Marvel has a lot of heroes. Through their various TV series and movies, Marvel has been able to bring some of their most powerful and popular comic book characters to both the big and small screen.
To date, there are 53 live-action movies based off of Marvel properties. The Marvel Cinematic Universe alone has introduced hundreds of characters from the comics over the past decade.
However, Fox has also done the same with the X-Men franchise and Fantastic Four, making countless movies involving the famous heroes. Before the MCU came together, Marvel had produced a dozen or so movies based off of their properties, too, including everything from Blade to Howard the Duck.
This is a lot of heroes and thus it is easy to lose track of most of them. In fact, there are so many that fans often debate about their favorites. One common argument in Marvel fandom focuses on which hero is the strongest or most powerful.
We are here today to find out the answer, once and for all. This list will attempt to rank most of the characters in Marvel's many movies based on their on-screen representation and how powerful they appear.
Warning: there may be some Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 spoilers.
With that said, it's time to delve into The 28 Most Powerful Marvel Heroes Officially Ranked.
Star-Lord
Star-Lord is hilarious, kind, and an exciting character to watch on-screen. However, Peter Quill is one of the weakest characters in the MCU.
At one point, the self-named Star-Lord could have been considered one of the most powerful entities in the universe, but that power was nixed when his father passed away. As half celestial, Quill was granted immense power if he stayed with his father Ego, the living planet. However, that didn’t work out too well in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Quill possesses no powers or superhuman abilities, but this isn’t to say that he doesn’t have value. Having been raised by Yondu and the Ravagers, Quill has become a skilled pilot and problem solver.
He is more of a brawler than an accomplished fighter, but with his quick wit and ingenuity, he can be a formidable opponent. This helps Star-Lord to be an adept strategist to pull off impossible tasks.
Unfortunately, Quill is arrogant, insecure, and has little self-control. As a result, these flaws will often slow him down or allow him to make decisions that will put others in danger-- or half the universe in danger.
Nevertheless, being driven by emotion has also proved valuable in keeping the ragtag team of Guardians together. Quill is sincere and cares deeply for his teammates, which acts as the glue that keeps the team so close.
Drax
Drax is strong-- extremely strong. Drax the Destroyer is like a wrecking ball. He has superhuman strength, durability, agility, and a regenerative healing factor.
This makes Drax almost indestructible in most situations. However, that doesn’t make him invulnerable to injury. He survived– and enjoyed-- a ship crash while slamming through dozens of solid trees, which must have hurt a lot.
Also, after his beat down by Ronan the Accuser, Drax nearly drowned after being thrown in a vat of yellow liquid.
Drax is also an accomplished fighter and proficient with knifes. This, coupled with his strength, makes Drax one tough character, but he isn’t the brightest person in the universes.
His people are completely literal so he isn’t able to grasp metaphors and the nuance of language. This also makes it difficult for him to immediately understand and follow a plan as they may go right over his head-- though, as he has claimed, nothing can go over his head, as his reflexes are too fast.
Somewhat like Star-Lord, Drax is uncontrollably impulsive and will ignore any logic if it gets in the way of his immediate desire.
He’s quite the liability to the group with that kind of blind ego thinking he’s more powerful than he actually is.
Rocket
Rocket Raccoon is the result of painful alien experimentation, which has created a deep sense of anger and cynicism in Rocket. Emotional and physical scars aside, Rocket has enhanced body modifications that make him someone not to be taken for granted.
He has heightened strength, durability, sense, and agility. Able to carry guns twice his size, Rocket is obviously stronger than the average raccoon, but probably not much stronger than the average human.
He has the intellect of a genius so he can use technology in advantageous ways. For example, he can building weapons and explosives and can even elaborate prison breaks.
When ambushed by the Revengers, Rocket easily incapacitated most of them with his booby traps and his tactical skills. He also is an excellent marksman and pilot, claiming to be the best in the galaxy.
Although all of these skills are incredibly valuable, Rocket is sloppy, haughty, and selfish.
He has been imprisoned countless times, and has been charged with 13 counts of theft, 23 counts of escape from his incarceration, 7 counts of mercenary activity, and 15 counts of arson.
Rocket Raccoon is everyone’s favorite gun-slinging mercenary, but his arrogance can get in his way, causing more damage than intended.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye is infamously known for being the butt of jokes when it comes to the Avengers. Jeremy Renner even sang a parody of Ed Sheeran’s "Thinking Out Loud" lamenting about how no one values Hawkeye.
Hawkeye may not be the most powerful being in a world of gods and monsters, but he is no chump either. Clint Barton is a very skilled fighter, assassin, and master marksman. He certainly is more talented as a combatant than War Machine or Falcon.
