MCU Fight: Thanos (No Stones) Vs. Hela

As for this. My man Thanos takes it. Feats wise, its a toss up, but Thanos has a much bigger threat aura. If these two met to duke it out in a movie, I see very little chance the writers decide Hela. Thanos is also the greatest threat of the MCU. He wins this one.

You seem to be talking about plot armour and character popularity here. If we started to factor that kind of thing into our fights on here we'd have to conclude that Dr Strange is above Dormammu, the Fantastic Four are above Galactus, Spider-Man's above Venom etc.

I can imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to beat a more powerful character like Hela, Ego or Dormammu. I can also imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to lose to a less powerful character like Doctor Doom, Captain Marvel, or the Guardians of the Galaxy. When they want those outcomes they'll use luck, mistakes and throwing in/taking away variables like weapons, allies, injuries and trickery to make that happen believably.

I don't think that's relevant here though. The outcome the writers choose for story purposes and the most likely outcome of a fair fight are two different things.

She had crazy regen, but her powers weren't exactly exotic or OP, she just had a big OP aura, extreme durability against ONE (at the time) Powerhouse tiered character (based on our list).

I think the key point is that Hela has a ridiculous healing factor that let her shrug off stab wounds in seconds whereas MCU Thanos has no known healing factor.

Durability goes to Thanos. They both have a durability feat against Thor's lightning, which is hard to ignore. Hela was sidelined for about a minute or two before likely regenning off screen. If she no sold Thor's lightning, why didn't she come right back up to the bifrost moments later? What was she doing for those two minutes? She was sidelined, albeit, very very briefly, and not enough to make a difference. Thanos got right back up, and attacked Thor.

The problem with that comparison is that Thor's lightning varies. Thor called the lightning blast that briefly knocked out Hela the "biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning" and it was visibly bigger than the blast he used to stun Thanos and buy time to throw Stormbreaker. Similarly, the bolt Iron Man withstood in Avengers 1 was far smaller than the one that hit Thanos so it doesn't mean that armour had Thanos level durability.

Anyway, Hela is Thor's older, more powerful sister and she's logically capable of all the durability feats we've seen from him (shrugging off blows from Hulk, unharmed by a 30,000 foot fall, tanking attacks from the reality and power stones, surviving the full force of a star etc). Lightning aside, the only other damage we've seen her take is being cut/stabbed by Asgardian blades but that's largely moot here since she can shrug it off with her healing factor and Thanos doesn't fight with blades anyway.

Thanos had impressive feats shrugging off blunt force attacks in his fights against Hulk and Iron Man but we've seen similar feats from Thor and I'd expect the same from Hela. We've also seen Thanos cut by Iron Man so I doubt he's going to withstand Hela's necroswords; those things were capable of maiming Thor and impaling Surtur.

In terms of skill, and strength, he dropped Hulk in 12 punches, and seemingly wrecked Thor before the movie even started. The Russos have said Thanos is undefeated hand to hand combat. If someone says Thanos ISN'T superior to Hela, they are damn near equal. Hela does not have any edge in skill, she does in speed, but I'm sure Thanos has beaten faster opponents than her.

I agree Thanos has a strength advantage but it isn't huge. We didn't see the limits of the strength of either character. All we can really say is that Thanos is stronger than Hulk and Hela is stronger than Thor.

I'd argue Hela has a major skill and speed advantage though.

Sure, Thanos completely outclassed Hulk using skill. The thing is though, Hulk's an unskilled brawler who gets by due to incredible strength/durability. Plus we later saw that characters like Iron Man and even Captain America who are far weaker than Thanos were able to use skill/speed to keep him off balance and land hits on him.

Hela's skill feats are far more impressive to me. She fought Thor and Valkyrie - the two most skilled Asgardian warriors we've seen - at once on the bifrost and never took a hit until she was distracted by Surtur appearing and Valkyrie backstabbed her. She also fought an army of Asgardian warriors at once and only took one hit.

Hela has defeated Thor, the ONLY powerhouse tier character she faced in that movie. Everyone else she engaged in was atleast two tiers below her.

Thanos KO'd the physically strongest powerhouse of that tier. He beat up Thor off screen, leaving him looking just as bad or worse than Hela had him look. 5 minutes into the movie, he's already beaten one more powerhouse tiered character than Hela has.

Sure, Thanos easily beat Hulk and that's a feat that Hela doesn't have. I'd argue that's only because she's never fought Hulk though. Thor chose to summon Surtur to destroy Asgard because he believed that even if he, Hulk, Valkyrie and Loki fought her together it wouldn't be enough to beat Hela.

As for their respective fights against Thor, until MCU Thanos gets more feats, it's not out of the question that Ragnarok Thor could beat Thanos (no stones) one on one or give him a very close fight. That's because we have no idea how Thanos beat Thor off screen. He might have used the power stone, he might have had backup from the Black Order, Thor might have been afraid to use his lightning in a ship full of refugees etc.

On the other hand we saw on screen that Hela was clearly outclassing lightning charged Thor with backup from Valkyrie.

