The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been in a chaotic state since “Avengers: Endgame” cleared out a huge number of its heaviest hitters. Since then, thanks in part to COVID, the MCU hasn’t coalesced as clearly as the retroactively named “Infinity Saga.” So if you’re here, it’s probably because you’re wondering the same thing we are — who are the current most powerful characters?
That’s a big question but one we’re happy to answer, definitively. Is it Doctor Strange? Thor? Kang the Conqueror? Wanda? Read on to find out for yourself. But note: All answers are final… at least until more movies come out.
Of course, the MCU’s backstory stretches back billions of years and even ignoring the blip, that includes an awful lot of dead bodies. To keep things as manageable as possible, we’re limiting this count to characters who are currently alive, and who have actually appeared outside of flashbacks or exposition.
Does anybody from “Secret Invasion” make the cut? With the MCU’s latest now streaming on Disney+, let’s get to it.
19. Hercules (and the Greek Gods)
As we saw in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” Hercules is literally the heroic demigod of Greek mythology (OK OK, the spelling is Roman). And his family is literally the full pantheon of Greek gods. And they’re all regarded as the number one top dogs of the MCU’s anthropomorphic deities.
If things go like they did in the comics, then the entire Greek pantheon (unlike the Asgardians) are immortal, and soon enough Hercules will become one of the most powerful ever Avengers. Pretty cool, especially since Marvel went all out when casting and we’re blessed with Russell Crowe as Zeus and Brett Goldstein as Hercules.
But so far all we’ve seen is some toxically masculine (and in Zeus’ case, extremely drunken) posturing from them. So even though we know they belong on this list, we have to rank them dead last until we see them in action.
18. Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier
As Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) explained before anyone knew he was really Bucky Barnes, “Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier; he’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years.”
That’s a pretty strong resumé. Already super strong thanks to a super soldier serum knockoff courtesy of HYDRA, he also has a vibranium arm and, again thanks to that serum, is very long-lived and very hard to kill. He’s no longer a brainwashed psycho assassin, but Bucky remains a dangerous adversary, easily the strongest of the remaining human super soldiers of the current MCU.
17. Spider-Man
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker can do whatever a Spider-Man can: Crawl up walls, perform huge feats of acrobatics in battle, and of course, the Peter Tingle that senses danger before it happens.
He’s also incredibly strong, possibly the strongest live-action Spidey ever. In “Captain America: Civil War,” he gave Captain America a run for his money during their one on one fight. He also stopped Bucky’s vibranium arm mid-punch, one-handed, and did it so easily he paused to appreciate just how cool that metal arm was. And lest we forget, in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” he survived literal tons of cement falling on him, then summoned the strength to lift it off his body and escape, and still had energy left to stop Vulture.
He’s just a kid from Queens, but there’s no denying how powerful Spider-Man is. Honestly, he doesn’t even need that Iron Spider suit.
16. Black Panther
The Black Panther has been Wakanda’s protector for generations. And, thanks to Shuri’s advancements, T’Challa’s suit made him even more dangerous than he already was with the powers of the heart-shaped herb. But, tragically, we lost that version of the Black Panther.
That said, the new Black Panther is pretty incredible. Not only was Shuri able to recreate her own heart-shaped herb, giving herself the powers of the Black Panther and thereby ensuring Wakanda doesn’t lose its protector again for generations to come, she was even able to defeat Namor in battle despite him being, on paper, a vastly superior fighter and super-being.
She’s a more than worthy successor.
15. Nebula
Nebula may not technically have super powers per se, but she is easily a match for most of what the MCU can throw at her — below the magic/cosmic level at least. As she explained in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” while growing up Thanos forced her and her adopted sister Gamora to fight in brutal sparring matches. The loser would have a body part removed and replaced with machinery; Gamora always won, and Nebula ended up a lethal cyborg who so far has proved almost impossible to kill.
She’s kept upgrading herself too. We see in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” that her arm is now made of (we assume) nanotechnology that can morph into a bunch of stuff; at one point it’s a gun, at another, it allows her to connect into various bits of technology — including a whole space ship.
14. America Chavez
Listen, if the Scarlet Witch is hunting you across the multiverse in order to obtain your powers, that clearly means you’re pretty powerful. Such is the case for America Chavez.
America can open a portal and hop to another dimension at will, and in fact, is the only one who’s able to get Wanda Maximoff to see reason in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Obviously, defeating the Scarlet Witch is next to impossible, but America is the only one who was able to get through to her in any form, and that’s a feat.
America is still young though, and she doesn’t have a ton of battle experience. She’d only just started taking control of her powers at the end of “Multiverse of Madness.” Her raw abilities alone would put her higher in this ranking if we had more time seeing her using them to her advantage. As she grows, she will almost undoubtedly prove herself to be a key asset to Marvel’s heroes.
