Since his introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor has been promoted as the strongest superhero in the series. Scarlet Witch has been a contender, but she was never a leading protagonist like Thor. Now, Captain Marvel’s entry into the franchise has brought the question of who the most powerful is back in the minds of fans.

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Although Thor has been around for almost a decade, while Captain Marvel was only seen for the first time this year, they’re a lot more closely matched than you think. In this list, we’ve considered the feats of the characters, the impact of their powers, and the power boost the plot awards them in comparing whether Thor or Captain Marvel is the strongest MCU superhero.

10 Experience: Thor

This one should go without saying, seeing as we’re talking about a woman who’s in her 50s at the very most compared to a god who claims to be 1500-years-old. On top of that, Thor has fighting experience across the nine realms, where he’s faced the likes of Surtur and the Dark Elves.

Captain Marvel has only about two decades of experience, and she’s spent almost all of them helping other planets, not actually fighting in them. Thor has legions of more experience in combat, and his list of kills can’t even be counted.

9 Speed: Captain Marvel

You’d think having lightning-based powers would make Thor someone whose speed was off the charts, but he’s never displayed any kind of extreme speed that can be noted. Captain Marvel, on the other hand, has shown this ability several times.

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The most noteworthy achievement of her speed has been when she rescued Nebula and Tony in the middle of deep space and brought them to Earth all within the span of a few minutes. She did recon work of the whole planet Thanos was hiding away in and stopped the 2014 Thanos from snapping before he even realized what was going on.

8 Projectiles: Tied

For this point, we’re considering Captain Marvel’s photon blasts and Thor’s natural lightning abilities. One would be inclined to side with Captain Marvel’s blasts more, but we’ve just seen Thor’s lightning way more than Captain Marvel’s powers.

After all, Thor was able to melt vibranium with his lightning when it was combined with Iron Man and Vision’s powers, he also beat Hulk after he unlocked his innate lightning, and finished off all of Hela’s army. However, Captain Marvel’s photon blasts have a 0% failure rate, and she’s succeeded in finishing off whoever she attacks these with. Thor has had more feats here, but Captain Marvel’s few times can rival his achievements.

7 Fighting Ability: Thor

Captain Marvel relies on sheer awesome power to overwhelm her opponents, and her combat skills take the backseat here. When she was shown to be in combat with Yon-Rogg, it was the latter who had the upper hand. Thanos also was able to predict her blows and fling her away, before she unleashed his powers on him.

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Thor has had combat experience all his life and excels when it is a straight-up fight. He’s been shown coming to blows with the Hulk and beat him in this regard due to his knowledge of combat. Against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Thor had Thanos on the ropes when it came to fighting, and only got beat because of Thanos’ immense strength.

6 Stamina: Captain Marvel

However many times we’ve seen Captain Marvel fight, she hasn’t shown signs of strain. Even after traveling the cosmos in space, Captain Marvel showed no trace of being spent in the slightest. She laid waste to the entire Sanctuary warship of Thanos in a blaze, and still casually landed as if she’d just taken a stroll.

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Thor’s stamina was clearly damaged due to his fat status in Avengers: Endgame, but he showed signs of struggle after prolonged periods before too. For instance, the Battle of New York saw Thor slowing down when the Chitauri numbers were overwhelming the heroes.

5 Weaponry: Thor

Fat Thor from Endgame wielding both Mjolnir & Stormbreaker

Captain Marvel has nothing on Thor here, so this makes it an easy win for the God of Thunder. There’s nothing to suggest that Captain Marvel’s worthy either, meaning Thor could easily drop Mjolnir on her and incapacitate her indefinitely.

Then there’s the matter of Stormbreaker, which was confirmed to be so powerful that it cleanly decapitated Thanos in just one swing. As far as wielding weapons is concerned, then Thor has Captain Marvel beat here too since the latter relies solely on her innate power, which means Thor would have the advantage when weapons come into play because of his mastery in using them.

4 Special Power: Captain Marvel

As it turned out, Thor’s special power wasn’t all that great as we saw Hela make short work of him even when he went all-out against her in Thor: Ragnarok. These powers proved useless again against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, where Thor was shown to be defeated.

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Captain Marvel’s binary form seems to be the most powerful thing there is, other than Scarlet Witch’s bloodlusted mode, as she showed complete immunity toward Thanos’ attacks. Within this form, Captain Marvel also finished off the Sanctuary and all of Thanos’ and Ronan’s warships.

3 Durability: Thor

Sure, Captain Marvel does have superb feats here such as withstanding a blow from the Power Stone and getting back up, but Thor has just way too many feats here for us to ignore him.

Thor himself was caught in a massive explosion from the Power Stone and was then perfectly fine. He was hit face first with the worst Hulk had to offer yet had zero bruises, Thor also withstood Thanos’ blows but had no lasting damage. He was impaled multiple times by Hela and yet had no scars other than his eye. And who can forget his greatest feat of taking the full force of a star and still heading into Wakanda the next minute being completely unfazed?

2 Versus Thanos: Captain Marvel

One needs to use Thanos as a feat of power since he never lost a fight and was only tricked to death by Iron Man, so there’s no-one better to serve as a benchmark.

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Thor had a number of encounters with Thanos, where he won twice but had the advantage of a surprise attack the first time and the fact that Thanos had been held back by the others in the second contest. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel beat Thanos into submission all by herself the first time and was clearly about to win against 2014 Thanos before he used the Power Stone on her. Without this power-up, Captain Marvel would have had a decisive victory over him.

1 Winner: Tied (Depends On The Director)

All in all, it’s clear that victory is really up to the director, rather than the characters’ abilities. For example, Thor’s power unlocking made him an absolute force in Ragnarok, and he was incalculably powerful in Avengers: Infinity War, where he laid waste to Thanos’ army and beat the latter easily, only to be nerfed down hard in Avengers: Endgame.

Captain Marvel doesn’t have the number of feats Thor has racked up, but she’s been the decisive winner in all her match-ups. Still, we can’t disregard Thor’s achievements considering Captain Marvel has only two films to show for herself. It’s mainly on the whim of the director for the story, so, for now, we’re going to be placing them both on the same level.

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