Barton was even able to subdue and help defeat Vision, an incredibly powerful Avenger, better than Ultron’s entire army. Hawkeye has quite an impeccable recruiting record, too. He brought Black Widow to S.H.I.E.L.D. and got Ant-Man to join the Civil War feud. He also inspired Scarlet Witch to fight against Ultron.
Hawkeye definitely brings a heartfelt reality check to the rest of the Avengers when they get out of hand.
Yet, at the end of the day, Hawkeye is only human and could perish in a car crash on his way to work. Barton has no superhuman powers and is limited by the number of arrows that he can carry.
The sheer percentage that Hawkeye can do is always going to be modest compared to any other Avenger. Consequently, he’s probably one of the most expendable Avengers on the team.
However, he’s also perhaps one of the bravest because he cannot rely any powers to aid him in the fight. Maybe in Avengers 4, Hawkeye will finally get to demonstrate how valuable he can be.
Black Widow
Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow, is a former KGB operative who eventually joins S.H.E.I.L.D. and becomes a founding member of the Avengers.
As a non-superpowered human, Romanoff has proven herself of be an invaluable player against the forces of evil. As an expert spy and assassin, she has accomplished countless missions for S.H.E.I.L.D.
On the battlefield, Black Widow is an expert markswoman and martial artist. Her incredible intellect and expert hacking skills come in handy, especially when Stark isn’t around.
She also has some pretty gnarly bracelets that deliver a powerful electroshock to her enemies.
However, much like Hawkeye, Romanoff is only human and thus doesn't have any special abilities. This means that her accomplishments are much more impressive for that reason, but she’s not very high on the list of powerful beings in the super hero world.
Despite not having any powers, she closed the tesseract portal in the first Avengers movie, calmed the Hulk down in Age of Ultron, and certainly held her own in Infinity War.
Yet, with all of her skills, she is not as effective as other superpowered beings in a fight. When she took on Bucky Barnes in Captain America The Winter Soldier and Civil War, she was easily defeated and injured in the process.
She is braver than most and quite the badass but at the end of the day she is only human.
Blade
In the dark and supernatural corner of Marvel is Blade, the Day Walker. Blade is perhaps the most unlikely hero on this list since he does not fight aliens or tyrants.
Rather, he fights the monsters of our nightmares: the vampires. Having the benefit of being born half vampire, half human, Blade has all the strengths of a vampire but none of the weaknesses. Garlic, sunlight, crosses, holy water, or anything else that may plague vampires have no affect on him.
Blade has enhanced strength, durability, stamina, as well as pseudo-immortality. He does age, but very slow. He also is a skilled martial artist and weapons expert, which makes him a lot cooler than Edward Cullen.
This does not mean he is without his weakness, however. Like all vampires, Blade needs to feed on blood to survive. In order to avoid consuming humans, Blade and Whistler-- his mentor and father figure-- have created a serum that replaces the need or desire for blood.
However, if he does not have access to it, then he will start to lose control of his thirst for blood. He also can not sustain massive blood loss with out either the serum or fresh blood to replenish him.
Groot
Groot is a walking and talking adorable tree. Everybody loves Groot, right? However, he’s also a feared fighter and monster.
As pne of the last members of his race from the planet X, Groot is unusual looking to most and often confuses his opponents at first glance. He can manipulate his body to create weapons and regenerate itself whenever he sustains injuries in battle.
Groot has created shields, vine tentacles, and twig spikes to dispatch his enemies. It is also nearly impossible to stop him when he gets going.
He is immensely strong and does not seem to feel pain. In instances of darkness, Groot can also emit bioluminescent spores from his body that provide light. In addition, Groot is able to grow flowers.
He also has the greatest war cry ever heard: “I am Groot!”
All of these strengths aside, Groot is not invincible. When they first met, Gamora easily slices off Groot’s arm and could have done much more damage had she not been caught.
Although he can manipulate his body, he cannot regenerate limbs instantly. It is also unclear how intelligent he is and how much he understands about what is happening around him.
Gamora
Zehoberei’s composition naturally makes Gamora physically strong and agile, but to ensure that she was more powerful, Thanos added bionic enhancements to her body.
She has superhuman strength and durability, as well as greater vision due to ocular implants. She similarly has a regenerative healing factor, which was granted to her by bio-augmentations that allow her to quickly heal from most infections or injuries.
Although greatly enhanced, Gamora is not impervious to all injuries. She has been wounded several times throughout the movies and has been defeated several times by those with superior strength or advanced firepower power.
