History Main / StandardSuperHeroSetting

* UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks: If there is a definite time period when superheroes appeared for the first time, it will usually be in the 1940s, though the very first superhero may have shown up in 1938, the year the first Superman comic was published. Occasionally, [[ProtoSuperhero earlier heroes]] will be recognized, but even then, expect this era to be a turning point, one way or another.
* UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks: Most of the time, TheSixties will be noted as the time of the biggest superhero boom in history.
* UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks: The time when superheroes began getting flaws and tackling more serious problems in the world. TheSeventies are the go-to decade for this age.
* UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks: On a similar note, if a decade is singled out as darker and filled with Anti-Heroes, it will probably be the TheNineties, or less commonly TheEighties.

What StandardFantasySetting and StandardScifiSetting are for Fantasy and ScienceFiction, this is for SuperHero genre: a setting of the sort in which most (though not all) superhero comic books and other narratives take place. Though the genre dates to the 1940s, [[NewerThanTheyThink the clear and definite rules for generic superhero settings weren't really solidified]] until TheSixties, when Creator/MarvelComics and Creator/DCComics started making a full use of their Universes. See also SuperheroPrevalenceStages.

** Franchise/DCUniverse, being one of two Trope Makers.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans''
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers''
* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice''

* Literature/WhateleyUniverse

** SuperheroCapitalOfTheWorld: When a specific location used in a superhero narrative is used long enough, its character roster of heroes and villains becomes so saturated that the location InUniverse and out becomes synonymous with hero-villain activity.

* SuperheroCapitalOfTheWorld: When a specific location used in a superhero narrative is used long enough, its character roster of heroes and villains becomes so saturated that the location InUniverse and out becomes synonymous hero-villain activity.

* ''{{Literature/Worm}}'' is an interesting deconstruction of the trope but takes the opposite approach of most deconstructions; instead of playing all the standard trope straight and seeing what the world looks like with them taken to their logical extremes, it instead starts with a Standard Superhero Setting and then explores what set of circumstances would have been necessary to generate it.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* ''Literature/JusticeSquad''
* Literature/WhateleyUniverse
* ''{{Literature/Worm}}''

* ILoveNuclearPower, LightningCanDoAnything, TouchedByVorlons, TheChosenMany: Classic origin stories.
** PhlebotinumDuJour may occur in case of long-running universes.
** MetaOrigin, MassSuperEmpoweringEvent: Getting more and more popular.

* ''Literature/{{Wearing the Cape}}''

* ''Literature/SuperPowereds'' is based in one of four super hero colleges set up to train future super heroes. The books dig pretty deep into how such a system would actually work, including the various government agencies, licenses, and paperwork that had to be created to handle everything. ''Literature/Corpies'' is a spin off that focuses on hero and a group of non-heros who do search and rescue work, and the differences between those who got a hero license and those who didn't.