Why is it fantasy took off in role playing but superhero role playing games aren't as popular?

Why is it fantasy took off in role playing but superhero role playing games aren't as popular?
Capeshit is a billion dollar industry, meanwhile fantasy struggles to get even a television show.
D&D is basically faux-medieval superheros as it is anyways. Is it literally because nerds are obsessed with the fantasy aesthetic even though what they are playing is closer to capes than Tolkien anyways?

Fantasy roleplaying got its start in the 70s. Capeshit roleplaying COULD have started then as well, but have you seen older comics? People that were established comic book fans in the 70s would have grown up on Silver Age goofy power fantasies where logic and internal consistency are foreign concepts. Adding to that is the explosion of cheap internal INNER DARKNESS DRAMA that characterized 70’s Bronze Age comics. People mock anime freeform roleplayers today, but that’s exactly what roleplaying based on comic books would have been like back in the day: constant asspulls, power trips, and nuh-uh/yeah-huh arguments with a big dollop of angst from the younger crowd for good measure.

Today it’s simply inertia. The big name is Fantasy/D&D, so people tend to hear about/get invested in that before anything else, ensuring that Fantasy/D&D stays the big name.

>D&D is basically faux-medieval superheros as it is anyway
Wrong for several reasons. D&D is closer to late renaissance, post apocalyptic shit than anything medieval.
>even though what they are playing is closer to capes than Tolkien anyways?
D&D shares nothing with Tolkien's work beyond the superficial shit of Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs. It has a lot more Conan, Vance, and Elric in it's blood than Tolkien. And it's still not close to cape stuff anyway, even with it's "high" power level.

>And it's still not close to cape stuff anyway, even with it's "high" power level.
Really?
>group special snowflakes with special powers that complement each other save the world because ...?
There is no reason the world shouldn't be filled with people as powerful as the player characters other than that npcs don't get experience points when they kill each other.

>with children

>There is no reason the world shouldn't be filled with people as powerful as the player characters other than that npcs don't get experience points when they kill each other.
Except there is though, and anyone saying otherwise is a fucking liar or doesn't understand the game. PC's are special in that they're protagonists and they're skill set is kinda rare but not unique or snowflake rare. There are NPC fighters and wizards/equivalent all over the fucking place in most settings.

Shit Dark Sun even states that most people will have 3 levels in a PC class by nature of living to adult hood because shit is so fucked.

But until a PC breaks out into the mid to late teens, theres going to be loads of people around there power level walking around.

In my experience superheroes are just harder to balance

I remember my child comics, penis, tits, inocent sexual jokes (in than there is curiosity be the kids, while not really understanding it) wheren't uncommon (Titef for example had a girl with heavy acne selling showing her tits for penies for example, stuff more or less than I did as a kid). In teens literature the same, first sexual experience and the like, not that rare. Probably what started my panties fetish, along with Bulma from DB...

European Graphic Novels included stuff that would be instantly banned here, like the 9 year old prostitute and her cyborg henchman. Yes, there was graphic sex, rape, mind control, and bloody violence.

Pretty much this. Although I feel that with current popularity of cape movies good superhero role-playing could potentially kick off, as those tend to be more grounded and have better character depth. Although it can already be a bit too late for that, the trend is starting to pass out already