Ranking The Most Powerful Superhero Suits In The MCU
After more than ten years and 20 feature films, we've seen a lot of fashions change in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as its various heroes have battled everything from invading alien forces to mischievous gods to a dark elf who wants to unmake the universe. A lot's changed in a decade, and that includes the wardrobe our various heroes use to get the job done.
Ever since Tony Stark put on his first Iron Man armor, superhero suits have been an integral part of the MCU. They vary widely in terms of uses and capabilities. Some of them are really just regular clothes. Depending on who's wearing them and what they're doing, though, these superhero suits can make all the difference in battles for the fate of the world. With that in mind, it's time to talk about the dozen most powerful suits in the MCU, ranked from least to most powerful.
For the purposes of this list, we're calling a "superhero suit" anything that the hero is wearing, excluding things they have to carry and things that make up part of their body. Therefore, Captain America's shield doesn't count as a "suit," and neither does Bucky's metal arm or Vision's, well, entire body.
Black Widow
Black Widow's superhero suit has evolved over time, but it has retained some version of the simple black catsuit base. Natasha Romanoff is a trained assassin and spy who doesn't have superpowers, but knows her way around basically any weapon you put in her hands. She doesn't need a lot of modifications, apart from maybe a utility belt and a little padding to minimize bumps and bruises.
What gives her the added edge, though (apart from her batons and the various other weapons she's carried around over the years) is the Widow's Bite. These bracelets, which were eventually built into her suit with a little help from Tony Stark, send an electric charge into her fists and allow her to stun enemies at will. Eventually, the bracelets were modified to include the electrified disks that could be fired out at close range, and in Captain America: Civil War we see her use a few of these to slow down Black Panther in his vibranium suit. That's not incredible firepower compared to some of the other MCU heroes, but it's impressive, and it's all she seems to need to get the job done.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel doesn't need a suit to make her powerful. As her debut film demonstrated time and time again, she can handle herself just fine whether she's wearing her official uniform or a set of fuzzy pajamas. Her Tesseract-generated superpowers make her a deadly offensive force no matter the wardrobe, but a superhero suit doesn't need offensive capabilities to be powerful.
Carol Danvers' superhero suit (once she shakes off her Kree oppressors and gets a little bit of her old life back) is just a repurposed Kree Starforce uniform with a new color scheme she was able to program into it. Based on what we see her go through during the film, we know that the fabric is pretty damn durable, and it also packs a number of handy devices. For one thing, she's got a universal translator hooked up to it, which allows her to visit just about any planet in the Marvel Universe and talk to its inhabitants. For another, she's got that lovely analyzer and communications device built into her wrist, which also has to come in handy during her travels. Then there's that helmet, which collapses into the suit when she's not using it and allows her to do things like zip around underwater when she is. It's light on weapons, but heavy on usefulness.
Star-Lord
Star-Lord's superhero suit is a bit of a hodge-podge of things he's picked up over the years that. The ensemble gives him both a distinct look and a useful set of enhancements which help him in battle. He doesn't have superpowers (he gave up his potential godlike abilities back in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), so he has to keep a good set of tools handy at all times, some of which he wears.
This starts with that now-iconic helmet, which collapses into a device tucked behind his ear when he's not using it. When he is using it, it can do everything from allow him to breathe in space to give him heads-up display readings on his environment, which is great for both a bounty hunter/thief and a superhero.
Then there are the jet attachments on his boots, which give him the ability to fly in a limited capacity, greatly enhancing his mobility and attack potential. By Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, these got some enhancement in the form the jetpack-like Aero-Rig he got from Rocket, which allows him even more flight power. Star-Lord himself might not be as impressive as Captain Marvel or Black Widow, but if we're talking suits, his overall outfit definitely gives him a powerful edge that allows him to run with some pretty big names.
Falcon
Falcon spends most of his time on screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe running around with his best bud Captain America, but without the various Super Soldier enhancements that Cap has been endowed with. That means Sam Wilson as an ordinary guy is, while very fit and skilled, always going to be slower, weaker, and less agile than his pal Steve Rogers.
