Every Major Team in the MCU, Ranked by Power

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, and comic book properties in general, have some of the most powerful characters in fiction—villains and heroes alike. This has become even more apparent with this year’s releases of Thunderbolts*, Superman, and, most recently, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Each of these movies features some of the most powerful characters in their cinematic universes.

The MCU specifically has some real heavy hitters, thanks to how long they’ve been around. As the universe has grown exponentially over time, more and more characters have come together and proven just how powerful they are. There are currently nine major teams in the MCU, and each one has some extremely powerful members. But who is the strongest there is? The ranking will be based on known feats, how meaningful they are to the MCU overall, and the versatility of their members.

9

The Defenders

“Someone’s gotta look out for the little guy.”

Marvel’s premier street-level team of heroes, The Defenders, is much stronger than people give them credit for. Just because a team is street-level doesn’t mean they’re not strong. In the MCU, The Defenders consists of Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones)—all of whom are some pretty heavy hitters.

Daredevil is one of the most skilled fighters on the streets of New York City, Jessica Jones is ridiculously strong and has the brain of a private eye, Luke Cage is the unbreakable man, and Iron Fist has a power within him that is absurdly strong and mystical. If it came down to it, The Defenders could take on a good chunk of the MCU and give them a run for their money. If anyone’s going to protect the city in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, it’s going to be these heroes.

8

The Illuminati

They could have been so much more…

In theory, The Illuminati featured in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness should be much higher on a list of most powerful MCU teams. However, they don’t get that opportunity thanks to how the cinematic universe represented them in this wildly divisive sequel. The team has Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), Black Bolt (Anson Mount), and Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch) in their ranks; one would think they’d be far more powerful than they ultimately are.

Their very short time in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, though, represented them as far weaker than anyone would have expected them to be. They’re completely wiped out by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in the span of a mere three minutes — in fact, most of the team went down in the first minute. With how powerful they’re set up to be and how strong they are in the comics, they should have put up far more of a fight, even with how powerful Wanda is at this time, than they did.

7

The Guardians of the Multiverse

Forgettable but strong…

It’s been commonly accepted at this point that What If…? was nothing near what it could have and should have been, and that it struggled towards the finish line. The end of the series, however, features a team that does some pretty extraordinary things. The second iteration of the team, consisting of Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell), Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), Kahhori (Devery Jacobs), and Byrdie the Duck (Natasha Lyonne), came together, reforming the Guardians, to save the multiverse once again.

These four manage to save the Nova Corps by killing a full-on interdimensional being, partially because the character created specifically for What If…? Kahhori gets her powers directly from the Tesseract, AKA the Space Stone. Thus, like Scarlet Witch before, her Infinity Stone-fueled power is explosively strong.

6

The Thunderbolts/The New Avengers

“We all just punch and shoot?”

While it may seem like The Thunderbolts, AKA the New Avengers, should be much lower, they have one member on the team that makes them far more powerful than the likes of The Defenders and The Illuminati: Bob (Lewis Pullman) and his dual personalities, the Sentry and the Void. Indeed, Sentry is one of the most powerful Marvel beings, and that is made very clear in the third act of Thunderbolts*.

However, while Sentry may be seemingly invincible at this point, the New Avengers don’t go higher on the list because they can’t solely rely on Sentry. In fact, going into Avengers: Doomsday, Bob has benched the Sentry out of fear of awakening the Void. The New Avengers still have some pretty powerful members, especially Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and her phasing abilities. They also have a few super soldiers and one of the most skilled assassins on the planet, so they can put up a great fight.

5

The Guardians of the Galaxy

“What a bunch of A-holes.”

When they first joined the MCU in 2014, no one expected the self-proclaimed Guardians of the Galaxy to be as strong as they ended up being, especially as more members began to join in the sequels. Alas, by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, they were super strong. They’ve got one of the galaxy’s best weapon specialists in Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), the self-regenerating Groot (Vin Diesel), the mighty Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), known as the deadliest woman in the galaxy, her cybernetic sister, and a phenomenal telepath.

Anyone doubting the strength of the Guardians just needs to look to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, where their combined strength kills a Celestial, an absurdly primal being who also happens to be an entire planet. Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) is ridiculously strong, and the fact that these misfits took him down is more than enough to justify their ranking.

4

The Marvels

In the words of ‘The Boys,’ “Girls get it done.”

While The Marvels got a lot of unprecedented hate, it brought together three heroes that were intertwined and, together, were wildly powerful. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is already extremely powerful, one of the strongest of all the Avengers as is. So, when she’s paired up with two other powerhouses in Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), the team-up defies every expectation.

Combined with the overwhelming power of Captain Marvel, The Marvels also have Ms. Marvel’s Hardlight and Monica’s control over the electromagnetic spectrum around her. All these powers together make them a great trio that works together almost seamlessly by the end of The Marvels. That unity, matched with their strength, makes them a force to be reckoned with.

3

The Fantastic Four

Marvel’s newest heroes are some of their strongest!

With the newfound success of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, people are all over the MCU’s iteration of Marvel’s First Family, and for very good reason. Everyone knew that The Fantastic Four were powerful when walking into The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but this version of the team is on a whole different level. The change comes from Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) and the new member of the family, Franklin Richards (Ada Scott).

The Fantastic Four have some super unique and strong powers in their catalog. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) has his elasticity, Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) has his rocky exterior and gianormous strength, Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) can flame-on, and Sue Storm can turn invisible and project energy fields. In the film, Sue uses all her strength to literally push Galactus (Ralph Ineson) down the streets of New York City. Not to mention, their newest family member, Franklin, has cosmic power described by Galactus as “infinite.”

2

The Eternals

Remember them?

Come 2021, Marvel Studios was ready to introduce their next big team to the MCU and put a lot of their cards into them. For Eternals, Marvel Studios locked down some incredible actors to bring this team to life and display their powers on screen, including an Oscar winner, an Oscar nominee, and a few international stars. Made up of ten powerhouses called Eternals, this team is made up of absolute titans.

The Eternals make up some of the most recognizable power sets in superhero cinema (super speed, strength, laser eyes, etc.) and some incredibly unique ones, as well. It’s a shame that, because of the film’s overall disappointment with fans and critics, the team is fading into obscurity. Indeed, there was a ton of potential for these ten, and their powers were depicted very well. A great example is Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) and her super speed, widely considered the best representation of super speed in a superhero film.

1

The Avengers

Who isn’t an Avenger at this point?

It’s hard for the primary and premier team of the cinematic universe not to be their most powerful. Not only do the Avengers have gods, wall-crawlers, super soldiers, and more on their roster, but the sheer number of heroes that make it up also adds a boatload of power to their overall ranks, especially if one considers the group at the end of Avengers: Endgame a team lineup of Avengers.

90% of the Avengers have extremely powerful sets of abilities. Furthermore, there are simply too many Avengers, and they could take on almost anyone based on sheer numbers alone, alongside how strong they all are individually. They took on Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his army, saving the entire universe, defeated an entire alien invasion in New York City — with just their initial lineup, no less — and stopped Ultron (James Spader) from dropping a city from the sky. If that’s not impressive, then what is?

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