Fanboys Anonymous

Yeah, I'm being really nerdy with this one, but geeks are entitled to geek out whenever we want. My wife puts up with it, so it's all good. I'm a big comic book fan (surprise) and ever since watching The Avengers, I've been fascinated with their individual powers and who is the strongest among them. Perhaps this is because I'm a sports fan and it's fun to rank various teams during the season in "power rankings" or something, I don't know.

While this subject is certainly a matter of opinion and rife with a slew of factors, I want to simplify things and make this an imaginary straight up, one-on-one fight between the individual members of the Avengers. First, this will be only the six main characters from the films, in particular Marvel's The Avengers, and only in their strongest forms. So, Tony Stark only in his suit and no Bruce Banner. Plus, it's only their physical power I am imagining, not their overall ability to cause mayhem/destruction, so Tony Stark's intellect and money have no play here.

In my mind, there is no question that the Hulk is the strongest and Thor is second place. Hulk is arguably the most powerful comic book character in history, counting both Marvel and DC. There is an ongoing argument about who wins between Hulk and Superman and, as a Marvel guy, you know whom I'd choose. It's almost not fair; Hulk never weakens, only gets stronger as he gets mad. What's great about this team is that Thor is no slacker either. He's almost a god, as Black Widow described him to Captain America, and represents a nice segue from the ultra powerful Hulk down to the "regular" humans.

Chris Helmworth's Thor gave as good as he got in the film fighting Hulk toe-to-toe. However, I think there's little doubt what would happen if Hulk went full out against the God of Thunder. You could say Thor and his adopted brother Loki are about equal in strength and Hulk beat Loki like a red headed step-child. Man, that scene was hilarious! "Puny god." The first time I saw the movie in the theater I didn't even hear the line, because people were laughing so loud I didn't catch it.

Then who would be third? Here's where it gets tricky and I can definitely understand opposing views. I say it's Captain America trumping Iron Man. Like Hulk and Thor, Captain America is a meta-human, he's physically beyond a normal person. Sure, Iron Man has firepower and all his technology with the suit, but underneath he's only a man. Stark is a brilliant, innovative, very skilled man but, in the end, Cap's next level strength and agility and toughness would win out. We saw some of this in the scene in the woods with the trio fighting; Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. It seems to be pretty even, but there are too many things that could go wrong for Iron Man in a straight up fight. His suit could malfunction, run out of energy, etc. Captain America's entire body is a weapon and his next level endurance and battle strategies would top Iron Man, who might rely too much on the suit's strengths.

That leaves Black Widow and Hawkeye, another tough one to decide. They are "just humans" but incredibly skilled ones. In the film, they show Black Widow taking out the brainwashed Hawk with her fists and feet. One could conclude she wins this battle on that evidence alone, but that is a little unfair. First, that outcome could be based more needed story point than a straight fight between them as Whedon simply needed him to come back to the team and she was the one to do it. Secondly, because Hawkeye's skills lie in long range attacks, Black Widow has an obvious advantage here. If they started out far away, he could shoot her down, right? Still, I gotta give her the nod here. Most fights wind up in close quarters for this kind of thing (comic books) and also on the ground. She's got mad skills and would take him down. 

So here is my final ranking:

Hulk
Thor
Captain America
Iron Man
Black Widow
Hawkeye

Am I wrong somewhere? Where would you place them all? Should Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury be on the list or even Agent Coulson? Sound off below.