The time period of my novel is set in about somewhat of the near future like in a year or so.  This can be determined because of the clothes that the people are wearing and the technology is very similar to modern day knowledge and it's even a little advanced for our time.  Also the novel shows worldly affairs such as the starving people in Africa and other Latin American countries and there are a lot of modern day weapons and skyscrapers.  The pictures in the novel show the transitions between day and night by the colors in the pictures.  If it is nighttime then the pictures have a lot of dark blues and blacks in the pictures and the characters becomes darker.  There is a lot of street lights, so many of the characters show on them the yellow reflections of the street lights or a dark red for other types of light.  Also the more sinister and evil events usually take place during the night.  If it is daytime then the pictures are more bright and colorful with yellows, blues, and oranges.  Also there is more shadowing from the sun and many of the more happy scenes take place in the daytime.  This novel take place in the summer because its always sunny and hot (characters are sweaty) and the sunglasses are worn a lot.  The passing of time throughout the novels seems to be taking about a month not even.  Well, the protagonists in the story are really different from everyone else because they are superheroes.  So, in the novel they do represent ideals set for a superhero, but the do not follow the "normal" ideals for this time because they are not considered normal and their actions would not be for the normal people at that time period.  Also these superheroes are somewhat expected by the normal people to help save everyone when it takes power that no normal human being would be able to do.  So yes in a way they are representing the ideals of "their kind".  The time period works within the novel because it give the reader a feeling of futuristic idea without having to explain what will happen in the future.  In kind of sets the time just far ahead that it could be considered the future.  This time period drives the plot because it places the story in an action based time where anything could happen and certain elements can be brought to the story without having to be explained by the author because it futuristic.  If this novel was set too far in the future the the author would have to come up with all of this new technology and knowledge about the future and it would seem less realistic.  If the novel were set to far back then the readers would have a hard time relating to the novel because this things might not have happened the way things happened in the novel.  The reader would already be knowledgeable about the time period and expect something different and the author would have to stick to facts and would be able to use superheroes because no one has seen them and apparently this should have already happened.  The setting in this novel is fictional.  The author chose this setting because the novel is about superheroes and superheroes are fictional so any other setting would be unrealistic.  If the setting was changed then the story-line would have to be rewritten because in any other setting the novel would not make mush sense.