The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown a lot in fifteen years. By the end of 2008, the only heroes in the franchise with Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, and Nick Fury. Now the franchise is filled with characters from the comics. Marvel mainstays like The Avengers, obscure characters introduced in the 1970s like Shang-Chi and the Eternals, and relatively new characters like Ms. Marvel and Ironheart all now co-exist in this ever-growing franchise. It doesn't appear to be stopping anytime soon as characters like Wonder Man, Blade, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four will soon join the cinematic universe.

Update August 20, 2023: This article has been updated by Yosra Ben lagha to reflect the MCU better as it exists now.

Anyone who has ever read a comic book or even ever talked about superheroes knows one of the first questions that pops up is who would win in a fight. Or who is the strongest hero? In celebration of fifteen years of the MCU, here are the fifteen strongest heroes in the franchise. Note the only thing being taken into account is their film apperances, not their comic book counterparts.

15 Man-Thing

Man Thing in the Werewolf By Night Marvel Special Presentation
Marvel Studios
Disney

Introduced in the Disney+ special, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing has only gotten a bit of screentime, but his power is already incredible to behold. Anyone who feels fear will burn at his touch, and since all living things feel fear, they are likely to burn and die. Anyone who is not afraid of him, like Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone, are fine, and at the end of the day, Man-Thing is a lovable creature. Yet the sheer power he possesses makes him an underrated player in the MCU and one that the Avengers really should consider when Kang the Conqueror arrives.

14 Spider-Man

Tom Holland as Spider-man
Sony Pictures

Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, is still young and has a lot to learn, but he is still one powerful hero in his own right. Super strength, spider-sense, and wall-crawling, all combined with his intellect which allows him to web sling and shoot webs at enemies, allows Spider-Man to be one of the strongest heroes in the MCU. One might say the enchantments in his suits make him a little too powerful, but Spider-Man: Homecoming showed even without Stark Tech, he is still Spider-Man.

13 Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man
Marvel Studios

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is a man who can imagine anything, so he is prepared for everything. He has suits designed for every occasion, packed with a full arsenal of weapons to subdue any opponent. From his Hulkbuster suit to being able to recognize Captain America's fight patterns, Iron Man is always ready.

Related: The MCU: What Does It Mean To Be A Hero

One might say he is nothing without his suit, but Iron Man 3 showed even without that, he still has his incredible intellect, which can be just as dangerous as any Iron Man suit.

12 Captain America

Chris Evans as Captain America flanked by two Hydra soldiers
Paramount Pictures

Captain America is the moral backbone of the MCU. He is the heart of the franchise. He is also one of the strongest characters around. It might not seem like much, but when you remember how skinny Steve Rogers was, the muscle that the supersoldier serum gave him to bulk up is the same in terms of mass as when Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk.

Captain America has super speed, fast reflexes, can take a lot of hits, and always gets back up. He is also a skilled fighter, and his shield makes him incredibly deadly. It goes to show how strong Captain America is that audiences cheered when he showed up in Avengers: Infinity War for the first time. Even against aliens who possibly have incredible strength, when Captain America is at your back, you feel safe.

11 Black Panther

Shuri jokes about T'Challa's sandals in Black Panther
Marvel Studios

The Black Panther is the guardian of Wakanda. Ebuded with the power of the heart-shaped herb, it gives the person who wears the mantle incredible strength, reflex, and speed. Both T'Challa and Shuri in the MCU have worn the mantle of Black Panther and are two of the strongest characters in the MCU.

T'Challa went toe to toe with The Winter Soldier and easily held his own in a battle with an alien army. Meanwhile, Shuri fought Namor, one of the most powerful characters in the MCU. Both people who have held the title of Black Panther are equally powerful and are two of the strongest in the MCU.

10 Hulk

Hulk in The Incredible Hulk
Universal Pictures; United International Pictures

Hulk often claims he is the strongest one there is, and while the balance of power in the MCU might have shifted in recent years, he still is one of the strongest. Hulk was The Avengers' bit heavy in the first film, their unstoppable weapon that make Loki and his army tremble in fear. Nobody wants to go face-to-face with the Hulk.

Some might say now that Bruce Banner and the Hulk have merged into Smart Hulk that the Hulk is slightly weaker. Yet combining brains and brawns makes him strong in an entirely different way.

9 She-Hulk

She-Hulk in Writer's Room
Disney+

Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, Bruce Banner's cousin, came a bit later in the MCU (Phase 4) but was for many reasons the better version and not just because she throws the rock further or because she is better at maintaining her balance, but mainly because she can contain her anger and has a firmer control over it than her cousin. She assimilates into society, keeping a job as a lawyer, despite being green and proportionately huge.

As huge as she is, however, she's considerably smaller than Bruce Banner but still possesses the same powers as he does. Her abilities include an immeasurable amount of strength, an enhanced healing factor, limitless endurance and agility, and impenetrable skin resistant to injury. She's a brilliant addition to the MCU for her strength, intelligence, humor, and overall human characteristics that she brings to the Hulk family.

