These 5 Avengers Are So Formidable They Could Solo the Entire Team

The Avengers have been out on the frontlines in the war against evil since the beginning. Brought together to battle against threats no one hero could face alone, they eventually became the premiere superteam of the Marvel Universe. Joining the group was looked at as the moment you “made it” as a superhero; you got to sit at the cool kids’ table and go up against the biggest enemies out there. An Avenger has to be many things, but the most important thing is formidable. It’s the big leagues and you have to be able to keep up with the pace. Being powerful helps, but even powerful heroes have failed on the team.

The best Avengers bring it all together. They’re the ones who win the fights, the ones everyone looks to with admiration. They know what to do in any situation, using everything at hand to make sure the Avengers win the day. They’re the ones who make the difference between victory and defeat. If it came down to it, they could even defeat their teammates. These five Avengers are so formidable they could solo the whole team, each of them experts in combat beyond being powerful.

5) Captain Universe

Jonathan Hickman’s run on the Avengers introduced the threat of the Incursions, as Earths from the Marvel Multiverse started to hurtle into each other, destroying entire universes. He was pitting the team against the greatest threat imaginable and he needed them to be at its most powerful. Hickman loaded the team down with powerhouses, with one of the most surprising being Captain Universe. Captain Universe was usually a mantle conveyed by the Enigma Force, rarely staying with a host for long. However, this time it possessed the body of a comatose woman named Tamra and joined the Avengers.

Captain Universe was the living embodiment of the Marvel Universe, with all the power that conveyed. She could basically do anything; her powers were only limited by her mindset, which was quite different from the humans around her. She could have turned the entire team into stardust anytime she wanted to or dropped them in a black hole or basically anything else you could think of. She outclassed the rest of the team by several magnitudes of force.

4) Hyperion

Hyperion was one of the first Marvel Superman pastiches, debuting as a member of the multiversal Squadron Supreme. The Avengers fought this team and later allied with them, with various versions of Hyperion popping up all over the multiverse in books like What If…? and Exiles. During the Incursions, the Hyperion of Earth-13034 tried to save his world and the one hurtling towards it but failed, and was pulled to Earth-616 by AIM. He broke free and ended up joining the Avengers, where he became best friends with Thor and the leader of a group of beings created by the Martian attack on Earth by Ex Nihilo that brought the team together.

The Hickman team was insanely powerful, but even among that number Hyperion was considered potent. He was probably second to Captain Universe when it came to sheer power level; he and Thor went out to fight the Beyonders entirely on their own. He’s on another level than other Avengers and even the divine ones like Thor and Hercules couldn’t stand up to his sheer power. You could basically assemble every Avenger ever and he’s going to take out most of them in the opening seconds of the fight, mopping up the rest at his leisure.

3) The Sentry

The Sentry premiered as Marvel’s forgotten hero. The House of Ideas, working with Wizard Magazine, came up with a story that the character was created years ago by Stan Lee as a Superman pastiche, but was forgotten and they were finally going to show the character to the world, with various old school creators playing along. The truth was that was just marketing for a new hero, one with all the power of the Man of Steel but with the kind of foibles that made Marvel heroes so great. In the Sentry’s case, it was that he had severe mental issues and his powers created an evil side of him called the Void. The Void was so powerful, the heroes wiped the world’s memory of his existence, which obviously eventually returned.

The Sentry was recruited by the New Avengers and became the problem solver; they’d usually call him in, he’d win, then he’d go back to his Watchtower on top of Avengers Tower. His powers are reality-altering in nature, which is why he’s so powerful, and there are few Avengers who could actually go toe to toe with him. He’s powerful enough to be an all hands on deck moment for the superhero community, making him one of the most dangerous people in the Marvel Universe.

2) Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers has always been one of the Avengers’ powerhouses, even during the Ms. Marvel days, and most fans just didn’t realize. The half-Kree has vast superhuman strength, invulnerability, flight, and enhanced senses, making her one of the strongest fighters on the team. However, her greatest gift has always been her energy-channeling abilities. She’s long been able to absorb and redirect energy, allowing her to fire fantastic bursts of energy and enhance her other powers. She also can fly at the speed of light, meaning that if worse came to worse, she could just fly through whatever is in her way.

Carol’s insanely high power level is made all the more dangerous because of her fighting skills. Carol is a trained Air Force pilot, taught the basics of self-defense. She was further trained by Mar-Vell and Captain America. As a leader of the team, she knows everything about her teammates, including their weaknesses, and has become a master of strategy. She has all of the tools she needs to trounce the team completely on her own any time she wants. For their part, her teammates know that she can humble all of them and respect her even more because of it.

1) Black Panther

Black Panther is Marvel’s most storied king and has been a mainstay of the Avengers since his big screen debut. He had been a member of the team back in the mid ’70s, and again in the early ’00s, joining them so that he could take out threats to Wakanda and to watch the United States government and their favorite superheroes in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. T’Challa is a pragmatic man; he knows that if the world ever wanted his vibranium, they would send the Avengers in and he’s made it his business to figure out a way to deal with them just in case.

Black Panther has long been the Marvel equivalent of Batman and that extends to his contingency plans for the team (did you know “Tower of Babel” writer Mark Waid first came up with the idea of superhero contingency plans when he was writing X-Men (Vol. 2) for six months in 1996?). He wins because he’s ready for any situation and you best believe that he’s ready for the Avengers to come after the people of Wakanda. He’s always ready for them, just in case, and could handily defeat any roster of the group thrown at him.

What Avengers do you think are formidable enough to solo the whole team? Did I miss any? Leave a comment in the comment section below.

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