Twilight of the Supers

In a universe populated by numerous super-powered individuals, some cataclysmic event causes them to "go away". Perhaps they are Brought Down to Normal, maybe they are removed from the world, or they can even be outright killed. Regardless of how it happens, the number of these individuals is drastically reduced, typically leaving chaos in its wake.

Around the 1980s, there were enough superheroes inhabiting shared universe settings that writers found themselves with limited options for shaking up the setting. If one superhero was killed off, others could take their place. But what if all the superheroes and villains were killed off at once? This led to a number of stories about the end of superheroics.

Often concludes the Late Stage of Superhero Prevalence Stages. In some cases, the world might be shaken so badly by the events that the world experiences an apocalypse.

Roughly coincides with The Dark Age of Comic Books. Oftentimes may result (or happen) in a Bad Future. Compare to The Magic Goes Away and Here There Were Dragons, similar tropes about the disappearance of magic in fantasy settings. Can sometimes be the result of a Super Registration Act if the superheroes are simply forced into retirement.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Gamma ends at this stage, with the heroes hijacking the villain's plan to infuse every single living thing on the planet with lambda energy (i.e., to launch a second Mass Super-Empowering Event) and instead draining almost all lambda energy from Earth. The existing heroes don't lose their powers, but no new ones "awaken" from that point onward — which also means no super-villains and no kaiju. The epilogue shows the post-super world to be a much more stable and peaceful environment for humanity to live in, however, and the tone is generally hopeful.
• In My Hero Academia, the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War serves as the Darkest Hour for Hero Society. In addition to several Pro Heroes being killed during said war (including Midnight), the horror of it all demoralized several more, leading them to retire. Also, the collateral damage resulting from the fighting (coupled with Dabi releasing video footage revealing Endeavor and Hawks' dark secrets) caused the majority of the public to turn against Pro Heroes, driving even more to hang up their costumes. On top of that, a clone of Re-Destro had taken out several members of the Public Heroes Commission, destabilizing it and leaving them unable to be of much help. Making it even worse is that All For One managed to pull a mass breakout of Tartarus, escaping with several dangerous criminals at his side, followed by freeing even more criminals from prisons all around Japan.

