Highlights
- Nick Fury, despite his power and influence, is ultimately just a regular human lacking in superhuman abilities or combat skills.
- Mantis, while a fun character, is one of the weakest heroes in terms of capability and usefulness in a fight.
- Sam Wilson, despite being a major icon, is not as strong as his fellow Avengers and struggles to face super-powered enemies without extreme danger.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is filled with amazing characters, both superheroes and supervillains alike, that are powered or manage to fight without powers against the odds. Nevertheless, while there are a lot of incredibly overpowered characters in the MCU, there are also a lot of weaker characters who are lucky to have lasted so long.
7 Best Marvel Comics Duos
Marvel Comics has a long history of excellent pairings. Whether romantic, friends or even enemies, Marvel Comics has some amazing duos.
Not including characters that aren’t considered heroes or villains, the characters in the MCU who actually engage in heroic or villainous actions and battles, but are relatively weak, are varied across the last fifteen years of cinematic efforts produced by Marvel Studios, from Iron Man to Secret Invasion.
Updated October 20th, 2023: There are tons of amazing characters and super-powered heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spread across various films and IPs, the MCU has seen a surge of great stories in the last decade, showcasing some of the best characters to ever grace the page of Marvel Comics. But some characters are a bit weaker than others, and some characters pale in comparison to the mighty heroes they are surrounded by. To better show some of the weakest characters in the MCU, the following list has been updated with a companion video.
8 Nick Fury
Nick Fury is arguably one of the most all-powerful and all-knowing beings within the MCU, or at least he was for a time. As Secret Invasion revealed, Nick Fury and his rise to power within SHIELD stemmed from the relationship he fostered with the Skrulls, which boiled down to his first adventure with Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel. Besides all that, Fury has done some monstrous things.
Without this happening, Fury would maybe never have been a significant player on the world stage. Yes, he formed the Avengers, but anytime he fights alongside them or against anybody, he is shown to be a regular human, lacking even the kind of martial arts talents that other secret agent characters within the larger context of the MCU have achieved.
7 Mantis
Mantis joined the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and has proven herself to be a fascinating and fun character. However, despite her capabilities to put people to sleep, and other hypnotic suggestions she can immediately implant in their brains proving useful, they aren’t all-powerful and have backfired more than once.
Mantis has capabilities and has shown herself, particularly in Guardians Vol.3, to be a reasonable fighter, but she still comes off as one of the heroic Marvel characters with the least capability or overall usefulness in a fighting situation. Fortunately, she is a beloved character who really set herself apart in the newest Guardians entry and will hopefully be revisited in the future, including her Celestial background after her relationship with Quill was revealed.
6 Sam Wilson
It seems strange to call out one of the new faces of the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward as one of the weakest characters, but Sam Wilson unfortunately isn’t as strong as any of his fellow major-level Avengers despite him having become a major Disneyland-level icon. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier miniseries showcased how particularly weak Sam Wilson is, not able to face off against super soldiers without extreme danger.
MCU: 10 Best Characters In Phase 4 (So Far)
Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has introduced several interesting characters, to say the least. These are the best among them.
Steve Rogers barely managed to stand toe-to-toe against major Avengers-level threats over the years with the super soldier serum. Without ever taking it himself, Sam Wilson is practically a sitting duck on huge alien battlefields, and he will likely struggle to lead the Avengers into battle like his predecessor did so often before him.
5 Star-Lord
The Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t individually strong heroes for the most part, relying on their team status and friends to help them out of tricky spots quite often. The same goes for their leader, Star-Lord, who was revealed in The Guardians' second film to have huge capability as a Celestial, but he surrendered all of this power when he and the Guardians killed his father.
Now, despite not being human, Star-Lord doesn’t have any special abilities, and it will be intriguing to see in any future appearances now that he has returned to Earth what kind of life he will lead, whether he will be able to step up as a hero among Earth’s finest. Reasonable in a fight, and good with his gadgets and weapons, Star-Lord remains a weaker hero than most in the MCU, though Chris Pratt's version has defined the character.
4 Hawkeye
Having proven many times over that he was able to survive against the odds in a superhero-filled world, Clint Barton has done a remarkable thing in making it as long as he has, but even in the context of the Hawkeye miniseries on Disney Plus, much was made about how relatively weak he is as a character.
Though fun was poked at this fact, Hawkeye has always been limited in his capabilities, despite being one of the most iconic movie archers. He has achieved great things, but if targeted by most major threats faced by other superheroes, it is likely that Barton would finally meet his end. With his future MCU status unknown, it is possible that he could live out the rest of his days happily, having made it to the end of his superhero career.
3 Korg
Korg is one of the most bizarre characters introduced in the MCU, not having a lot of Marvel Comics history to back up how strong he actually is. He has been demolished and only survived due to his species being able to regrow their bodies from just their head. First introduced in Thor: Ragnarök, Korg has always been a more comedic character despite his stature.
10 Most Powerful Marvel Characters (Who Are Not In The MCU)
Marvel has some incredibly powerful characters waiting for their time in the spotlight. These super-strong characters have yet to appear in the MCU.
Seen fighting on multiple occasions but never achieving a great deal in those fights, Korg has proven time and again that he just isn’t much of a hero by himself. Instead, he works better as a helpful aid or backup to the God of Thunder.
2 Agent Carter
Not a character that Marvel fans will usually think of as a superhero in her own right, but having had her own series within the MCU, which was seemingly made canon by the inclusion of actors from it in Avengers: Endgame, Agent Peggy Carter did great things as she helped with the creation of SHIELD.
Proving to be much more than she seems, there is still no doubt that Agent Carter was, even in her prime, never on the level of the most powerful agents among SHIELD’s ranks like Natasha Romanoff. Powerful, but more so in her strategic planning and undercover work than as a warrior, Agent Carter remains a beloved piece of the MCU, Hayley Atwell having made the role her own.
1 Rocket Raccoon
Rocket is another great member of the Guardians team, who will now lead the team going forward in any future MCU projects. However, he is small in stature and not particularly strong, proving himself incredibly useful in developing tools of mass destruction on occasion, but rarely doing a great deal in a fight.
Rocket is good with weapons, and he is quick. His origin story shows the extent of his intelligence, but his best combat achievement to date is probably clawing off the face of the High Evolutionary. Despite this, Rocket’s mind will be an excellent part of planning for the Guardians in the future as he leads the new version of the team into more battles.