5 Superheroes That Are In Dire Need Of Personal Branding

In the wake of San Diego Comicon, we’re all a little bit dazed by all of the awesome cosplays, comic books, famous people and trailers related to this amazing branch of business. From Brie Larson revealed as Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, to new footage from Suicide Squad and the first trailer for Wonder Woman, there were real superheroes everywhere, and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. But all this talk about superheroes got us wondering: what superheroes could benefit from a boost of their personal brand?

There’s literally hundreds of heroes we’ve grown to love over the years, from the classic Superman to the recent Guardians of the Galaxy bunch, they all have their own charm and reasons to be admired and enjoyed by numerous people. But some heroes have it worse than others, especially when it comes to their image and personal brand. The first hero we can think of that really needs a kickstart in the right direction is certainly…

Aquaman

Yeah, we know. To start a list with Aquaman is like starting the list of most famous search engines with Google. He is a hero so universally mocked that it’s hard to find a single comic book fan that actually doesn’t joke about Aquaman’s image at least sometimes.

While there’s nothing really *wrong* about Aquaman, people love to mock him. The funny thing is, it’s not that his powers are bad, it’s just that he isn’t branded as a cool character. This has a lot to do with Superfriends, a cartoon depicting the adventures of Aquaman, Batman, Robin, Superman and Wonder Woman, where Aquaman was having a pretty rough time being mocked by other members of the team. Once you add the non-flattering costume and the ability to talk to marine life, you can agree that Aquaman is cool, but at the same time isn’t.

We Can Sea What Aquaman Can Do

That’s precisely why we think that Aquaman needs a rebranding, to make him appear as awesome as he really is. The guy can understand any language, has telepathic powers, and can move seas. He could really make a great name for himself just by making a personal website and spreading the word of how he’s probably the most awesome guy around because the entire ocean is under his command, and the world is 70% ocean. Once you put it like that, things start looking up for Aquaman.

He could save a lot of lives at sea, and his Twitter and Facebook feeds would always be full of great posts from all over the world, not to mention his Instagram feed full of great photos from the depths, ranging from interesting shipwrecks to coral reefs nobody knows exist. Given a few months, Aquaman would be the new Instagram king, and nobody would ever call him lame again.

Of course, none of this can help his sidekick Aqualad, because no amount of branding can help you with that name, we’re sorry.

Speaking of sidekicks in need of rebranding, who knows best how it is to live in the shade of a well-branded hero than…

Robin

Yes, Robin’s here too.

The story of Robin’s brand is the story of being in the right place at the right time. Sure, he’s assisting Batman to solve a lot of crimes, gets to hang out at the Wayne mansion and what not, but no child has ever dreamed of being Robin when they grow up. The reason for this is of course because Robin is a sidekick, albeit the most famous sidekick of them all!

Not a lot of heroes can brag about being friends with Batman, and while Bruce Wayne truly is the world’s greatest detective, Robin is certainly the world’s best assistant detective! The rebranding process for Robin could start with him branding himself as the Watson to the Batman’s Sherlock Holmes persona. Aside from being Batman’s friend, Robin is extremely athletic and has a few tricks up his own sleeve that certainly shouldn’t be diminished.

In our opinion, Robin should brand himself as more of an equal to Batman, rather than his assistant. Solving crimes is what they both do, so why wouldn’t Robin brand himself as the more approachable, quirky, funny guy that people can relate to.

He could use Snapchat to tease Batman for being too serious, or write a blog on Medium about how the life of fighting crime can be tough for a young man. This could certainly bring him some much-needed exposure and publicity, so he could finally be accepted for being more than just a sidekick to a great hero.

And who’s a better hero than a god? That’s why we’re included the Old Gods from the novel American Gods, as they are having a pretty unique problem on their own, one that can really be helped with a little extra branding.

The Old Gods From The Novel American Gods

You see, the premise of the novel American Gods is that gods exist in the real world and their power grows when more people believe in them. This presents a problem for the gods that come from different mythologies such as Loki, Anubis, and Kali. Their power is waning because the human race is believing more in the “new gods” such as the media, the stock market, the Internet, and others. The way for the old gods to return to power is simple: personal branding!

If Loki and Odin spent more time making personal branding decisions, more people would be interested in their lives and subsequently, more people would believe in them. That means more power for them, and that’s the entire premise of the book. They could easily demonstrate their importance to different social media and blogging channels so that they could reach audiences never known possible. It also lets them use the power of the Internet for their own good, something their enemies would never think would be possible.

Now, once we’ve talked about mythology a little, we really need to get back to the superheroes. So that’s why the next name on our list is one of the most recent heroes to have his own feature-length movie…

Ant-man

Well, the words ant and man combined don’t give that much of a glamourous feeling like super and man, and that’s one of the biggest problems this hero has to face. His power is to transform into an ant, and take his human strength with him. We can see how that can be really beneficial in the fighting of crime but let’s face it: he’s still kind of weird. That’s precisely why he needs a little boost of his own personal brand so that he can be the hero we all need.

Sure, there’s a lot that can be made fun of here, his size and the inability to spot him in a room full of people, but that can be really advantageous in the long run. Ant-man could rebrand himself as the hero of the regular man, the man who doesn’t feel like he’s important, just like we don’t think ants are important until we see how much they actually help us in our lives. That’s why Ant-man can use his adventures to inspire and lead people to the fulfilment of their dreams through a series of blog posts about his adventures in the world of the ants. We’d read about that, wouldn’t you?

So, leaving the best for last is customary, but also informing you about some new superheroes is also our task in this article. So for the last person on our list we have:

Matter-Eater Lad!

By now you’re probably wondering what’re we talking about, and we aren’t surprised if you haven’t heard of this superhero before. As his name suggests, he can eat all sorts of matter. Plastic? He can eat it. A reinforced concrete cage? He can chew his way right out of that with no problem. To be fair, the entire premise of this hero is slightly weird and/or creepy, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t deserve to be treated with the respect other superheroes are treated every day.

Matter-Eater Lad will have a hard time rebranding himself, that’s correct, but that isn’t impossible by any means. Considering his skills in eating all sorts of things, there is no denying that some Internet fame is bound to come his way. By using YouTube to prove his worth, he could also blog about how different things taste like, which some people would pay to know. There’s also a lot of scientific things to be discovered by eating things, we presume, so Matter-Eater Lad can find his calling in the science community, helping scientists find out how different things taste for, you know, science.

So there you have it, everyone: every superhero is valuable in his own right, even if they are the size of an ant or can chew things for a living. We can all take some advice from them and the ways they could improve their personal brands with just a little time and effort. We bet people wouldn’t think of Aquaman as lame if they saw his rebranding process, courtesy of .ME!

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