Superhero movies have given us some truly overpowered characters. We’re at a point where the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who was called the “Strongest Avenger” in Thor: Ragnarok, doesn’t even crack the top 10 anymore. Back in the early days, taking down an elevator full of henchmen or throwing a car across the street seemed like the peak of strength.
Now we have heroes who can travel across universes, bend time, and even reshape reality itself. In this list, we’re looking at the most powerful heroes from both Marvel and DC universes. These god-tier characters are the ultimate powerhouses of their worlds, and we’ve ranked the top 10 based on their most insane feats we’ve seen on screen so far.
10
Thor
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the God of Thunder, and in the MCU, he’s been alive for over 1,500 years. On top of that, he wields Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, which are two of the most powerful weapons in the entire Marvel universe. Mjolnir lets Thor fly, channel his lightning abilities, and it can hit a target across the globe and still return to his hand. Stormbreaker can even summon the Bifrost at will, and it’s strong enough to cut through the Infinity Gauntlet even when it was channeling the power of all six Infinity Stones.
In Ragnarok, Thor fought the Hulk without Mjolnir and still came out on top. In Infinity War, he survived the full force of a neutron star while forging Stormbreaker. And once he is supercharged by lightning, there’s pretty much no stopping him. His entrance in Wakanda wiped out entire waves of Outriders and completely turned the tide of the war.
9
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) gets her powers from the Tesseract, which means she is powered by an Infinity Stone. She can fly at incredible speeds, has insane superhuman strength and durability, and can fire photon blasts from her hands. At one point, Kevin Feige himself stated that Captain Marvel is the strongest superhero ever introduced in the MCU.
Her feats speak for themselves. In Endgame, she casually flew straight through Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) ship and destroyed it. Then she went head-to-head with the Mad Titan himself. This was Thanos with the full Infinity Gauntlet, and she still held his hands open when he tried to snap. His headbutt (the same move that crushed Hulk so badly he refused to come out again) did absolutely nothing to her. She didn’t even blink. Thanos had to rip the Power Stone out and use it directly just to take her down.
8
Doctor Strange
As stated by The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) mastery of the mystic arts makes him the greatest sorcerer in the universe. He can open portals anywhere, make the entire world forget something, and even control his own corpse across the multiverse. He trapped Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the God of Mischief, in an endless freefall and even left Thor shocked with his magic tricks, which says a lot because Thor’s mother was raised by witches.
In Infinity War, Strange fought Thanos when he already had four Infinity Stones and still managed to keep him occupied for a long time. He’s also the reason the Avengers won in Endgame because he went through 14,000,605 possible futures to find the one where they succeed. And once Strange is in the Mirror Dimension with his Sling Ring, he’s essentially a god. He can bend reality and space any way he wants.
7
Professor X
Professor X (James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart) can read minds, speak directly in people’s heads, erase memories, create illusions, and even take full control of someone’s body. He can freeze people in place and basically stop time, but he calls that “showing off” and doesn’t even like to use that ability in fights. His powers are also capable of transcending time, like when he spoke to his younger self in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
In Logan, his mind was classified as a weapon of mass destruction after his seizures injured over 600 people and killed several X-Men. Those same powers almost wiped out the entire human race in X2 when he was connected to Cerebro. That’s how scary powerful he is.
6
The Sentry
According to Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Sentry (Lewis Pullman) is invincible, all-powerful, and stronger than all of the Avengers rolled into one. And that isn’t hyperbole. He’s insanely fast, can fly, has telekinesis, superhuman strength, and so far, looks almost impossible to kill. We’ve already seen him take on three super soldiers, bend U.S. Agent’s (Wyatt Russell) shield like a taco, generate enough heat to melt a gun, and even grab Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in her intangible form and stop her from phasing. And he was barely even trying to hurt them.
But that’s just the Sentry side. When he loses control or dies, he turns into the Void. In this persona, he can unleash an ever-expanding wave of darkness that traps people inside their worst nightmares. Right now, we still don’t know his true limits because he hasn’t actually fought at full power. But even at his lowest, he’s already in the conversation for one of the strongest characters in superhero history.
