L smarter than Sherlock Holmes

I must say that Sherlock and L could equally be smart if they were sharing similar time periods. Having technology has nothing to do with it, if current tech existed in Sherlock's time, he would have been just as smart as L: it's about being resourceful. But Conan Doyle wrote realistic fiction, Manga characters or anime characters sometimes take liberties with what we would consider realistic even for the smartest mind in the world.

I wouldn't bring in Detective Conan into this, he is a walking encyclopedia of things; highly, highly unlikely for someone to be like that. With over 600 episodes now, he has demonstrated nearly supernatural ability to memorize facts about everything. However, L is to some degree believable and on par with Sherlock. I'm not saying Detective Conan's deductive skills are supernatural, but almost everything else about him: he's almost the perfect being with two small flaws: he sees things as right and wrong (black and white), and he apparently is afraid to admit he's in love. He's a pro-shooter, knows how to ride boats well, fly an aircraft, knows astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics and it goes on and on.