8 Sersi

Gemma Chan as Sersi in Eternals
Marvel Studios

Sersi is an underrated hero that doesn't get the credit she deserves. Introduced in Eternals, she is chosen by Arishem the Judge, a Celestial who created her kind, to lead her group. Although she does not have Gilgamesh's strength or Ikaris's flight, she has the ability to use cosmic energy to turn inorganic and organic matter into anything. The ability to manipulate atoms and transmute something is incredibly powerful. Combining her powers with her fellow Eternals, she is able to defeat a Celestial, one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

7 Vision

Paul Bettany as Vision in the MCU
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 

At this point on the list, superhuman powers that go beyond physicality begin to emerge. Vision's power comes directly from the Mind Stone, one of the powerful Infinity Stones that Thanos assembles to snap half of the world away. The power of an infinity stone far exceeds anything that any of the previous heroes on the list are able to wield.

Vision can phase through objects, make himself denser, and has incredible strength and speed. He is The Avengers' big new secret weapon against a threat like Ultron, and the series What If...? showed just Vision's body alone (but with Ultron's mind) could have killed Thanos easily. Vision is so strong only one Avenger has been shown with the ability to defeat him, and she is further down on this list.

6 Adam Warlock

will poulter as adam warlock
Marvel Studios

Adam Warlock's first appearance in the MCU was in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. His childish personality and comedic aspects hide some of the most deadly powers to assemble in one person. Surviving in the vacuum of space foretells the character's immortality. If you couple that with super-strength, super-speed, cosmic senses, and energy manipulation, he is not one to be messed with. He was stabbed and blown up and still survived. Clearly, he can take a beating as much as he can give one.

5 Namor

Tenoch Huerta in Black Panther Wakanda Forever as Namor
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Namor's first appearance in the MCU was through his role as a villain in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He is the firstborn son and only ruler of the underwater kingdom Talokan. The super-hero-villain is such an unstoppable force with his superhuman strength, speed, and agility and his aquatic healing and telepathy abilities, not to mention that he "could swim the sky," as he so elegantly put it. His ankle wings give him the ability to fly. His mastery of both the aquatic world and the sky makes him one of the strongest characters in the MCU. The film even notes he is as strong as The Hulk.

4 Thor

Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

As it stands right now, there are few that can beat Thor in a fight, especially after his Stormbreaker upgrade in Infinity War. We have seen him fight Hulk without his new weapon and single-handedly change the tide of a battle on multiple occasions using his thunder powers.

Related: MCU: Which Character is the New Leader of The Avengers?

While this god may have a weakness in dealing with his brother Loki, it does not seem as though even someone like Scarlett Witch or Vision would be able to overwhelm him. In the first Avengers film, Captain America and Iron Man together were not able to easily subdue him, and that was a few movies before the growth he has made to this point.

3 Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange
Marvel Studios
Disney

Doctor Strange is a powerful magic users in the Marvel Universe, and thanks to his vast abilities of spells and magic items make him a heavy hitter. Instead of relying on physical brute force like many of the others on this list, Doctor Strange has a wide array of mystical weapons that can subdue any enemy. Even without the Time Stone, Doctor Strange has shown he can go toe to toe with evil versions of himself, ancient multiversal demons, and the Scarlet Witch with his wit and creativity alone.

2 Captain Marvel

Brie Larson in Captain Marvel (2019)
Marvel Studios
Disney

Captain Marvel definitely brings the party to the MCU with her incredible superpowers that easily make her one of the strongest characters ever created. Flight, endurance, unlimited strength, durability, superhuman agility and speed, unfading stamina, you name it, she has it. Danvers acquired her powers after being exposed to the Space Stone, and as soon as she gained control over her powers, she decided to abandon her extraterrestrial Kree and turn on them to help the Skrulls break free from the Kree's pursuit.

Carol Danvers's powers seem to make her the MCU version of Superman. She is the big gun, the reinforcement that when all hope is lost, comes in to save the day. She single handily destroyed Thanos' command ship without breaking a sweat. She went toe to toe with the Mad Titan, and he needed to use an infinity stone to make her move after easily beating Thor and Hulk without one. Captain Marvel truly is the strongest character in the MCU, behind only one person.

1 Scarlett Witch

Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlett Witch
Marvel Studios / Disney

Scarlett Witch is easily the most powerful Avenger. A hint of her abilities was shown in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but as the MCU has progressed, so has her power. WandaVision showed how she could rewrite reality as she saw fit, and in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, audiences got to see just how powerful she is and dangerous when she does not care about the sanctity of life. She dispatched powerful characters like Mr. Fantastic, Professor X, Black Bolt, and a variant of Captain Marvel, so that shows that she is easily more powerful than her.

Scarlet Witch's chaos magic makes her almost unstoppable, and her power surpasses that of the sorcerer supreme himself. She is predicted to bring about the end of the world. With that much power, it is unlikely she is truly gone in the MCU and will be back hopefully soon.