The other problem that often arises when introducing superhero characters is that superhero comics have grown increasingly meta. There aren't many stories about a magical man who fell to earth, was raised by farmers, and went on to do wonderful things, or stories about a man who saw his parents killed in front of him and swore to avenge them by becoming a bat. The stories are about Superman and Batman as cultural symbols and as massively long-running stories. And even when you have new superhero stuff it's based heavily on the old archetypes, so that you're still telling a story about Superman or about Batman, just not using them.