5
Superman
This one’s tricky because there are so many live-action versions of Superman, from Christopher Reeve to Henry Cavill to David Corenswet, but every single one ranks at the top when it comes to raw physical power. Superman’s got insane strength, flight, speed that rivals the Flash (Ezra Miller), heat vision, ice breath, and hearing sharp enough to pick up sounds from across continents. And as long as he’s under a yellow sun, he’s practically unkillable.
In the DCEU alone, we saw him fight Zod (Michael Shannon) and level an entire city, pull apart Mother Boxes, and rag-doll Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) around like a toy. When he came back to life in Justice League and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Diana (Gal Gadot), and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) tried to restrain him, he overpowered all three at once. And while doing that, he still had time to notice Flash moving at super speed and stare him down so hard that Flash stumbled out of sheer fear. In Superman Returns, he lifted an entire island with Kryptonite at its core. And in James Gunn’s Superman, he even escaped the gravitational pull of a black hole using his ice breath. If that’s not god-tier power, what is?
4
Jean Grey
Jean Grey (Famke Janssen/Sophie Turner) is fused with the Phoenix Force, which is a cosmic entity so strong it can manipulate matter and energy across the entire universe. With that kind of power, she’s the only telepath who surpasses Professor X. In Dark Phoenix, she even forced him out of his wheelchair and made him walk against his will. Her telekinetic abilities were so overwhelming that Charles had to put psychic blocks on her mind when she was young just to keep them under control.
In X-Men: The Last Stand, she disintegrated hundreds of people in seconds, survived Cyclops’ (James Marsden) optic blasts, and even vaporized Professor X himself. In X-Men: Apocalypse, she single-handedly defeated Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) after all the other X-Men failed. And when she fully taps into the Phoenix Force, her powers are near infinite. She can alter matter on a molecular level and even reshape reality. On top of that, as long as the Phoenix Force is inside her, Jean can keep coming back to life when she dies.
3
Scarlet Witch
Wanda’s (Elizabeth Olsen) powers are so strong that they surpass even the Sorcerer Supreme, which is insane because Doctor Strange is already one of the strongest beings in the MCU. She’s also prophesied to destroy the universe, and there’s an entire chapter about her in the Darkhold. That alone tells you how terrifying she is.
In Infinity War, she destroyed an Infinity Stone while holding off Thanos, who already had five stones. In Endgame, she came so close to killing him that he had to call in an airstrike just to survive. She also created a mini pocket reality in WandaVision where she rewrote hundreds of people’s lives, controlled their every move, and even created three new living beings out of nothing. In Multiverse of Madness, she brute-forced her way out of the Mirror Dimension, wiped out hundreds of sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, and even annihilated the entire Illuminati without much effort. Doctor Strange himself couldn’t stop her. In the end, Wanda had to take herself out because no one else could.
2
Loki
Loki has always been powerful, but the end of Loki Season 2 changed everything. He is no longer just the God of Mischief. He is the God of Stories, and that makes him omnipotent and omniscient on a multiversal level.
Loki sits at the end of time and quite literally holds the fate of every universe in his hands. He can watch over all timelines, rewrite them, or completely erase them if he wants to. Now, anything that happens in the MCU only happens because Loki allows it. The only reason he’s at #2 is because we haven’t seen him really use these powers yet. Come Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars, Loki could easily climb to #1.
1
Doctor Manhattan
“God exists, and he is American.” That’s how Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) is described in Watchmen, and it’s not an exaggeration. He can manipulate matter at a subatomic level, which means he can turn anything into anything else with just a thought. He can grow to any size, shrink, fly, and teleport anywhere in an instant. He can duplicate himself and objects. And he doesn’t age.
Manhattan also experiences the past, present, and future all at once. He knows everything that has happened and everything that will ever happen during his life. He can create life from nothing, erase any matter from existence in an instant, and he possesses a deep understanding of the workings of the universe on a cosmic scale.
Watchmen
- Release Date
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March 4, 2009
- Runtime
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163 Minutes
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