With over 25 Marvel movies and a handful of TV shows currently released, there are a lot of different heroes in the MCU. Between those recognizable names who have been in the franchise from the beginning, like Iron Man, to the newer heroes being introduced after the defeat of Thanos, like Shang Chi, there are a lot of different powers showcased, and the heroes all have different power levels.
Of course, not every hero can be all-powerful and all-knowing. In order to have a good plot and interesting story people will want to watch, they need to be able to struggle against something in the movie. That something is usually whatever villain or, in some cases, organization, is directly opposing the hero. Still, there are heroes who would be able to take on Thanos alone, as is evident by the comics. Compared to those moments and heroes, this list shows the weakest of the bunch that would need all the help they could get for a large otherworldly threat.
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7 Black Widow
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
In a world full of superpowers, it’s pretty obvious that those without powers would be among the weakest. Natasha Romanoff is a trained assassin, so to any normal human, she’s extremely deadly. However, when comparing her to heroes like Scarlet Witch, who could definitely beat Thanos in a one-on-one battle, a deadly assassin isn’t that amazing. Even in her own movie, Black Widow, she was only fighting other humans the entire time, most of them also trained assassins just like her.
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6 Hawkeye
Disney Platform Distribution
Whether you are referring to the original Hawkeye, Clint Barton, or the newer one, Kate Bishop, who made her MCU debut in the Disney+ show, Hawkeye, neither of them have any special powers. At least Barton has training — he’s not quite the assassin Romanoff is without the specialized Black Widow training, but his S.H.I.E.L.D. training at least gives him an edge over Bishop. The only thing she has in common with him is their impeccable aim and preference for the bow and arrow. Either way, just like Romanoff, when a superhero doesn’t have powers, but others do, they are automatically among the weakest in the group.
5 Falcon
No matter where you look at Falcon in the MCU, whether it’s his first appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier or his most recent in the TV show The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, he just doesn’t stack up against some of the more powerful heroes. Before Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson had military training with his special wing jetpack, and that was it. He’s just a normal guy with no powers, except, unlike Iron Man, his suit is full of vulnerabilities, and he doesn’t have fancy weapons. Even after he becomes Captain America, all he has is the shield. That’s not the only way he differs from Chris Evans’ Captain America; he has no powers like Steve Rogers did, so he’s still very vulnerable.
4 Ant-Man
Ant-Man is an interesting case on the list, because when you first look at the powers the suit gives him, such as the strength of an ant and the ability to shrink to the size of one, you’d think it might be more powerful. However, when you look at Scott Lang, the criminal with good intentions, he doesn’t really use the suit in the best way he could. His big heart leads him to be less inclined to fighting, and he usually doesn’t want to do any major damage on purpose, no matter who he’s up against. His cheerful personality also makes him less likely to fight and more likely to talk, so Lang makes it among the list of the weakest heroes.
3 Quicksilver
The MCU’s version of Quicksilver makes one appearance in the MCU, showing up for Avengers: Age of Ultron. There, he shows off his powers, which consist of superspeed. While heroes with superspeed are sometimes really powerful, like his X-Men universe counterpart, Pietro Maximoff doesn’t really do much in the movie. He saves a few people, knocks Captain America over, pesters Hawkeye, and then sacrifices his life. Perhaps the reason he makes this list is that we see so little of him, but with what we have, there are definitely stronger heroes.
2 Starlord
Though Starlord has defeated Thanos on his own in the comics, that was with the added power of a cosmic cube. In the MCU, he’s a lot less powerful. Peter Quill is half human, half celestial in Guardians of the Galaxy. While at first that seems like it would make him powerful, he’s only aware of his other side for about half of a movie, and when they defeat Ego, he loses those newfound powers. This makes Quill just a normal human gunslinger, which definitely doesn’t stack up against other powerful hitters in the MCU.
1 Mantis
It should be no surprise that Mantis is the weakest hero in the MCU. She joined the Guardians of the Galaxy in volume two, showing her empathic powers off to the audience. While she did have one big moment in the end of the movie where she temporarily put Ego to sleep, effectively holding him off for a few minutes, that was the only time she really seemed powerful. She also held Thanos off by trying to put him to sleep for a small amount of time, but he was still able to fight it and eventually managed to overcome it. Otherwise, she hasn’t really helped in fights, and reading people’s emotions isn’t very helpful for those fights either.
