I've been thinking about this a lot lately and didn't want to derail another thread after bringing it up there. Many fans and professionals, not to mention most non-fans, perceive superheroes as being kids stuff or a genre directly aimed at kids. But is it really? Without question the costumes, in a real world sense, are ridiculous and not something any superpowered being, or vigilante who's serious, would ever employ. But is this intentional symbolism and marketing conceit enough to write the genre off as being just for kids? I don't think so. 

Batman is the best example for me. This is a character who was quite violent when he first appeared and this is often forgotten because most, when visualizing early Batman, seem to leap directly to the post-war era when DC started lightening up the overall tone of their adventure comics. When I think of kids characters, I think of stuff like Richie Rich, Casper, Yogi Bear, etc. Batman is a character that witnessed the brutal murder of his parents and lives in a world riddled with gangsters, violent crime and corruption. This is core subject matter aimed at 8 year olds? I'm highly skeptical. If you take away Batman's bat-motif completely, yet leave everything else intact, wouldn't he be perceived more along the lines of James Bond? I think Bond is an excellent example of a human superhero, every bit as implausible as Batman, who gets a pass because he wears a tuxedo and his femme fatales don't wear leather cat-suits. There's really only a superficial difference here.

Now I don't think for a minute that even Batman is a sophisticated adult concept -- this aint James Joyce -- but I think he, and virtually all other superheroes, clearly inhabit the realm of all-ages; it's a nebulous middle-ground that many critics can't seem to accept or fully grasp, which has always baffled me a bit. It does seem simpleminded to me for otherwise intelligent people to be so bothered by the costumes that they miss the fact that most superhero comics, from the Bronze Age till now certainly, have been operating on a more sophisticated level than they're given credit for. At their core, they're adventure stories with the toned down trappings of adult problems combined with the flash and bright colors that appeal to kids. 

All that said, I'm firmly against the idea that superheros work as a purely "adult" level. For instance, I disliked the use of Martian Manhunter in Sandman and felt it took me out of a comic that's tone was clearly aiming at a more sophisticated, less general, readership. This is the gist of why I despise the violence found in most Marvel and DC books. This is when superheroes become ridiculous to me. (Watchmen and DKR's being the exceptions because, well, they're masterpieces, and because they made valid artistic statements. That said, as both stories clearly illustrate, going down the road of hyper-violence and grittiness with superheroes is ultimately a dead end.)