Superhero's and comic books have come to the point of being thought of as one in the same, but really isn't superhero a genre of comics unto itself like Fighting Mangas are a genre in Japan or do you think Superhero's are more of a subgenre of sci-fi/fantasy?

Definitely their own genre. SuperMan vs. LOTR vs. Star Wars... I wouldn't lump them together...

Yes. Superheroes, by now, have shoved their niche so wide open that it's an entire genre.

It should be a genre so I don't have to sift through them. :evil:

Just like them sprites.

I hear about this all the time.
It's a genre such as comedy comics, real life comics, war comics, etc.

Uh, yeah, I'd say it's about as full-blown a genre as you're going to find. You've got your history, you've got your genre-defining classics, you've got your clichés and you've got the people who have been crowing that it's "dead" for decades. All the ingredients are there. ;-)

Yes, superhero is a genre. It can be divided up amongst many smaller sub genres.

Volte6
Definitely their own genre. SuperMan vs. LOTR vs. Star Wars... I wouldn't lump them together...

Fantasy

It all depends upon what you define as a genre. The word is kind of vague. I mean, I'd like to think that superhero is a genre, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

To me, it seems as though a genre is simply a short-hand way of describing a particular type of story very quickly. It's a type of story that comes with certain expectable traditions. However, I must admit that it's pretty hard to pin down exactly what a superhero is. No matter what I find to define it, there's always an exception. The garish costumes, the super powers, the world-threatening crisis. These are all generalizations, but there's an exception to each of these.

In contrast, if something is described as an adventure story, you get a pretty immediate idea of what we're talking about. Same with comedy, tragedy, sci-fi, etc. Superhero is much looser than any of these.

I don't have a problem with calling my comic an action story, although I did readily attribute the "superhero" label to the description. Regardless of how vague it is, it does ironically seem to give people an immediate idea of what they're in for, and I'm at a loss to explain exactly why that is.

Another thing that we have to consider about genres is that the whole categorization system itself is a mish-mosh. Just because something is a comedy doesn't also mean that it can't be adventure, sci-fi, and fantasy. There are no hard lines here.

I guess the answer I'm shooting for is, "I don't know, and I don't really care, either."

I know there are a few things that can set certain super hero comics apart from the typical ones, but I don't think that takes it away from the "genre" category any more than Star Wars having fantasy elements in it would take sci fi away from a "genre" category. The stereotypes, history, and legends are all still there.