How to become a superhero

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the Marvel Universe's character collaboration network, revealing its disassortative mixing, hierarchical community structure, and unique motifs, providing insights into its complex social organization.

Contribution

It introduces a weighted network analysis of the Marvel Universe, uncovering its hierarchical community structure and disassortative degree correlations, which are atypical for social networks.

Findings

Disassortative degree mixing in the network

Presence of well-defined communities and hierarchical structure

Identification of unique motifs in the network

Abstract

We analyze a collaboration network based on the Marvel Universe comic books. First, we consider the system as a binary network, where two characters are connected if they appear in the same publication. The analysis of degree correlations reveals that, in contrast to most real social networks, the Marvel Universe presents a disassortative mixing on the degree. Then, we use a weight measure to study the system as a weighted network. This allows us to find and characterize well defined communities. Through the analysis of the community structure and the clustering as a function of the degree we show that the network presents a hierarchical structure. Finally, we comment on possible mechanisms responsible for the particular motifs observed.