Comic Book Lessons in Analytics — Defenders
Don’t call them a team. No, really.
If you’re not watching the Marvel Comics series on Netflix, you really need to reevaluate your viewing priorities. That collaboration has produced some of the best and most grounded superhero stories ever brought to screen.
The Avengers and the Justice League might save the world. The Defenders will save you.
But I’m not here to tell you why they’re heroes. I’m here to tell you why they are, to quote Stick, a bunch of thundering dumbasses.
Who are they?
The group of Defenders on Netflix includes four very different individuals with strongly held opinions on whether they should even work together.
From left to right…
- Jessica Jones, the smart-ass detective, is just trying to solve a case involving a murdered architect. She has no interest in the rest of it.
- Danny Rand, boy billionaire, the Immortal Iron First, protector of the mystical city of K’un-Lun, is hunting the Hand. He doesn’t need a reason beyond that.
- Matt Murdock, Daredevil, the “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”, was doing his friend Foggy a favor by acting as Jessica’s lawyer. He lost Elektra fighting the Hand and doesn’t care to face them again.
- Luke Cage, the ex-convict with bulletproof skin, is just trying to help out one family in Harlem. He chooses to help others because he wants to do good, but he has no idea what he’s just walked into.
Each has part of the puzzle, although Matt arguably know the most about the current situation and holds back the most because he wants to be left alone. When he finally relents, the whole situation starts to make sense.
That’s who they are: decent people doing good work in their own ways, even if they’re not always the most pleasant types.
They might be heroes (don’t tell Jessica I said that), but they’re not a team.
Why not?
Because they don’t share information. That’s enough to destroy any project, but it has particular relevance in analytics. How do you plan to produce relevant insights without a complete data set?
The Defenders are not an analytics group, but they are trying to solve a problem that they do not fully understand. Each of the five (once Stick walks into the mix) has an agenda and remains focused more on their own goals, even when they have enough data available to identify the underlying issue.
In the series, they keep some secrets for personal reasons. Other information comes out later because they just didn’t think about it earlier.
It takes them two days of constantly fighting for their lives just to sit down, discuss the situation, and make a plan to resolve it. By that point, they’re down by two members (Danny and Stick), mainly due to their lack of cooperation and information sharing.
Also due to Elektra taking them apart like an old Lego set, but that probably could have been avoided.
Putting it together
The four of them do finally get their little act together, make some sort of a plan, and take decisive action. They are heroes, after all (seriously, don’t tell Jessica I used that word).
By that point, all of the relevant information has been handed to them almost by force, all of their friends are in imminent danger, and… oh yeah, New York City is on the verge of destruction.
The Defenders save New York, but the surviving members of the Hand also accomplish their goals of plundering the ruins of K’un Lun for the source of their continued immortality.
Oh- spoiler alert. But you really should have been expecting a few.
Avoiding their fate
I could easily turn this article into a lesson about teamwork and project management, but I’m not here to lecture. And I sincerely hope you can pick up on those points anyway. If not, I’d say that you don’t want to hear it.
The teamwork point is obvious, anyway. Each of the five people you see has a singular agenda. And while some are more willing to work together than others, none of them are willing to put the group’s goal ahead of their own.
I will remind you here that “the group’s goal” is saving New York City and defeating an ancient evil that has plagued humanity for centuries.
But this is about information sharing and analyzing your analytic project (you heard) so that you can ask the right questions. All of the right questions.
You’ll never get all of the questions right, of course, but that’s still the goal you should set.
So…?
Now you do sound like Jessica.
Teamwork and information sharing are obviously intertwined. In most projects, secrets and information gaps obviously affect your chance of success.
In Analytics, lack of information leads to meaningless or misleading results. Success isn’t really an option.
Get it right. Share the information you have, and make sure you get what you need. Not just the fields and tables and lakes that serve as your input, but also the information that gives context to your project and your results.
This last bit has nothing to do with Analytics. I just want to talk about the Defenders for a moment.
I love this series. I mean, I like all of the Marvel Netflix series to date. They have good action, solid stories, and they do the characters justice more than any MCU or DCEU movie has been able to accomplish to date.
But that’s not the main reason I like it. Let’s go back to Jessica for a moment.
Her expression says it all. Jessica Jones possesses inhuman strength and endurance. Super-powers. And it seems to annoy her, most of the time.
Jessica is aware of the Avengers and the Chitauri invasion.
Jessica met Luke Cage, the man with bulletproof skin. She shot him in the face, point-blank, with a shotgun.
Now, she has also met Daredevil, Danny Rand and his glowing Iron Fist, and various members of the Hand with extraordinary abilities who make a habit of resurrecting the dead.
She’s not in awe of any of it. She’s not amazed or inspired. She does not give a-
You get the point.
These characters do not deny the existence of the fantastic. They‘re the ones who look at these things, shake their heads, and get on with their lives.
