10 Times Captain Marvel Was the Most Powerful Avenger, Ranked

Mayra García is a staff writer for CBR with a profound love for comic books and linguistics.

Image via Laura Radford / Marvel / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

Carol Danvers has undergone numerous changes during her time as a superhero. Still, one thing has remained constant since she first gained her powers: she's one of the strongest characters to ever fight alongside the Avengers. Now, as Captain Marvel, she boasts an incredible power set that includes flight, energy absorption, and super strength and speed.

Captain Marvel is easily one of the strongest Avengers, but there have been times when she has climbed to the top spot of that rank. Whether it is a feat of strength, a title, or boasting some of her most amazing superpowers, Carol has been the most powerful Avenger a fair share of times in history.

She Took Down Two Sharks, No Oxygen Tank Needed

Captain Marvel fights with the Avengers in the background

Image via Marvel Comics

During Kelly DeConnick’s 2012 Captain Marvel run, the superhero gets involved in a mystery: ships keep disappearing in the Gulf of Mexico, so she grabs some scuba gear and delves into the ocean to see what’s happening. While investigating, two sharks surround her, ready to eat her.

Captain Marvel is way stronger than a shark or even two, and so are most Avengers. However, what truly sets Carol apart from her peers this time is her self-sustenance abilities. Captain Marvel can survive without eating, sleeping, or even breathing, so she was able to fight the two sharks underwater, no problem! No Marvel heroes could do this, excepting maybe Namor.

She Obliterated A Complete Alien Fleet

During DeConnick's 2014 run, Captain Marvel found herself surrounded by the Haffensye. This mercenary alien species travels the universe scavenging weaker planets, so the superheroine couldn't help but teach them a lesson. Carol took down a whole Haffensye fleet on her own, saving countless planets in the process.

As an outer space superhero, Captain Marvel is used to dealing with spaceships with all kinds of unknown technology. Her fight against the Haffensye stands out among all these conflicts because she handled a whole fleet alone. It was hundreds of weapons against her, but she came on top, proving to the readers that she deserves the Captain Marvel moniker.

She Became Torfa’s Sole Protector

After taking down Haffensye's fleet, Captain Marvel came to terms with how vulnerable Torfa was. This planet was the home of hundreds of refugees, but since it was also full of Vibranium, Spartax was after its resources without caring for the people living there. The Spartoi attempted to invade this location, but once again, Carol stood between them and the defenseless planet.

During this conflict, Carol used both her leadership skills and her superpower set to stop a complete army on her own. She didn't let the Spartoi take an ounce of Vibranium. By establishing herself as Torfa's guardian, she ensured no other predatory imperium would try to mess with this planet ever again.

She Took Iron Man’s Armor Off With a Blast

The Avengers aren’t strangers to fighting each other. So far, there have been two civil wars in the superhero community. During the second one, Captain Marvel and Iron Man found it impossible to see eye-to-eye on preemptive justice, so they ended up engaged in physical combat. During this messy fight, Captain Marvel actually punched Tony out of his suit.

Iron Man’s technology is pretty much invincible. He’s bright and rich enough that he can add anything his suits of armor need. However, there was nothing he could have done to counter Captain Marvel’s sheer strength. During this fight, Carol confirmed she’s an absolute powerhouse and that her abilities are superior even to the best technology on Earth.

She Took A Thanos Headbutt Like A Champ

The MCU version of Captain Marvel may not share a backstory with her comic counterpart, but she’s just as powerful. During the final battle against Thanos on Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel had a one-on-one combat with Thanos, and this was the closest the Avengers got to actually taking the Gauntlet – until Iron Man did it, of course.

While fighting the Mad Titan, Carol got close enough that Thanos headbutted her. However, to no one’s surprise, this hit didn’t move a single inch. For the first time in the franchise, there was a glimpse of fear in Thanos' eyes. This established Captain Marvel as one of the strongest heroes in the MCU.

She Actually Subdued Some of Her Peers

Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) appears in The Marvels

Image via Marvel Studios/Everett Collection

During Rick Remender's Secret Avengers run in 2012, Captain Marvel actually went eye-to-eye with some of her most beloved peers. When Minister Marvel controlled her mind and turned her into a weapon, the Secret Avengers had to face her unadulterated rage. Beast, Valkyrie, Captain Britain, and Rhodey barely managed to survive this fight.

Captain Marvel is definitely on the highest tiers when it comes to powerful Avengers, so there was very little her peers could do against her, especially since she wasn’t herself at the time. Not even an Asgardian warrior like Valkyrie or a genius like Beast was capable of keeping up with her battle skills.

She Used Her Own Body To Destroy A Whole Ship

Captain Marvel’s entrance during Avengers: Endgame is one of the most epic twists in the MCU. During the Battle of Earth, Thanos’ fleet suddenly fires towards an unknown flying object. The heroes fear it’s another enemy, but then the heroine appears. She goes through Thanos' ship using her own body as the bullet. After the ship sinks into the ocean, Carol joins the battle.

It takes a lot of power to go through a ship like Thanos, which is tons and tons of metal, wires, and whatnot. Carol simply flew through it on a straight line, and her impact was enough that the vessel became useless. No other Avenger did something similar, which means her energy aura goes beyond anything the heroes have seen before.

A couple of years after helping defeat Thanos, the MCU Captain Marvel showed her true strength once again during The Marvels. During the movie, Carol is able to produce enough energy to open a hole in space-time. She does this by punching the air so hard that she rips the fabric of reality, allowing Monica to restore the rupture from the other side.

After almost two decades in the MCU, there isn’t any other superhero who can do something like this. America Chavez can open portals, but this isn’t out of sheer strength. On the contrary, Carol can do this because her strength is simply enough to rip even the smallest atoms apart. No other Avenger can do this.

She Re-Powered A Star

During The Marvels, Carol ripped the fabric of reality, but she did something even more incredible, too. She used her own energy to repower the sun in Hala, saving the lives of all the inhabitants. This is what Dar-Benn, the movie’s villain, wanted to do in the first place, even if her methods were far from heroic.

Fans have always known that Carol is capable of absorbing superhuman amounts of energy without suffering, thanks to her DNA alteration. Still, the idea of a single woman powering up a star is incredible. This feat proved that she operates at a level above that of any other MCU hero. Even those with access to other realms’ energy, like Doctor Strange, wouldn’t take this kind of damage and survive it.

She Can “Go Binary”

Carol Danvers as Binary in the comics

Image via Marvel Comics

Many years before becoming Captain Marvel, the heroine known as Miss Marvel was kidnapped by the Brood. These villains experimented on her, subjecting her to evolutionary processes that mixed with her augmented genes, turning her into an even more powerful being. As Binary, Carol showed incredible cosmic abilities.

Even now, decades after she debuted as Binary, this is the strongest that Carol has ever been. As Binary, Carol basically became an amped-up version of herself. Since she was capable of absorbing the energy of a white hole, this made her even more powerful than she already was. During this time, Carol was able to fly at the speed of light, generate light and heat, control gravitational fields, and absorb energy of any kind from the electromagnetic spectrum on a stellar scale, no matter how large the planet.

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