Comic Books

• All Fall Down: The series begins with the depowering of all of the superhumans on the planet as the accidental side effect of the awakening powers of one teen, who absorbed them all. The plot then involves all of said superhumans, in one way or another, enduring the Five Stages of Grief and said teen getting training as the last superhero. The series ends with said teen dying in a Heroic Sacrifice to save the planet and all of the protagonist ex-superheroes, through burying her, finally accepting that their kind are extinct.
• The Boys: The comic has multiple (or one drawn-out one that occurs in several stages, depending on how you view it) over several story arcs:
  • Vought-American Consolidated secretly funds an army of hundreds of supervillains in Russia on the payroll of mob leader Little Nina, with the goal of launching a coup against the Russian government, which would then be ousted in a Vought-backed counter-coup led by the Communist Party. Billy Butcher blows up the whole plan when he figures out how to trigger the bootleg Compound V the villains were given in a way that makes all their heads explode simultaneously.
  • The G-Men story arc ends with Vought growing so sick of Professor Godolkin's lunatic, pedophilic habits that they just decide to massacre him and all the G-Men, including their many spinoff teams. Even the children's team Pre-Whiz isn't exempt, getting thrown out of a plane over the Bering Strait.
  • The bulk of it occurs during Vought's attempted super-coup of the US government, which soon turns into Homelander's coup when he goes rogue. Homelander kills Maeve, Black Noir kills Homelander, Billy Butcher kills Black Noir, and the vast majority of the supes involved are killed by the US military.
  • Many of those who survive are killed by Billy Butcher himself as part of his one-man crusade to destroy supes permanently, including all of the Boys save for Hughie and Annie. His final plan involves releasing a Synthetic Plague that would kill everyone on the planet with even trace amounts of Compound V in their body, superpowers or not, but is defeated and killed by Hughie.
• The DCU:
  • Armageddon 2001: In the 1991 Crisis Crossover, Waverider's internal narration at the beginning of issue #1 muses about the DC heroes, and how one day they all died (in 2001), by the hand of one of their own. The future world of 2030, in the absence of all heroes (of the 1991 status quo), is ruled by a benevolent despot named Monarch. In an abstract battle inside Waverider's mind, Monarch gloats that he was the only one willing to take down the "giants" (the DC heroes of "present time") and install a world of order.
  • Earth 2: In the New 52 title, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman die protecting the Earth from an Apokolips invasion, while Batman's daughter (Helena Wayne), Robin, and Supergirl (Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin) go through a portal and are believed dead. The Earth is saved, but the "Age of Wonders" (which is how the heroes are called in that reality) is over, as Jay Garrick tells Hermes in issue #2, to whom the deity replies to let a new age begin. The title then explores the rise of new superheroes in the Earth-2 reality.
  • The New 52: Futures End: The annual maxi-series published during the New 52 offered a glimpse into the future of the then-current status quo. Its premise is that, some 30 years in the future, artificial intelligence and satellite Brother Eye (created in this continuity by Mr. Terrific and Batman) goes rogue and begins to assimilate and roboticize the superhero population, turning them into mechanical abominations. Bruce Wayne, one of the few remaining heroes, sends Terry McGinnis (yes, Batman Beyond) to the past to avoid their bad future.
  • JLA: Act of God: The Elseworlds miniseries begins with a mysterious depowering of all of the non-tech-based superheroes and villains on Earth (that never gets explained), causing a tremendous amount of mayhem as they either try to adapt as Batman-style vigilantes (some even getting training from Batman) or wallow in the misery of no longer being Physical Gods.
  • The Twilight of the Superheroes: In the proposed crossover by author Alan Moore that never got off the ground, John Constantine travels back in time to the "present day" DC Universe (the mid-1980s status quo) to avoid the destructive end of the superheroes. In Constantine's future, the major superheroes divided themselves into many dynastic houses and arrange alliances among them; secret factions that oppose the heroic houses are an alliance of supervillains, an alliance of non-powered heroes led by Batman, and an alliance of alien races (Green Lanterns, Martians and Thanagarians). Constantine's narration concludes with a massive battle between the different factions that results in the death of the superheroes. Moore's vision also proposed that Constantine's mission (joined by time traveler Rip Hunter) would ensure that his future would come to pass, to lead to a version of Earth freed from the existence of superheroes.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Avengers: Twilight: The series takes place years after a catastrophic battle between The Avengers and a group of supervillains led by Ultron, which becomes known in public conscience as "Hero Day" or "H-Day". This leads to public opinion of superheroes becoming tarnished beyond measure, and the the rise of an authoritarian society.
  • Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe: The first mini-series deals with Deadpool snapping after Psycho-Man performs a mind surgery on him, leading to the Merc with a Mouth to develop a more bloodthirsty personality that becomes the main one. Thus, in each issue, he starts killing the Marvel heroes and villains one by one (the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, Spider-Man), even the Punisher. The heroes and villains' despair is too much they climb onto a Manhattan rooftop and start to kill each other, in some sort of mutual suicide pact.
  • Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe Again: Red Skull and a cadre of intelligent supervillains (Maestro, Arnim Zola, Mad Thinkerer, et alli) brainwash Deadpool to kill the Marvel heroes (of the 2016/2017 status quo) one by one. Deadpool's inner narration paints each killing as some sort of comedic sitcom. Among his victims, the younger heroes like Power Pack, Moon Girl, Ms. Marvel and Miles Morales. When Deadpool discovers he's been used by the villains, he turns the tables on them and begins a second killing spree, this time on the villains. After he kills the Red Skull in his compound, Red Skull's decapitated head talks back at Wade, saying that the age of heroes is over, and Deadpool helped them do it.
  • Earth X: The series features a Marvel Universe where everyone got superpowers, and consequently, our heroes became obsolete and faded, for the most part, into retirement. Until a major threat breaks out, and the heroes have to remember who exactly they are.
