The studio that brought us the Avengers has come a long way since the first Marvel movie in 1986. It’s given birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is arguably the most successful movie franchise today.
But long after we got our hearts and souls wrecked after watching Avengers: Endgame, members of the geekdom are still debating on the most powerful superhero. One of the most popular debates is finding out who’d win in a Captain Marvel vs Thor vs Superman battle.
For the sake of geekdom (and science!), we’re each going to judge the heroes by their strength, speed, durability, fighting skills, and special powers. Let’s get down to nitty-gritty to figure out who will reign supreme.
Captain Marvel vs Superman
Strength: Captain Marvel
Are you surprised to find out who’s stronger between Captain Marvel and Superman? I’m sorry but even though Superman is the strongest hero on Earth, he’s no match with Captain Marvel when it comes to strength.
Binary is Captain Marvel’s ultimate transformation, allowing her to reach peak power and beyond. Her strength level becomes practically incalculable, with it being linked to an interstellar white hole. Superman won’t be able to cyclone the air out of her lungs.
Speed: Captain Marvel
Superman is faster than the speed of a freshly fired bullet, but Captain Marvel can travel at the speed of light. ‘Nuff said.
Durability: Captain Marvel
Superman may be the Man of Steel, but his vulnerability to kryptonite and kryptonite-radiation means it’s usually game over for him. The MCU hasn’t revealed Captain Marvel’s weaknesses yet, unless you include her issues in sorting out her identity and memories, so if it comes down to a physical fight between Captain Marvel and Superman, Captain Marvel can easily take him down with the deadly green stuff.
Fighting Skills: Captain Marvel
For all of Superman’s raw power and brute strength, he’s struggled against weaker foes yet superior fighters like Wonder Woman. Once someone looks for openings, dances around him, and strikes quickly, they can certainly take him down.
Captain Marvel has received rigorous military training, both by the Air Force and the Kree, so she’s outstanding when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. Superman may have a couple of martial arts skills up his sleeves, but at the end of the day, he relies more on his powers. Captain Marvel doesn’t have to. Plus, since we don’t know how many Marvel movies there will be of her in the future, we can look forward to her combat skills further developing.
Special Powers: Superman
This category goes to Superman because he’s gifted with incredible abilities such as superhuman strength, heat vision, telescopic vision, microscopic vision, x-ray vision, freeze breath, superhuman hearing, and the ability to produce gale-force winds with his breath.
Captain Marvel can absorb and manipulate energy, but Superman simply has a wider range of special powers that he can use to his advantage.
Clear Winner: Captain Marvel (5/6)
Captain Marvel’s never one to back down from a challenge, even if that challenge is the Man of Steel. Rest assured, Superman will have his hands more than full with her.
Thor vs Superman
Strength: Superman
Thor has shown a considerable amount of strength. His raw strength was able to destroy an entire planet and he’s punched down the Phoenix Force and Galactus, entities of Universal Cosmic strength. He also resisted a black hole’s gravity, held up Asgard, and leg-pressed one million tons.
However, Superman is a touch stronger as he’s dragged planets along and punched people into orbit. The difference between their strength levels isn’t wide, but it’s enough for the Man of Steel to defeat the God of Thunder in a showdown of strength.
Speed: Superman
While Thor is imbued with the magical power to spin Mjolnir/Stormbreaker at lightning speed, Superman could probably tackle Thor down before the demigod can wield his mighty hammer. It’s been said that Superman can fly around the Earth and return to the same spot in the span of a single blink. He can definitely catch the demigod off-guard with his around the world in the blink of an eye gambit.
Durability: Thor
Thor’s durability is vastly superior compared to Superman’s. The latter is weak to magic and Kryptonite and doesn’t have great mind control resistance. Thor isn’t vulnerable to anything at all (except, perhaps his Lady Jane). He isn’t susceptible to neither heat nor cold, so Superman’s heat vision and freeze breath won’t have much of an effect on him.
Fighting Skills: Thor
Thor has thousands of years of experience in combat. He’s been protecting multiple universes from powerful threats for centuries, and successfully, no less. Superman has only been using his powers for around 20-30 years. You don’t have to be a math wizard to figure this one out.
