Mars, Pluto, who are these people anyway? Certainly they don’t resonate with a Millennial audience, who is more into astrology than into Catholicism. With Elon Musk launching Teslas into outerspace and making steps to relocate us to Mars, our solar system is attracting more public attention than it has in decades – which is why it’s time to makeover the Milky Way brand. It’s time for the old Gods to step aside and to make way for the new. It’s time to re-name the planets.
| Old and busted | New hotness | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Flash | The fast messenger Mercury has a perfect analogue in the vaguely entertaining Netflix series character and DC Comic hero Flash. |
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| Venus | Black Widow | The goddess of love Venus is well represented by Black Widow, fem fatal, who can always get the Hulk to regain his cool. |
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| Earth | Gaea | Earth is the one planet that never got a god-based name…and yet the Greek goddess of the Earth Gaea is hip with the hippies and comic fans of today. |
| * | ||
| Mars | Iron Man | Mars is red because it is made of – you guessed it – iron! Also, Tony Stark was an arms dealer, so only fitting that he takes the place of the Roman God of War. |
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| Jupiter | Thor | Both thunder gods. Enough said. |
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| Saturn | Black Panther | Saturn was the god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, and liberation. I’d say the king and protector of Wakanda is a great fit, especially with his bad-ass body guards sporting protective neck rings, just like the fair planet. |
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| Uranus | Superman | The Greek god personifying the sky should swap with the today’s god of the sky. |
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| Neptune | Aquaman | The newer sea god has more extensive powers thanks to the blessing of Poseidon, the Greek analogue. #better |
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| Pluto | Loki | Pluto had us fooled for years, but now we know it’s not a planet. But we can give it an honorary name change to Loki, the trickster god. |
You might be asking yourself why these are all comic book heroes instead of religious gods. It’s because we know the origin stories of Superman and Iron Man better than we know the stories of our greatest religious texts. As Batman producer Michael Uslan put it, “superheroes are the logical descendant to Norse, Egyptian and Greek mythology”. We watch them on the big screen, read about them in our free time, take academic courses on them, and discuss them with our friends. It’s a central piece of modern culture, and soon, that culture could be extended into outer space. There’s a clear co-marking opportunity here between Marvel and SpaceX.
MBA in the City 