Standard Superhero Setting

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What Standard Fantasy Setting and Standard Sci-Fi Setting are for Fantasy and Science Fiction, this is for the Superhero genre: a generic setting, where most of super-hero comic books and webcomics are being set.

Through the genre dates to the 1940s, the clear and definite rules for generic superhero settings weren't really solidified until The Sixties, when Marvel Comics and DC Comics started making a full use of their Universes. See also Superhero Prevalence Stages.

Common ingredients:

• Big Applesauce: Incredible amount of super hero stories are set in either New York City or a fictional metropolis strongly resembling it.
• Comic Book Time: Expect characters to last for decades without aging at all.
• Status Quo Is God: Prevalent, with heroes preserving status quo and all changes being mostly cosmetic or temporal.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Most times, a generic Superhero world has everything from gods to angels and demons to Eldritch Abominations, from wizards and vampires to mad scientists and aliens to Zeppelins from Another World.
  • All Myths Are True: Every mythical creature may appear at some point.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Usually one mythological pantheon running around is not enough.
• Secret Identity
  • Bruce Wayne Held Hostage
  • Loves My Alter Ego
• Shared Universe: Most times, the setting is built around many comics sharing the same world or acting like there are others.
• The Cape: There is usually one of those, who inspires others and is seen as an example to follow. Nine cases out of 10, a Captain Ersatz of Superman, through sometimes may be replaced by Captain Patriotic.
• The Cowl: Street-level vigilante, most times based on Batman, not the nicest of superheroes, usually serving as Foil for The Cape.
• Super Team: Expect one main and biggest, working on global scale, and several smaller and local to appear here and there.
• The Golden Age of Comic Books: If there will be definite time period when superheroes appeared for the first time, it will usually be in the 1940s, through the very first superhero may have shown up in 1938, the year the first Superman comic was published.
• The Silver Age of Comic Books: Most of times The Sixties will be noted as the time of the biggest superhero boom in the history.
• The Dark Age of Comic Books: One the similar note, if you're looking for decade that will be noted to be most darker and filled with Anti-Heroes, it will probably the The Nineties, through, while not so common, The Eighties may be also a good guess.
• Superpower Lottery: People are probably getting all kinds of superpowers everywhere.
  • Required Secondary Powers: In later years, it has become more common to make use for this trope.
  • Flying Brick: At least one will certainly be there.
• I Love Nuclear Power, Lightning Can Do Anything, Touched by Vorlons, The Chosen Many: Classic origin stories.
  • Phlebotinum Du Jour may occur in case of long-running universes.
  • Meta Origin, Mass Super-Empowering Event: Getting more and more popular.
• Let's You and Him Fight: It's hard to tell a situation where two superheroes meet and don't start beating each other.
• Crossover
  • Bat Family Crossover
  • Crisis Crossover
• Superheroes Wear Capes

The following may be removed if the setting falls in certain values of Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, or due to other Implementation Details:

• Clark Kenting
• Deconstruction, Reconstruction, Decon Recon Switch
• Hero Insurance
• Card-Carrying Villain
• Reed Richards Is Useless
• Beware the Superman
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check
• Smug Super
• Super Registration Act
  • Cape Busters
• Super-Hero School

Examples of Standard Superhero Setting include:

Anime and Manga

• Tiger and Bunny

Comic Books

• Marvel Comics:
  • Marvel Universe, being one of two Trope Makers.
  • Ultimate Marvel
  • Marvel Comics 2
  • Squadron Supreme
  • Supreme Power
  • Ultraverse
• DC Comics:
  • DC Universe, being one of two Trope Makers.
  • Wildstorm Universe
• Image Comics Universe which is a mix of several smaller, that may or may not be in one continuity, depending on whatever the writer feels like. And they all, or most of them (Spawn is a little debatable), fit this trope.
• Valiant Comics Universe
• Irredeemable, though usual Status Quo has been thrown out of the window at the very beginning.

Film

• Marvel Cinematic Universe

Literature

• Wild Cards

Tabletop Games

• Mutants and Masterminds
• Champions
• Superpowers Companion module allows you to create one for Savage Worlds, ready with its own set of heroes and villains.
• Villains and Vigilantes
• GURPS International Super Teams

Video Games

• Champions Online
• City of Heroes
• Freedom Force

Web Comics

• Acrobat
• Bad Guy High, through it's rather played as a parody most of the time.
• Fusion (also known as Essay Bee Comics Presents Fusion)
• Heroes Unite
• Magellan
• PS238
• Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, being a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between several cartoons from which many are from Superhero genre or already are examples of this trope, obviously turned out into this.
• Dozerfleet Comics, The Gerosha Chronicles in particular. Began as webcomics, has since moved to literature and DeviantArt panels. The biggest exception though is the lack of Big Applesauce, a Defied Trope as the series goes out of its way to make sure events that matter happen literally everywhere except New York.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe

Western Animation

• The entire DC Animated Universe
• Teen Titans
• The Venture Bros.
• Both Dexter's Laboratory with its two sub-shows - Dial M for Monkey and Justice Friends -- and The Powerpuff Girls. Even moreso if you count Canon Welding between them, caused by apperances of superheroes Major Glory and Valhallen in both shows, among many other things.