When I was growing up, this was a topic my friends and I discussed more than once. As an adult, I am not sure that there is a perfect size for a comic book superhero team. But here are some observations I've noticed from comics.

When a team has few members, it is a major plot point when one of the members is on leave or injured (instead of a subplot with larger teams).

The smaller the team, the more likely the team will have a supporting cast of friends and allies (both powered and non-powered), similar to the supporting cast of a solo book.

Once a team reaches about six members, there's a good chance that one member of the team has  connections to a nefarious subplot that will jeopardize the group. This is almost guaranteed once there are seven more members in the group.

Once there are eight members of the team, at any given time a subplot will likely force at least one of them to take a leave of absence for personal/medical/etc. reasons.

No matter how large a team technically may be, seldom are there more than seven active members.

Seven works well.

I think it all depends on the group dynamics. If they are heavy hitters with a vast array of powers, 3 will suffice .
However if you want a balanced team, and all your bases covered, you need more.
1-2 shock troopers (bricks, tanks, what have you, they can take high damage without worry)
1-2 infantry,  (scrappers and martial artists go here)
1-2 artillery. (They can hit stragglers and help at a distance with power blasts or some other range weapon)
1-2 flyers.  (These are good for drop and extract , recon, or air support combining an artillery hero or power)
1 mentalist. (Usually uses telepathy to keep the group connected and coordinate tactics non verbally, they can also scan for hidden enemies)
1 speedster. (Huge advantages for recon, rescue and evacuation )
1 stealth. (Sneaky sneaky person. )
1 area effect defender. (Someone has to play defense to keep the artillery and mentalist from being hurt too badly. Force fields and ice powers are good)
1 special power. (The ace in the hole, an unexpected or difficult to counter power or ability , plant control and gravity control are good)

Of course you can have many categories  combine in one hero.
Martian manhunter is a mentalist, flyer, artillery, stealth, and infantry .
I think when one hero covers more than two cat agonies, the team becomes more reliant on that person, so when they are incapacitated, the team is thrown off balance.

So in my eyes , the perfect number is 10.

I was successful in juggling lots of characters.

But I did use a semi realistic formula for who was there? How soon they could appear as needed? Did the group divide and conquer if necessary? Whose skills/powers were/might be  needed in a specific time or place?

Juggling multiple characters in a story was less about what the number of characters were and more about the management skills of the GM.

Though my teams started relatively small for me (typically 8 or as large as 10)... If you played like it was the two world... Sometimes characters simply could not be where needed.

In my games... And rarely was this NOT the case. I used the Crusaders.

That's 6 from the get go... Add one PC and you have an automatic 7, I never had just one player.

NOTE:  not including later on solo missions which typically featured outside NPC chara (Pulsar, Smasher, Skyhawk, Unicorn etc) I had wanted to use, but we're not a members or were a distant reserve member (Tomahawk, Vibron, Ebony Angel, etc).

If the team could be assembled... They would... But typically, barring a severe emergency (Grond's/Mass's city attack, the storms from the Destroyer's mod, the nuclear bomb that from Force, etc) some people had lives kept them away.

Laserfire, Sunburst, Titan and Dreamweaver were all in school. Leaving could and did cause storylines.

Manta Man and Intercepter had companies to run. Technically Enforcer had his detective agency...

So typically depending on the time of day (remember even heroes sleep) there were only a couple at the Citadel at any given time. Rarely was it the Avengers or League just milling about... And at least the league had a teleporter.

So my team was large... everyone couldn't always be there... But they did they're best... In the end my team numbered 17+

Only chara who didn't shine were the ones who tended not to.

There was no reason Hawkeye couldn't have gotten more screen time.
Some of the Iron Man flight scenes could have been shortened or cut from.
Maria certainly didn't need more screen time than Hawkeye...
They also during his solo scene could have had him talk to himself (Hawkeye was prone to do this in the comics) mentioning aspects of his life...

What's the call there? Bad Writers/Editing... Just like what's going to happen to anyone beyond Superman and Batman movie... Because they are going to fail If they dump chara on viewers with no depth to them because they are second fiddle.

It doesn't matter if your team is a duo like Batman & Robin or Power Man & Iron Fist or as big as the Legion of Super Heroes or the Avengers.

What mattered was his they were managed.

The ideal number is only 7 because writers only have 22 pages to write a story...

A game is only as small as your imagination...

Only depends on how you... Maintain and assemble it... Just listen...

http://youtu.be/o-dUgFg1BiI

*wink*

I voted seven, simply because it allows you to cover the bases without having demi-gods as characters. You can run as large a team as you like, if you can keep it straight and I have run up to 13, but it does interfere with game dynamics. When you have a group that all gets together all the time, as we did when I started this game in the early 80's, it makes combat drag out.

It does allow for great interactions because there is a 100% probability that someone will not like what someone else did/said, and turmoil in a team is great for roleplaying and GM ideas.

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My hat's off to you, Klystron.  I had ten regulars (me and nine players) for quite awhile, and even that was tough.  You have to be a really good GM to have that many people wanting to game with you (and yet I agree, it can really get slogged down, and isn't really ideal for RPing, IMHO).