Re: What defines a Superhuman?
I had a thought after watching the Captain America movie. I don't expect it to settle the debate (its too much fun for one thing) but maybe present a different way of looking at it. The thought was perhaps it might be best to look at Captain America (and characters like him) as "superhuman" in the sense of how far above the common everyday man they are yet still human in the sense they're not a radical departure from baseline human physiology or genetics. If you examined Steve Rodgers or Batman they'd be human down to the smallest details but with the flaws in the human body mininalized or mitigated, the processes as efficient and tough as they can be without radically altering them, basically a "perfected" but human body.
For the rest of us flawed, typical mortals this results in a performance that might as well be superhuman. We can never reach that level of performance without some exterior aid (Super Soldier serum vita rays etc). similarly to how most of us, even if we trained and studied for the rest of our lives might never reach the abilities of Michael Jordan or Stephen Hawking. But the potential for that level of performance does lay in the human form. So are Captain America and his ilk superhuman? Relative to most of humanity? Yes but by their basic nature, no as humanity can potentially reach that level.