I grew up with those early Batman shows as daytime TV, and was just the right age to be quite impressed by the first Superman movie, not to mention Star Wars....

The problem with most superheroes really is that they are too super: for the stories to stay interesting, they either have to be ethically subtle (and talky) or escalate (and then you end up with "Galactus: Destroyer of Worlds" and crap like that).

Batman -- and to a somewhat similar extent, Spiderman -- had very real limits on his knowledge and abilities which allowed the challenges he faced to be somewhat realistic. In some ways, the newer Batman is actually less limited -- more technological fixes, more physically freakish -- but still deals with limitations and problems at a level of complexity that makes some sense.

Of course, my favorite comic book character for the last fifteen years has been Neil Gaiman's Morpheus (aka Sandman): He's actually a god (or something more) but still has enough limitations and personality to make for good storytelling.

Anti-heroes? In a world of strict laws and procedures, anti-heroes are necessary to get anything dramatic done.