The Most Powerful Avengers In The MCU Ranked

The Marvel Cinematic Universe showed audiences that a man could fly (as long as he was in a robotic suit of high-tech armor, or a literal god), and the slow threading of various superheroes into a cohesive universe has been amazing. But of all the mighty and astonishing superheroes that make up Marvel's premiere super-team, which is the most incredible?

To settle the question, we're ranking the most powerful members of the Avengers, starting from the bottom and ending with the strongest one there is. To qualify, we counted all the heroes in the Avengers movies, obviously, as well as characters who appeared on Iron Man or Captain America's team in Captain America: Civil War, both because they've all been Avengers at one point or another in the comics, and because part of the fun of it was the two heroes assembling their own team of Avengers. Read on to see who takes top honors!

Believe it or not, there was a time when Quicksilver, the white-haired on-again/off-again son of Magneto, was in two movies in the same year (X-Men: Days of Future Past and Avengers: Age of Ultron). It's certainly hard to believe, since his appearance in Ultron is so bad it's rocketed him down to the Hawkeye tier of our list.

His power is superspeed, which seems like it would keep him a bit higher on a list of most powerful superheroes in the MCU, but he was shot to death by Ultron's machine guns. Dying because of regular bullets, especially when you're a literal superhero with superpowers, is just embarrassing. Superman over at DC is known for being faster than a speeding bullet, but clearly Quicksilver isn't, which makes his "super" speed pretty unimpressive, if you ask us.

Peter Quill's father was Ego the Celestial, which gave this dopey space pirate a degree of power he never knew he had. Much of his success as a pirate came from his sheer guts and more than a little luck, although years of menacing training at the hands of his surrogate father Yondu helped hone his instincts. Peter became good at sneaking into tight spaces when he was a kid, which required courage and the ability to operate on instinct rather than conscious thought.

Peter never quite grew up, living out a kind of adolescent lifestyle as a pirate until he met the team that would become the Guardians of the Galaxy. His ability to handle the Power Stone and help defeat Ronan the Accuser was his greatest act as a hero and alerted Ego and others that there was more to him than there seemed. 

However, his ability to manipulate energy like his father evaporated when they destroyed the core of the planet that made up Ego's essence. Since that time, he's pretty much just a guy with an Element Gun. He's an undisciplined brawler, although he doesn't mind mixing it up. He acts like a buffoon most of the time, whether he's displaying his own insecurities around people like Rocket and Thor or trying to impress Gamora. He's able to come up with a good plan every now and then, like the one that nearly defeated Thanos, but he's also the one who messed up its execution. 

The head of the Dora Milaje is the highest-ranked Avenger on this list who doesn't possess super-powers or a super-suit of some kind. Okoye is a brilliant military leader and has access to advanced Wakandan technology. She was bold enough to defy Killmonger and her partner W'Kabi when Killmonger took the throne from T'Challa. She knew the difference between following orders and doing what was right, and this is what made her a great leader.

When T'Challa and Shuri disappeared for five years after Thanos' "snap," Okoye played a key part in keeping the peace as an Avenger. Indeed, she was in regular contact with the team long-distance as it was implied that Wakanda played a major role in helping with rescue and welfare operations after that disaster. 

While her leadership and the fact that she has her own small army of warriors are part of how powerful she is, one can't forget that she's a deadly fighter. She can use any kind of weapon or engage in unarmed combat, but she's especially deadly with her spear. She took on alien monsters and the lethal Proxima Midnight just as easily as she took on highly-skilled mercenaries. Her vibranium spear is light, collapsable, capable of absorbing a tremendous amount of damage, and able to generate electric shocks as well as interact with electronic networks. In her hands, she can challenge nearly any foe. She even fearlessly attacked Thanos when he possessed all six Infinity Stones.

If this list were graded on charm and the strength of the supporting cast, Paul Rudd's Scott Lang would easily vault near the top. Unfortunately for the diminutive dynamo, we're grading on sheer power, and Ant-Man's skills don't quite stack up. There's a reason that the climax of Ant-Man goes for easy laughs with the constant reminder of the scale of Ant-Man and Yellowjacket's final battle.

To be fair to the reformed con man, he grow to a massive size in Captain America: Civil War, and repeated that nifty trick in Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame, but no one ever grows to a massive size to win a fight. Call it a byproduct of our obsession with David and Goliath stories, but generally the only time a character gets bigger is to be satisfyingly knocked over like an AT-AT Walker on Hoth. Still, actual superpowered technology beats quick-dying quasi-mutants and super-spies on this list — and there's no discounting the fact that Lang's accidental adventure in the Quantum Realm is what kick-started the team's successful campaign to undo Thanos' snap.

He might look like a teen exploring his identity at Hot Topic, but Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, is a force to be reckoned with. Tortured and mind-controlled by HYDRA, he's been on so many secret assassination missions that his name is a legend in super-spy circles. Add in a super-strong and super-flexible metal arm that can punch a hole through concrete, along with a version of the Super Soldier Serum that powers Captain America, and the Winter Soldier's a formidable threat.

