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In the comics, Thanos is known as "The Mad Titan" due to being from the moon of Saturn, known as Titan. In the MCU, there are many things that are different from the comics, and it was unclear to me while watching the movie whether or not this planet/moon was supposed to be one and the same as the one in our solar system.

Is there any evidence whether or not this was supposed to be the same place?

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  • Good question, was thinking of raising it myself, actually. Looking forward to the answers/references people dig up.
    – vynsane
    Commented May 8, 2018 at 12:42
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    Titan = celestial body, Knowhere = Celestial body-part.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 11:04
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    Wait, the Titan of Thanos and friends is the Titan of Saturn? This is reeeeally inconvenient for Earth, isn't it?
    – SK19
    Commented May 10, 2018 at 14:18

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From all appearances, it seems Titan in the MCU is indeed a planet in it's own right and not the Saturnian moon of the same name.

For one thing, we clearly see humans walking around unprotected on the surface, something that's certainly not possible on the real Titan since 1) There's no oxygen. And 2) it's cold enough for methane to condense into a liquid. And it's not just the atmosphere; the whole environment is wrong. Temperature, gravity, local planetary bodies (Saturn itself is certainly nowhere to be seen!), relative brightness of the sun. None even remotely similar to the "real" Titan.

Finally: if Thanos' homeworld is mere light-minutes away, why did he need Loki to open a portal for his Chitauri? Granted, Sanctuary may or may not have been near Titan, but you'd think it'd be close enough that the extra leg to Earth would hardly be any trouble at all.

As for why there can be two places with the same name; leaving aside the fact this happens all the time in the real world (just look at an atlas!) The moons of Saturn were only discovered and named by astronomers in the last few centuries and they drew the name from Greek mythology. There's a clear precedent in the MCU for at least some human mythological figures and stories to be of extraterrestrial origin, so it's certainly possible that the Titans of Greek myth are based on stories of Thanos's people, perhaps passed down from visiting Asgardians or Kree in pre-history. In which case, Saturnian moon would unknowingly be named after the planet seen in IW.

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    I'm pretty sure the atmosphere is breathable on the comic book version as well, so I'm not sure that that's conclusive evidence that it's not in our solar system. +1 though, it's something.
    – Nacht
    Commented May 8, 2018 at 10:09
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    It's not just the atmosphere, it's the whole environment. Temperature, gravity, local planetary bodies, relative brightness of the sun. None even remotely similar to the Saturnian moon's. And that's nothing compared to the basic logic of Thanos' home being mere light-minutes away, and yet he needed Loki to open a portal for his Chitauri?
    – Kris
    Commented May 8, 2018 at 21:07
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    @M. A. Golding Yeah, perhaps I could have been clearer on that point, but what I meant was that the notion of a habitable Titan (or Venus, Mars, etc.) was common enough in pulp sci-fi of that time to be considered a fairly standard trope. Not that actual scientific assessments backed those fanciful notions up, which of course they did not.
    – Kris
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 9:53
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    @Nacht I didn't say the movies were scientifically accurate, I said that they were relatively grounded. Which to me means the fantastical elements are generally built upon a foundation of reality. Hence a race of super-powered space Vikings being explained in terms of "Clark's Law" technology and sorcery as the manipulation of higher dimensional physics and alternate universes. In this case I'd say the conditions on Titan are known well enough that It'd be incongruous to portray it as an Earth like habitat. And yes, I've edited those other points in too. ;)
    – Kris
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 10:09
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    In the comics, while Thanos certainly enhanced himself, the inhabitants of Titan seemed to be beyond human norms from the start. Eventually, Marvel decided that the inhabitants of Titan were an off-shoot of the Eternals (a race of long-lived, super-powered humans created by the Celestials), allowing them to survive in an environment that a normal human wouldn't survive in. Plus, in the original stories, I don't necessarily think the Titans lived unsheltered on the surface of the planet.
    – RDFozz
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 19:42

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