She is also emotionally compromised when it comes to Thanos, since he adopted and raised. Though she dislikes him, she also has a soft spot for him. Thanos may still be a father figure to Gamora, but he knows how to manipulate her in order to make her go against her better judgment.
Overall, Gamora is an extremely strong fighter, but she can be injured and is not immortal. Her feelings often get the better of her, and ultimately lead to her downfall...
Bucky Barnes
Bucky Barnes, formally the Winter Soldier, has now become the Wakandan White Wolf, equipped with a new mechanical arm and all.
The Winter Soldier was the Soviet Union and Hydra's answer to counter Captain America. Hydra scientist, Arnim Zola, was almost able to create a replica of the super soldier serum that was used on Steve Rogers.
Barnes is also an expert fighter, sharpshooter, assassin, and is able to regenerate from injuries faster than a normal man. However, Barnes’ most distinguishing feature is his bionic arm.
On top of the boosted strength, the bionic arm makes Barnes incredibly difficult to defeat in combat. He almost beat Iron Man in a hand-to-hand fight. However, Spider-Man was able to overpower Barnes’ bionic arm with ease demonstrating a limit to its effectiveness.
Zola’s serum was able to augment Barnes’ body but not his mental fortitude like the original super soldier serum. This left Barnes’ physiologically damaged and mentally malleable.
With complete control over his mind and actions, Hydra brainwashed Barnes into becoming the Winter Soldier. We saw at the end of Black Panther that Shuri of Wakanda worked on clearing Barnes’ mind, but it can still be mentally broken and thus remains as a potential risk in the future.
Ant-Man
Scott Lang is the successor to the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym. As a convicted thief and expert engineer, Lang was chosen by Pym to carry on the Ant-Man legacy.
With the Ant-Man suit, Lang has the ability to manipulate his size because of the Pym particle, which powers the suit. Whether he is microscopic or 65 feet tall, he can perform with superhuman strength.
The suit enhances his strength to superhuman levels. While in miniature form, a single punch has the same force as a speeding bullet. To avoid fatally injuring someone, Lang has been trained in martial arts to control his strength and effectiveness.
The helmet also gives the wearer the ability to communicate with insects and control their behavior, creating a tiny, but powerful army.
With the suit, Lang is one tough opponent and can take on most of the Avengers. However, without the suit, Lang isn’t really capable of anything heroic.
He is very clever and a gifted thief, but he would not be able to hold his own in a fight with most other Marvel characters without his suit.
Don’t forget, the suit can also compromise the wearer’s mind. Without the helmet, the brain would be disrupted and altered, so Ant-Man better be careful or his mind might go to mush.
Spider-Man
Peter Parker, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, is a pop culture classic. He is also awesome and has many young boys and girls wishing that radioactive spiders would bite them.
Parker has a myriad of powers that include the regular gamut of abilities that most heroes have: super strength, agility, durability, and a healing factor. He could probably beat both Captain America and Bucky Barnes in an arm wrestling match.
Spider-Man also has the ability to wall crawl and create an adhesive between his body and any object. Who wouldn’t want to be the Tarzan of the city, scaling skyscrapers and swinging through the concrete jungle?
In addition, he is equipped with Spider-Sense, which alerts him to danger, keeping him aware and on his toes. This means that it’s nearly impossible to sneak up on Spidey without being noticed.
When Tony Stark takes Peter under his wing, he equips Parker with a suped-up suit, complete with its own AI. Then, in Infinity War, Spider-Man dons the new state-of-the-art Iron Spider suit. The suit greatly expands his capabilities, and it even comes with its own weapons.
However, with great power comes the need to practice control over one’s abilities. Parker is still young and excitable. He quickly jumps into fights that are more than he can handle, putting himself and others in danger.
He’s also one of the few heroes with a secret identity that can be used against him.
Iron Man
Unlike Ant-Man, Iron Man is more than just his suit. Tony Stark is a super genius and has created numerous technologic advances to help his team, the world, and the universe.
However, he still has a pretty amazing suit. The Iron Man suits, and its various iterations, are what started the MCU. The Iron Man suit gives Stark immense strength, protection, flight, lasers, rockets, life support, mini-guns, and the ability to summon and command other suits.
Iron Man is also not afraid to get his hands dirty. Often, he will jump into battle without any hesitation, and he rarely loses a battle.
However, if the power source for the suit is damaged in any way, there is not much Stark can do if he doesn't have the tools to fix it. As an engineer and scientist, Stark is a cut above the rest, but in combat without his tech, Stark offers little in terms of combat.
All too often, Stark engages his opponents in close combat and suffers a lot of damage, despite having a very powerful suit with long range weapons. He even lost a fight between Barnes and Captain America, which proves that he can't stand up to superhuman strength.
