I forgot about Wild Cards, by George R. R. Martin. The premise of the series is that shortly after WW2, an alien bomb explodes over new york, sending a virus throughout the world. 90% of those infected die horrible deaths. 9% become terribly mutated. The fortunate 1% become "aces", with powers far beyond that of normal man. It's an incredibly realistic view of superheroes, rivalled probably only by Watchmen in scope and vision. It's about 70000 books, but only the first two and the last four are available. Fortunately, the last four feature mostly brand new characters, and are made to be more accessable to those who haven't read the first ones. I've only read 1-10 and the last four minus the last one, so I can't account, but apparently it gets too grimdark during the teens.