Superman Stays Out of Gotham

And so The Dark Knight ends an hour early.

Superman: But dude, you know what I would've done?
Batman: Oh, I don't know, probably just—
Superman and Batman: [simultaneously] Fly really fast, saving everyone from the bullets and explosions!

— How It Should Have Ended, "How The Dark Knight Should Have Ended"

It's simply a fact that some characters are more powerful than others. This trope comes into play when two or more characters who are on the same team have blatantly different levels of power and live in the same universe, but the stronger of them always stays out of anything the weaker character(s) have trouble with. This is because their powers would instantly solve the problems of the weaker hero(es), thus failing to preserve drama and cutting the plot short.

This commonly happens with Badass Normal heroes, who are defined as such because they live in a Shared Universe of wizards, literal supermen, flying tank armored guys, cyborgs or everything in between. This gives the writers plenty of opportunity to develop their heroes in contrast to their super-powered neighbors, while at the same time being able to focus on the more mundane issues taking place in the hero's own backyard. While this hero can learn to become a part of the everyday reality of his not-so-normal colleagues, and even fight alongside them (after all, being Badass Normal implies they can keep up with those who have powers), it's much more difficult to do the other way around: most of the time, the more powerful heroes could easily fix any problem the weaker heroes have in a heartbeat... and that would make for a pretty dull storyline. Often, this is avoided by simply keeping the demigods of comic continuity out of the less talented heroes' homes altogether. This is especially true if the hero is so thoroughly associated with a common everyday problem, characteristic or element that solving it would damage their franchise. In that case, it simply won't ever be solved — even if the hero's superpowered friend could fix it at once. More often than not, the problem is so integral to their own works that most readers simply accept it. Any crossover team-ups between the heroes will usually Hand Wave away the possibility of the stronger hero making any substantial impact in the badass normal's livelihood.

It's not strictly limited to Badass Normals or Nonpowered Costumed Heroes either; some heroes endure heaps of abuse just for being a superhero that can metastasize into Super Registration Acts and other anti-superhero hindrances that never end up on the radar of their colleagues.

Common in works starring the Anti-Hero. The plots and characters within their own works take place in their own hometown with its own tone and rules for the genre of acceptable morality and realistic plot resolutions. This leads to Fridge Logic when Green Rocks-based innovations that would work under any other circumstances that have been used numerous times are proposed but they just won't work for that specific hero, resulting in a Broken Aesop.

A less-common Double Subversion is when the hero calls upon his pantheon of super-allies for help in solving some intractable problem that they may or may not have solved before, only to get back a unanimous "There is nothing we can do" response.

A sub trope of Reed Richards Is Useless. Compare This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman, Fantastic Aesop, Status Quo Is God, Plot Technology, The Only One, and Law of Conservation of Normality. Contrast Superhero Capital of the World. For this as a learning/interaction trope, see Die or Fly or Sink or Swim Mentor. When Badass Normals and other heroes could become superpowered or much more powerful rather easily and then clean up their respective areas instead of some other hero, but for some inexplicable reason don't, that's One Super, One Power Set. When the situation is explained by having the more powerful heroes busy dealing with some other problem, that's Hero of Another Story.

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Example Subpages:

• Comic Books
  • The DCU
    • Arrowverse
    • Batman
    • DC Extended Universe
  • Marvel Universe
    • Marvel Cinematic Universe
    • X-Men

Other Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Tower of God: Rankers, people who have already climbed the Tower, made their wish and received great power on the way up, are not allowed to interfere with the Regulars who are still climbing. That's why overpowered characters like Yuri and Lero-Ro rarely make an appearance on the front lines and often act with severe restrictions. Most Rankers aren't even allowed to get close to the testing areas of the Inner Tower. This rule does get broken occasionally, though. At one point Yuri threatens to blow up an entire testing area and murder the test director, and is only stopped when the director threatens to fail everyone involved if she doesn't back down.
• Bleach has a retroactive example. Series creator Tite Kubo's 2018 series Burn the Witch reveals that Soul Society has a Western branch...which, along with the other possible branches, did absolutely nothing to intervene during the Karakura Town and Blood War arcs, both of which could have resulted in the world of the living being completely destroyed.
• City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes: The Kisugi sisters appear in the film and they even help Kaori to get into the Big Bad's building through the roof to get revenge for the destruction of the Cat's Eye café by his men, but probably because this isn't marketed as a major Crossover / Crisis Crossover with Cat's Eye and the story would end way faster with their sheer number and She-Fu skills, once Kaori is in the building they just stay outside and watch.
• Clamp made a short parody comic in their Clamp in Wonderland Ex collection about Kamui of X/1999 visiting the shop of the Dimensional Witch, Yuuko Ichihara. Though it's more of popping into the shop's front yard after the cliffhanger of the manga where he's from. Yuuko agreed to grant Kamui's wish then Mokona jokingly states that the price is the fate of the world, much to Kamui's despair and to Watanuki's irritation for that joke. Then, Fuuma appears and states that he is the only one who can grant Kamui's wish. Cue the two fighting much to Watanuki's chagrin. Though this does raise the question of why Kamui doesn't visit Yuuko's shop to have his wish granted considering that Yuuko made an offhand comment that she knew the Sumeragi twins when they were young with Subaru being a Dragon of Heaven, it should be noted that X/1999 debuted years before xxxHolic and Kamui believed that his true wish is to bring Fuuma back to his original self and that he should be the one to do it. It's only in the cliffhanger chapter where Fuuma revealed that that is not his true wish and Kamui is in a state of shock when he found out. In fact, this short comic made it clear that if Kamui does indeed visit Yuuko, it's implied that his price for whatever his wish is probably higher and riskier and Yuuko would have known that his true wish is something greater than what he originally thought and it might be best if Fuuma would be the one to grant it. Also, Yuuko's presence would be seen as a Story-Breaker Power given that she's probably not in the position to intervene in the battle between the Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth unless she was asked to, like how she is unable to help the group from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- during the Acid Tokyo arc until Kurogane requests for her help.
• Amuro Rey and Char Aznable never appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ despite appearing in the opening. Their rivalry was supposed to be settled in the show but Yoshiyuki Tomino was given the greenlit to produce Char's Counterattack; hence, Sayla Mass appeared in the second half of show and she and Bright Noa speculate that Char is probably watching from the sidelines waiting for the opportunity to return to Zeon while Amuro was mentioned in passing by Hayato that he's on duty somewhere. Gundam Evolve revealed that he's also fighting against Neo-Zeon though not the final battle where Haman and Judau are. However, Sayla didn't appear in the movie as her voice actress was again unavailable, and she's offhand mentioned in a flashback by Char while remembering Lalah's death. Many fans were also expecting Kamille Bidan and Judau Ashta to appear to help Amuro stop Char. But the ending of ZZ showed that Kamille retired to civilian life with Fa as a doctor while Judau signed on with the Jovian fleet.
• It is implied that Watchdog-Man of One-Punch Man is one of the more powerful S-Rank Heroes (for one, he's one of the few heroes who managed to single-handedly defeat Garou, whereas it took Blast, Bomb and Genos to try and defeat the heavily injured hero-hunter), however he never leaves the city he's guarding, so he cannot contribute in missions where his help would be useful.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Averted in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, with Jotaro arriving at Morioh to not only tell Josuke about his heritage but also to investigate the use of a Stand Arrow and the criminal Stand users in the city. Zigzagged with Joseph, who was initially invited to help locate the Stand User Akira Otoishi, but afterwards remains out of the major conflict later in this part. Justified between his old age making him unable to fight and his focus on raising the invisible baby.
  • Enforced and justified in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind by Giorno Giovanna. After their fight against Black Sabbath and discovering he had a Stand Arrow, Koichi at first wanted to inform Jotaro about this. Giorno convinces Koichi to leave it to him, since a search would put Passione's boss into hiding, making it harder for Giorno to find him. The only hero from a previous arc that comes to aid Bucciarati's team is Polnareff, and he was investigating Diavlo years before they were.
  • Played with in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean with Jotaro, who arrives after learning his daughter, the main protagonist Jolyne, is falsely arrested, thanks to the manipulation of the Big Bad. The attack by Whitesnake leaves him comatose for much of the arc until the final battle. It's played straight with Josuke and Giorno. Especially jarring in regards to Giorno since Pucci called over the rest of Dio's illegitimate children as part of his plan.
• In Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Goku and Vegeta are off on Beerus' Planet, training, the idea being that there's nothing big happening. However, that changes when Cell Max is awakened and unleashed. Bulma tries to call them back, but all the junk food around Whis' staff blocks off communication. Thankfully, Gohan unleashes a brand new Super Form that takes care of the problem, but Whis is left wondering just what exactly they could have needed in the first place.

