THE Avengers The films feature some overwhelming feats of power from their villains, contained in the series’ many signature battles. As tentpole event crossover films that act as the biggest events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers the films go all out with their villains. To sell audiences on threats that require the Avengers to assemble, the MCU often goes out of its way to give each main antagonist some truly terrifying feats of power.
Some of these displays of strength are relatively simple, with planet-destroying attacks, astonishing feats of durability, or overwhelming prowess on the battlefield, making the Avengers’ many villains a force to be reckoned with. Other impressive moments are less showy but still ominously powerful, with capabilities like mind control or hacking routinely making their way into the world. Avengers films. Even though some Avengers villains are stronger than others, each of the series’ main antagonists has at least one terrifying moment to shine.
10
Thanos’ snap
Avengers: Infinity War
By far the most iconic and memorable feat of power done by any MCU villain, Thanos’ fateful Snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War was strong enough to create an entire pop culture cinematic event. After slowly gathering all six Infinity Stones, Thanos makes good on his promise to erase half of all organic life in the universe. With a simple snap of his fingers, the Mad Titan finally achieves his goal, causing half of all organisms in existence to crumble into dust.
What makes this brutal attack so impressive, beyond its obvious scale and efficiency, is the impact it has continually had on the world of the MCU, even after being reversed by the Hulk’s own snap. The Blip has continually been a source of conflict for the revived heroes, with the aftermath of the attack still forming terrorist organizations like the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. With just a single display of power, Thanos irreversibly altered the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
9
Thanos casts a moon
Avengers: Infinity War
Even before he managed to gather all six Infinity Stones, Thanos was a potentially world-destroying threat, as proven by his battle with Doctor Strange, Tony Stark, Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis and Spider-Man on Titan. In the ruins of his home world, Thanos was able to prove the strength of just two stones, the Power Stone and the Space Stone. Using a combination of both, Thanos is able to wield an entire celestial body as a weapon.
Clenching his fist, Thanos envelops the lunar surface of one of Titan’s moons with the purple energy of the Power Stone, disrupting its own orbit. From there, he is able to break the satellite’s crust and launch a rain of devastating rocky projectiles at the heroes, almost killing Iron Man in a real meteor shower. Revealing that he is capable of affecting the surface of an entire planet at once, Thanos’ attack on Titan entails strength that few heroes could hope to match.
8
Thanos rewinds time only to kill Vision again
Avengers: Infinity War
Of all the Infinity Stones, the Time Stone is undoubtedly one of the most powerful. Controlling the flow of time itself, the Stone has long been closely guarded in Doctor Strange’s amulet, the Eye of Agamotto, by the Sorcerer Supreme for centuries. Thanos demonstrates how powerful the artifact can be in the wrong hands during the Battle of Wakanda. To prevent yet another Stone from falling into Thanos’ hands, Scarlet Witch is forced to tearfully kill her own lover, destroying the Mind Stone while it is still embedded in Vision’s head, killing him in the process.
To his shock and horror, Thanos is soon able to use the Time Stone to rewind time, bringing Vision back to life, only to kill him again by ripping the Mind Stone from his forehead. Not only is this a terrifying display of power in the name of the Time Stone, but it also shows how skilled the Mad Titan has become at using ancient cosmic MacGuffins. With just a handful of Infinity Stones, Thanos was able to overpower even a being as strong as Scarlet Witch.
7
Thanos uses the stones to destroy the stones
Avengers: Endgame
With his goal being achieved, Thanos gives up on welding the Infinity Stones again in the time between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The only exception is a blast of cosmic energy that appears on the Avengers’ radar shortly after the snap, indicating that Thanos has once again tapped into the all-powerful energy sources. By tracking him back to his simple farm life, the Avengers are able to pry an answer from the seemingly retired Thanos – He used the Stones to destroy the Stones.
It goes without saying that destroying an all-powerful cosmic artifact that has existed since time immemorial is no easy matter, but Thanos somehow still managed to accomplish it. The heavily scarred alien warlord also emphasizes how the act nearly killed him, leaving him weak and his body badly burned. The fact that Thanos was not only able to accomplish this gargantuan task, let alone survive it, is nothing to take lightly, even if he technically did it off-screen.
6
Ultron raises a city
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Even though he was dispatched in the same film he was introduced in, Ultron was not a villain to be taken lightly into the Avengers’ rogues’ gallery. While the And if…? version of Ultron had some immensely more powerful feats when it came to depicting the latent power of rogue AI, its live-action film of the same name even gave the robotic despot some impressive displays of power. By far the most impressive of all was his near destruction of the Earth itself, building a massive device that lifted an entire city like a world-ending meteor.
Intent on bringing down the city of Novi Grad on Earth’s surface, Ultron nearly annihilated all sentient organic life on the planet, killing thousands of people in the attempt. It says a lot that Iron Man and Thor’s efforts to stop the doomsday device resulted in one of the other most powerful feats in a Avengers film on the side of the heroes. Like Thanos’ pressure, even though Ultron’s plan wasn’t technically successful, it still sowed the consequences that would ultimately divide the Avengers with Baron Zemo and the Sokovia Accords.