  • House of M: At the conclusion of the series, the Scarlet Witch casts a spell that depowers more than 99% of the mutants on Earth, as a huge middle finger to her father Magneto. This reduces the remaining mutant population to about 198. In order to better manage the survivors, the American government unveils the O*N*E initiative: to band and oversee all mutants on the X-Mansion's grounds using the human-piloted Sentinel Squad. However, following the "Mutant Messiah Trilogy" (Messiah CompleX, Messiah War and Second Coming), new mutants begin to appear, a few at first (the Lights, as shown in Generation Hope), and finally a whole new generation after Avengers vs. X-Men.
    • Generation M delves into the human interest/social consequences of mutants losing their powers.
    • In New Excalibur #6 (which spun off the event), the only surviving member of a British superhero family releases a recording: during the M-Day event, the Scarlet Knights, a family of flying superheroes, lose their powers mid-flight during a civilian show and they all fall from the sky to their deaths, including the civilians.
  • The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect: In the early 1990s mini-series by Peter David, a global nuclear war eradicated most of the Marvel superheroes "of the present" (which was the early-90s status quo), leaving the remnants of humanity to be ruled by a tyrannical Maestro, another form of the Hulk. In the first issue, Hulk visits a sort of museum/memorial to the fallen heroes.
  • Killraven: On Earth-691, the home of Killraven and the original 1960s incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a Martian invasion in the late 20th century spelled the end of that universe's version of Marvel's then-current superheroes. They either all died fighting the Martians, or in the case of the X-Men and many of Earth's mutants, left Earth beforehand.
  • The Last Avengers Story: In the mid-1990s mini-series by Peter David, two great events swept off the Marvel Universe: a government-mandated "villain clean-up", where the heroes were drafted to round up all the villains to be executed, and a "cataclysm". In the latter, Thor, Hercules and the Hulk travel to Asgard, but only Hulk returns; one year later, he joins forces with Ultron 19 and kills some of the remaining Avengers (Tigra and Wonder Man). The rest of the heroes then go officially into retirement, seclusion or are dead by the time the story starts.
  • Marvel 2099: The setting features the Twilight phase and a post-Twilight phase. After a devastating Great Cataclysm kills most of Earth's heroes, humanity faces a century of lawless misrule in a cyberpunk dystopia under corrupt megacorporations. The plot starts when the heroes start coming back.
  • Old Man Logan: In the Bad Future presented in the story, the supervillains suddenly organized long enough to kill almost all of the heroes, then started killing off each other while carving up the USA into their own little kingdoms. The only superheroes left alive are Hawkeye, who was left alone when he went blind, and Wolverine, who's become a pacifist after Mysterio tricked him into killing the other X-Men.
  • Runaways: Victor Mancha is supposedly fated to become the supervillain Victorious and kickstart a war against the superheroes that leaves almost all the heroes dead.
  • X-Men:
    • The first instance of a Bad Future was Days of Future Past (1981), a future where the robotic Sentinels ruled the United States and locked mutants in camps. It was later revealed that Rachel Summers, Jean Grey's daughter from an alternate future, came from this reality. Among the mutant prisoners is an adult Franklin Richards, son of the Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic. Also, a Grave-Marking Scene has an older Kate Pryde pondering about "all the victims of the Sentinels", which include Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm (also from the Fantastic Four), Steve Rogers, and Peter Parker. Lastly, an Infodump by a time-travelling Kate Pryde informs the present-day X-Men that the Sentinels destroyed both mutants and non-mutant heroes and villains.
    • When Bishop debuted in the early 1990s, his backstory at the time established two major events: the X-Men were betrayed and killed by one of their own (no word on the other X-teams); and the Sentinels rounded up all mutants in ghettos. The mutants lived like this until the Summers Rebellion, which united humans and mutants against the Sentinels and led to the foundation of the mutant-policing force X.S.E (Xavier's Security Enforcers).
    • Weapon X: Days of Future Now, a spin-off mini-series of Weapon X (2002), shows a similar storyline to the original Days of Future Past: Malcolm X and the Weapon X program subdue the X-Men with inhibitor collars and kill them. Later, anti-mutant sentiment rises to new highs, the mutants' human allies (Fantastic Four, the Avengers) turn on them, and the government, manipulated by the Weapon X program, brands all superpowered individuals as a menace and banishes them. The heroes then decide to move to the Blue Area of the Moon.
• Powers: At the last part of Vol 1, Supershock goes on a killing spree. This leads to the governments to enact a Super Registration Act to draft all available superpowers under the law. Later, the President gets Congress to declare the use of any powers illegal. Of course, people realize the foolishness of such a legal measure. Fast forward to Vol 2, issue #6, a small group of superheroes protect the precinct from a supervillain attack, and Queen Noir, on behalf of her colleagues and the whole superhero community, says they cannot stand by in the frontlines, and decide to slowly come back to superheroing, despite the prohibition.
• Project Superpowers: In the backstory, almost all the heroes of the Golden Age were rounded up after the war by a misguided Fighting Yank, who had become convinced that unless the heroes were all trapped in Pandora's Box, they would all become corrupted and evil.
• PS238: In one arc, Tyler is called before the cosmic entities in charge of empowering the people of Earth and asked to decide whether humanity should continue to produce superheroes and villains. Despite all he's been through as the sole unpowered member of his family and school, he decides to let them persist, becoming the first person to choose to do so in history. They explain that humanity has had past "heroic ages", and in another arc, we see that the author's other comic Nodwick takes place in PS238's distant past.
• Wanted: The supervillains all banded together in the 1980s and killed off every superhero on Earth, then remade the world in their image.
• Watchmen: The Keene Act outlawed superheroes and, with the exceptions of the government-sanctioned Comedian and Dr. Manhattan (and the wanted criminal Rorschach), retired from crimefighting.