That's where the EXO-7 Falcon flight pack comes in. With this experimental piece of military hardware (which has gotten a few upgrades since Sam joined the Avengers), he can take to the skies with a pair of bulletproof wings that are flexible enough to make him a virtual aerial artist. He's not only airborne at high speeds with the thrust power to carry other people with him — he's also quick enough to generate enormous force when diving and kicking the bad guys.
Then there are the enhancements to the EXO-7, including those goggles that allow him to spot even a tiny Ant-Man, the detachable drone he calls Redwing, and the miniature missiles that make him even more of an offensive powerhouse.
War Machine Mark IV
War Machine has one of the most apt superhero names in all of comic book cinema, because it describes what his suit is and does perfectly. Yes, Tony Stark's Iron Man armor always has plenty of weapons in it, but they're usually a bit more concealed in service of a streamlined, cool approach. With War Machine, you see it in the bulk of the shoulders and the back right away. This guy is a flying tank, and the Mark IV (the version from Avengers: Infinity War) is the deadliest version yet.
Yes, the Mark IV still has the repulsors and the arc reactor in the chest which denote the Stark connection. It still has the shoulder-mounted machine gun and the missile launchers, as well as the wrist-mounted machine guns he uses to mow down Outriders. But in addition to all that, War Machine can now pack his own complement of bombs to basically rain fire down on his enemies, and the suit has been upgraded to make him even more durable, as we see during the Battle of Wakanda time and time again. Rhodey is able to get up and walk away from all of that — something he wasn't able to do in Captain America: Civil War.
Spider-Man (Iron Spider)
Spider-Man's first non-homemade superhero costume, as first deployed in Captain America: Civil War and redeployed in greater detail in Spider-Man: Homecoming, is nothing to smirk at. As Peter Parker's various discussions with his suit AI, Karen, reveal in Homecoming, Tony Stark built the suit so that its full capabilities were very formidable indeed. It came with dozens of different web shooter upgrades, a very intuitive design, enhanced vision, and even the fabled "Instant Kill Mode." Then, Tony had to go and top himself, because that's just what Tony does.
We don't yet know the full capabilities of the MCU's Iron Spider armor, but we know from what we saw in Avengers: Infinity War that it adds some extra defensive capabilities, as well environmental survival support which allows Peter Parker to stow away on a spaceship. In addition to all that armor, the suit's neural interface is upgraded to allow Peter to deploy various features without even thinking about it, including the now-famous four extra legs that snap out at exactly the right moment. We've only scratched the surface of this suit, but these new features are enough to make it the most powerful Spidey suit on the big screen yet.
Ant-Man
In the hands of the wrong person, the Ant-Man suit wouldn't be an effective piece of superhero equipment at all. At first glance, it's a suit that gives you the power to get bigger and smaller at will, which is amazing by itself, but not necessarily so spectacular when you're trying to fight off bad guys in hand-to-hand combat. When worn by a practiced and experienced person, though, it becomes an extremely effective tool for combat, espionage, and good clean fun.
The Ant-Man suit operates via Pym Particles, which allow the wearer to change their size at will with the aid of a regulator embedded in the belt and controllers in the gloves. You can shrink small enough to slip into just about anywhere undetected, and expand big enough that it takes several Avengers working together to bring you down. If used strategically, the shrinking tech can also be deployed to generate massive amounts of momentum when fighting, and enhances your durability in both big and small sizes. Plus, with the included Pym Particle disk launcher, you can shrink and expand objects around you as well.
Oh, and the EMP device in the helmet allows you to communicate with insects, which definitely comes in handy.
Wasp
Hope van Dyne spent all of Ant-Man begging her father to put her in a superhero suit of her own. With Ant-Man and the Wasp, that wish finally came true, and Hope got to use her own well-honed hand-to-hand combat skills with a little help from Pym Particles. Watching Hope fight is spectacular, and her use of the Wasp suit proves that she's much more than just Ant-Man with wings.
