It is no secret that Captain Marvel is one of, if not the strongest heroes on the Avengers, so the idea that she would be able to defeat the Hulk in combat should be no surprise to fans. What is impressively surprising, however, is how easy it would be for her to take the Hulk down, as Captain Marvel proves she can destroy the him with one brutal attack.
Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel after a Kree device activated the cosmic powers that were lying dormant within her body, given that she was half Kree on her mother’s side. While she originally took up the name Ms. Marvel, Carol became Marvel’s Captain Marvel upon the death of her friend and mentor, Mar-Vell, who donned the iconic title originally. Since becoming a superhero, Captain Marvel has committed herself to fight for what is right and just, not only on Earth alongside the Avengers, but also across the cosmos. However, in one of Captain Marvel’s most brutal storylines, she is pitted against the other Avengers, during which time she unveils one of her most powerful, and most ruthless attacks.
In Captain Marvel #15 by Kelly Thompson and Lee Garbett, Captain Marvel is being forced to kill her fellow Avengers by the extremely powerful Vox Supreme who trapped Carol in a symbiote-like suit that monitors her every movement. After fans are led to believe Captain Marvel is actually going through with the murders, it is revealed that she is merely incapacitating the Avengers and bringing them to a pocket dimension where they are safe from Vox Supreme’s oversight, then she delivers Vox dormant clones of the Avengers as false evidence of their demise. The only problem was, Captain Marvel wasn’t able to tell the Avengers about her plan until after she fought them, so each hero she had to battle really thought she was trying to kill them, so She-Hulk didn’t hold back against Captain Marvel when she thought her life, and the lives of the other Avengers, were really in danger.
While She-Hulk gave Captain Marvel a proper beating at the beginning of their fight, Carol used her powers to drain the electricity from She-Hulk’s brain, leaving her with nothing. This attack is absolutely brutal as it would immediately kill anyone who Captain Marvel uses it against except for a Hulk, something Captain Marvel makes clear in this issue. Since this attack worked against She-Hulk as the hero was in the middle of a berserker rampage, it makes sense that it would work against the Hulk as well, especially when considering how the attack actually works. Captain Marvel drains the life force from someone by absorbing all of the electricity from their brain, effectively shutting down their brain activity and incapacitating them in a matter of moments. Based on the specifics of this particular technique, it doesn’t matter how strong someone is when the electricity is being drained from their brains, and the Hulk is no exception.
This power would be especially useful against the Hulk in the current continuity given his all-new form. Bruce Banner has taken control of the Hulk’s body and turned him into his ‘Starship’, granting him the ability to use the Hulk’s strength without losing control, all while Bruce’s consciousness safely drives this Starship Hulk from inside his mind. If Captain Marvel uses this ‘energy drain’ attack against him, she could scramble his system and completely destroy the mechanics of Starship Hulk thereby causing irreparable damage to the Hulk himself. Though even if the Hulk was in his original form, Carol’s battle with She-Hulk already proved that Captain Marvel can destroy the Hulk with one brutal attack.