Plus, thanks to his central role in two different Captain America movies, we've actually seen him fight a good chunk of the Avengers, making his placement on this list fairly easy. Just imagine playing rock, paper, scissors against a guy with a metal arm. Now that's intimidating — and now that he's working alongside the Falcon — who's carrying Captain America's shield in the post-Endgame MCU — he's even more of a force to be reckoned with.

Pepper Potts cleaned up Tony Stark's messes for years until he understood her true value and installed her as CEO of Stark Industries. Along the way, they fell in love. After the events of Iron Man 3, when Pepper was injected with the Extremis nanobyte solution that gave her unstable super-powers, Tony was able to find a way to expunge it from her body. At the same time, he quit the hero business for a while.

Tony and Pepper settled down together after he was rescued from space following Thanos' "snap" and had a daughter named Morgan, but Tony couldn't stop tinkering and building armor. He had built a nanotech suit prior to going up against Thanos in case he ever had to defend his family, and he decided to build a suit for her as well. It was Mark XLIX and her codename for it was Rescue. 

It had fewer of the offensive capabilities of his suit or the War Machine suit, but it was much more durable than any of his armors. He designed it as truly defensive armor to help protect her. 

During the Battle of Earth, she donned the suit for the first time and was highly effective in battle, using her repulsor rays to destroy a number of Thanos' attack ships. She's ranked lower because of her lack of experience as a fighter and because her armor was more defensive and thus more limited than Iron Man's. 

Nebula, the adopted daughter of Thanos and "sister" of Gamora, is a lethal assassin who at this point is as much machine as she is human. She has superhuman strength, durability, and speed, making her as tough in combat as anyone. She also can regenerate and repair herself after she's injured and project energy blasts through her cybernetic arm. She's an expert pilot who can fly just about anything, a great shot, and is essentially a walking computer who can process huge amounts of information. 

Her weakness is her own insecurity regarding Gamora, whom she was never able to defeat when they grew up. Every time Gamora beat her in combat, Thanos took Nebula back to the lab and tortured her by further turning her into a cyborg. Nebula is a killer to be sure, but the trade-off she made when she became so mechanized is that she lost Gamora's capacity for improvisation and innovation as a fighter. Gamora was always able to step outside the box in their battles and figure out a way to win, and that's what led Nebula to defeat after defeat despite her greater raw power. 

Now that Nebula has switched sides, made up with her sister, and helped defeat Thanos, she's still a highly capable fighter. She's just regained a lot more of her humanity, though it was clear in Avengers: Endgame that this is something she's still trying to process. She's a powerful fighter, but still a step behind Gamora.

Groot may have a limited vocabulary, but he's a surprisingly vicious fighter and virtually impossible to kill. In addition to superhuman strength and durability, his plant nature allows him to quickly grow and re-grow limbs and manipulate them as weapons or useful items. He was able to generate a handle for Thor's new weapon Stormbreaker, for example, which allowed Thor to have a huge impact in the battle against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

Groot's ability to grow spiky arms allows him to slaughter multiple foes at a time, usually with a big grin on his face. While his language may seem limited, he's a clever fighter who not only knows how to improvise, he's also fiercely protective of his friends. He saved the Guardians of the Galaxy by forming a branch shield around them as they fell from a crashing spaceship. The impact killed him, but it saved the rest of the team. Of course, he was able to be "reborn" with a cutting that was planted, albeit in baby form.

Groot's major flaw is that despite his raw strength, he mostly relies on the direction of others — especially his partner Rocket. While he will occasionally think on his own, he's mostly content to let others tell him what to do. That puts him behind a lot of other heroes who are more self-directed. 

They say it's good to have friends in high places, but generally that means that those friends can get you a job or maybe loan you some money. For James "Rhodey" Rhodes, being best friends with Tony Stark means that he gets a personalized version of high-tech armor with enough guns and missiles to fuel a small war.

As War Machine, Rhodey's got all the explosive offense of early Iron Man armors combined with the exacting methodology of a U.S. Army pilot, basically walking around in a wearable fighter jet. The Winter Soldier might be a brilliant assassin with a metal arm, but when you're wearing a mobile armory capable of shooting a missile from 1000 feet away, it's hard to imagine Bucky winning against War Machine.

Wong is a Master of the Mystic Arts who helped train Doctor Strange. His role was to defend the books of knowledge in the Ancient One's library and its various relics, including the Eye of Agamotto. This held the Time Stone, which Wong was well aware of, as keeping track of the Infinity Stones was one of his pursuits.

Wong's mastery of magic allows him to create portals, shields, and illusions. He used the powerful Wand of Watoomb to defend the Hong Kong Sanctum when it was under attack by the Ancient One's former disciple Kaecilius. He died in that battle, but Doctor Strange used the Time Stone to reverse that outcome before he created a time loop with Dormammu and outwitted him. 

Like Doctor Strange, Wong was snapped out of existence by Thanos. However, he was instrumental in the Battle of Earth, as he helped gather up the heroes and created dimensional doors that got them to the battle in the nick of time. 