All in all without the stones MCU Thanos has an advantage in raw strength but MCU Hela's in the same league strength wise and has a significant advantage in skill, speed, durability and weaponry. In a fair fight she'll take this and I don't think it's close.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised how close this vote is. The Thanos (with the power stone) vs Hela fight a few months back ended 14-13 but taking away the power stone doesn't seem to have made much difference so far.
 
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You seem to be talking about plot armour and character popularity here. If we started to factor that kind of thing into our fights on here we'd have to conclude that Dr Strange is above Dormammu, the Fantastic Four are above Galactus, Spider-Man's above Venom etc.

I can imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to beat a more powerful character like Hela, Ego or Dormammu. I can also imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to lose to a less powerful character like Doctor Doom, Captain Marvel, or the Guardians of the Galaxy. When they want those outcomes they'll use luck, mistakes and throwing in/taking away variables like weapons, allies, injuries and trickery to make that happen believably.

I don't think that's relevant here though. The outcome the writers choose for story purposes and the most likely outcome of a fair fight are two different things.



I think the key point is that Hela has a ridiculous healing factor that let her shrug off stab wounds in seconds whereas MCU Thanos has no known healing factor.



The problem with that comparison is that Thor's lightning varies. Thor called the lightning blast that briefly knocked out Hela the "biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning" and it was visibly bigger than the blast he used to stun Thanos and buy time to throw Stormbreaker. Similarly, the bolt Iron Man withstood in Avengers 1 was far smaller than the one that hit Thanos so it doesn't mean that armour had Thanos level durability.

Anyway, Hela is Thor's older, more powerful sister and she's logically capable of all the durability feats we've seen from him (shrugging off blows from Hulk, unharmed by a 30,000 foot fall, tanking attacks from the reality and power stones, surviving the full force of a star etc). Lightning aside, the only other damage we've seen her take is being cut/stabbed by Asgardian blades but that's largely moot here since she can shrug it off with her healing factor and Thanos doesn't fight with blades anyway.

Thanos had impressive feats shrugging off blunt force attacks in his fights against Hulk and Iron Man but we've seen similar feats from Thor and I'd expect the same from Hela. We've also seen Thanos cut by Iron Man so I doubt he's going to withstand Hela's necroswords; those things were capable of maiming Thor and impaling Surtur.



I agree Thanos has a strength advantage but it isn't huge. We didn't see the limits of the strength of either character. All we can really say is that Thanos is stronger than Hulk and Hela is stronger than Thor.

I'd argue Hela has a major skill and speed advantage though. Sure, Thanos completely outclassed Hulk using skill. The thing is though, Hulk's just a semi-skilled at best brawler who gets by due to incredible strength/durability. Plus we later saw that characters like Iron Man and even Captain America who are far weaker than Thanos were able to use skill/speed to keep him off balance and land hits on him.

Hela's skill feats are far more impressive to me. She fought Thor and Valkyrie - the two most skilled Asgardian warriors we've seen - at once on the bifrost and never took a hit until she was distracted by Surtur appearing and Valkyrie backstabbed her. She also fought an army of Asgardian warriors at once and only took one hit.



Sure, Thanos easily beat Hulk and that's a feat that Hela doesn't have. I'd argue that's only because she's never fought Hulk though. Thor chose to summon Surtur to destroy Asgard because he believed that even if he, Hulk, Valkyrie and Loki fought her together it wouldn't be enough to beat Hela.

As for their respective fights against Thor, for me until MCU Thanos gets more feats, it's not out of the question that Ragnarok Thor could beat Thanos (no stones) one on one or give him a very close fight. That's because we have no idea how Thanos beat Thor off screen. He might have used the power stone, he might have had backup from the Black Order, Thor might have been afraid to use his lightning in a ship full of refugees etc.

On the other hand we saw on screen that Hela was clearly outclassing lightning charged Thor with backup from Valkyrie.

All in all without the stones MCU Thanos has an advantage in raw strength but MCU Hela's in the same league strength wise and has a significant advantage in skill, speed, durability and weaponry. In a fair fight she'll take this and I don't think it's close.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised how close this vote is. The Thanos (with the power stone) vs Hela fight a few months back ended 14-13 but taking away the power stone doesn't seem to have made much difference so far.

While I concur with most of that, I disagree that Thanos has a strength advantage. Thor is easily the strongest asgardian ( bar one) and not too far off Hulk ( based on feats in Ragnarok). Hela was strong enough to manhandle Thor without showing much effort at all. That's pretty impressive. IMO Hela is at least as strong as Thanos.

However, I agree that it's her death-blades that make all the difference, and in the immortal words of Mr Schwarzenegger "If it bleeds...we can kill it."

Without an infinity stone I can't see Thanos' physical strength alone being able to do much damage to Hela, having seen her ignore weapon strikes which would instanly kill an asgardian. He punches her ( which even Cap could survive), she gets up and sticks a dozen death blades in him, game over !

Don't know why I'm so fired up about this battle...guess that's the sign of a good match up, respect to the OP !
 
