The publishing world has been cautious about superhumans until recently, save for biographies and a few ideological works. Only science fiction seems to have dealt adequately with the super, and with the public's appetite for anything having to do with supers, science fiction was finally dragged out of the "literary ghetto" it was shoved into 75 years ago. For 46 weeks in 1998 and 1999, the top five titles on the New York Times Best-Seller's list were stories of superhumans.
The two other areas of publishing other than science fiction to not act cautiously about superhumans are Comic Books and the is the "true crime" genre. By the mid-1960s, comic books had ceased to be totally fictional as publishing companies scrambled to get the rights to the super's names and stories. Currently, the "big three" — Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse — share a billion dollar industry that has made them financial giants. They now own movie studios, newspapers and television stations, and supers are lovingly covered by all.
True crime "exposes" based on real supervillain crimes (and the intrepid heroes who stopped them) are extremely popular. These are written in a gritty, police-report style, with plenty of grainy photos of victims and villains and crime scenes. Lurid covers and titles like Debt of Blood, Fires of Evil, Deadly Consequences and Countdown to Genocide keep these paperbacks hopping off the shelves.