7 Villains Too Powerful For The Avengers (Who Lost To Them Anyway)

The Avengers brought together Marvel’s greatest heroes, in the tradition of the Justice Society, the Allies, and the Justice League, in order to defeat the greatest threats to the Earth. The team has earned the sobriquet “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” because they’ve defeated some of the most deadly threats to the world. The group is easily the most powerful team in the Marvel Universe, such a great assemblage of heroes that it’s honestly kind of hard to challenge them. Over the years, many villains have found themselves on the receiving end of an Avengers beating but sometimes, it’s honestly pretty shocking those beatings happened.

The Avengers face the most dangerous villains in the universe, and often times they end up in battle up against enemies that are more powerful than them. The odds are often against the team from many of these villains, and yet they’ve still been able to triumph. These seven Marvel villains are more powerful than the Avengers, and yet the team still wins.

7) Michael Korvac

Michael Korvac was from the 30th century. Like most humans, he was a slave of the Badoons, but he eventually gained godlike power. He battled the Guardians of the Galaxy of the future, before going back in time. The Guardians and the Avengers joined together against them, and he killed them all in one fell swoop. However, they were resurrected and were able to get the win in the end. Korvac has returned several times, his omnipotent cosmic powers making him more than a match for the team. However, they’re able to outthink and defeat him.

6) Count Nefaria

The Avengers faces some underrated villains like Count Nefaria, who had always been one of the most powerful enemies the team ever faced. Nefaria was a leader in the maggia, a superpowered version of the mafia. The count would eventually gain ionic powers, giving him immeasurable strength and durability, as well as flight and ionic energy control. He trounced the Avengers in Avengers (Vol. 1) #165-166. This is wasn’t a roster of scrubs, either — it had Thor, Wonder Man, Beast, Iron Man, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Ms Marvel, Quicksilver, and Hank Pym with Cap in the lead. Of course, the team came back and defeated him in the end, but he proved that he was more powerful than one of the greatest Avengers rosters ever.

5) Kang

I don’t think people realize just how powerful Kang is. He’s spent years perfecting himself, finding the right technology, traveling to other universes, and killing the heroes there, practicing for his battles against the heroes of the 616 Earth. He’s ridiculously powerful and skilled, and if he was a less honorable man, he could kill the team any time he wanted. However, luckily for them, he isn’t, and this has given them a fighting chance. There’s a reason that he was called the Conqueror. He’s defeated the team more than once, but they’ve always been able to take him down in the end.

4) The Hulk

The Hulk is the strongest one there is, and he’s fought the Avengers a lot. He’s a founding member of the team, but he’s honestly spent more times than fighting them than he has as a member of the group. The Hulk is possibly the most powerful human being ever; that’s not at all an exaggeration. He has infinite strength potential and is unkillable. He’s broken Thor’s skull in the past and I can’t think of anyone who has done that before. The Hulk rips through Iron Man like he’s tissue paper. Even Captain Marvel with her vast cosmic power can’t match the Jade Giant. However, the Avengers have been able to defeat the Hulk. Not a hundred percent of the time, mind you, but they have done it.

3) Ultron

There is a question about whether Ultron is more powerful than the Avengers. As far as strength levels go, Thor is probably stronger at times. Scarlet Witch is obviously pretty powerful and so on. However, Ultron has a whole array of weapons that he can use against the team, and has an indestructible adamantium shell. This gives him a huge advantage. We’ve seen several futures where Ultron killed the Avengers after some modifications, and he’s been able to defeat enemies like the entire Phalanx race, taking control of them. Add in his fiendish intellect, and the mad android is more than powerful than the Avengers, they just have his number.

2) The Builders

Jonathan Hickman gave readers the perfect Avengers run, and had the ultimate villain for the first half of the books: the Builders. The Builders were the oldest race in the universe, and had helped seed life across the cosmos. They even created a system that opened roads to other universes. They created powerful servants like Ex Nihilos, Abyss’s, Alephs, and Engineers. They were a formidable force and decided to destroy all life in the cosmos during the Incursions. The Avengers were able to turn the tide against them, but only because every alien empire in the universe gave them control of their fleets. It was touch and go for a while, but Earth’s Mightiest Heroes became the universe’s mightiest heroes.

1) Thanos

Thanos is the most feared being in the universe, even more so than Galactus, which is saying something. The Mad Titan is as dangerous as they come. He’s an Eternal from Titan, and has the requisite cosmic energy powers, indestructibly, and strength. However, he’s enhanced his might to much higher levels in the years since he began his murderous interstellar rampages. He’s defeated gods and cosmic beings entirely on his on own, and can defeat Thor even when he has warrior madness (which triples all of his powers) and the Power Stone without having to use any of the many godlike weapons that he’s known for using. Thanos is one of the most powerful villains in the universe, but the Avengers have been able to defeat him several times.

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