Fan Works

• Justified in the Naruto/Justice League crossover, Connecting the Dots. Batman insists that any superheroes in Gotham operate under his rules, and stay out of the public eye. When Wonder Woman engages in a very public battle with Sakura and Rock Lee, this later draws the Cheetah, who had gained some new abilities, to Gotham. Batman explains that she was drawn there by Wonder Woman's public presence in the city, and uses Metropolis's Superman-induced villain infestation as a justification for why he insists that supers in Gotham operate under his rules.
• Also justified to a considerable extent in the Earth-2706 verse, the setting of Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams and its companion series Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With The Light. Unlike Earth-616, the main setting of the Marvel Universe, superheroes like the X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Thor and Doctor Strange are not based in New York City and are not usually available to help the street-level heroes out. Even the Fantastic Four aren't even in New York half the time. As a result, Sleepwalker, Spider-Woman and every other hero in New York has their hands full with their own individual Rogues Galleries. Except for the rare occasion when they can team up due to responding to the same emergency, the heroes simply can't help each other out even if they might like to.
• Hermione Granger and the Swiss Tournament: When Hermione is facing off against mooks and metahumans and monsters that Terawatt could take down before breakfast, she doesn't call Terawatt in, because Terawatt is busy halfway around the world, dealing with a Kaiju turtle monster. So it's up to Hermione's "tradecraft" skills — lock picking, placing and defeating electronic bugs and cameras, small arms and explosives, martial arts, and wine-tasting — to identify the masterminds, kill their underlings, and save the day. It eventually turns out that calling in Terawatt was what the bad guys wanted, with a trap prepared to kill her.
• In Origin Story, as in the original Civil War storyline, the X-Men sit the entire thing out after quietly determining that Alex Harris is not a mutant after all, despite the fact that originally everyone simply assumed she was. Since she isn't a mutant, and isn't attacking mutants (and has, in the past, actually defended them) they don't see Alex as their problem, and thus refuse to interfere.
• The End of Ends has Count Logan go around and destroying various planets, including Starfire's home world, and yet the only team to get involved other than the Teen Titans are the Doom Patrol and not, say, the Green Lantern Corps.
• In the Doctor Who / DC Universe crossover "Fear Itself", Superman is brought to Gotham at one point and reflects on how Batman always hates it when he shows up, believing it's because Batman feels compelled to solve the city's problems single-handedly. Later, we see Batman's thoughts on the issue, where it's revealed that the issue for him isn't so much one of territoriality as it is effectiveness; when faced with a superpowered alien showing up and easily handing them their asses, the criminals of Gotham consequently tend to be less frightened of the prospect of encountering a guy in a bat-suit, thus making Batman's job harder when Superman eventually leaves.
• The Daredevil (2015) fanfic What They Wouldn't Do uses this trope twice in one conversation:
  • Sarah asks Matt where he was during "The Incident", and if he had started his Daredevil career at that point.
    Matt Murdock: No. Not until… a little over a year later, I guess. Aliens are a little out of my wheelhouse, anyway. I was at this law firm that Foggy and I used to intern for and they put the whole place on lockdown. No one in, no one out. But especially no one in. Landman and Zack at its best.
  • Learning that Matt's not left New York City once in his life, Sarah suggests to Matt that he ought to take a vacation and let the Avengers watch over Hell's Kitchen. Matt's response?
    Matt Murdock: [laughs] I think stopping muggers and crashing arms deals might be a little small time for them.
    Sarah Corrigan: Small time is important, too. I mean, saving the world is great and all—I'm way glad someone does it. But if the world ends…well, that's it, right? We'd all be dead, so we won't be around to care. The day-to-day stuff in between massive alien invasions… that's what people need more help dealing with. No offense to the Avengers, though. Lauren adores them. So does my dad.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel this is brought up several times:
  • When Kara figures out what is going on in Sunnydale she wants to call the Justice League and stomp the place flat. Buffy pleads with her to not do it because people are better off not knowing vampires are real.
  • In the aftermath of the battle, Buffy asks Supergirl to leave and trust the Gang to handle Sunnydale.
    Kara: Then, what am I supposed to do? Just go, and pretend that none of this exists?
    Buffy: No. You’re supposed to go, and leave it to us. We’re the trained professionals in this thing. We know what to do, Kara. Just like... and, well, you know I hate to bring this up... just like when I was in your body. I don’t know that much about super-heroing, but I’ll bet that Batman doesn’t call you up every time the Joker and he have a throwdown. You all have your spheres of influence. So do we. That’s why we’re here, Kara... and that’s why you’re there.
• What the Cat Dragged In: When Tony Stark eventually asks (after encountering both Ladybug and Chat Noir and an Akuma) why the hell isn't SHIELD providing assistance regarding the Hawk Moth situation (pointing out that the agency's resources should make dealing with him an easy thing, or so he thinks), he is told back that Mayor Bourgeois pretty much kicked Nick Fury out of his office when he arrived to provide the offer and flat-out refused, saying that the Parisian authorities and the Miraculous holders could deal with it pretty fine by themselves. Fury ends up agreeing (and thus denies Tony's request to send the Avengers) when he points out that the agency has very little clue of how the Akumas operate and the true extent of their powers, and he won't risk the potential escalation. Stark gets pissed about it and gets Akumatized for his trouble and nearly takes over Paris. After he's brought back to normal, he agrees with Fury.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, powerful DC Heroes like The Flash are active in the same world as My Hero Academia. But when S.T.A.R. Lab tech is stolen and shipped off to Japan, the Japanese Hero community is simply tipped off to lock down the ports and airports and monitor the cargo closely rather than receiving any American aid. At the very least, Barry Allen makes it clear that he wants to go and intervene, but can't due to having his hands full with the Rogues and Black Hole.
• Spiderman: A Way Back Home sees Peter Parker (post-Spider-Man: No Way Home) contact Bruce Banner for help devising a means of sending the displaced Gwen Stacy (The Amazing Spider-Man Series) and Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man Trilogy) back to their universes. Bruce agrees to help after it's revealed that the Harry Osborn of Gwen's Earth has also been displaced, but since he is focusing on creating the multiverse machine Peter and the girls (including Michelle Jones) thus have to work on curing Harry's disease and de-powering him themselves, although they get aid from the Harry Osborn of Mary Jane's world later.
• Discussed in Pokemon vs. Digimon: When Worlds Collide when Devimon (Digimon) travels into the Pokémon world; the author acknowledges that Devimon could probably be defeated by a Legendary Pokémon, but points out how rarely such Pokémon got involved in threats to the Pokémon world on a daily basis to make it clear that just waiting for a Legendary to show up to fight Devimon isn't a practical option as Devimon would do too much damage before any help can arrive, requiring the Digidestined, Ash, Misty, and Brock to do what they can themselves.
• In What if...Wanda Cast the No Way Home Spell, Doctor Strange observes that, at least in his case, he never got around to helping Peter Parker deal with the various accusations raised against him by the likes of J. Jonah Jameson as he's normally busy with much larger things, even as Strange regrets how he didn't help Spider-Man earlier even after they basically saved the universe together.
• Invoked in A Supe of a Man; not only has Clark Kent/Superman been assigned to the west coast to keep him away from the Seven, but Homelander has instructed the rest of the Seven to avoid Superman as he dislikes being compared to the other hero.
• To Hell and Back (Arrowverse): Played with. Kara is based out of the same city as Oliver and makes frequent trips to Central City, but she pointedly stays out of the boys' ways, sticking to her own threats and major disasters like crashing planes. This is mainly because she would be complete overkill; Oliver and Barry can handle themselves and their respective prey perfectly fine on their own and hardly need her help anyway. However, she will intervene if they are unable to or the threat risks serious harm to their persons, as seen with China White and Grodd.
• In Avenger Goddess, when Darcy Lewis learns about Ares’ role in the Second World War, she asks why Thor and his people didn’t get involved, Diana clarifying that Ares used magic to stop any other gods being aware of his actions until he was defeated.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, when Mewtwo begins using his powers to alter the weather in Kanto, Rayquaza senses his actions and becomes agitated, and begins flying more erratically across Hoenn in response. Steven Stone takes notice of this and wants to investigate the cause of it, but like Rayquaza he can't leave his region unprotected in case something else comes up (having had some incidents recently that means his concerns are fairly justified).
• Miraculous Knight:
  • When Ladybug asks why Batman and the rest of the Justice League hasn't came to Paris sooner, Batman answers that the League has been observing the incident for a while, they didn't want to get the teen heroes involved with the League since they are already too busy with school but vowed to get involved if things got out of hand. Batman also says that the presence of the League could easily draw in their rogue gallery. Which given that the Joker chased after Batman to Paris when the latter was investigating the Riddler's actions there, is very accurate.
  • The Joker invokes it while convincing Gabriel to come to Gotham with him. He says Batman wouldn't let Superman come after him.
• In Amazing Fantasy, For some reason, Spidey is one of the only superheroes in New York to actually take on street crime, stopping bank robberies and investigating things while the entirety of the Avengers are off stopping an Alien Invasion or some other Apocalypse How scenario. Lampshaded, of course, when Peter wonders why his peers like Daredevil are never around.
  Peter: Aw, who am I kidding? He's probably busy with the Hand or something.
• Justified in Harry Potter and the Invincible TechnoMage. Thor, Stephen Strange, Iron Man, and the other top-tier Marvel heroes can't pop over to Britain and squash Riddle and his Death Eaters because they've got their hands full dealing with the villains that can compete on their level.
• Dance with the Demons: Subverted. Batman's friends stand aside while he investigates the assassination attempt against Catwoman, but at the end of the story Superman and Wonder Woman arrive in the Batcave to help the Batfamily beat an army of Kobra soldiers.
• In crossover fanfiction Displaced (TheMountainJew), the Justice League is told to stay out of Gotham, despite their willingness to stop an ongoing bloody gang war, because Batman -and James Gordon- think the presence of super-powered heroes would attract super-powered villains. However Spider-Man, who has just started operating in Gotham, doesn't care for Batman's rules, and eventually the Dark Knight has to accept that Spider-Man isn't leaving or stopping.
• In Perfect Sense, it is stated that the Paris authorities are doing their best to keep the knowledge of the Miraculouses from the wider world, because regular citizens are tough enough as it is, but if Superman or Wonder Woman came in and were akumatized...
• Justified in the Teen Titans fanfic Joker's Wild, where Batman and the rest of the Gotham vigilantes can't help Robin defeat the Joker due to a mass break out at Arkham and Blackgate.
• Ultimate DCU Headverse: Averted in the first story when Barbara Gordon asks Linda Danvers come to Gotham and help Kate Kane look for Mad Hatter.
• You Had Your Chance To Help Years Ago And You Blew It: Pretty much the only reason this trope is in play is because, when Paris' citizens tried to call the Justice League to help them with the Hawk Moth situation, the person answering them (Guy Gardner) dismissed them as prank calls due to a lack of evidence (since Ladybug's World-Healing Wave meant there was no collateral damage left behind after the battles). By the time the League does get wind of what's going on, both Paris' citizens and its heroes are wary of accepting help from them.
• A non-crossover Miraculous Ladybug example in the New York special for Hero Chat, where after Majestia and Knight Owl express their shock that Team Miraculous are only teenagers, they end up bringing up old frustrations in Ladybug about how no other heroes came to help them in Paris. It's only afterward that she and the others hear the explanation from Jess (Sparrow) and Aeon (Uncanny Valley): That information regarding Akumas or Team Miraculous have locked in Paris by a Masquerade organized by the mayor to avoid deterring tourism, with the outside world only finding out after Princess Fragrance targeted Prince Ali, a world-renowned philanthropist. By then, Ladybug and Chat Noir had been handling the Akumas for so long that the other heroes thought they were either young adults or had sufficient training. However, both Majestia and Knight Owl admit they should have done more to investigate and want to apologize to Team Miraculous for the oversight.
  • However if the Author's other story Lady Luck (Miraculous Ladybug) is to be believed the Mayor also did this to keep superheroes out of Paris in an attempt to prevent them from becoming Akumas.
• Batman insists that the rest of the Justice League stays out of Gotham in Justice because he fears bringing metahumans to fight crime there will make the existing villains escalate in retaliation to a level the Bat Family can no longer contain, making Gotham dependent on outside help which will only embolden and elevate the crime rate.