For all of his technological power, his arrogance seems to be his greatest weakness, often leading him to make poor strategic decisions that undercut the might of the Iron Man suit.
Captain America
Steve Rogers is a man out of time. When Rogers was injected with the super soldier serum, he was a scrawny boy from Brooklyn with a big heart and the desire to do what’s right. After his transformation, he became a beefcake with an amplified sense of justice and a rigid moral compass.
The serum didn’t just give him strength-- it also enhanced his entire composition. Roger’s mind is at its peak, operating efficiently with the rapid digestion of information and making him an effective tactician and leader.
He also has increased speed, stamina, and senses, and can heal quickly. Given that he doesn’t sustain any fatal wounds, it appears that Rogers might be close to immortal.
Oh, and let’s not forget his physics-defying shield skills.
Rogers’ bravery also knows no bounds. Even Thanos was taken aback by the strength and bravery of Cap when they faced off against each other in Infinity War.
However, in the end, Rogers is not immortal and can sustain fatal wounds. After his battle with Bucky Barnes on a Helicarrier at the end of Winter Soldier, Rogers was left in a coma for a time and had a period of recovery.
So, he isn’t invincible, but he is pretty darn close, which is an amazing feat given the fact that he doesn’t have any technological enhancements to protect him.
Black Panther
T’Challa is the king of Wakanda and carries the mantle of the Black Panther. T’Challa not only has a powerful suit made of vibranium, but he also has heightened abilities thanks to his consumption of the Heart-Shaped Herb.
After visiting the land of his ancestors, T’Challa receives the power of the Black Panther: enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina, and healing. He doesn't just have powers, though, he also has an incredible suit-- his lightweight suit can absorb kinetic energy and redistribute it as an attack thanks to vibranium nanites.
In other words, the harder you hit him, the harder he hits back.
T’Challa is also a master martial artist and proficient in many forms of combat. T’Challa has the intellect of a genius– although not at the same level as his sister Shuri– which allows him to make swift decisions during battle.
To aid him on his battles, Shuri has equipped him with all sorts of advanced gadgets and weapons. She is like the Q to his James Bond.
Even when imbued with the powers of the Heart-Shaped Herb, T’Challa can still sustain lethal injuries, however. His suit can be damaged by electromagnets, leaving him vulnerable to attacks.
Another setback is that he doesn’t hold up to an army of alien machines compared to someone like Thor.
Storm
Ororo Munroe, aka Strom, is one of the most powerful members of the X-Men. In the comics, she was worshipped as a goddess in the Serengeti before she was recruited to the X-Men.
Storm has the power to manipulate the weather at will, which is called Atmokinesis. By her command, Storm is able to create tempests, tornados, and any other extreme weather condition that comes to her mind.
Along with this ability, Munroe can project electricity from her hands and teleport through lightning. She also has atmospheric resistance, which means that she is immune to extreme weather conditions and is cable of generating a small atmosphere around her.
In addition, Storm has the ability to fly and can survive at higher altitudes because of her atmospheric resistance.
There is no question that Storm’s abilities make her one of the most powerful beings on Earth. However, she is not without weakness.
However, Storm has no superhuman strength nor any healing abilities and may have a hard time deflecting attack. Her strengths are more suited for offense rather than defense.
Speedsters prove to be difficult for her since she cannot react fast enough to stop them. A good distraction may make it easy to take her out of the equation during a battle.
Deadpool
An argument could be made that Deadpool is the most powerful superhero ever because he knows that he is fictional and, as long as his movies make money, he’s invincible. That argument won’t stand here, but it isn’t a bad one.
Wade Wilson, aka the Merc with a Mouth, is nearly impossible to slay. In the first movie, Francis theorized that cutting Wilson into small enough pieces might eliminate him because he cannot regenerate without his brain or central nervous system intact.
This idea flew out the window, along with his head, in the second movie when Wilson blows himself up and survives after being dismembered.
Deadpool has all of the typical powers of any hero– strength, agility, speed, etc. –but he is also a master acrobat. Throwing in some sick acrobatic moves while executing scores of men adds some flare to his skills as a swordsman and marksman.
However, he isn't without his fair share of weaknesses,
One of Wilson's weakness is that his powers, particularly the healing factor, can deactivated via inhibitor technology. His other weakness is that he doesn’t particularly care about saving the world and his stubborn arrogance often puts others in grave danger.
Deadpool is the kind of hero who is more interested in fighting intimate, small-scale battles than large-scale fights that would save the galaxy. It would be hard to imagine him joining the X-Men or any other major team to fight some world-conquering villain.
