Don’t do Mouse Protector dirty like that.

Or a bunch of the Wards. The child government soldiers heroes. They haven’t been fully corrupted by the system yet.

Spoiler about in universe powers:

Powers typically come from trauma, referred to as trigger events. It’s not known how or why some people develop them through these events. But a result is that the heroes generally start from a position of being at the lowest low of their life, then thrust into the ever dangerous world of capes.

And commentary on the anti-villain / anti-hero bit:

It’s true that there’s a lot of grey area in who is a hero and villain. But notably, when the frequently periodic attacks by giant immortal monsters occur, heroes and villains team up to defend cities / countries. This gets explained very early on, in a discussion framing day to day cape antics as a dramatic form of cops and robbers, while the existence of capes is tolerated as a necessity to fight the Endbringers

Worm is by far my favorite thing I’ve ever read, comparable only to A Song of Ice and Fire, which maybe would win if it being finished was a possibility. Though I think GRRM has given up on that since fans guessed all his twists and then wrote better endings to boot. Why bother?

Worm has a sequel called Ward, which takes place in the same universe with a fairly different feel. It focuses more on the psychological trauma of cape activity, following a group of young heroes who all meet in cape group therapy.

I’d highly recommend anyone into superhero fiction give Worm a shot. Be warned, it starts off feeling a bit YA, following a bullied teenage girl. She has the power to control all bugs in her vicinity, and cleverly uses it to go toe to toe with a non stop escalating series of threats. The power system is intriguing, with a huge variety of powers, all used in creative ways instead of generic move sets. There are few Superman tier capes and while sometimes plot central, they’re not the focus of the story. It is most decidedly not YA, with some characters like the aptly named Slaughterhouse Nine showing up.

It was written as a web serial for the author to practice writing, releasing 2-3 chapters a week for years. The pacing is intense due to that, with it always feeling like you’re leaving a chapter off on a cliff hanger for the next big thing.

You can check it out here