Films — Animation

• Batman and Harley Quinn has Batman consider breaking the trope, but most of the heroes at the time are out with other things (in space or at Atlantis) and the heroes left available were B- and C-list heroes that Batman and Nightwing do not want to deal with, and Booster Gold (who they also don't want to deal with).
• The LEGO Batman Movie: The entire Justice League is shown partying midway through the film, but none of them show up when all the villains in the Phantom Zone are let out and Gotham risks falling into an abyss. Parodied in How It Should Have Ended, where all the superheroes do show up and so instantly override the Bat-Family's attempt to save their city.
• Green Lantern: Beware My Power has the league mention that Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash are all away on their own missions while Martian Manhunter needs to maintain the Watchtower, leaving Green Arrow as John Stewart's primary ally.

Films — Live-Action

• Averted in Superman Returns — in the news report, Gotham actually is listed as one of the cities where Superman stopped to do good deeds. Mostly just a Mythology Gag, though, since as far as we know other superheroes don't even exist in this universe.

Literature

• This is why Goblin Slayer's titular character is so important. Generally, adventurers don't go for quests that are below their skill level as the risk is too high and the reward too low. Goblin slaying quests are mostly handed out by peasants being harrassed by them with little to pay, as opposed to quests given out by merchants, royalty and the like with enough money to make it worth their while. Goblin Slayer's defiance of this trope comes from the danger goblins present and his losses at their hands making him wish for and strive to achieve the extermination of all goblins, and as such makes him both a man doing a service nobody else will and an outcast among his peers.
• Harry Potter: Albus Dumbledore, who is the single greatest wizard in the series, nearly always stays out of the affairs of Harry when he was a kid and rarely has a chance to show exactly what he is capable of in conflicts, eventually being killed off due to his status as a Story-Breaker Power. As revealed in the final book, this is actually justifiable and intentional, as while Dumbledore is the most powerful character in the entire franchise, he is not the person destined to defeat Voldemort. It has to be Harry, so having the greatest might in this case may seem highly favorable in the short run, but it would be ineffective when the time comes for Harry to battle Voldemort. While he regularly has duties around, part of his lack of participation in Harry's life-and-death struggles is because having him around in those conditions would have nulled any neccessity for Harry to endanger himself, preventing him from building up the skill needed to defeat Voldemort.
• Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, writes stories where the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Norse gods run around in the modern world, with all their classical bad guys also around and doing horrific things such as turning random people to stone to sell as lawn decorations, blowing up Elvis's home, and creating more chain restaurants, let alone the various attempts of creating Apocalypse How as soon as possible. Yet you never see the Egyptians deal with Titan uprisings, or the Demigods reacting to the very real threat of the sun being eaten. True, the pantheons do try to stay apart due to the many comments that the meeting of god pantheons creates wars. And true the Greek and Roman demigods did, indirectly, work together against the titans, but that was more a coincidence, as oppose to a Superman and Batman vs General Zod thing. Though the "Heroes of Olympus" series has the Greek and Roman elements working together directly, and the Trials of Apollo series continues a lack of barrier between the two beyond simple space. There is a short story titled The Son of Sobek which features Percy and Carter. After nearly killing each other, they team up to take on a monster crocodile. It's implied that there are forces at work to keep the Greek and Egyptian pantheons separate, and that someone had engineered their meeting in hopes of it ending violently between the two. Later confirmed, except on the last point. Apparently, it was for research, and it led to two more team ups.
  • A slight justification, similar to the Superhero examples, is the aspect of space. While why the Divine aspects don't interact more is still up in the air, a lot of the heroes in play are often working in very different areas from each other and don't have the free time to randomly go looking for trouble. Percy Jackson and Magnus Chase don't have cars or the spare change to randomly travel to Boston and New York City respectively, and the Romans exist out around San Francisco. While the main Egyptian characters exist in New York City, they are often out in different parts of the world that don't tend to be the same parts Percy and company will go to (The Demigods travels brought them to Quebec, Chicago, San Francisco, British Columbia, the Rockies, Seattle, Alaska, Kansas, the middle of the Atlantic, Gilbraltar, Rome, Croatia, and Greece, while the Magicians went to London, Brooklyn, Egypt, France, Memphis Tn, New Mexico, Phoenix, St. Petersburg, and Texas). The Norse characters have this even more so by often interacting with the other 9 realms like Alfheim that the Greeks and Egyptians likely do not even know how to get to. While contact between the groups does increase over time, with Annabeth meeting with Magnus, the actions and decisions of the characters means they often aren't able to get involved if they wanted to (with Percy Jackson for example spending not insignificant periods of time around the time of the Egyptian series either hidden by Hera, without his memories, or in Tartarus, while during the Norse series Percy isn't as active due to trying to live his normal life for a spell.)
• Legacy: The Tale of the American Eagle implies that this has something to do with the Department of Justice Registration (so police can work out standard crimefighting plays?), and is explored as a theme in the novel when the Hero of St. Theodore uproots and goes on a crusade across the world, irregardless of international boundaries. On a larger scale, there appears to be laws against sending superheroes who operate in one country into another, explored with Nightwolf, a former supersoldier who was court-martialed for violating the Non-Combatant Treaty (superpeople can be medics or chefs, but not fight in wars.)
• In The Lord of the Rings, a commonly asked question in fandom is "Why couldn't the Eagles just fly the Fellowship to Mount Doom?". It makes sense, since Gandalf had good relations with the Eagles as seen in The Hobbit. And the Eagles did show up to save Frodo and Sam from certain death after the One Ring was destroyed. So why couldn't they just fly the Fellowship to Mount Doom in helping to destroy their shared enemy? Tolkien has never given a definitive answer but most agree that he probably would also have attempted to give an in-universe explanation, but only after stating the obvious, most important reason: "Because then there would be no story". But in The Hobbit the Eagles do save Bilbo (who has just acquired the ring) and the dwarves from a fiery fate.
  • Fans have come up with several hypothetical explanations such as the Eagles too conspicuous as they approached Mordor. Sauron would have sent his winged Nazgul immediately. Another theory is that the Eagles couldn't carry them all the way from Rivendell, and by the time heroes approached Mordor, there was no Gandalf to call them. Finally, some speculate that this may have been Gandalf's unspoken plan all along, but the sidetrack to Moria put a stop to it. Or, of course, there is the implication that the eagles could not bear to touch or have anything to do with the one ring - which is why they stepped in and saved Frodo and Sam the very instant the ring was destroyed. Another explanation is that the Eagles simply choose not to intervene more than they do because, contrary to appearances, (at least in the film version) the Eagles aren't dumb animals that Gandalf has at his beck and call, they're an intelligent race of Middle-earth all their own.
• With the introduction of both the Secret Histories Droods and the Who You Gonna Call? Ghost Finders to his personal Verse, Simon R. Green had to justify these supernatural-menace-suppressing organizations' non-participation in each others' affairs, as well as their absence from his previous Nightside series. The Droods' absence from the Nightside is explained away as the result of age-old jurisdictional limits, while the Ghost Finders are tasked to oppose supernatural threats that arise outside the Nightside's boundaries. The Ghost Finders' work, at least until recently, usually falls short of the Droods' The World Is Always Doomed caliber of mission, and as a British government institution, the former aren't on good terms with the latter due to the Droods' history of bullying the world's nominal leaders.
• In Rumor's Block Confluence has such a corrupt government that most super heroes are afraid of working there, and the few who do are forced to be loners because the government considers them illegal vigilantes rather than proper heroes.
• Not supers, but one of the reasons Terry Pratchett introduced Moist von Lipwig to Discworld was so that he could keep writing novels set in Ankh-Morpork without the Watch's formidable cast of characters horning in and taking over the story. As Moist was (and arguably still is, albeit on the city's behalf) a professional con artist by trade, he has plenty of reasons not to like, trust, or seek out the assistance of the Watch.
  • He also dislikes his fellow new protagonist William de Worde, who runs the Disc's first newspaper. Vimes, Moist, and de Worde all dislike each other.
  • The Witches and Wizards don't get heavily involved in the Ankh-Morpork books, and there are good reasons for both so we're not wondering why some witch or wizard isn't standing by to turn conspirators into frogs. The Wizards prefer to not have to do any magic at all except when there are unexpected extradimensional threats, and are not on loan to help the Watch deal with mundane plots. The Witches just don't live in Ankh-Morpork to begin with, and when they've traveled there it hasn't overlapped any other Ankh-Morpork book.
• Many of Stephen King's stories share a universe, or at least a multiverse, yet most of their heroes are actually more Action Survivors, so a Nightmare Warriors style team-up is unlikely, and most of the events are very localized. The Gunslingers could certainly have helped the people in the grocery story or The Losers gang, but they were divided by dimensional barriers.
• Downplayed and generally justified in A Certain Magical Index. Touma has a number of allies who also live in Academy City and who could easily curb-stomp most of his opponents (e.g. Mikoto and Accelerator). They do work together on many occasions, but there are still plenty of instances where this doesn't happen. It's justified by the fact that Touma's allies all have lives and adventures of their own (as shown in the spinoffs).