Special Powers: Thor
When it comes to versatility, Superman has the upper since he has a wider arsenal (e.g. heat vision and freeze breath). However, Thor fought Frost Giants and endured energy blasts from god-like Celestials. Superman’s powers may hurt Thor, but they wouldn’t be able to put him down.
Clear Winner: Thor (4/5)
Thor only has one primary power, lightning, but they could prove to be effective against the Man of Steel. He also has a magic hammer that’s stronger than himself and Superman.
Thor vs Captain Marvel
Strength: Captain Marvel
Captain Marveland Thor are both incredibly strong, but Captain Marvel wins in this category. Yes, Thor’s stronger than most Asgardians, showing feats of superhero strength across his multiple appearances in the MCU. He can fight toe-to-toe against the Hulk, lift a falling car effortlessly with one arm, crush Iron Man’s MK VI armor, and freaking hold the iris of Nidavellir (damn, what a guy).
However, Captain Marvel managed to hold off Thanos AND destroy his main ship like it was nothing. No doubt about it, Carol Danvers wins this round.
Speed: Captain Marvel
For speed, Captain Marvel wins this round. She is incredibly fast, showing the ability to fly from ground level to space within seconds. This makes sense, considering the energy she absorbed was from a light-speed engine based on the Space Stone’s energy.
Thor is only as quick as her if he has Mjolnir and Stormbreaker with him. Mjolnir lets him travel beyond the speed of sound, while Stormbreaker allows him to travel beyond the speed of light.
But since Carol doesn’t require an external weapon, she has the edge in this category.
Durability: Tie
It’s a tie for this round as both Thor and Captain Marvel show marvelous feats of durability. In Thor: the Dark World, Thor takes an absolute punishment from Kurse without suffering much visible damage, alongside withstanding direct blasts from the Reality Stone. In Avengers: Infinity War, he endured coming into direct contact with the Power Stone and the Nidavellir. Aside from his incredible damage resistance, he also has an outstanding healing factor, with Stormbreaker allowing him to heal in seconds.
Captain Marvel also seems invincible due to her abilities. Before having her limiter removed, she survived falling from the atmosphere into the Earth without much discomfort. After she had her limiter removed, she was able to survive in outer space while penetrating through Kree ships and missiles without much damage.
Fighting Skills: Thor
Both Captain Marvel and Thor have excellent fighting skills, but Thor wins this category with ease. Captain Marvel tends to rely on her power to overwhelm her opponents, letting her combat skills take the back seat. For instance, when she was in combat with Yon-Rogg, the latter had the upper hand; and before unleashing her powers on Thanos, the titan was able to predict her blows and easily fling her away.
Thor has combat experience all his life, which is why he excels in straight-up fights. He even beat the Hulk due to his knowledge of combat. In Avengers: Endgame, Thor easily had Thanos on the ropes and only got beat due to the titan’s immense strength.
Special Powers: Captain Marvel
In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor’s special power to manipulate lightning wasn’t all that great. Yes, he was able to crack and shatter the Rainbow Bridge, but Hela still made short work of him, even when he went all-out against her.
Captain Marvel’s binary form is extremely powerful, as she showed complete immunity towards Thanos’ attacks. She was also able to finish off the Sanctuary, and all of Ronan’s and Thanos’ warships.
Clear Winner: Captain Marvel (4/6)
Sorry to all Thor fans, but in a Thor vs Captain Marvel battle, the God of Thunder will get his ass beat. He definitely won’t go down without a fight, but Captain Marvel is the decisive winner.
Captain Marvel vs Thor vs Superman: Who’s the winner?
Ding-ding-ding! It’s no one else but our newest hero on the superhero movie block – Captain Marvel.
While Thor and Superman max out on just one ability, Captain Marvel diversifies and that’s what makes her the true winner. She can spar with the both of them and take a beating, all while blasting out energy and careening through space at lightning speed. Let’s also not forget that she was the only superhero capable of taking on Thanos.
Love her or hate her, you can’t deny that her power is off the charts, making her one of the strongest (if not the strongest) superhero in today’s mainstream media. And now that Disney owns Marvel and has plans of releasing more films of Captain Marvel in the future, we can look forward to see just how much they’ll develop her powers in the next releases.
