Why do superheros never age?

Hi guys, I hope that you are all well. I am new to all this, so you will have to be a litte patient am afraid. I am a big DC fan (particularly hema-goblin) and was just wandering there why the vast majority of superheros don't age. With over 10,000 characters in the DC universe, how many actually age naturally compared to the vast majority that stay frozen in the prime of their life.

Netalife (The Interactive Global Comic)

@netalife: In the DC universe(preNew 52) they have retconned certain things like Hippolyta being the first Wonder Woman or made separate universes to avoid continuity errors. Some heroes do age like Sandman, Johnny Thunderbolt, the first Starman, Jay Garrick, Alan Scott(he appears younger because of the starhearts magic), and Wildcat.

@netalife: Becuase they don't want their most iconic heroes and characters to be outdated.

Great comments, but do you not think it's odd that superman can move between being older and then younger again in sequential comic publications each year? I think it comes down to older characters not selling as much and higher financial returns from a wider, younger audience.

Netalife (The Interactive Global Comic Website)

They do age but it takes them a long time to.

In the bigger picture it's because they want characters to hit a sweetspot of what people can relate to. Plus, if you make superheroes age, most of them have to die sometime, and we can't have that. The sense of how much time passes in almost any form of media (TV, games, movies, comics, etc.) is hard to make clear as well.

i think they should make them age DC especially as DC have a lot of legacy characters flash, wonder woman, batman to name a few it would be quite easy for them to have aging heroes and them having them their portages take over and you could have great stories as some would resit and some would push their portages i think it would be great for DC it would set them even further apart from marvel and the stories would be new and fresh but that's just maybe it would be crap

I think part of it is because people comic fan readers and non-comic fan readers have grown attached to these heroes, they are not just characters but almost mythology in themselves. Its one thing to just do a story with aged characters, but you don't necessarily want that to be status quo.

It is interesting how supporting characters are allowed to age a little bit such as Dick Grayson. I guess in that case, its the concept of Batman and Robin that people like rather than a specific Robin.