Here’s an interesting study published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment …..woah!! Hold on there! Bear with me! I know that sounds a desperately uninteresting journal, but what this author, Gleiser, a physicist, has done is to study the characters in Marvel comics – you know, the superheros, the villains, and the others – 6486 characters in 12942 comics! Now I know you’re probably thinking what on earth are physicists studying Marvel comics for? Well, this is where it gets really interesting. There’s an increasing amount of interest in complex networks – we find them in all walks of life – physical systems, neuropsychological, biological and social systems. Gleiser used a collaborative networks model to analyse the Marvel characters. Basically, each character is a node and then the nodes are connected with lines to represent the relationships between the characters. It’s presented graphically which makes it instantly easy to understand – you’ll need to look at the original article to see that.
Here’s what he found –
All the superhero have loads of connections to other characters. In network theory they are “hubs” – in fact they are super-connected to many other characters. On the hand, the villains are very poorly connected. You can actually pick out the superheroes and the villains really easily from the network map. The reason for the poor connected-ness of the villains is apparently the rules by which the Marvel comic stories were constrained. They weren’t allowed to make villains attractive or to make evil appealing!
I think this is such an interesting piece of work for two reasons –
Firstly, it’s a great demonstration of the applicability of network science.
Secondly, it’s shows you one of the key characteristics of superheroes – get connected!
If you’d like to read more about network science I recommend your read Linked, by Barbarsi.
Heroes Not Zombies 
That is very cool. Thank you for discovering and sharing. I’ve spent most of my life working on computer networks, shifting the thinking to people fascinates me!
Isn’t this more a question of being the principal character(s) in a literary (in the broad sense, here) work? The authors clearly make a decision about which relationships are worth showing and which are not interesting. If a villain has a business empire, for example, there’s an implication that he/she has extensive social connections, but it’s unlikely that the connections will be portrayed in a way which lends itself to an empirical methodology.
It might be interesting to see an analysis like this done on less formulaic literature. This idea reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s idea of graphing literary plots (described toward the end of this blog post).
So, does that mean if you have like 8 million Friendster friends or 2 trillion Facebook connections, you’re a superhero? Interesting…
I’ve always believed in the value of networking…rather, I do now despite a more cynical time in my younger days. Thanks for the post.
Cheers,
Brandon
Thankyou Benjamin, you should seek out Linked by Barabasi – see my post on it for more. I think it’s a great and insightful study of the importance of the developing science of networks.
Weeklymg, yes, sure, these Marvel comics really are very, very formulaic. But the interesting thing I think is how you can apply network mapping to social groupings, whether fictional or real. I do think there’s an important point about being connected though. I think one of the key characteristics of a healthy and growing person is that they are “engaged” – that their connections with the world are developing and flowing.
Thanks for the link to that post about Kurt Vonnegut – I really enjoyed it
Hi, therealsouthkorea, well……put it this way, I think if you want to have ANY chance of being a superhero you gotta get connected! Old John Donne was right “No man is an island”. But I’d say one of the missing bits about this rather simplistic approach to network theory is the quality, rather than the quantity of the links. In real life the connections we make have certain qualities which make some strong and others weak (oops! You know, I think this is probably the subject of another post!!) Thanks for your input and you’ve got me thinking……!
You’re welcome for the Vonnegut link. I went to one of the talks where he described the plot graphing, and the idea stuck with me. In the talk he also said some things you might find really interesting about extended families (and I can assure you he did not mean Friendster – take a look at this article to see what I mean)
While I’m sure that quality human connections can strengthen a person, and that any sort of power attracts connections (both nourishing ones and perhaps also destructive ones), I still think the comic book social graph reflects the plot more than the source of power of the heroes. Their power seems to derive from freak accidents (especially involving radiation, it seems), and if their connections are so key to their power, why do superheroes need secret identities? I think one could make the argument that comic books portray a superhero’s connections because they offer rare vulnerabilities to be exploited by villains.
Thankyou for this really thought-provoking post, weeklymg. I think you’re absolutely right. And, to be frank, I’m no superhero fan! What impresses me way more are all the other heroes I meet every day. I’m serious. One of the amazing privileges I have as a doctor is to hear the quite awesome stories of “ordinary” people every day and I am constantly amazed by them. The experiences people have and how they deal with their adversities and how they even grow through them! It’s wonderful. That’s what I really mean by heroes. Not those who through some chance accident with radiation become not like other humans (superhuman or inhuman?). No it’s the reality of every one of us being the hero of our own stories. That’s what excites me.
But think about this. Even though these superheroes developed these special powers by accident, if they weren’t connected to other people, to the world, their special powers would be totally useless. What makes the superheroes great (in the terms of the genre) is not their power but how they use it – and we see THAT through their connections.
(I’ll go off and read that article you’ve linked to now, thanks)