Live-Action TV

• On The X-Files, all those demons and vampires and mutants running around would have been really useful for the Earth Home Team when the Alien Colonization finally hit.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: A number of fans have questioned why the Enterprise, the flagship of the fleet and a powerful warship crewed with Starfleet's best and brightest, never showed up to help fight off the Dominion, the greatest threat against the Federation since the Borg, especially given that this meant that the TNG films being released concurrently needed to find a new excuse to get Worf back aboard the Enterprise each movie. The Watsonian answer is that they did help fight off the Dominion, but were dispatched to put out fires and resolve crises better suited to a single, very versatile ship rather than put on the front lines with the large fleets where one battleship more or less wouldn't make much difference, which just happens to mean that they never spent much time around the titular space station. The Doylist explanation, of course, is that more crossovers would have meant spending a lot of the budget paying some very expensive guest stars and could have lead to the Enterprise crew overshadowing the cast of DS9. Expanded Universe books that cover the TNG crew during the Dominion War timeframe simply have them fighting elsewhere. This is after all the interstellar equivalent to World War II, and was fought on multiple fronts.
• Doctor Who runs into this rather frequently as well. There are other advanced species besides the Doctor who could be of help to Earth, but this seems to have happened once in the 50-year history.
  • Several mercenary forces would probably gladly sign up with Earth for the right consideration, but there's never any mention of an offer being solicited. The Sontarans in particular would love to mix it up with the Daleks after being left out of the Time War. However, only one Sontaran (that was demoted to a nurse as punishment) joins the Doctor's army in "A Good Man Goes to War". In that same episode though, an army of Silurians that owe a debt to the Doctor takes command of Demon's Run. However, having alien mercenaries fighting for the Earth would probably cause as many problems as it would solve, if not more.
  • After two series of deconstructing the way the Doctor operates and showing just how hated he's become amongst certain people, the Series 6 finale reveals that millions upon millions of individuals wished to answer River's distress beacon and prevent the Doctor's death in 2011 Lake Silencio. None of those individuals actually end up helping to prevent the Doctor's death (except for the Teselecta), though in fairness that's because the Doctor already had a plan to get out of it by slipping under the radar.
  • In Torchwood: Children of Earth, this is played harrowingly straight, except that it's the Doctor from Doctor Who who stays away. After learning that the government is willing to give up children to the aliens, Gwen posits that the reason the Doctor doesn't do more to help Earth is that sometimes the Doctor is too disgusted by humans. However, this is just Gwen speculating. The Doctor has been known to just not know every time that Earth is in danger, since he's definitely not omniscient. And there are fixed points in history that he can't prevent from happening however much he'd want to. Word of God said that the Doctor would never appear in Torchwood, as Torchwood is very much not aimed at children and his presence might encourage them to watch it.
  • The Sarah Jane Adventures has the time-traveling Doctor pop in occasionally, but for the most part the fate of the Earth (or at least London) appears to be in the hands of a middle-aged woman and some school-aged children. Likewise, while it's established that Sarah Jane Doesn't Like Guns and Torchwood's tone is the exact opposite of this show's, it's still bit glaring that Sarah Jane and Captain Jack Harkness never seem to share notes in crisis situations, even after working together well in "Journey's End". However, most of the situations both face develop rapidly, and with Jack's teleporter broken, by the time a team got from Cardiff to London or vice versa (especially given how bad British public transportation is), the world would probably have gone to smithereens already.

