User blog comment:Jamie/Episode 4 - Batman/@comment-1895174-20140505032449

Batman's lasted so long because:
 * He's been interpreted every which way. Campy? Serious? Cartoonish? Gritty? Light-hearted? Dark? There's a Batman in every flavor!
 * Each of his villains are foils.
 * Simple, timeless backstory. His parents were killed. That's it. No complicated mythology. No alien worlds, no magical energies, no science experiment gone wrong. It makes him relatable.
 * Relatively consistent quality.
 * Rab's cat. Doesn't have anything to do with Batman, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.