Even if she was just Ant-Man with wings, that would still give her a pretty significant edge, since flight allows her to do and reach things that Ant-Man simply can't. That's not all the Wasp suit can do, though. Unlike the Ant-Man suit, which requires the push of a button to change sizes, the Wasp suit can do that intuitively, thanks to neural enhancements. It packs the same size-shifting advantages of the Ant-Man suit with less hassle, and it adds in the wings for extra mobility. Oh, and as Hank Pym happily pointed out, the Wasp suit also got something else the Ant-Man suit didn't have: blasters.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is another hero who could wear just about anything he wants and still be a very formidable opponent, thanks to his mastery of the mystic arts. Because of his position as the reigning Sorcerer Supreme of the MCU, though, he also gets to walk through his various battles with a pair of wearable magical artifacts that make him even more powerful than his prodigious magical skills already suggest.
First, there's the Cloak of Levitation, which has a mind of its own but still spends most of its time on Doctor Strange's back. The cloak gives Strange the ability to fly, and can also obey his commands, as we see when he tells the cloak not to let Thanos close his fist. The cloak is also capable of acting on its own, as we see during the moment in Avengers: Infinity War when it flies Strange away from Ebony Maw's makeshift bonds.
Then, of course, there's the Eye of Agamotto, which turns out to be the Time Stone. He doesn't deploy it very often because he considers himself more of its guardian than its wielder. Still, with his full suit assembled, Doctor Strange is walking around with an Infinity Stone around his neck at all times. That's quite the advantage.
Hulkbuster 2.0
Avengers: Age of Ultron was a much-anticipated movie event for many reasons, but one of the most notable was the first screen appearance of the Hulkbuster, Tony Stark's specialized Iron Man armor developed with Bruce Banner's help for one purpose: to contain the Hulk should the big green guy go rogue and prove an unstoppable force in a populated area. With some difficulty, the Hulkbuster did its job in that film, and then Tony and Bruce went on to improve it.
Hulkbuster 2.0 made its debut during the Battle of Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War, and it's a sight to behold. Like its older brother, this new Hulkbuster armor is capable of delivering incredible strength and durability, taking more punishment than perhaps any other Iron Man armor while also dishing it back out. It's also capable of flight and powerful repulsor blasts, and it's able to keep ticking even when some of its appendages are torn off in battle. Perhaps the best proof of Hulkbuster 2.0's effectiveness, though, is this: Bruce Banner, who is definitely not used to piloting Stark tech, managed to survive the whole battle in it, and even took care of Cull Obsidian in the process.
Black Panther
Wakanda is the only nation on Earth where vibranium is found, and the Wakandans have become true artists with their most prized resource. Nowhere is this better expressed than in the design of Black Panther's suit, known as the Panther Habit. Its vibranium weave construction makes it basically indestructible by most known human weaponry, and the vibranium claws embedded in the gloves are strong enough to make a mark on Captain America's own vibranium shield.
But that's just what the habit in Captain America: Civil War was capable of. By the time Black Panther rolls around, Shuri has given the habit a number of upgrades, include a nanotech makeup that allows it to materialize at will out of a necklace so that T'Challa can armor up anywhere he goes. Plus, the new habit has energy absorption and redistribution abilities, which allow T'Challa to take any punishment he gets and then dish it back out in a powerful pulse of kinetic force. All of that, plus the suit's ability to repair itself instantly (on the rare occasion that it gets damaged), a built-in communicator, and the noise-cancelling shoes ("sneakers," as Shuri calls them) are enough to make this one of the most powerful suits the MCU is ever likely to see.
Iron Man Mark L
This list could have been composed entirely of Iron Man suits and it still would have been a fairly impressive showcase of power in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the 11 years since Iron Man debuted, Tony Stark has delivered 50 different versions of his signature armor, ranging from crude scrap metal beginnings to models that fit in a briefcase to giant upgrades meant to take down the Hulk. In Avengers: Infinity War, Tony debuts the Mark L, the armor which blows all of the rest of them away.
Like virtually every other Iron Man armor, the Mark L has certain features that make it inherently formidable: arc reactor in the chest, repulsor cannons in the palms, flight, enhanced strength and durability, and more. Unlike all of those other models, though, the Mark L is all conveniently contained in a single triangular piece on Tony's chest, and utilizes nanotech to deploy. This means that the Mark L is not only an instantaneous superhero suit in portable form, but it's also able to take whatever shape Tony needs it to. He can deploy nanites to assist his flight system, to repair damage, and even to shape external appendages like a shield or a blade. It's the Swiss Army Iron Man, and we can only hope we get to see Tony put it to use at least one more time.