I'm talking about the game master. He has to make up both well-known heroes and villains, the ones everyone knows. And he has to make up the villains who will cause the PCs trouble in their early adventures. And then he has to make the home city seem like a city. Have to name the local news anchors, mayor, ranking police officials, and bunch notable folks the group might run into.
In a fantasy game, you just need a couple boss NPCs as the henchmen are orcs or goblins. The starting town is usually just a town with a handful of notable people.
The scale is just much bigger in a supers game because the speedster could be in the city 100 miles away in 3 minutes. And if there's a teleporter...