy is worth a Forbes estimated $6.5 billion. For your comparison pleasures, here's a real-life stack up if that pesky "fictional" thing wasn't getting in Mr. Wayne's way:

Steve Jobs, the Apple technology tycoon and anti-Christ candidate, is worth about $5.5 billion. George Lucas, the only man to ever create something as beloved as Star Wars only to hump the franchise to death a few decades later, is worth $3.0 (also billion). Even Oprah couldn't amount to Wayne's fiscal success with her silly little net worth of $2.5 billion. How about Donald Trump? He sure acts like he has a frickton of money. And you just can't sport "hair" like that long-dead adolescent emu fetus he wears on his scalp without having more money than Ms. Winfrey, the profiteering reincarnation of Mother Teresa. So he's got to have an anus-load, right? Sorry, Donny. Not as much as Bruce Wayne would if he wasn't fictional. Trump weighs in at a paltry $2 billion.

Whatever is sleeping on this head will be the undoing of all that is holy.

Bruce Wayne's company has been around for about four centuries. It's army of branches and subsidiaries provide a constant stream of revenue for Wayne to parlay into bigger, better, and more importantly, never-ending batgadgets.

Granted, Wayne inherited this business from his parents, and granted Bruce didn't build this corporate monster himself from the ground up, but as our beloved David Wong recently said, that doesn't much matter. Bruce knew the right people (his parents), is one of the hardest working men in Comicbookland (you have to be when you're one of the few superheros without any real superpowers), and has talent to spare, running his father's legacy with deft business acumen and surprisingly adept corporate insight while moonlighting as the bane of Gotham's unsavory types.

Clark Kent

In the United States, the average news journalist rakes in about $35,000 a year. The high end of that average--meaning best case scenario in a thriving newspaper--is $45,000. TV journalists like Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, and Barbara Walters don't count in this equation. They make more than the highest paid run-of-the-mill journalist in America because you, the people, trust them.

We'd trust that. We'd trust that all night.

Reportedly, the New York Times might pay it's highest most cornery of offices $85,000 annually, which is fantastic for all us poor, publicly unknown people, but we're not a household name superhero in a red cape being compared to another household name superhero in a less red cape.

The best case scenario for a typical news journalist is $85,000 a year at the New York Times. Remember, that's in New York frickin city where rent for an apartment you share with a family of pissed opossums, six schnauer-sized cockroaches, and a wondering nomad named King Whiskeypants is about $2,200 clams, give or take.

But what about Metropolis? The comics portray the city as one of the wealthiest and most successful cities in the world. It's been compared economically to New York, Vancouver, Chicago, and other cities worth mentioning should one take the time to mention them. So, if New York City = Metropolis, the New York Times = The Daily Planet. Which means we can assume (benefit of the doubt in huge effect here) that Kal El makes, at most, $85,000 a year. Good for him. Wanna know how many years it would take Kent to reach Wayne's networth? We'll give you a hint. It's bigger than ten and also bigger than thirty.

Using math, it has been determined that it would take Clark Kent about 70,588 and a half years to match Bruce Wayne's networth. That's providing the greasy-haired flying panzy doesn't spend a single dime of his earnings and also taxes are not taken from his checks for some reason. Sorry Supes. You suck again.

Sad super panda.