The Avengers are the world's mightiest heroes. Well, that's what they say anyway. But are they? We aren't so sure they are. In fact, when we think about it, we can come up with quite a long list of names of characters from the Marvel Universe more formidable than a lot of past and present members of the Avengers. The embarrassing thing? Sometimes it's an Avenger's kid who could theoretically - and in some cases, evidently -- give their parents a butt-whooping.
To be fair, some Avengers have kids who are Omega Level Mutants. In which case, they've put ego aside and are probably doing everything they can just to keep their kids on the path of the good. Other Avengers' kids don't have as much to work with, but are remarkably ambition, courageous, or intelligent. Some of their offspring proudly follow in their mother's or father's footsteps and join the Avengers. Then again, some end up being unkillable, evil androids that nearly destroy the Avengers every time they fight -- which is often. You never know when you have a kid -- especially if you inhabit the Marvel Universe. Here are 15 kids of past and present members of the Avengers who are more powerful than their parents.
15 RED SKULL (ULTIMATE)
It's hard to imagine a more personal rivalry than the one between the 616 Steve Rogers and Red Skull -- but their ultimate universe counterparts may fit the bill. That's because in the ultimate universe Skull is Rogers' son. During WWII, shortly after Captain America was deceased, Cap's son was born in secret, kept at a military compound. The child grew up even stronger and more skilled than his father. At the age of 17, he escaped from the compound, removed the skin from his head, and resolved to be his father's opposite.
As the Red Skull, he orchestrated the assassination of JFK and played pivotal roles behind-the-scenes in wars and dictatorial regimes. When he finally came across his time-displaced father, Skull was working with A.I.M., and eventually got his hands on the cosmic cube, threatening the entire Ultimate universe.
14 STINGER
Cassie Lang, daughter of Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, has already racked up a few aliases during her relatively short time as a superhero. She started out as Stature in the pages of Young Avengers, taking up her father's cross in the wake of Scott's death during "Avengers: Disassembled".
Cassie rose quickly in the Marvel Universe. Not long after fighting for the Young Avengers, she graduated and was asked by Scarlet Witch to join an iteration of the Mighty Avengers. Since then, she reunited with the Young Avengers for the Children's Crusade, went toe-to-toe with Doctor Doom, died, and was reborn. You know, the usual. This time around, she adopted the codename Stinger. As Stinger, she works alongside her father, Ant-Man, as one of Marvel's tiniest duos.
13 SCOTTY SUMMERS
Like Franklin Richards, Scotty Summers is a child with potentially celestial level mutant power. Scotty is the son of recent Avengers member, Havok, and Madelyne Pryor, aka Goblin Queen.
Signs of Scotty's immense power initially surfaced during the "Inferno" event. The demons of N'astirh and Sym showed interest in him -- desiring to use the child as a sacrifice to open up a portal to the Goblin Force. His mother ended up saving him but became possessed by the Goblin Queen as a consequence. Any doubt of the tremendous power hiding within Scotty was cast aside when he managed to defeat the Goblin Queen with a single touch. Since the news got out about Scotty's power, he's been hunted by various malevolent forces, including an evil Professor X and the Goblin Force.
12 DOCTOR POSITRON
Poor Blue Marvel. The guy has some serious family problems. After a conflict with Galactus, his son Kevin was sucked through a portal and lost in the Neutral Zone. The event destroyed Blue Marvel's family and motivated his other son, Max, to go down a dark path and become the supervillain known as Doctor Positron.
His villainous deeds began as necessary means to find his brother. Doctor Positron worked for the terrorist organization W.E.S.P.E. to build up the capital needed to investigate a way to locate Kevin. During the first meeting between Blue Marvel and Doctor Positron, Positron opened up a portal to the Neutral Zone -- but Kevin erupted from it enlarged before disappearing again. Having recently grown tired of his villainous exploits, it looks like Max has turned over a new leaf.
