Superhero fiction seems pretty popular on this site. I find this interesting because prose really isn't the super hero's native medium. Super heroes since action comics one have always been a spectacle with brightly colored skin tight body suits, flashy powers, and super model bodies. So imagine my surprise when I discover that the number one serial web novel is about caped crusaders.
Warning, this write up contains minor spoilers for the first few chapters.
Worm focuses on the life and times of Taylor Herbert, a skinny, introverted, fifteen year old girl recently gifted with control over bugs. At the story's start Taylor is nursing dreams of becoming a cape while cutting school to avoid a vicious campaign of bullying. After weeks of preparation she dawns a spider silk costume and goes on her first patrol. By the end of it she's nearly been burnt to death, stopped a major super villain, and decided to join a team of teenage super villains called the Undersiders as an undercover agent in the hopes of discovering who's really in control of the city's underworld. Before too long Taylor is in way, way over her head, participating in a bank robbery, forming real friendships with members of the Undersiders, and earning a name in the villain community. As the story progresses the Undersiders beat rival gangs, publicly humiliate the Protectorate, and make tons of cash in the process. Through a convoluted series of events Taylor comes to understand the heroes are as politically motivated as anyone running for office and she might just be able to do more good working from the shadows.
I've described maybe the first quarter of the story. Worm's plot has more twists in it than a bag of pretzels. As far as fiction goes it's the setting as much as the characters that makes Worm work. Aside from the obviously fictional city of Brockton Bay and the capes the Wormverse is surprisingly close to reality. The worlds of Marvel and DC run on a lot of suspension of disbelief. They both involve Earth in numerous alien invasions, time travel shenanigans occur all over the place, and Star Trek technology is disturbingly common place for those with powers or secret underground bases but never seems to trickle down to the man on the street. I have no idea what a post visitation world with time travel and teleporters would look like but I doubt it would look anything like today's world. With Worm the differences all stem from one basic point of divergence; in 1982 a cruise liner spotted a golden man floating in the air. After fleeting contact with this strange being a few of the passengers discover that they have experienced miraculous cures. The golden man, dubbed Scion, continued to appear around the world stopping natural disasters and being a beacon of hope. Soon after Scion's appearance people begin developing powers following Trigger Events. The old dream of super heroes and super villains became reality and life became a whole lot more interesting. Jumping forward to 2011, parahumans are an accepted part of life. The Protectorate is a stable, publicly funded, foundation that unites the super heroes of the western world. It provides training, tools, PR, marketing, and stable income for heroes. Sadly, two thirds of parahumans pursue lives of crime. An ugly consequence of nearly every parahuman having a tragic origin.
All of this reflects the stories larger trend of populating the world with genuine characters rather than plot devices. Many of the heroes are ruthless, some of the villains have strong codes of ethics, and everyone has there own story; many of which are touched on. The Wormverse has many believable elements come out such as the unspoken rules among capes (don't unmask super heroes/villains so they still have something to lose), a legal system that more or less openly uses different standards for parahumans, and a slew of other minor details that make the world feel real and alive.
Worm is classed as rational fiction along side Methods of Rationality and sam512's own Fine Structure and Ra. Characters win fights with cleverness as often as powers. Preparation and clear thinking are shown and rewarded. If all of that sounds like your kind of story I'll offer you a few warnings. Worm is long. Really long. Three hundred five chapters, 1,680,000 words long. The plot somehow avoids dragging anywhere and if anything it's overflowing with subplots and details that are only significant in hindsight. It's also pretty graphically violent through out. If you're squeamish you might want to give this a pass. Worm can be found in its entirety here. Subreddit here.