For now, she needs a bit more time training at Kamar-Taj.
13. K’uk’ulkan/Namor
K’uk’ulkan/Namor can fly, breathe both air and water, survive the insane pressures of the ocean depths and is extremely long-lived — plus he’s played by the very physically imposing Tenoch Huerta Mejía.
He’s vastly powerful to the point he’s regarded as an almost god-like figure by the people he leads. While he was defeated in battle by Shuri, that was 100% an underdog victory and no doubt when we next see the king of Talokan (the MCU’s Mesoamerican twist on Atlantis), he’ll prove more than a match for whoever makes the mistake of testing him.
Lest we forget, he nearly laid waste to all of Wakanda in just killing its queen. It’s a near miracle Shuri managed to take him down.
12. Wong
Obviously, Wong makes the list just by virtue of being the world’s deadliest librarian. Knowledge is the real superpower, kids. But he’s also the sorcerer supreme, with incredible magical ability, vast institutional information, and a clever, subtle sense of humor that practically makes him the glue holding the current version of the MCU together. Wait, that’s awesome. Why isn’t he higher on this list?
Because he’s wiser, and far, far more responsible with his powers than every single one of the people ahead of him. So much so that he’d probably be offended if we put him where he probably should be. He’s too busy fixing whatever mistakes everyone else keeps making to care about status. Wongers forever.
11. Peter Quill/Star-Lord
Does Peter Quill actually have superpowers? No. When he’s not on Planet Daddy Ego’s surface, Star-Lord can’t actually wield energy in his hands. All he really brings to a fight is his schemes and his guns and the absolutely killer mix tapes his mom made for him.
The thing is, he can hold onto an Infinity Stone without being obliterated, thanks to being part-celestial. And that is certainly no small feat. Enough, anyway to almost get him into the top 10.
10. Loki
Loki can do illusions, repeatedly fake his death, competently wield the power of an infinity stone, talk his way out of almost any situation, and even when he dies for real, he sort of cheats death via one of his time travel variants doing a speed run through 10 years of character development by watching TV. Impressive stuff.
But no, his real superpower is being played by Tom Hiddleston. The man is so good in the role that he took what has to be one of the most annoying villains in all of Marvel Comics history and turned him into everyone’s second favorite character.
That’s not a backhanded compliment. He’s everyone’s second favorite because we’re all trying too hard to look too cool to care as much as we do about him. Sure, we say “We Are Groot,” but in our hearts we’re all kind of pining for the MCU’s Prison Bae. Admit it, right now you’re trying to rationalize Loki’s constant betrayals.
So yes, it’s Tom. Tom Hiddleston is the 10th most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
9. Bruce Banner/The Hulk
“Hulk is the strongest there is,” so goes the quote, and that’s definitely true in the MCU. As Bruce Banner has made clear, he’s effectively immortal and is tough enough that he spent years as an undefeated space gladiator. He went toe to toe with Thor and though Thor cleaned his clock, he still put up a good fight. And of course, he flung Loki around like a rag doll.
And these days, he’s also, finally, balanced. After years spent doing everything he can — and always failing — to keep from turning into the Hulk, he managed to find accord between his rage and his intellect during the five-year time skip in “Infinity War” to become the “Merged Hulk.” Which means he’s not only so powerful he can perform an Infinity Gauntlet snap and end up with only a broken arm, he’s also a genius who can repair and pilot advanced spacecraft.
8. Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk
Don’t @ us, you know we’re right.
It took Bruce the better part of 15 years to finally figure out how to keep control over his body and mind while in Hulk form. But aside from her first couple of Hulk-outs, Jennifer managed to do it almost right from the jump. Why? Because her secondary superpower is being a woman: She’d already had years of practice controlling her rage simply as a condition of living in a sexist world.
Yes, she’s not as physically strong in her Hulk form as Bruce is — yet, anyway. We’ll see after a few years of active Hulk duty and training. But she’s definitely more agile than he is, has no danger of ever losing control of her senses, and oh, of course, She-Hulk can change reality.
Just like her comic book counterpart, she’s able to break the fourth wall and literally rewrite her story. She might not be able to punch as hard as Bruce, but she doesn’t have to: She can storm the Marvel offices to talk to K.E.V.I.N. instead.
7. Thor
He’s the god of Thunder, he’s pretty much 90% muscle (and 10% excellent beard), he channels lightning through his axe, Stormbreaker, and he’s killed multiple cosmic-level threats over the 1500 years or so he’s been alive. He even almost killed a full-strength Thanos. Thor is a badass.