11 HOPE SUMMERS
After M-Day, it looked like the mutant race was heading for extinction. That is until Hope Summers was born, the daughter of a firefighter and the first new mutant since the worst day in mutant history. Soon after, Hope was unofficially adopted by Cable, a member of the Avengers Unity Division, who took her into the future to protect her from those that wanted to kill her. Bishop was convinced that Hope was responsible for his dystopian future, so he was intent on killing the child.
Cable succeeded, and Hope was protected until the time came for her to return to her present and join the X-Men. In addition to representing the bright future of the mutant race, Hope is an Omega Level Mutant. She can mimic the powers of those close to her and exhibits low-level subconscious control over post-M-day mutants.
10 FRANKLIN RICHARDS
Sue and Reed Richards only served as members of the Avengers for a few missions but were Avengers nonetheless. That qualifies their ridiculously powerful son, Franklin Richards, for this list. Franklin is an Omega Level Mutant. In other words, he's really, really, powerful. He has deep wells of telepathic and telekinetic powers and has the potential to remodel the molecular structure of energy and matter to make what he needs.
In a story that featured a future version of him, he forced Galactus to bow, making the devourer of worlds Franklin's herald. So strong was adult Franklin that he was described as "the great enemy of the omniversal order." Hopefully, nothing goes awry as Franklin grows up. If he were to leave the side of the angels, the Avengers and their allies would be in great danger.
9 MODI THORSON
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Thor and Hela have a child named Modi Thorson. During "Ultimatum", Thor went to Valhalla to find Valkyrie and came across Hela. In order to escape from Valhalla, Thor made a deal with her to give her a child.
A while later, Modi met up with his father when the Children of Tomorrow were invading Asgard. To protect Modi, Thor locked him away with Mjolnir -- promising him that he'd be able to break out whenever Modi became worthy. Bad move. By the time Modi was an adult, he'd broke out with Mjolnir -- and resolved to catalyze another American Civil War. Modi, who also had the mind gem, gave the Ultimates a run for their money. Thor seized his opportunity when the mind gem was removed from Modi's grasp, and he killed his son gone bad.
8 THUNDERSTRIKE
Kevin Masterson is the son of Eric Masterson, the original Thunderstrike. Eric's Thunderstrike came into being after he befriended Thor, and became increasingly involved with the world of the gods. He even filled in for Thor for a while when the God of Thunder had vanished.
Years after his father died in battle, Kevin followed in Eric's footsteps. Captain America handed him the Thunderstrike mace, and, after running to Rhino, Kevin transformed into Thunderstrike. Gruenhilda the Valkyrie came to Thunderstrike to teach him how to wield the Asgardian weapon, ensuring that he doesn't arrive at a fate similar to his father's. Thanks to Gruenhilda, Thunderstrike became more skilled than his father and played a key role in "Fear Itself". Later, Thunderstrike participated in Avengers Academy alongside fellow young heroes.
7 SWORDSWOMAN
Jacques Duquesne, aka Swordsman, was never the most popular Avenger. But he was an early Avenger who had quite a long run in comics before meeting his demise in Chaos War #5. Like others on this list, Jacques had a child, in this case, Adelynn Duquesne, who took up his mantle after his death.
Adelynn made her debut as Swordswoman as a member of Euroforce. Euroforce is a squad of European superheroes, currently consisting of Swordswoman, Black Knight, Key, Tiger, Tumult, Baby Killer, and Silver. Euroforce has had several notable missions, including a battle with Morgan le Fay and her legions of the undead, and fighting Hydra during Secret Empire. As a side note, Swordswoman once duked it out with Spider-Woman while in Italy. But there was no ill-will--she simply mistook her for an enemy.
6 VALERIA RICHARDS
Valeria Richards is the second child of the one-time Avengers Sue and Reed Richards. While she doesn't have the terrifyingly vast power of her Omega Level Mutant brother, Valeria is powerful and has immense potential for another reason. She's a kid genius that puts all other kid geniuses to shame. According to her, she's even smarter than her father.