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel:
  • Buffy is not allowed in Los Angeles. Not because she's too powerful, but because Angel kicked her out after she tried to deal with rogue Slayer Faith herself rather than allow him to try and redeem her in "Sanctuary" (they reconciled in Sunnydale). In "Orpheus", Willow visits L.A. when the Fang Gang need a witch to re-restore Angel's soul, then brings Faith with her when she returns to Sunnydale, since the First Evil has it in for Slayers.
  • There's also the fact that Buffy can't stay away from Sunnydale for too long (she doesn't go to L.A. after they reconcile), mostly because of all of those demons trying to open the Hellmouth or get one of those Artifacts of Doom hidden around the town. If the beginning of Season 6 is any indication, Buffy's presence is the only thing keeping the demons under control.
  • Justified when the sun is blotted out by the Beast for several episodes of Angel Season 4 by the fact that it only affects Los Angeles to start with. It's supposed to eventually spread, but the Beast is killed and the sun restored before that can happen. Not to mention Buffy was busy reacting to the minions of the First Evil in Sunnydale at the same time.
  • In Angel season 5, the lack of help from Willow or any of the others who could've possibly assisted with Fred's demon possession is explained by their refusal to cooperate with Angel due to his decision to work for the resident Big Bad, Wolfram & Hart, even if his intentions are to subvert their assets into something good.
  • The opposite is in effect, too. Angel turns up again in "Chosen" ready to help fight the First Evil, but Buffy immediately sends him away so he can prepare "a second front" in Los Angeles in case she dies.
  • So since Spike has managed to come Back from the Dead in Season 5 of Angel after burning up in the Buffy finale, one would think he would be rushing off to find Buffy. Actually, he thought about it and guessed that doing so would cheapen his Heroic Sacrifice and chooses instead to play the hero in LA. He returns to Buffy in the comics seasons.
• Touched on in the crossover episodes of The Flash (2014) and Arrow; the Flash's superspeed would make cleaning up a lot of Starling City's issues easier, but Barry doesn't have the tactical awareness that Ollie does; the latter fights the former to a draw with no powers and sticks him with an ambush arrow on two occasions when Barry thinks he's got the upper hand. Star City's villains are usually more violent. Barry disagrees with Oliver's more gray-zone morality when it comes to fighting Starling's darker criminals. "Flash vs. Arrow" makes clear that the CCPD find the Arrow an unwelcome presence due to his vigilante killings in season 1, and Oliver has real trouble facing people with superpowers (not to mention a pissed-off gorilla with Psychic Powers). That said, when Barry has his Big Damn Heroes moment in Season 3 finale, the entire League of Assassins is shown to be hopelessly outclassed by a single speedster, especially since they have no idea he's coming. The trope is averted in major crossovers, such as the "Invasion!" arc, when it's "all hands on deck" in order to stop an Alien Invasion, requiring Team Arrow, Team Flash, the Legends and Supergirl to work together.
  • Although averted a few times in Arrow when Oliver calls on Barry to make a quick stop over to do something for him then immediately leave, like help him and Diggle intercept a criminal before they leave the city, since Barry can be there and back in an instant without really taking much time out of his own problems (and since all it requires is a "Flash" streak shown running by without an appearance by Grant Gustin). Also averted in Flash's season 1 climactic battle against Reverse Flash where Barry does call for backup because he just can't take him alone. However besides Oliver only Firestorm shows up because Atom and Black Canary were unable thanks to events on their own show, and as this was early in the series run (where he'd yet to meet Supergirl and the Legends hadn't formed yet), no other heroes had started operating yet.
  • Stretched to unbelievability in the Arrow finale. Oliver's team is falling apart and mundane thugs are taking over the town, and he's willing to bring in some really questionable allies. But doesn't even try to call Barry.
  • Explained away with the Thinker as he has powers sufficient to take them all down, so there's no point.
    • However, in general played straight - Vixen, Flash, and Supergirl all stay in their own areas, despite being just a phone call away from each other.
  • In season 7 of Arrow, It's revealed that Roy Harper died and was resurrected by the Lazarus Pit, which gives you a blood lust. Smart solution? Call Oliver, and have him call the Legends to get Constantine to purify Roy the same way he did Sara. Practiced solution? Try to keep the blood lust under control with drugs, and tell no one else, resulting in the deaths of two innocent guards.
  • Also happens in season 8, after William, Mia, and Connor somehow time travel back to 2019, no one thinks to call Team Flash or the Legends for their experience with time travel.
  • The post-Crisis Black Lightning (2018) now takes place in the same universe as the other Arrowverse shows. The country is under attack by a foreign power with an army of metahumans. Does Black Lightning think to call on the other heroes? No, of course not. He'd much rather use children to fight the Gravedigger and his army. For that matter, Gravedigger seems awfully focused on Freeland, even though Central City arguably has more metas than Freeland.
• Supergirl:
  • This is addressed as Kara's desire to strike out on her own as a superhero in the world, so she defends National City while Clark stays in Metropolis. When James Olsen has to call Superman to save Supergirl from dying when attacked by Reactron, Kara and James have an argument about whether or not he should have called Superman at all. At the end of the episode even James admits that he moved to National City to become his own man and not remain "Jimmy" forever. In that episode, Supergirl also notes a practical reason: villains will start to think she's an easy target and plague National City if she needs Superman to help her with every problem. Superman finally makes an appearance when both Kryptonians have to stop a falling space shuttle. Clark then stays in National City for a few days, but it's revealed that he refuses to work with the DEO because they keep kryptonite in storage. Near the end of Season 2, everyone wonders where Superman is, considering that Earth is the middle of an Alien Invasion. Clark did show up, but he was manipulated by Queen Rhea of Daxam into fighting Kara with silver kryptonite hallucinations that made him see Kara as General Zod, resulting in Kara proving herself to be his equal or better. Clark then comes up with a way for Kara to beat Rhea with a Combat by Champion.
  • Although Superman has arrived to help save the day on occasion, his absence during the world-threatening Reign arc of Season 3 is puzzling, given the arc has several episodes in which his presence would not only have saved his cousin from a lot of pain and injury, but would have been a no-brainer, in particular when Supergirl is rendered comatose after a fight with Reign, technically leaving no one in National City with the same level of power - the fact Superman isn't called in borders on the irresponsible. Later, it's mentioned that he's working on the other side of the world, but you'd think he could pop in at Super Speed. Similarly, given Supergirl has a device capable of transporting between universes, someone should at least suggest asking the Flash, Steel or any of the other super-powered beings from Earth-1 to return Kara's favor for helping save their Earth several times. This is ultimately settled in Elseworlds (2018), as Clark decides to retire as Superman to marry Lois and prepare for a child on the way.
  • In the Elseworlds (2018) crossover, Batwoman really doesn't want Oliver or Barry in Gotham, especially the Green Arrow (there are already enough vigilantes in Gotham). She doesn't mind Kara, though.
  • While the Superman & Lois series is just starting, so far there haven't really been any mentions of the other heroes. Even Clark hasn't mentioned his cousin once, even when a mysterious villain in Powered Armor is attacking nuclear power plants all over the country, or when a bridge is collapsing in China. Why was Superman the only one to respond to that one? Supergirl is at least as strong as he is. Some fans have speculated that the show takes place on another Earth. But this gets squashed when John Diggle appears in one episode and is immediately recognized by Lois and Clark. Lois mentions Oliver and Dig mentions Lyla and A.R.G.U.S., as well as hinting at his own possible future as Green Lantern, thereby confirming that the show still takes place on the same Earth, even though the Fortress of Solitude looks completely different in Supergirl (little more than an ice cave in S&L and an entire museum to Krypton in Supergirl) but is supposed to be the exact same place, since Clark lets Kara use his Fortress when needed.
    • The number of incidents in which the existence of another Kryptonian superhero on Earth who could either help Superman when he needs to tag team or take his place when he's indisposed is totally overlooked continues to grow as the show goes on.
    • This is finally cleared up in the season 2 finale, when General Lane outright states that he's witnessed leagues of superheroes in other worlds but their world only has a single one, Superman, confirming that Superman & Lois is set in a different parallel universe to the Arrowverse. It should be noted that this wasn't intended to be the case all along, however - for example, a shot of a picture of Kara with Lois and Clark on the Kent farm when Lois is clearing out her desk at the Daily Planet was deleted from the Season 1 premiere. And there was a planned crossover with Batwoman that was cancelled because of the pandemic. Word of God is that Oliver Queen (who has been mentioned on the show) and possibly some other costumed vigilantes did arise in this universe, but there have been no superpowered heroes like the Flash on Earth other than Superman. Of course, this begs the question of whether Kara's counterpart died on Krypton, is still drifting in a pod, stuck in the Phantom Zone or landed on a different planet, or was born at all.invoked
• This is a problem that's frequently glossed over in Power Rangers. By the time the Zordon era was over, there were multiple Ranger teams on Earth and the number has only increased as the show has gone on. More to the point, pretty much every Ranger team defeats their enemies by the end of their season. As such, one would think some of these older Rangers might move to whatever city is being attacked in the current season and try and help out. In some cases there are valid excuses. Lost Galaxy isn't set on Earth, SPD is set in the future, RPM is in an alternate universe, not to mention numerous Rangers lost their powers at the end of their season (although by the time of the huge final battle in Megaforce every past Ranger seems to have been repowered somehow, and post-Zordon teams usually didn't lose theirs). However, there are plenty of still-active Rangers who have no obligation to stay in their original city, yet outside of the occasional team-up the newest team is typically left to deal with the new bad guys on its own.
  • Naturally, this is also the case for the franchise Power Rangers was adapted from: Super Sentai. Notably, Super Sentai has had a history for having a team-up movie for almost every series, but during the final battles, no two teams are present together. Of course, Super Sentai is more ambiguous about whether each series is set in the same universe, outside of the crossovers, compared to Power Rangers where they definitely are.
• Kamen Rider also has this problem, but it gets thrown into sharper relief by the crossovers that happen. Every Showa-era series has a point where some (or all) of the past Riders show up and help the current hero fight his enemies. The Heisei era handled this by seemingly putting every series into its own continuity, but the "Phase 2" era (2010 onwards) brings back the old issues with the annual Movie Wars crossovers. Only rarely does this get addressed, with one example being Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Ghost & Drive: Super Movie War Genesis, where Shinnosuke (who already has his responsibilities as a police officer) tells Takeru "I'll leave the Ganma to you." — and on top of that the Drive gear got sealed away at the end of the series, meaning he couldn't help even if he wanted. Sometimes it's also addressed that the previous Riders are busy with fighting villains elsewhere in the world other than Japan, in some cases including The Remnant of their series' monster group, or Foundation X in the "Phase 2" era. There's also some special cases, such as Kamen Rider Den-O patrolling the time stream or Kouta being busy literally being God on a planet on the other side of the universe and only stopping by to help on occasion.
  • As well as crossovers between the various Kamen Rider series, the franchise occasionally crosses over with Super Sentai. In Kamen Rider Gaim, Kouta urges the ToQger kids not to get involved in the conflict with the Inves, as he claims its not their fight. Likewise, Ticket advises the kids not to aid the Kamen Riders, as Zawame doesn't actually contain any Shadows for them to fight. This doesn't stop them, however. Their involvement is kept to one teamup due to the premise of ToQger: the train travels all over, and they're off to their next stop after lending a hand in Zawame.
• In the CSI-verse, there were a few episodes where the three CSI shows (Las Vegas, Miami and New York) crossover. However, Jack Malone and his FBI team from Without a Trace never crossed paths with Mac Taylor and the New York Crime Lab despite being in the same city. Justified that Jack's team only handled missing persons cases and the only crossover episode that they had with CSI is Las Vegas. In a meta-sense, several actors such as A.J. Buckley and Anna Belknap appeared in Without A Trace before they were cast in CSI: NY as the main characters and Enrico Murciano appeared in Las Vegas as a different character instead of his character from Without A Trace. Cold Case also had one crossover episode with New York since the show's city, Philadelphia, is closer to New York.
  • Oddly enough in CSI: Cyber, the team went to New York and later, Miami, and not one of the spinoff characters was seen. This could be justified in a meta-sense: the two spinoffs were already cancelled and Gary Sinise was busy with another show.
• Xena: Warrior Princess / Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Despite being in the same universe and having Character Overlap with villains like Ares and Dahak, the two protagonists only met three times in the period the two shows aired. Justified in that it would be difficult to find anyone quickly in ancient times. In reality, the producers wanted to keep the two shows distinct and limit the number of cameos from the two series. It occasionally creates problems for those not watching both shows, such as Dahak debuting in Xena but being resolved in Hercules without any input from the warrior princess.
• In a similar vein as in DS9, in Star Trek: Discovery, this trope is discussed as to why the original Enterprise hadn't shown up during the Federation/Klingon War. After learning of Section 31 and how its base is set up, Captain Pike accuses Admiral Cornwell of keeping the Enterprise away so someone like him wouldn't point out their morally dubious decisions going against the ideals of Starfleet. Cornwell counters that they did so so that Starfleet's finest — and their ideals — would survive should the Federation lose.
• Deadline was a Law & Order spin-off about an in-universe newspaper called the New York Ledger. While the Ledger and its employees have made many prominent appearances in the various L&O shows, no Deadline characters ever appeared in any of those shows, and no L&O characters ever appeared on Deadline, where even a prominent rape case used generic officers instead of the SVU, though this may have only been because Deadline only lasted for thirteen episodes before being axed by NBC.

