Of the core heroes featured on the rosters of Marvel's The Avengers and DC's Justice League, there is one man on each team who is not quite "super," who do not rely on alien weapons of devices for extraordinary abilities. Instead, these heroes rely on their personal wealth and knowledge to equip themselves with the best gadgets that earth's technology has to offer.

We are of course talking about Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Wayne (Batman), who represent the poster boy characters of each respective cinematic universe from Disney/Marvel Studios and Warner Bros./DC Entertainment. So, who spends more to be a superhero? The question has been answered (sort of).

The following pair of infographics have been timely put together by financial services company MoneySupermarket just in time for the release of The Dark Knight Rises, and just as Iron Man 3 nears completion of principal photography.

Starting with Batman, the infographic breaks down estimated costs of Batman's armor and gadgets, followed by his unique vehicles, including The Bat - the latest to be featured in The Dark Knight Rises.

Cost of being Batman

While the breakdown of items is neat to see, the numbers are totally off the mark and seemingly completely made up. In fact, they don't even jive with what was explicitly said in the films themselves. Take for example the Batman Kevlar armor suit - the first version alone (before modifications to make the head able to turn) cost over $300,000 (not $3000) as said by Lucius Fox to Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. That's also before modifications, not even counting backup suits, the costs of the Batcave or secret underground base in the construction yard as seen in The Dark Knight. There's also the sheer amount of parts Bruce Wayne had to order to build the mask with the embedded earpiece as to not draw suspicion to his nightly activities.

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Continue to page 2 for the costs of being Iron Man!

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It's no coincidence that to date, Batman and Iron Man are the only characters of the modern era comic book movie franchises to have earned trilogies of their own films so far, and in the case of Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man - he's also the key marketing figure for Marvel's shared universe, beginning with an appearance in The Incredible Hulk and stealing a slot of spotlight in The Avengers.

Even more than Batman, Iron Man goes through remodels of the suit like it's his job. In two Iron Man films and The Avengers we'd already seen seven (7!) different versions of his suit - just look at the Iron Man 3 hall of armor to see. How does that compare to Batman's costs?

Cost of being Iron Man

While the cost of being Batman infographic lacked research in detailing numbers, this Iron Man one is really stretching to pull numbers out of nowhere seeing how there's not many real-world examples to pull financial data for. I wouldn't count Tony Stark's home (where's the Stark tower?) and personal cars the cost of being Iron Man though, just like I wouldn't count the cost of them buying food.

They are right in that Stark undoubtedly invests more in the Iron Man armor than Mr. Wayne does for his Batman tech.

The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan off of his and brother Jonathan Nolan's screenplay, and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Daniel Sunjata and Nestor Carbonell.

Iron Man 3 is directed by Shane Black based off of his and Drew Pearce’s screenplay, and stars Robert Downey Jr., Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Jon Favreau, Rebecca Hall, Cobie Smulders, William Sadler, James Badge Dale and the voice of Paul Bettany.

The Dark Knight Rises is currently in theaters and Iron Man 3 releases May 3, 2013.

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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Source: MoneySupermarket