So why isn’t he higher on this list? Honestly, his self-esteem issues and need for personal growth really have held him back, as a person and as a warrior-slash-superhero. It’s really only been since 2011, when he got temporarily exiled to earth, that he started Doing The Work to become the well-rounded, self-actualized person he should be. And he still gets derailed by personal setbacks. (Hard same, though, Thor, hard same).
Keep working on yourself, Thor, you’re almost there.
6. The Eternals
Marvel’s “Eternals” is an all-too-forgettable movie, it’s true, but the characters in it can’t be counted out of this ranking. But, since ranking them individually would take a whole lot of space and debate, we’re going to just list them as a single group here.
Let’s just do a quick rundown of the Eternals’ powers, shall we? Ikaris is basically Marvel’s version of Superman; Cersei can transform matter; Kingo can fire energy blasts from his hands; Gilgamesh is super strong (purportedly as strong as the Greek gods); Phastos has the ability to create otherworldly technology; Thena is a warrior who can forge weapons from the cosmic energy within her; Sprite is a master of illusions; Makkari is perhaps faster than Pietro Maximoff ever was; Ajax can heal people; and Druig is telepathic, meaning he can both communicate with and take over the minds of others.
So, yeah, the Eternals may not have gotten a great intro to the MCU, but as a group, they’d likely give the Avengers a pretty fair run for their money.
5. Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange has the insufferable arrogance of a man who insists on being called “doctor” by someone he met on Tinder, but also the insufferable arrogance of a man who knows he deserves to be called “doctor” by someone he met on Raya.
Strange started out as one of the greatest surgeons in history. Then, after a hands-shattering car wreck ended his medical career, he became a master of the mystic arts so quickly that he was promoted to Sorcerer Supreme ahead of Wong. He endured centuries of physical torment using the Time Stone to teach a cosmic monster what it means to be bored in order to save the Earth. Then he endured centuries of mental torment using the Time Stone to explore endless alternate histories in order to figure out how Thanos could be defeated.
Then, he accidentally broke the multiverse, fixed it, kind of broke it again and in the process corrupted himself with dark magic juuuust enough to fix things, but not enough to become irredeemable. Plus, he has that creepy third eye on his forehead now. He’s probably about three spells away from turning into an actual living god, and it really says something about who else is left on this list that he’s only at five.
4. Captain Marvel
It’s been five years since Nick Fury paged her just before turning to dust, and we still haven’t seen any evidence of Kevin Feige’s promise that she “will be” the most powerful MCU character. “Captain Marvel” (2019) mainly involved her weaponizing lazy needle drops to figure out who she really was. And her role in “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) amounted to a cameo that mainly served to show off her awesome, comics-accurate short haircut.
But Carol Danvers can fly. She can travel faster than light. She can survive in the vacuum of space without equipment. And her presence alone causes a film’s soundtrack to fill up with songs that are either terminally embarrassing, thematically nonsensical, or somehow both at the same time.
Also, her powers come from an infinity stone, and she managed to give Thanos a fairly high impact workout during the final “Endgame” battle. Sure, he swatted her away, but only because he punched her with another infinity stone. That makes it impossible to justify ranking her any lower on this list. Maybe next year in “The Marvels,” she’ll live up to the hype.
2. Wanda Maximoff
Carol Danvers may have put up a decent — but short — fight against Thanos, but Wanda Maximoff outright had him on the ropes. She could have, and likely would have, crushed him during “Avengers: Endgame” if he hadn’t ordered his followers to start kamikaze bombing the ground near her.
Like Captain Marvel, the Scarlet Witch obtained her powers from an Infinity Stone. She could manipulate reality, cast spells over entire towns, do remote work from home in other dimensions, and, as she would coyly remind her fellow Avengers, “you know I can move things with my mind, right?” She was all but unstoppable in battle, laying waste to Kamar-Taj from above in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse” of madness.
Ultimately, the only person who was able to take down Wanda was Wanda herself. She was the one who destroyed the stone temple version of the Darkhold, seemingly sacrificing herself in the process.
Yeah, we said this list would only include living characters. But we dare you to prove Wanda isn’t still alive. “No body, no crime” is definitely very much in effect until Marvel proves otherwise.
She could very well still return in future Marvel projects.
1. Madisynn
You put some respect on Madisynn’s name. Sure, she doesn’t have “superpowers” or “advanced technology” or even “decent decision-making abilities.” And yes, obviously she isn’t some kind of amazing warrior.
But the woman survived the literal depths of hell just by being too drunk to care about how much danger she was in. And that wasn’t even her greatest feat — after escaping hell by cutting a deal with a demon, she easily turned Wong into her bestie.
Madisynn is our queen, and we will take no further questions at this time.