Podcasts

• The Thrilling Adventure Hour: Played straight and averted. One of the segments, a superhero show called "The Adventures of Captain Laserbeam", features two heroes, Captain Laserbeam and Phillip Fathom. While Fathom frequently teams up with Captain Laserbeam in his city, Apex City, Captain Laserbeam never joins Fathom in his own adventures in his city, Aquapolis.
• Red Panda Adventures:
  • The Red Panda actively kicks other superheroes out of Toronto, and keeps saying "I Work Alone". People keep pointing to his partner, the Flying Squirrel. He says she doesn't count. Part of his character development is learning to share, and he eventually starts training other heroes to take over when he retires.
  • In one episode, a wannabe hero works with Panda and Squirrel. In the end they save the day, and Panda gives him the "stay out of my town" speech. Squirrel says it's a sign of respect; it means the new guy is officially a hero.
  • Ironically, Panda has no problem showing up in New York and interfering, whether the heroes there like it or not. If anything, he goes out of his way to annoy them.^note "Gotham", IRL, is another name for "New York".

Radio

• In the second Superman radio series, this was sort of averted; Superman DID stay out of Gotham, but Batman was in that continuity living in Metropolis too. Team-ups with Batman, Robin and Superman were common, mind you.
• Averted for comedy effect in "That Mitchell and Webb Sound" on BBC Radio 4. There's a running gag sketch involving the heroic team of Angel Summoner (Webb) and BMX Bandit (Mitchell). They typically arrive at the scene of some crime/natural disaster/whatever, and BMX Bandit suggests some complex solution usually involving some combination of highly dangerous stunts on his bike. Angel Summoner then just summons a host of angels who fix the entire situation in a matter of a couple of seconds, leaving BMX Bandit nothing much to do.

Tabletop Games

• Fifth edition Champions Universe (the official setting) imposed this trope on Gotham-Expy Hudson City. Despite existing in the same world as Millennium City and other cities with superheroes, Hudson City only had vigilantes fighting crime, and none of the villain organizations of the "main" Champions Universe ever tried to expand into Hudson City. It worked in reverse as well; the Harbinger of Justice could probably take out some supervillains with only a little planning, but since he never left Hudson City ....
• A tie-in to the Marvel Super Heroes game was a pair of books called "The King Takes a Dare" where one player controls Daredevil and the other controls the Kingpin as they try to undermine each other. One thing the Daredevil player can do is try to enjoin other super heroes in his crusade, but absolutely nobody's willing to give him any direct help, because of how that'd unbalance a game about a fairly low-powered hero and villain duking it out. Demonstrating why this trope exists, however, the Kingpin player can do something similar, but whereas Daredevil can't convince any other heroes Kingpin's a villain who has to be taken down at all costs, Kingpin can convince super heroes like the X-Men or Fantastic Four that Daredevil's a villain who has to be taken down at all costs. If he succeeds, Daredevil's only real hope is to run away.

Theme Parks

• In The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal Studios, Spider-Man is the only hero shown making any attempt at stopping the Sinister Syndicate, despite the very serious threat they pose to all of New York City.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate would have ended right after the beginning if Elminster, instead of wandering around randomly greeting the main character, decided to end the Big Bad conspiracy. BUT, he is a Chosen of the deity Mystra, and the gods were forbidden to interfere with the Bhaalspawn (and besides, players wouldn't have had much to do besides raiding xvart villages and fetching golden pantaloons). Thus... "ho there wanderer".
  • But Drizzt had no divine obligations and he could have easily disposed of the Big Bad, seeing what he accomplishes in his novels. He is a well renowned hero in the Forgotten Realms and he was just roaming south of Baldur's Gate by the time the main character ventured forth for the first time, even meeting him: is it possible that he didn't notice and/or care about the iron ore shortage, the reports of monsters at Nahskel's mines, the unusual bandit activity, the shift of power in the Iron Throne? To the point that a rookie protagonist adventurer solved all of this before him?
• Spider-Man games play with this trope a lot, usually by featuring other Marvel heroes in either supporting roles or as cameos:
  • In Spider-Man (2000), there are appearances by several NYC-based heroes in the cutscenes to express their sympathy at his frame-up but who are of no help at all. Daredevil leaves to "spread the word" about his innocence right before the NYPD swoops down to arrest the wallcrawler. Spidey naturally refuses The Punisher's offer of help knowing his penchant for bloody murder. Also, while you can visit the Baxter Building, Spidey will mention that the Fantastic Four aren't home at the moment.
  • Averted in Spider-Man: The Video Game, which featured Namor, Hawkeye and the Black Cat as the other three playable characters.
  • Averted in his first Game Boy game, which featured the X-Men.
  • Averted in Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety, as Venom was an optional playable character while several hero icons popped up throughout both games, summoning characters like Captain America, Firestar, Daredevil and more in order to help the player.
  • Averted in Web of Shadows, which has Wolverine, Luke Cage, and Moon Knight as summonable allies who feature largely in the plot.
  • Spider-Man (PS4) plays it straight. Despite locations like Avengers Tower, the Wakandan embassy, the Sanctum Sanctorum, Matt Murdock's law office and Alias Investigations being present as Easter eggs, no superheroes other than Spider-Man ever actually show up. Granted, Spider-Man does mention that the Avengers are hardly ever in New York due to battling threats all over the world and the same could be said for others like Dr. Strange, and Black Panther (who runs an entire country), and Daredevil and the other street vigilantes could be handling more minor threats.
• Rainbow of the Rainbow Six games will occasionally perform stealth missions, even though Splinter Cell's Third Echelon would be much better suited. Rainbow is a secret international counter-terrorist unit that answers to multiple governments ^note  in the books, it was primarily NATO and some allies that ran it, though their first deployment was to Switzerland. Also, they usually acted more like a SWAT team, doing recon, planning, then taking the bad guys down in a swift assault that usually lasted a few seconds. They never really acted like they do in the newer games, with a few exceptions.. Third Echelon is an NSA black-ops program. The idea is that various governments can call Rainbow in to respond to terror attacks, while Third Echelon only answers to and works for the US government, and usually takes a more proactive approach.
• Batman: Arkham Series: All of these partially justify this by having the entire story take place over a single night.
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum invokes it, by having the Joker specifically announce that if he sees anyone in a cape besides Batman on the grounds, he's going to detonate the bombs he has scattered around the city.
  • In Batman: Arkham City, Robin makes a brief appearance, but by this time it is revealed Joker infected thousands of people with his tainted blood and Batman instructs him to return to Gotham because he knows that Robin will soon be needed there. So Gotham is saved by Batman and Catwoman despite the fact that the Justice League would have been all over it even without Bruce calling for help at the start of act 5, though this could be explained as the fact that Batman shut it down not long after it started. Also in a DLC it is revealed that Robin was behind the scenes stopping Black Mask.
  • Even other Bat-Family members are neglected. Batwoman, Huntress, and The Creeper are all established to exist by the time of Arkham Knight, but never appear to help. Well, Jack Ryder does appear, but it never occurs to him or Batman to turn into the Creeper.
  • In Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman works alone and doesn't believe he needs helps fighting crime. Giving Batman Character Development about how he can't face his war alone and needs to make allies is part of the plot.
  • The Justice League is absent in Batman: Arkham Knight because after your first bomb encounter, Scarecrow and the Knight's threat is broadcast worldwide to prevent outside involvement lest there be a big crater where Gotham used to be. A mook comments that he's worried about "that freak from Metropolis" intervening, so it's probably due to the rapid developments that the other heroes don't get involved - it's all over before other heroes learn of the event and can react.
• Gotham Knights (2022): While the trope is enforced, it's not explained in any way, despite the game taking place over several weeks. There are numerous references to the Justice League, Outsiders, and Titans, which makes the absence of these groups much more jarring.
• The LEGO adaptation games break this trend with Batman: while the first LEGO Batman played this trope straight by featuring only Gotham characters, the sequel, the aptly titled LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes makes it quite clear it averts the trope by having, well, the rest of the DCU joining in. And the game actually lampshades the entire concept by having Superman just casually drop by and save the day, pissing off Batman greatly and telling Robin don't expect Superman to swoop in and save the day every time. When The Joker and Lex Luthor invade the Batcave, Batman begrudgingly lets Robin call out to Superman, but when he doesn't immediately show up, Batman goes to tell him I Told You So, but ends up being saved at the last minute. At the end of the game, the entire Justice League shows up to save the day, making Batman realize that sometimes, outside help IS needed.
• Averted in Injustice: Gods Among Us. The prequel comic starts with Superman and Batman talking in Metropolis. Later, The Joker causes trouble in Metropolis and the Justice League tries to deal with him. They fail, and his plan to kill Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and ultimately all of Metropolis goes off without a hitch. This leads to the dystopia years later in the main game, where Superman has taken over the world Knight Templar style along with other fallen heroes and Batman leads other heroes in the La Résistance against Superman's forces.
• In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, it is shown that Mickey Mouse, undoubtedly Riku and Diz's strongest ally, really was spending the entire game simply spying on the Organization and does not contribute to Sora's revival in II in any significant way. This is the only game where Mickey plays no real role in fighting the bad guys, as he has other irrelevant missions to do, and it's implied he chose this role due to Riku and DIZ specifically telling him they got it, as he isn't even aware of the problems that haunted much of the game. Story wise, it's justified as Riku was said to have made Mickey promise to look after Sora and not worry about him, and in a literal sense, it's also to prevent him from defeating Roxas by himself, which would have prevented Riku's transformation.
• An interesting variation. In a NES video game starring The Flintstones, Fred and the others travel to the future in search of their pets and run into George Jetson. Despite being his time frame, he tells Fred he can't help out because Spacely Sprockets is in the middle of their own crisis that he has to fix himself.
• In The Elder Scrolls series, the Fighters Guild, an organization of "warriors-for-hire" that operates throughout most of Tamriel, does not have a presence in Skyrim. Instead, Skyrim is served in a similar capacity by the Companions, a group who traces their origins back to the original 500 Companions of Ysgramor.
• World of Warcraft's Legion introduced the Vindicaar, and with it the ability to fire extremely powerful beams of Light at targets on the ground, and they joined the Alliance. Which really begs into question as to why the Alliance didn't use it in the next expansion, Battle for Azeroth. The only explanation ever given is an Out-of-Universe one by the devs that they felt it clashed with the themes and aesthetics of sieges and castles and towers they wanted to have for the expansion.

