Barbelith Underground > Laboratory

Scientific American has an interview with a dude who wrote this book on how Batman could really do what he does:

How would all those beat-downs have affected his longevity?
Keeping in mind that being Batman means never losing: If you look at consecutive events where professional fighters have to defend their titles—Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ultimate Fighters—the longest period you're going to find is about two to three years. That dovetails nicely with the average career for NFL running backs. It's about three years. (That's the statistic I got from the NFL Players Association Web site.) The point is, it's not very long. It's really hard to become Batman in the first place, and it's hard to maintain it when you get there.

There's research suggesting that concussions might cause depression in NFL players. Could that be one reason why the Dark Knight is so brooding?
I went through a lot of comics and graphic novels and I only found a couple of examples where some of those blows to Batman's head had the effect of something like a concussion. Whereas in reality, that would be a very likely outcome. He's able to offset some of the physical damage to his head because of the cowl—it works a bit like a helmet. But these things would definitely add up. Since they don't admit that he has concussions, you can't really ascribe repeated concussions as the reason why he's brooding.

Do you think Batman would take steroids to heal faster?
No. There is one comic where he did go on steroids. He went a little crazy and he went off them again.

There's more at the link. I really want to know if Green Arrow really could make all those trick arrows.

Superhero Science