Loki
The redemption of Loki was a long one, but many fans were eager to see Loki and his brother, Thor, make amends. Loki Odinson, or Laufeyson depending on how he feels that day, is the adopted son of Odin and trickster god of Norse mythology.
Born a frost giant, Loki’s genetic make-up grants him superhuman capabilities. However, Loki’s real power is his mastery of sorcery. It is always difficult to know what is real or not when it to comes to Loki.
His favorite thing to do is create illusions by either projecting a hologram of himself to misdirect his enemies or creating entire scenarios that manipulate everyone around.
Through the power of hypnosis, Loki can also influence the thoughts and actions of others to do his bidding. He can cloud the minds of others so that they cannot see or hear him.
With the power of the tesseract and Thanos’ Chitauri army, Loki would have been able to take over the Earth if he didn't care for Thor and actually wanted to gain power.
In actuality, Loki’s defeat was mostly his fault. His arrogance as well as his ego got the best of him and inadvertently pushed the team closer together than they were before. Loki is often defeated by his own cockiness and selfishness. It is in his nature to deceive, even if it ends up ruining a situation either for Thor or himself.
Wolverine
Perhaps the most famous healing factor of all is the one that appears in Wolverine. Along with his adamantium claws, Logan is one of the most iconic superheroes of all time.
His popularity, though, is not the reason why he scores high on this list. Logan is one of the toughest and most resilient Marvel figures out there-- he is a perfect assassination machine.
With a reinforced adamantium skeleton, Logan is stronger and more dangerous than most. However, this makes him susceptible to magnetism and reduces his effectiveness against villains such as Magneto.
Beyond his healing factor and claws, Wolverine has animalistic senses that give him heightened hearing, sight, and smell, which make it difficult to attack him by surprise. He cannot be tricked by shapeshifters either, as he can use his advanced sense of smell to discover who is tricking him.
Wolverine’s regenerative abilities are so powerful that when Jean Grey, as the Dark Phoenix, was disintegrating everyone at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand, he was able to heal fast enough to defeat her.
Ultimately, it was age that lead to the Logan’s defeat. As he got older, the adamantium began to affect his healing factor, slowing it down and ultimately making it ineffective.
Adamantium was a double edge sword in his life. He was a more effective warrior because of it, but it also contributed to his eventual demise.
Hulk
As the mean, green giant likes to exclaim, “Hulk is strongest there is!”
There are a lot of heroes who have super strength, but when it comes to the Hulk, few are as strong as he is. As a failed attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum that produced Captain America, Bruce Banner becomes cursed with transforming into the Incredible Hulk whenever he gets too excited or agitated.
Able to take down a massive Chitauri Leviathan with a single punch in the first Avengers movie, the Hulk has become one of the strongest members of the Avengers.
Beyond super strength, the Hulk is essentially immortal and can heal any wound, making it nearly impossible to eliminate him.
The Hulk is assumed to be a mindless beast, and althoug he is not at the same level of his other half, Hulk has shown some intelligence and personality over the years. While on Sakaar, the Hulk learned some combat skills and became proficient at using weapons.
In his wild state, he was nearly impossible to stop, but now he is in greater control and has become a far more powerful force against anyone who threatens him.
However, Thanos easily defeated him, causing the Hulk to retreat into Banner and refuse to transform, resulting in some major performance issues. This is the first instance of fear and self-doubt that we’ve seen on screen with Hulk, so it's likely that it will continue to be an issue in the future.
Magneto
Born Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, Magneto is the master of magnetism and is considered one of the most powerful mutants to have ever lived. Blurring the lines between hero and villain, Magneto’s alliances have changed frequently. However, he has always maintained his devotion to mutant liberation.
With the power of magnetism, Magneto can manipulate any metallic substance. He can even control a person’s blood flow if they have enough iron in their veins. At his most powerful state, he can affect both of Earth’s magnetic poles in such a way to cause destruction on a global scale.
Magneto also has the ability to fly by gliding on the magnetic fields that he creates. He can also use those magnetic fields to generate an impenetrable force field around himself.
To shield himself from psychic attacks, he wears a helmet that is impenetrable to telepathy.
Magneto is also highly intelligent. He is multilingual and is an excellent strategist with an indomitable will. His only real weakness is that it takes a lot of mental and physical energy to use his powers.
After exerting so much energy, Magneto becomes exhausted and needs rest. He is also powerless against non-metallic objects, and cannot stop a plastic bullet, for example, without his force field.
Lastly, his greatest weakness is his arrogance. At times, he has underestimated his opponents, which has resulted in thwarted plans.