Webcomics

• Fans!. A huge mish-mash of tropes includes a sci-fi organization with teleporters and rayguns chasing down Osama Bin Laden. Or so they thought. Their hearts were in the right place. 'Osama' didn't even have one.
• Double-subverted in Learning with Manga! FGO. Mash and Nitocris have a mystery on their hands, and the first thing Nitocris brings up is to get Holmes to help them solve it... but because neither of the two girls have the story Servants (one of which is Holmes) on hand and he's never been summoned otherwise, they have to do it themselves.
• The Order of the Stick: the narrative continually has to contrive reasons to remove Vaarsuvius from the plot (petrified, soul trapped by demons) because otherwise their game-breaking power would interfere with story arcs where the team is playing underdog to mundane villainous threats, particularly iterations of the linear guild.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe:
  • In 'Silent Nacht', it is mentioned that in cities like Los Angeles where there are multiple superteams, they usually wait until the police call on them (for both legal and PR reasons), and make sure that they don't interfere with another team's takedowns unless invited to. This leads to a scene where one team is watching another getting their butts handed to them on TV, eating popcorn and making snarky comments about their rival fellow heroes.
  • It is also mentioned in 'Razzlr Dazzle' that the Dark Avenger (a Captain Ersatz combination of the Shadow, Batman, and the Punisher) had a habit of pissing off other costumed heroes by jumping into the middle of another hero's bust, guns blazing. He did this in Chicago one time in the mid-1930s, to the Champion (the world's Superman equivalent), who got so angry at the Dark Avenger's gun-happy recklessness that he tried to arrest him.
• At the end of Volume 3 of RWBY, Ruby teams up with the remnants of team JNPR to travel to Haven and hunt down those who destroyed Beacon, since team RWBY was dissolved at that point. There's no indication in the show or spin-off novels that she made a similar offer to Team CVFY, a still-complete team of second-year hunstsmen-in-training who said novels establish were close friends with RWBY and JNPR.
• Even assuming the wider Red vs. Blue universe at least resembles the Halo: Combat Evolved universe, Master Chief's absence in most of the storylines is justified, since he would have been busy fighting the Covenant during the Blood Gulch Chronicles, and afterwards he was MIA for several years. Project Freelancer, being a rogue military-corporate operation would likely have been out of his and his allies jurisdiction anyways. The given reason the Reds and Blues were used as Sim Troopers in Project Freelancer was also that they were so stupid that they were more use as training dummies for super-soldiers and would have been more a danger to their allies than the Covenant. However, this is played straight during the Schisno Paradox; Sarge (who according to non-canon material, is aware of and admires Chief) tries to assemble a team of history's greatest warriors with a time machine, but does not get anyone born after the 20th century, resulting in the effort failing miserably.
• Seanbaby lampshades this on his Super Friends page, in which Superman could do everything if he wanted to. Not that he hasn't tried. There have been a few stories where Superman tried to save everyone and do everything, usually with An Aesop that he can't do everything alone, or that it's just not worth sacrificing his social life to save a few cats stuck in a tree.
• DEATH BATTLE! usually sidesteps why none of the characters' allies interfere with the fight, with most happening out of the blue so there won't be any preparation. The ones that do acknowledge their friends try to justify why they don't help.
  • Goku vs. Superman begins with Goku and friends watching Superman saving an airliner. Most don't notice his hidden strength so they don't care when Goku runs off to fight him.
  • Batman vs. Iron Man has Batman try to call Superman, but Iron Man cuts off his communication.
  • Omni-Man vs. Homelander justifies it through Homelander's massive ego. While somewhat aware of who Omni-Man is Homelander fully expects that his reputation and killing of Nolan's wife Debbie would be enough to get Omni-Man to leave, so he wouldn't get the rest of the Seven to strongarm Nolan. It does not.
• The Warp Zone: Discussed in "BATMAN V SUPERMAN: Super People's Court". Batman says that Gotham has a harder time than Metropolis because it doesn't have a hero like Superman, and Batman's morally gray methods are necessary because of that.
• In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara and homeowner Viga is stuck with a ghoul named Moarte, who spends Halloween showcasing the wonders of horror comics, but doesn't show up at all for other events. The 2022 Ashock the Fourth Wall event reveals that Moarte is the strongest of Linkara's acquaintances, but in a Deal with the Devil, he absolutely refuses to get involved in Linkara's "petty squabbles" and "serialized nonsense" and if Linkara breaks this, then he's dead.

