Batman Begins and the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh both purport to tell the story of a cultural hero, and as such they are strikingly similar in many ways. Both stories to some degree follow what has been termed by Joseph Campbell as the Mono myth Narrative, which is a pattern supposedly visible in hero stories across the world. Even though these two stories have narrative similarities, they also have significant thematic differences. Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins becomes a vigilante hero in order to protect the city and symbolically avenge the deaths of his parents. Gilgamesh becomes a hero for quite a different reason - he is trying to overcome mortality, and find a way to preserve something into eternity. They are each fighting overwhelming odds; Bruce is up against the forces of human corruption while Gilgamesh is up against the very fact of death. Yet the conflict is different in its depth. One might suggest that both narratives represent something significant about the culture which holds to them - that after overcoming the forces of nature and founding civilization, the ancient world became pressingly concerned with personal immortality of the soul while the modern world has somehow moved beyond that to become concerned with the daily reality of crime and corruption. Of course, to some degree Bruce Wayne too is concerned with mortality, for the death of his parents was a major driving force. But rather than face mortality directly, he tries to attack the system which creates it. So one can see how Bruce Wayne and Gilgamesh are both heroes of a sort, both because they are following the heroic pattern and because they stand strong against overwhelming odds, but they nonetheless are strikingly different in the way in which they contrive to fight the basic threat of human physical and social decay.

             Today there is a definition of "the hero" in popular culture which suggests that anyone who is selfless and dedicates their lives to others is a hero.