How Strong Is Thor In The MCU Vs The Comics?

Unless you ask his frenemy Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), few would deny that Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is one of the most powerful Avengers, and belongs in the discussion of the strongest heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over his appearances in the franchise, Thor gradually powers up more and more. By "Thor: Ragnarok," Odin (Anthony Hopkins) himself openly considers Thor the stronger god of the two. But how strong is he, really?

We have seen the MCU Thor do quite a lot of damage to his enemies. Combined with his divine powers, his sheer physical strength and abilities make him quite the dangerous combatant in any situation. However, despite his lengthy tenure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — as well as all the years he's been at it before entering the screen — his comic book version has had much more time to show what he can do. So the question remains: which Thor is the Thorest Thor in the Thor game? Let's investigate.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor is the strongest Asgardian alive, if only because Cate Blanchett's Hela — who frankly cooks him in a fight — dies during the events of "Thor: Ragnarok." When the God of Thunder hits hard, the target tends to stay hit. 

The MCU Thor's arguably strongest feat is in "Avengers: Infinity War," where he attacks and overpowers Thanos (Josh Brolin) after the latter has gathered all the Infinity Stones and is actively firing blasts from his Infinity Gauntlet at Thor. The brief encounter leaves Thanos grievously injured, and he effectively admits that Thor would have killed him if he'd aimed Stormbreaker at his head. Remember, the same Thanos begins "Avengers: Infinity War" by casually beating Hulk up – without the Infinity Stones. 

Thor's a tough nut even without his weapons: While assisting Eitri (Peter Dinklage) in forging Stormbreaker earlier in "Infinity War," he voluntarily endures the full power of a star and survives. He's one of the physically strongest characters in the MCU, from overpowering the incredibly dangerous Destroyer to going toe-to-toe against Hulk and Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), whose whole thing is butchering gods. He can control and create magical electricity, fly, and even grant others temporary Thunder God powers. All of this makes the MCU Thor one terribly powerful figure.

Thor Odinson's physical lifting power hovers somewhere above Marvel's vaunted 100-ton line. He can control lightning, is super durable, and what have you. However, he's one of those characters whose powers and abilities often depend on the writer handling his adventures, from being fully depowered to receiving absurd power-ups. For the purposes of fair comparison, we'll ignore the God of Thunder's strongest version, "Rune King Thor," as well as other cheat codes and the outlandish iterations from some of the weirdest Thor comic book stories.

The comics Thor has occasionally used peculiar powers like controlling certain elements and using his lungs for a Superman-style super breath. However, wildly fluctuating as his powers can be, the baseline Thor seems roughly comparable to his MCU counterpart — with one notable difference. 

Thor is incredibly fast. So fast, in fact, that he can travel at literal lightning speed, and has even traversed entire galaxies at unbelievable superspeeds. Meanwhile, the most we've seen of the MCU Thor's speed is when the considerably faster Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) observed Thor's movement while the other Avengers were frozen in place in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Because we know the minimum levels of his physical power are in the 100-ton region and he has speed like this at his disposal, it's safe to say that the comics Thor has an edge on his MCU counterpart.