Fan Works

• Deliberately invoked in Apex Predator (Worm), as protagonist Taylor is bonded to an entity whose primary diet consists of the very same Entities that grant superpowers in the canon setting.
• In the original version of Last Child of Krypton, it is eventually revealed that this alternate version of the Earth of Neon Genesis Evangelion had a much stronger presence from DC Comics superheroes, including a Justice League, but all of said superheroes either were killed by Second Impact, were secretly exterminated by SEELE to prevent them from getting in the way of the Instrumentality Project, or decided to exile themselves Kingdom Come-style, so the appearance of Shinji Ikari as Superman begins a second age of heroes, with many of his closest friends taking up the mantle of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman and so on. Chuckman's second go at the story removed this plot detail.
• Twilight of The Superheroes is an adaptation of Alan Moore's failed script Twilight of the Superheroes, instead moving the setting to the Marvel Universe.

Film — Animated

• In The Incredibles, a wave of lawsuits led to the Super Relocation Program where supers hung up their capes and assumed completely civilian lives. It's later discovered that Syndrome killed off most of the retired supers while prototyping the Omnidroid.
• Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow: Ultron, a robotic nemesis to the Avengers, manages to kill the Avengers, save for a handful of survivors (their children, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Vison and Hulk). It is also implied that by the time of the movie, he's killed every single one of Earth's heroes, paving the way to his dominion over the planet. The movie then begins with the training of the Avengers' children and their attempt to fight back.

Film — Live-Action

• Logan takes place in a bleak future for the X-Men Film Series. Mutantkind has been almost entirely wiped out thanks to genetically modified crops from Transigen Corp. that suppress the X-gene as well as Charles Xavier accidentally killing almost everyone at the X-Mansion with his psychic abilities in a fit of dementia. The only mutants that are even known to still be alive are Logan, Caliban, and Charles, all of whom die by the end of the movie. There is a "Ray of Hope" Ending however; all of the mutant children created in the X-23 project escape to Canada where they may one day become the next generation of X-Men.
• The third entry of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, features the infamous Order 66, the purge/extermination of the Jedi Order all across the galaxy, unbalancing the Force in favour of their enemies, the Sith. The Star Wars Expanded Universe fills in the chronological gaps between the end of Episode 3 and the beginning of Episode 4, A New Hope, often focusing on the few remaining Jedi trying to survive in an Empire-dominated galaxy.

Literature

• The Supervillainy Saga, in The Fall Of Supervillainy, has a Downplayed Trope example as the Twilight of the Old West is referenced directly. Ultragod is dead and most of the older generation of superheroes are retired. The Battle of Soldiers Park also leaves many other heroes dead. However, a new generation of heroes has taken their place and while superheroes may be far weaker now, they won't be going away any time soon.

Live-Action TV

• The Gifted (2017) takes place in the X-Men universe, but in a timeline where the X-Men and the Brotherhood disappeared a year prior during a cataclysmic event now known as 7/15. This has left mutant-human relations even more strained, with the government rounding up any mutants they can and those who evade capture living underground. Downplayed, since mutants do still exist in this universe.

Tabletop Games

• Base Raiders takes place after an event called "Ragnarok", where all the world's superheroes and villains all just disappeared in an 18-hour period. Now there's a thriving black market in superpower-granting artifacts looted from their abandoned bases.
• The Champions has such an event in its meta-timeline, doubling as The Magic Goes Away as the variable-intensity physics quirk which makes superpowers and superscience possible is the same one that makes magic and the supernatural possible. It happens during the early 21st century, so as to allow room in the continuity for ostensibly less fantastical Science Fiction genres, such as Cyberpunk, Military Science Fiction and Space Opera. ...And then around the year 3000 The Magic Comes Back, so as to allow for the Galactic Champions setting.
• The Necessary Evil setting for Savage Worlds takes place in a comic book universe where all of the world's heroes have been killed by an Alien Invasion, leaving only supervillains to fight them.

Video Games

• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League: The Justice League — no word on any other superteam — are brainwashed by Brainiac and massacres the city of Metropolis, forcing Amanda Waller to assemble the Task Force X to kill the heroes. At the end of the game, Task Force X accomplishes the impossible, and the Justice League go down one by one as the villains they became under Brainiac.

Web Animation

• "The Daily Object Show": How or why the Super Objects were not present during "The Cult of Cobalt" was unknown, however in the finale of Season 8, it was revealed that they had given their powers to the contestants of All-Stars and Computer after the former time-traveled to save the latter, the Super Objects dying in the process.

Western Animation

• Static Shock: Downplayed in the Series Finale "Power Outage"; while other superheroes like Superman and the Flash still exist in the wider DC Animated Universe, a cure for the Big Bang is released into the atmosphere above Dakota, promising to cure all the metahuman bang babies in the city. While this is good news for many, heroes Static and Gear and villains Ebon and Hotstreak are distraught that their powers are waning. Gear in particular thinks it unfair that they have no choice in getting cured, since they have done a lot of good for the city as heroes. Then Static and Gear are exposed to a stronger concentration of the Big Bang gas after Ebon and Hotstreak steal some from the doctor who invented the cure, giving Static and Gear even greater power but turning Ebon and Hotstreak into a horrific hybrid abomination.

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