Wong is also an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, mixing both magic and physical force in his attacks. Overall, he's not quite as powerful as Doctor Strange and a less aggressive as well. Still, his powers put him ahead of most of the other Avengers.

Brunnhilde the Valkyrie was one of Odin's hand-picked Choosers of the Slain, but she quit her post after most of her sisters were slaughtered by Hela. As an Asgardian, she's virtually immortal, strong, fast, and durable. As one of Asgard's elite warriors, Valkyrie is much more than that. Not only is she the master of every weapon, she is also a skilled pilot, abilities honed by riding her winged horse into battle.

She tried to drown her sorrows in money and booze on the planet Sakaar, picking up a host of survival skills. She became the Grandmaster's favored Scrapper, bringing him new contenders for his Contest of Champions and happily annihilating competing Scrappers with her high-tech weapons system.

What she learned about herself is that her natural leadership abilities extended to the post-Snap settlement of New Asgard on Earth. While a guilt-ridden and depressed Thor was drowning his own sorrows in alcohol, Valkyrie held her community together. When Thanos was defeated once and for all and everyone was brought back, Thor handed the crown over to her. She reluctantly agreed to take it.

Valkyrie's status as an Asgardian warrior shoots her near the top of this list, just behind Iron Man. What really boosts her is her leadership ability, something not every hero possesses. She earned that status the hard way by picking herself up and redeeming herself in defense of her people.

What sets T'Challa, King of all the Wakandas, apart from his peer Iron Man is that even without his high-tech Black Panther suit, he still has formidable superpowers. Thanks to ritualistically consuming the Heart-Shaped Herb, T'Challa received enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and uncanny agility. It also enhanced his senses, making him an expert tracker. The Herb also greatly reduced his healing time, so T'Challa could take a beating and come back and dish out his own punishment.

Adding his vibranium weave suit to the equation puts T'Challa over the top. In addition to being highly durable, the suit absorbs kinetic energy and allows T'Challa to release it as an energy pulse blast. The suit also absorbs any vibration he might make, allowing him to move absolutely silently. The suit has a set of vibranium claws that can cut through virtually anything. 

T'Challa is a genius-level scientist and engineer, as well as an expert martial artist, pilot, and military tactician. Throw in having the resources of the world's wealthiest nation at his fingertips, a loyal and noble military, and the ritual ability to commune with his ancestors, his power falls just short of the immortals, cosmic beings, gamma-spawned monsters, Infinity Stone-powered artificial intelligences, and mutants at the top of the Avenger power ladder. 

In the comics, the Infinity Gems are the most powerful items in the universe, used in conjunction with the Infinity Gauntlet to wield complete control over basically everything. The Infinity Stones of the MCU are also incredibly powerful. The Vision, the cybernetic homunculus based on Tony Stark's JARVIS AI, was brought to life by having the Mind Gem embedded in his forehead, giving him the powers of density manipulation, intangibility, and laser blasts. Even before the Mind Gem was used to power everyone's favorite walking AI, it was used by Loki in a magic staff to mind control followers and bring a horde of alien invaders to attack earth in The Avengers.

Altogether, the combination of a brilliant AI, laser blasts, and a power source derived from a fundamental power source of the entire Marvel universe makes The Vision almost godlike. It still wasn't enough to keep Thanos from yoinking the Stone out of his forehead, but it's still worth something.

Faster than a bolt of lightning, more powerful than a burst of thunder, able to leap tall buildings in a single throw (of his hammer)! In a world of super-soldiers and tech geniuses, only a god can keep the rest of the Avengers humble. Even if you discount his magic hammer, or his control of storms, or even his super-strength, he spent years as the prince of Asgard, a popular scion of a supremely powerful king who commanded a whole army of Asgardians. Each one of Thor's many friends and family members are nearly as strong as he is, and he grew up living in a god-filled utopia in space. Oh, and for eons, there was an entire basement full of world-ending weapons under his dad's castle. In the Marvel Universe, there's no one who can command that level of power. Well, almost no one.

Carol Danvers' cosmic powers make her the most powerful Avenger by far. Her background as an Air Force pilot means that she has a sharply-honed understanding of aerial combat and fighting in general. Adding her remarkable skill to her raw power makes her a one-woman army. The accident that gave her her powers, sparked by the Space Stone (a.k.a. the Tesseract), blessed her with super-strength, speed, durability, agility, and rapid healing. It also gave her powerful energy-projection abilities.

As she started to regain her memory, she realized that she had barely scratched the surface of her powers. She learned that she could surround herself with cosmic energy, greatly boosting her already-formidable natural strength and speed. She could fly through space without needing a spacesuit and both generate and absorb enormous amounts of energy. In that state, she destroyed a Kree Accuser starcraft as well as Thanos' huge flagship vessel Sanctuary II.  

This is a level of power that dwarfs even Thor or the Hulk. On top of all that, her powers seem to have greatly slowed down her aging, as her form is unchanged over the past 30 years. Combine all that with her natural leadership abilities, keen mind, and passion for justice, and you have the strongest Avenger of all.