Given the many cinematic and streaming TV network opportunities available to today’s super-powered crime-fighter, it is harder than ever to keep a tight-knit group of heroes together. Unless your team is a Dirty Dozen-style ensemble made up of hardened convicts, supervillains, and/or rogues forced to undertake a mission in order to avoid execution by firing squad/asphyxiation/banishment to a phantom dimension, you most likely find yourself working with what are, essentially, a bunch of volunteers. What keeps them motivated? How can you ensure that they will be there, as a functioning unit, still talking to one another, three years from now when aliens invade, or an AI plots to wipe out humanity, or a race of underground dwellers takes over the surface world?
A superhero team is an extreme form of what political scientists refer to as a “stag hunt”. Like the better-known Prisoner’s Dilemma, the stag hunt uses a few variables to explore a complicated question. In this case, the problem is this: suppose you’re a hunter, spending all day trying to feed your family with whatever game you can bring home. Rabbits are plentiful and easy to catch, but they don’t provide much nourishment. A mature deer, on the other hand, would make for a feast and would provide food for several days. But hunting stags is hard: you need a partner.
