The shadow of Thanos (Josh Brolin) defined the first saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the Avengers battled foes like Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the malevolent A.I. Ultron (James Spader), the Mad Titan was the architect of a much larger conflict. When he finally stepped forward in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos proved his physical dominance by overpowering the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and systematically taking down Earth’s heroes. Thanos’ eventual success in gathering all six Infinity Stones and erasing half of all life established his role as the MCU’s paramount threat, a villain whose victory was so absolute it forced the survivors to break reality for a chance to reverse it.
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Yet, the slate of films and Disney+ series released since Avengers: Endgame has fundamentally reshaped the MCU’s power dynamics. The introduction of the multiverse, cosmic deities, and conceptual entities has populated the MCU with a new class of beings that operate on an entirely different axis from the Mad Titan’s physical and strategic might. Their very presence recontextualizes the Titan’s reign, proving that even a villain who conquered the universe was still just one player in a much larger, and far more dangerous, game.
10) Kang the Conqueror
While the variant known as He Who Remains appeared in the first season of Loki, the warlord Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) made his formal debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. A brilliant scientist from the 31st century exiled to the Quantum Realm, Kang’s power comes from his sophisticated battle suit. This armor provides him with immense physical strength and durability, but his primary offensive abilities are the powerful energy beams he projects from his hands and the telekinetic-like control he exerts to restrain opponents and manipulate objects.
In Quantumania, Kang single-handedly dismantled the local freedom fighter army and overpowered the entire Ant-Man family in direct combat. The film showcases his abilities when he catches the energy blasts from Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), generates a force field to deflect attacks, and telekinetically pins down a giant-sized Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). His intellect is shown to be a weapon itself, as he manipulated Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and built a vast empire within the Quantum Realm. His ultimate power, however, was revealed after his defeat, with the introduction of the Council of Kangs, an infinite army of his variants poised to threaten all of reality, all as powerful as the Conqueror.
9) Ikaris
Introduced in the film Eternals, Ikaris (Richard Madden) served for centuries as the tactical leader and primary weapon of his team. While he possesses the baseline superhuman strength and durability of all Eternals, his cosmic powers are also channeled into supersonic flight and intense beams of pure energy projected from his eyes. These two powers elevate him into a top-tier combatant, designed by the Celestials to be an overwhelming force.
The MCU puts Ikaris’ full power on display during his final confrontation with his former teammates. He uses his flight to create a powerful vortex to disrupt the super-speed of Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) and demonstrates his raw strength by shattering the complex cosmic restraints forged by Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry). In addition, his energy beams are shown to be incredibly destructive, carving through the hull of their Celestial-built starship, the Domo, and overpowering the combined defenses of the team. Even when facing a unified front, Ikaris proves to be a one-man assault team, shrugging off attacks and ruthlessly pressing his advantage with lethal efficiency.
8) G’iah
First seen as a child in Captain Marvel, the Skrull G’iah (Emilia Clarke) was transformed into one of the most powerful beings in the universe during the events of the Disney+ series Secret Invasion. After obtaining the Harvest, a vial containing the DNA of dozens of combatants from the Battle of Earth, she used a Super-Skrull machine to rewrite her genetic code. This process granted her access to a massive library of superhuman abilities.
The full scope of G’iah’s new power is unleashed in her final battle against the similarly empowered Skrull leader Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir). The MCU depicts her as a master of adaptation, instantly healing from a fatal stab wound using the Extremis ability before countering with the brute strength of Cull Obsidian’s arm. She effortlessly shifts tactics, phasing through one of Gravik’s attacks using the powers of Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and then attempting to use the sleep-inducing touch of Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Her victory is secured by combining the raw physical power of Drax’s (Dave Bautista) arm with an energy blast from Captain Marvel’s (Brie Larson) abilities. Her ability to channel all these powers at her will makes G’iah nearly unstoppable.
7) Wiccan
Formally introduced as a costumed hero in the series Agatha All Along, William Kaplan (Joe Locke) is a teenager who discovers he is the magical reincarnation of Billy Maximoff, one of the Scarlet Witch’s sons. His powers are not learned but are innate, a direct inheritance of his mother’s reality-altering Chaos Magic. This makes him a natural conduit for an untamed mystical energy capable of challenging reality, positioning him as one of the most significant magical beings to emerge in the MCU.
When confronted by threats in Agatha All Along, Billy instinctively unleashes powerful waves of psionic force and demonstrates fine telekinetic control over objects. His most significant feat, however, is reality manipulation. He single-handedly manifests the Witches’ Road, a mythical magical plane that even the veteran sorceress Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) believed to be a mere fairy tale. This act shows that his abilities go beyond casting spells, as he can fundamentally alter the very fabric of reality with his thoughts.
6) Sentry
Introduced in Thunderbolts*, Robert “Bob” Reynolds (Lewis Pullman) is a deeply unstable man who was granted the “power of a million exploding suns” from an experimental government serum. This power manifests in a staggering array of abilities, including superhuman strength and speed, flight, near-total invulnerability, and the capacity to project and manipulate immense amounts of energy. In the film, he demonstrates his might by effortlessly overpowering the entire Thunderbolts team, even absorbing a full-force shield strike from U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) without even flinching.