5
Ultron takes control of the Iron Legion
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Inhabiting a pure Vibranium body with finger beams, gravitational pulses, and powerful physics, Ultron’s primary physical form is no light threat. That said, the sentient program’s real threat lies in its hacking abilities, which, while less flashy, presented the Avengers with one of the biggest obstacles to overcome. In a matter of moments, Ultron is able to invade and completely take control of Iron Man’s Iron Legion, adapting the army of autonomous suits into a metal army of his own design.
It goes without saying that Tony Stark’s technology is by far the most advanced tool at MCU Earth’s disposal, with one man’s designs alone elevating the series’ technological level to sci-fi level. This makes it all the more impressive that Ultron was able to so quickly overcome Stark’s cyber defenses, which were certainly among the most advanced on the planet. If not for JARVIS’s quick thinking, he could have easily hacked every nuclear warhead on the planet to annihilate humanity in nuclear armageddon, a possibility that Bruce Banner vocalizes.
4
Ultron decimates JARVIS
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Another terrifying demonstration of Ultron’s digital superiority, one of his most impressive feats of power is accomplished moments after his birth. Upon coming online, Ultron is introduced to the world and his main objective by JARVIS, Tony Stark’s faithful AI companion. Just like the Iron Legion, JARVIS is no easy target when it comes to cyberwarfare, a complex program capable of decrypting SHIELD files without a hitch, quickly switching nuclear launch codes, and providing Tony with a wide range of services.
When faced with Ultron, however, JARVIS’ brother’s processing power proved to be too much for his codebase, being dismantled within moments by Ultron’s fury. Fortunately, JARVIS managed to silently back up his memory on the internet, preserving his “life” to later be integrated into the personality of the hero, Vision. Still, this feat of Ultron’s superiority when it comes to electronic warfare should not be forgotten.
3
Loki controls Hawkeye’s mind
The Avengers
Compared to Ultron and Thanos, Loki isn’t the most powerful villain the Avengers have ever faced. Although he later saw a massive increase in power thanks to the development of his truly godlike time-warping powers in his own self-titled series, Loki’s threat in the early MCU was limited to illusion magic and the transformation of legendary artifacts into weapons. One such weapon that Loki used to great effect was the Scepter, a staff containing the Mind Stone long before it was implanted in Vision’s skull.
The Scepter was capable of firing respectable energy blasts, but the weapon’s most terrifying use case in Loki’s hands was its ability to fully control the minds of most living beings with a simple touch to the heart. Loki was able to completely dominate the minds of Hawkeye and Erik Selvig, causing them both to obediently carry out Loki’s orders with little influence in the matter. If it weren’t for Tony Stark’s arc reactor somehow blocking control of the Mind Stone, Loki probably would have been the winner of the first one. Avengers film.
2
Ebony Fauce dominates Doctor Strange
Avengers: Infinity War
Thanos’ most powerful zealous soldiers, the Black Order, are almost as alarming threats to the Avengers as Thanos himself, with most of them requiring multiple heroes to work together to defeat them for good. Some of the few villains as strong as the MCU’s pound-for-pound heroes, the Black Order has some intimidating members, from the burly and monstrous Cull Obsidian to the deadly pair of Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive. However, arguably the most powerful of the group was also the most unassuming, the alien known as Ebon Maw.
A powerful telekinetic, Ebony Maw hardly seems annoyed with the heroes as he makes quick work of Doctor Strange. The Sorcerer Supreme is no slouch in combat, but the elegant floating squid-man makes easy work of his various tricks, belittling him as an amateur magician suited to performing for children. He doesn’t even spare a glance at the Spider-Man chasing him as he slaps him with a signal, gently floating back to his ship with Strange (and the Time Stone) in two. For effortlessly defeating some of the strongest members of the Avengers, Ebony Maw deserves more respect.
1
Scarlet Witch mentally devastates the Avengers
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Scarlet Witch’s journey throughout the MCU has been a turbulent one, first appearing as a villain, then becoming a hero, only to become a villain again before a redemption that finally killed her off. In her first appearance, Wanda Maximoff is far from hitting her stride as a reality-warping powerhouse, but she still gives the Avengers a great run for their money in their first showdown with them. Utilizing her deadly psychic abilities, Scarlet Witch is capable of incapacitating half of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with devastating visions of their greatest fears.
Tony Stark is struck with a devastating vision of the future in which the Avengers have been defeated, while Captain America is painfully struck with nostalgia for the time period from which he was displaced. Meanwhile, Black Widow is transported back to the traumatic Red Room of her childhood, while Thor receives an ominous omen of Ragnarok in Asgard. The impact of emotional damage versus raw physical strength should not be underestimated, and the ability to send the Hulk into a mindless rage is incredibly dangerous to the Avengers.