What's scary is how she prefers her uncle, Victor von Doom, over her father -- a relationship that's been explored in recent years. Valeria became an adamant critic about how her father went about things, suggesting that her father often used his genius for selfish ends and not for the greater good. This motivated Valeria to move to Latveria with the intent of reforming her uncle. It seems to have worked to some extent, although one possible future has Valeria following in the traditional Doctor Doom's footsteps.
5 PHOTON
Genis-Vell, aka Photon, was the son of the late Captain Mar-Vell. Genis had gone by a number of codenames since taking on superheroic responsibilities, including Legacy, Captain Marvel, and finally, Photon. Photon was among the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. He had super strength, super durability, super speed and the ability to control and manipulate psionic and cosmic energy. It seemed that such a being couldn't be destroyed -- but he was.
After joining the Thunderbolts, Genis slowly lost control of his power. He couldn't stop drawing energy into himself. This led Helmut Zemo to determine that Genis had to be stopped before he caused serious damage in the universe. The Thunderbolts were able to destroy Photon by scattering is body parts in different divisions of the dark dimension.
4 RED SHE-HULK
It seems like everybody in Bruce Banner's life has been hulking out in the past decade. Notably, General Ross transformed into the uber-powerful Red Hulk and even served as an Avenger for a time. Shortly after, the General's daughter, and Bruce Banner's long-time love-interest, Betty Ross, became Red She-Hulk.
Red She-Hulk has proven to be more than just another monster. One time she nearly killed Hulk. Actually, she technically did. The two collided in The Incredible Hulk #634 and destroyed everybody and everything close to them -- including themselves. However, everybody was brought back to life thanks to a magical wish that Hulk had made beforehand, allowing the two to resume their world-breaking fight. Given this, it's not difficult to imagine Red She-Hulk coming out on top if she were to go toe-to-toe with her red goliath of a father.
3 WASP
Nadia Pym is the daughter of Hank Pym aka Giant-Man/Ant-Man, and his first wife. Nadia's mother was killed by on her honeymoon by Soviet spies, and she was taken to the Red Room in Moscow, Russia where she was to grow up and become an agent. After discovering her parentage, Nadia got her hands on a Pym Particle sample and escaped the Red Room.
She made her way all the way to New Jersey only to discover that her father had perished while fighting Ultron. Nadia then sought out her step-mother, Janet van Dyne -- the original Wasp. After Nadia proved herself, Janet gave Nadia her blessing to take on the mantle of the Wasp. Since then, Nadia's joined the Avengers and has popped up seemingly everywhere in the Marvel Universe, helping out where she's needed.
2 ULTRON
Ultron's "father" is Hank Pym. Pym created the evil android destined to plague the Marvel Universe back in the late '60s. Pym had been trying to create a highly-intelligent artificial intelligence -- and sure enough, he did. Ultron turned on his creator and immediately set to improving himself through various upgrades.
Ultron seems to grow more powerful and threatening as time goes by, as he continues to evolve to beat new forces within the Marvel Universe. Ultron instigated the "Age of Ultron" event that saw a clash between superheroes from multiple timelines and eventuated in Ultron's temporary death. Ultron came back with a vengeance in Rage of Ultron, the story culminating in Ultron merging with Hank Pym, whom he used to fight the Avengers with in future stories.
1 SKAAR
During "Planet Hulk", Hulk fell in love with Caiera the Oldstrong and the two had a child, unbeknownst to Hulk who'd returned to Earth. This baby was Skaar -- and he grew up fast. Skaar made his way across the galaxy to Earth, and upon arriving, battled with She-Hulk and the Fantastic Four.
Skaar is incredibly powerful because not only does he possess Hulk-like levels of strength, but he also inherited the Old Power from his mother. The old power allows him to control and manipulate the tectonic energies of a planet. It was this power that gave him a leg up against his father when the two battled during Incredible Hulk #611. It looks as if Skaar would've won if it weren't for the interference from Red She-Hulk.