The final confrontation between superheroes and supervillains took place a decade ago, and the villains won an incontestable victory.
While only a small percentage of the population naturally develops superpowers, even a normal human can cause sufficient trouble. One can easily imagine what disasters these powered individuals caused in the wake of the war, let alone the rare few that had a second--albeit always related to the first--power.
Over this past decade, the overall population and economy eventually reached a point of hero-free stability… mostly.
Current estimates place the world population somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the pre-war population. Not that anyone would dare attempt a census when they were more likely to get shot than receive an accurate answer regarding who lives where.
Throughout the years, at any given moment, the world has been merely one step of an unsupervised white long-haired cat onto an uncovered large red button away from the surface of the entire planet getting glassed. In the face of this alarmingly likely scenario, the supervillains fell into a cold war of death lasers, orbital cannons, robot armies, and, of course, their superpowers.
Thanks to this stalemate, grand displays of power lost most of their appeal. After all, they were hardly unique and could only be demonstrated once.
Therefore, they switched to pursuing more creative ways to flex their prowess. Or, at the very least, amuse themselves.
No few supervillains realized that they enjoyed receiving lots of attention. So, they opted to become celebrities with public-facing personas. They were just as likely to cut people as before; they merely happily basked in the interim praise first.
However, an important thing to note, individual material wealth lost most of its value, while paper currencies completely lost all of their value. This was in no small part due to the rampant counterfeits, combined with the sheer challenge of transporting it from one destination to another without getting mugged en route.
For those with no--or only weak--superpowers, avoiding attracting attention became one of the best survival methods. As such, flaunting jewelry, fancy clothes, or other such accessories just painted an unnecessary target on people, further reducing such belongings' intrinsic value.
During the shift away from personal wealth, most valuable art, jewels, and artifacts were returned to the museums they were robbed from. This was by no means out of altruism, though. It was predominantly because private collections were just so damn unreliable.
This unlocked entertainment for capable thieves by comparing theft speedruns amongst themselves before they returned their loot within a day or two. In shows of one-upmanship, they even gave security recommendations to further challenge themselves and others.
Meanwhile, those villains inclined towards super-intelligence went on a continuous spree of invention design and problem-solving. Several 'mad scientists' effectively went full circle; chasing solutions to global issues became one of the greatest challenges of all, providing them with much-desired mental stimulation. Of course, several of them made new problems purely for the fun of it.
However, because all of the previous standard currencies were rendered useless, the world fell into a barter system. This drove the creative types who needed constant materials for their designs truly mad.
Before long, they were infuriated to the point of teaming up with the elites from amongst the thieves to design genuinely secure banks to store precious metals and other such valuable materials to serve as the gold standard behind a new digital currency.
They created a small non-magnetic chip to implant within people's bodies--placed in a random location so as not to be readily cut out and stolen. These still-in-use chips served as an ID that replaced much more easily stolen papers, cards, and account credentials. Every transaction using them required heavily encrypted multi-step authentication; even if the data were somehow intercepted, it wouldn't function for stealing someone's identity. Once activated, they would permanently deactivate--as a security measure--if their immediate vicinity underwent temperature changes beyond an acceptable range. Unfortunately, getting a replacement was hell triple-wrapped in red tape ever since day one.
Once a reliable basis for an economy was back in place, various occupations returned to work in a state mostly akin to how they were pre-war. However, without heroes or law enforcement, humans rarely willingly worked customer-facing jobs, regardless of the potential income. After all, the majority of transactions would simply lead to murder. Most of these positions were instead filled by robots or other technologies.
There was at least one positive change--beyond technological advancements--that built up during the downward spiral of all previous standard currencies; several people with sufficient resources established the habit of regularly distributing food and medications out of sheer spite. This was predominantly because they actively opposed anyone who wanted to exploit such essentials for profit during the economic crash.
Even once money and income were rebalanced, these practices stayed in place. Of course, there was always plenty of social stigma over requiring free assistance ever since the economy stabilized, but it remained a necessity for numerous people.
And now, it's time to focus on the present…