Western Animation

• Played straight in Iron Man: Armored Adventures. As a High School AU, despite taking place in New York most of Tony's super-hero counterparts are probably not of age (Black Panther, in his appearance, was still just a teenager, and Iron Fist is mentioned as a local teen martial arts champion), and the adult characters who make appearances are otherwise uninterested or unable to in help Tony out (Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. view Iron Man as a vigilante threat, the Incredible Hulk was in one of his rampaging moods during his appearance, Captain America is still apparently frozen, Black Widow and Hawkeye had yet to do their Heel–Face Turn.) It starts to fall apart in the second season where Doctor Doom and Magneto show up, but neither the Fantastic Four nor X-Men do. Jean Grey does show up as a teenager and is clearly shown to not yet be a superhero or member of the X-Men. At the end of the episode where she appears, she seems to meet Professor X for the first time, so presumably the team is just now being assembled. Reed Richards is mentioned as a professor, but it is unclear whether he has powers. Though Word of God states that Wolverine at least would have shown up had the series been given a third season.
• The 90s Iron Man animated series also played this straight, with only one guest appearance, that being The Hulk (another episode briefly mentioned Captain America). It makes a little bit of sense most of the time, as IM/Tony is usually on the West Coast and, after the Retool, gets all lone wolf and repeatedly encounters issues from not keeping his friends and allies in the loop on his plans and generally pushing them away when they're trying to help him (resulting in Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Century opting to leave). That said, when an anti-technology fog affects New York City in the season 2 finale, not one hero is seen to help Tony, and they end up having to recruit Hawkeye for help. This despite Spider-Man, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four all being based there and logically being able to help (though it's possible they were also hamstrung by the fog and/or were assisting people off-screen).
  • That being said, the same character model for Iron Man from season 2 of his own show was used for a couple of quick cameos as a part of the Avengers (also including Captain America) in a couple of season 2 Fantastic Four episodes, which also established there were in fact other superheroes — The Mighty Thor, Daredevil, Ghost Rider — operating, so you could chalk up the lack of appearances of other heroes in IM's show to rights issues (which resulted in Hawkeye replacing US Agent in the Force Works team, and replacing Captain America in the "Armor Wars" two-parter).
• Teen Titans:
  • The Titans never even mention their adult counterparts, at least not by name. Even when the fate of the world is at stake, and every teen-aged hero on Earth has been captured except for half-a-dozen C-list Titans, no one thinks to let Superman know what's happening. This despite the presence of characters like Robin, Aqualad and Speedy.
  • The League wasn't even mentioned when Trigon made a successful planet-side takeover. Neither were the Titans East. There's Die or Fly, and then there's this. This specific case may be justified by those who read the source story, showing the other superheroes were petrified when Trigon's dimension began absorbing Earth.
  • The Doom Patrol are the only "adult" superheroes that actually appear, and even then its only for two episodes and afterwards they are quickly forgotten and never mentioned again. The only reason they appeared at all was to setup the main antagonists of the final season, "The Brotherhood of Evil". The only other hero to appear is Batman but only in a small number of background references that only those familiar with his mythos would really notice.
    • The reason for all of this is because at the time, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation had a policy of "Character Embargos". A character couldn't appear in one show if another show already had them in a major role. While Teen Titans was running, for example, it had dibs on Robin, so Robin couldn't appear in Justice League or The Batman, and no Batman characters could appear on Justice League, since The Batman had dibs on them. Ironically, this ban included Harley Quinn, a character who was created for one of the shows that Justice League was a continuation of. Batman was grandfathered into Justice League by virtue of being a main and popular character, but the only other exceptions were Speedy's guest appearance in Justice League, which occurred after Teen Titans had aired all their episodes but still had reruns, and technically, Kid Flash's appearances in Teen Titans, as both he and Justice League's Flash were obviously Wally West, but under different identities allowing the writers to "Exploit a Loophole". Both Justice League's Speedy and Teen Titans's Kid Flash were clearly based on the other show's version of the character, going so far as to use the same voice actors. Batman would later cameo in the sequel comic Teen Titans Go!, checking up on Robin from afar.
  • Conversely, the comedic Spin-Off Teen Titans Go! mentions and showcases many adult superheroes regularly. Early seasons had Batman making background cameos, several appearances of Aquaman, and an episode where, sick of Beast Boy slacking off, the team holds auditions for other Animal-Themed superheroes to replace him, such as Vixen. Later seasons and the movie would go on to have members of the Justice League in speaking roles and involved with the plot.
• Justice League:
  • In the first episode of Unlimited, Green Arrow lampshades this trope, getting angry when Green Lantern takes down some criminals that he was fighting and calling him a big name hero who has now decided that fighting street crime is his thing.
  • While this was averted in the series finale and justified against Brainthor, the series premiere had a team of seven taking on a planetary invasion. At least with the Thanagarian invasion, future Unlimited league members like Vigilante were stated to be fighting offscreen or imprisoned because of it.
  • Lampshaded and justified in the episode "In Blackest Night", to explain why none of the Trinity are helping out today:
    Martian Manhunter: Wonder Woman is on another case, Superman's dealing with an earthquake and Batman would only say that he's "busy".
  • Superman shows up later anyway because "It was just a 4.0."
  • A subtle episode that was Flash-centric shows that Flash deals with his supervillains differently - some of them act like Flash is their counselor. In short, only Flash can deal with the villains in Keystone.
    Flash: [admonishingly] James, you're off your meds, aren't you?
    Trickster: Better off without 'em! Take 'em if I start feeling down.
    Flash: You know that's not how the medicine works. You're not well!
    Trickster: I'm fine! [brightens up] ...You wanna throw some darts?
    Flash: No, listen, James, you're wearing the suit again.
    Trickster: I am? [looks down at his costume] Well, what do you know?
    Flash: Here's the deal, buddy. Tell me where those guys went, and I'll come see you in the hospital. We'll play darts! The soft kind.
    Trickster: [smiles widely] Okay, they're gonna ambush you at the Flash Museum!
    Flash: See? That's all we needed! [to Batman and Orion] Come on, we better get over there.
    Orion: What about your enemy?
    Flash: Oh, right. Dude, as soon as you finish your drink, turn yourself in!
    Trickster: [raises mug] Got me again, Flash!
• Superman: The Animated Series:
  • In "Knight Time", this is averted to interesting effect when Superman DOES go into Gotham to investigate Batman's disappearance with Robin's help (and disguised as Batman). One priceless scene in the episode is "Batman" able to overcome the best efforts of Bane, Mad Hatter and Riddler with brute force.
    Mad Hatter: [shocked at how "Batman" survives a stone pillar falling on top of him, and then kicks it off of him with two feet] That's not possible.
    Robin: He's been working out.
  • Earlier, in the three-part episode "World's Finest", when Superman and Batman first met, they clearly did not trust one another (the mutual discovery of each other's secret identity was implied to be the one thing preventing the other from turning them in). From the pilot episode, "The Last Son Of Krypton", a brief mention of the "nut from Gotham City" made it clear that Batman was not held in much high regard as a hero outside of Gotham.
• The New Batman Adventures:
  • The episode "Girls' Night Out" subverts it when Livewire escapes to Gotham (and runs into Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy). In response, Supergirl must team up with Batgirl to stop the trio.
  • Played straight with a justification in "Love is a Croc", in which one of the newspapers describing the duo's crime spree includes a side-story headline "Superman Has Hands Full".
• Averted in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, where other heroes often pop up to help the team. The Grand Finale has the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, War Machine, Black Widow, Winter Soldier, The Falcon, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and other New York-based heroes aiding the Avengers in the final battle against Galactus.
• Similarly, [[Ultimate Spider-Man often has Spidey teaming up with any one of the numerous superheroes who live in New York City. This is largely due to Spider-Man often facing villains from other heroes' rogues galleries.
• Lampshaded in Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Night of the Batmen!" Aquaman, Captain Marvel, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man regularly team-up with Batman during the course of the series, but run into numerous obstacles when they try to fight crime in Gotham (partly because they are in disguise to fill in for an injured Batman, trying to do things his way rather than play to their own strengths). Otherwise, averting this is the hook of the series. Batman fights villains, and eagerly accepts the help of any hero he comes across, or otherwise calls in his buddies to assist.
• Young Justice:
  • Averted where the Justice League has evolved into an international organization so effective that the villains had to form a Secret Society called "The Light" in response, because individually they were no match for the heroes. At the start of the show, the League's roster is twice as large as it normally is in the comics, and it gets even bigger as time goes on. Team-ups if anything appear to have become the norm.
  • Apparently played straight earlier in their careers. Word of God stated that before the League was formed, there was one team-up between Batman and Superman and one between The Flash and Green Lantern, and that was it.
  • Season 2 had Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and others on an intergalactic trial, leaving just the B-listers and the Team to deal with a worldwide threat.
• Harley Quinn: Averted literally, and then enforced literally, in "Devil's Snare": When the Legion of Doom creates an army of man-eating trees in a Gotham City park, the Justice League shows up. Shortly thereafter, the Queen of Fables traps the League in her story-book world, leaving the villains in control of the city for the next dozen episodes.
• The Super Hero Squad Show was very specifically designed to avoid this trope. Aside from being Lighter and Softer (and funnier) in general, the series takes place in Super Hero City where all the Earth-based Marvel heroes live (in fact, only a handful of people shown are NOT heroes.) The city is separated from Villainville by a giant wall. All the villains live there. Even though the series mainly focuses on the "Super Hero Squad" composed of Iron Man, Falcon (Spider-Man couldn't be included due to licensing issues with Sony Pictures), Silver Surfer, Reptil, Thor, Wolverine, the Incredible Hulk, and later the Scarlet Witch, many episodes had other heroes join in just because they were literally in the neighborhood. One episode involved the Squadies trying to recover the show's MacGuffin from a Bratty Half-Pint named Brynnie Bratton. Eventually she ends up being passed around like a football by random heroes and villains alike such as Colossus, Ms. Marvel, Juggernaut, various members of the Avengers, the Wrecking Crew, the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Abomination, M.O.D.O.K., Storm, Sabretooth, and numerous others along with the Squadies themselves all trying to stop the other side just to get the tiara she's wearing. By the end of the first season, most of these same heroes did whatever they could to stop Galactus from going on an eating binge.
• The American Voltron franchise has King Zarkon of Planet Doom as a vassal of the Drule empire from the Vehicle Voltron series. Given how many times Zarkon and Lotor have had their butts kicked by the Lion Force Voltron, as well as their overall untrustworthiness, it raises the question as to why the Drules haven't sent a fleet or two to planet Doom to effect a change in management. Also, the Drule robeasts that regularly fail to destroy the Vehichle Voltron and the Explorer fleet are nowhere in the same league as Haggar's magical robeasts. Why didn't they enlist Haggar's expertise in fighting the Explorer and Vehicle Voltron? Especially given that VV, being an Earth knockoff imitation, was obviously technologically inferior to the definitely Magitek Lion Voltron. Additionally, the Drules were looking for a new planet as their home planet was doomed. Why couldn't they just go to planet Doom whether Zarkon liked it or not? The real-life reason for this, of course, is due to the fact that Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Voltron are based on two separate original anime.
• Phineas and Ferb Save Summer features the entire world being put in peril of a new ice age. Earlier, the Avengers appeared in the show showing they are part of a Shared Universe (though that episode's canonicity is debatable). This was an incident that involved the entire world that everyone knew about so they couldn't be accused of staying out of Danville.
• Rick and Morty: On one hand, Rick seems to have a solution to almost everything, including a shapeshifter problem that the local superheroes blew up a planet to desperately solve themselves. On the other, tentacled, Davey-Crockett wielding hand, Rick has caused entire universes of death and chaos. It doesn't help that his intelligence seems to be powered by sheer sadism.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015) is explicitly a sequel-series to Transformers: Prime, but when Bumblebee's trapped on Earth with only a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to capture dozens of Decepticon fugitives while staying out of the public eye, he never considers calling up Agent Fowler to get government assistance, or any of the other human members of Team Prime, who'd proven themselves loyal and valuable more than once.
• Ghost Force hits this in a two-fold way. While it shares a universe with Miraculous Ladybug, it is set in New York while Ladybug, Cat Noir and friends are in Paris. However, it is also established in the United Heroez species that New York is crawling with superheroes ranging from the local Superman and Batman expies to a guy with power granting hot dogs, making it quite odd to not have them showing up to deal with the Ghost Force's ghost problems.

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