What The MCU's Greatest Superpower Is

Here's why Doctor Strange has the greatest MCU superpower of all. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a vast landscape full of dozens of powerful characters, but not every power is created evenly and Strange is far and away the most mighty of all of Earth's Defenders thanks to possessing the MCU's greatest power.

The heroes (and villains) of the MCU have a melange of powers, ranging from the mildly impressive like mastery of archery to the incredible like manipulation of reality. The greatest superpower of all belongs to Doctor Strange who debuted in Phase 3. Stephen Strange is now the acting Sorcerer Supreme, though when the 2016 film Doctor Strange begins that isn't the case. In an attempt to heal his hands after a car accident, Strange travels to Kamar-Taj where he learns sorcery from the Ancient One, picking up an array of powers and coming into possession of the Time Stone and unlocking a vast array of powers.

While studying under the Ancient One, Strange learns magic including astral projection, traveling great distances (and in and out of different dimensions) in the blink of an eye, and most notably of all, time manipulation thanks to the Eye of Agamotto, which in the film contains the Time Stone. Here's why that power is the MCU's most powerful.

In Doctor Strange, Strange proves the value of time manipulation when he is able to reverse time to undo the damage that Dormammu and the powers of the Dark Dimension have done to Earth including bringing dead characters back to life. That mastery of death is something no single MCU character has ever truly achieved. He even goes as far as to trap himself and Dormammu in an infinite time loop, allowing himself to die repeatedly until Dormammu agrees to take his followers and leave Earth alone in exchange for his freedom from the time loop.

There is no power on the level of time manipulation in the rest of the MCU. With all due respect to super-strong or super-fast characters, the likes of Captain America or even the Incredible Hulk cannot compete with the more supernatural powers possessed by the likes of Scarlet Witch, Vision, and of course Doctor Strange. And while Scarlet Witch may be able to manipulate people's minds, Strange can change time itself and doesn't need to stop unwanted outcomes from happening - like his own "death" at the end of Infinity War. If he falls short, he can fix his mistakes simply by reversing time. He essentially makes himself infallible.

There is, of course, some argument that the power really lies in the Time Stone, and not in Strange himself, but it is his mastery of time manipulation and his knowledge of how it and the multiverse works that confirms he is a key element. When Thanos had the Time Stone, he had access to the powers of the stone, but he had not studied it like Doctor Strange had and could not claim to have been able to use it as well. Thanks to his studying of the Book of Cagliostro, Strange truly understands time manipulation, and there is even the suggestion that he doesn't actually need the Time Stone to do it at this point. Doctor Strange established that Strange can travel through the Multiverse and that Sorcerers could use Sling Ring magic to enter the quantum realm, which could still allow him to bend time to his will.

Crucially, when Doctor Strange begins, its titular hero is merely an arrogant - if brilliant - surgeon but by the end of the film, he's capable of defeating an unprecedented evil from another dimension solely through his ability to manipulate time. That speaks to the incredible power he held, and that's why it's the greatest of all. And while Strange's power is reliant on an external influence - the Stone and Sling Ring magic - he is far from the only MCU character to have his power sourced from something like an Infinity Stone, so it's not a reductive factor.

Next: Who Would Become Sorcerer Supreme If Doctor Strange Died?