The Sentry’s true power, however, is also his greatest threat. Reynolds’ fractured psyche houses a malevolent alter-ego known as the Void, a shadowy entity of pure destruction. In Thunderbolts*, the Void’s power is shown to be horrifyingly absolute, as it begins to consume New York City, turning civilians into shadow imprints on the pavement with a mere gesture. This cataclysmic ability to manipulate matter and energy on a massive scale establishes him not just as a physical powerhouse, but as a reality-warping threat whose internal battle makes him one of the most dangerous beings in the MCU.
5) Arishem the Judge
As the Prime Celestial revealed in Eternals, Arishem the Judge (voiced by David Kaye) is a cosmic god responsible for creating entire galaxies and seeding planets with life. He is a being of truly incomprehensible scale, a fact the film demonstrates when he manifests in Earth’s orbit, dwarfing the planet itself. His power is so absolute that he can abduct three Eternals from the surface of the planet and pull them across impossible cosmic distances with a simple, effortless gesture.
Arishem’s function within the universal order is to create life for the sole purpose of birthing new Celestials, a cycle that concludes with the complete destruction of the host world. He operates as a fundamental force of creation and destruction, judging entire civilizations and extinguishing them as part of his natural cosmic role. This establishes him not as a conqueror seeking to impose his will upon the universe, but as an entity whose very existence is an embodiment of that universal will itself.
4) Mephisto
After years of fan theories, the demonic entity Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen) made his official debut in the finale of the Disney+ series Ironheart, revealed as the mastermind behind the powers of The Hood (Anthony Ramos). The show establishes him as a manipulative deal-maker who offered Parker Robbins vast wealth in exchange for his soul. After Robbins fails, Mephisto turns his attention to Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), seeking to use her brilliant mind for his own sinister purposes and proving to be a master of temptation and corruption.
Mephisto’s powers were shown to be vast and reality-bending, as he effortlessly teleported Parker Robbins to a new location and froze a family in time with a simple hand wave, boasting he could do the same to the entire city. Mephisto’s true might, however, was demonstrated through his ultimate offer to Riri. In order to secure her compliance, he brought her human friend Natalie (Lyric Ross) from the dead, proving he possesses a level of power over life and death that operates on a fundamental cosmic scale.
3) Franklin Richards
The infant son of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Franklin Richards was introduced in The Fantastic Four: First Steps as a being of immense power. The film establishes his universal importance through its primary antagonist, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a cosmic entity who is drawn to Earth not to consume it, but to find Franklin. Galactus believes the child’s innate connection to the Power Cosmic is so great that it can absorb his eternal hunger, framing the newborn as a living solution to one of the universe’s oldest curses.
Franklin’s staggering MCU potential is put on full display in the film’s climax. After his mother, Sue, sacrifices her life to defeat Galactus, the grieving family places the infant on her chest. In a moment of pure instinct, Franklin unleashes his power and brings her back from the dead, a permanent resurrection that fundamentally alters reality. This ability to conquer death itself, performed unconsciously by a baby, demonstrates a level of control over the laws of existence that is absolute and unprecedented in the MCU.
2) Lady Death
The cosmic entity known as Death made her long-awaited debut in the Disney+ series Agatha All Along, initially introduced as Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a powerful Green Witch. Throughout the series, she guided Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and her coven along the mythical Witches’ Road. Her true identity was unveiled in the seventh episode, “Death’s Hand in Mine,” where she revealed herself to be the literal personification of the end of all things, an abstract being in physical form.
As a fundamental force of the universe, Death operates on a plane of existence far beyond physical confrontation. The series establishes her as an entity with infinite knowledge and the absolute power to take or restore life at her whim. As the sister of Eternity, a being introduced in Thor: Love and Thunder, she is part of the highest echelon of cosmic entities in the MCU, the embodiment of a universal law and the ultimate authority over the very concept of mortality.
1) Eternity
The living embodiment of all time and space within the universe, Eternity made his monumental debut in Thor: Love and Thunder, a movie that introduces him as a sentient cosmic nexus located at the center of the universe. The film’s antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), carves a path of destruction across the cosmos with the sole purpose of reaching Eternity’s altar, where he can be granted one absolute wish.
Eternity’s power is shown to be absolute, as he grants the first being to reach him any single desire, rewriting reality to match their will. In the film’s climax, a dying Gorr forgoes his genocidal quest and instead wishes for his daughter, Love (India Hemsworth), to be brought back to life. Eternity fulfills this request without effort, creating a new living being from the cosmic ether and entrusting her to Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) care. This act establishes Eternity as a source of power so pure it can do anything instantly, from universal annihilation to the miracle of life itself.
What other powerful MCU character post-Endgame do you think could take Thanos? Share your picks in the comments!
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