While I concur with most of that, I disagree that Thanos has a strength advantage. Thor is easily the strongest asgardian ( bar one) and not too far off Hulk ( based on feats in Ragnarok). Hela was strong enough to manhandle Thor without showing much effort at all. That's pretty impressive. IMO Hela is at least as strong as Thanos.

However, I agree that it's her death-blades that make all the difference, and in the immortal words of Mr Schwarzenegger "If it bleeds...we can kill it."

Without an infinity stone I can't see Thanos' physical strength alone being able to do much damage to Hela, having seen her ignore weapon strikes which would instanly kill an asgardian. He punches her ( which even Cap could survive), she gets up and sticks a dozen death blades in him, game over !

Don't know why I'm so fired up about this battle...guess that's the sign of a good match up, respect to the OP !

I wouldn't make a deal out of that Cap survived a punch since Thanos didn't seem to attempt to kill any of the Avengers when came to Wakanda, he just incapacitated them all with ease. Thanos didn't seem out to kill individuals most of the times after he got a few stones.
 
I wouldn't make a deal out of that Cap survived a punch since Thanos didn't seem to attempt to kill any of the Avengers when came to Wakanda, he just incapacitated them all with ease. Thanos didn't seem out to kill individuals most of the times after he got a few stones.

That wasn't a love tap, Thanos draws his fist back and throws a full on punch. That is a big deal ( both for Cap's superhuman durability and for the relative power of Thanos' punch). The Hulk took a number of those. Whether Thanos was trying to kill Cap or not doesn't matter. If Cap can take a punch like that and live, Hela will take that punch and laugh.......and then turn Thanos into a titan flavoured shish kebab !
 
You seem to be talking about plot armour and character popularity here. If we started to factor that kind of thing into our fights on here we'd have to conclude that Dr Strange is above Dormammu, the Fantastic Four are above Galactus, Spider-Man's above Venom etc.

I can imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to beat a more powerful character like Hela, Ego or Dormammu. I can also imagine Marvel writers wanting Thanos to lose to a less powerful character like Doctor Doom, Captain Marvel, or the Guardians of the Galaxy. When they want those outcomes they'll use luck, mistakes and throwing in/taking away variables like weapons, allies, injuries and trickery to make that happen believably.

I don't think that's relevant here though. The outcome the writers choose for story purposes and the most likely outcome of a fair fight are two different things.



I think the key point is that Hela has a ridiculous healing factor that let her shrug off stab wounds in seconds whereas MCU Thanos has no known healing factor.



The problem with that comparison is that Thor's lightning varies. Thor called the lightning blast that briefly knocked out Hela the "biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning" and it was visibly bigger than the blast he used to stun Thanos and buy time to throw Stormbreaker. Similarly, the bolt Iron Man withstood in Avengers 1 was far smaller than the one that hit Thanos so it doesn't mean that armour had Thanos level durability.

Anyway, Hela is Thor's older, more powerful sister and she's logically capable of all the durability feats we've seen from him (shrugging off blows from Hulk, unharmed by a 30,000 foot fall, tanking attacks from the reality and power stones, surviving the full force of a star etc). Lightning aside, the only other damage we've seen her take is being cut/stabbed by Asgardian blades but that's largely moot here since she can shrug it off with her healing factor and Thanos doesn't fight with blades anyway.

Thanos had impressive feats shrugging off blunt force attacks in his fights against Hulk and Iron Man but we've seen similar feats from Thor and I'd expect the same from Hela. We've also seen Thanos cut by Iron Man so I doubt he's going to withstand Hela's necroswords; those things were capable of maiming Thor and impaling Surtur.



I agree Thanos has a strength advantage but it isn't huge. We didn't see the limits of the strength of either character. All we can really say is that Thanos is stronger than Hulk and Hela is stronger than Thor.

I'd argue Hela has a major skill and speed advantage though.

Sure, Thanos completely outclassed Hulk using skill. The thing is though, Hulk's an unskilled brawler who gets by due to incredible strength/durability. Plus we later saw that characters like Iron Man and even Captain America who are far weaker than Thanos were able to use skill/speed to keep him off balance and land hits on him.

Hela's skill feats are far more impressive to me. She fought Thor and Valkyrie - the two most skilled Asgardian warriors we've seen - at once on the bifrost and never took a hit until she was distracted by Surtur appearing and Valkyrie backstabbed her. She also fought an army of Asgardian warriors at once and only took one hit.



Sure, Thanos easily beat Hulk and that's a feat that Hela doesn't have. I'd argue that's only because she's never fought Hulk though. Thor chose to summon Surtur to destroy Asgard because he believed that even if he, Hulk, Valkyrie and Loki fought her together it wouldn't be enough to beat Hela.

As for their respective fights against Thor, until MCU Thanos gets more feats, it's not out of the question that Ragnarok Thor could beat Thanos (no stones) one on one or give him a very close fight. That's because we have no idea how Thanos beat Thor off screen. He might have used the power stone, he might have had backup from the Black Order, Thor might have been afraid to use his lightning in a ship full of refugees etc.

On the other hand we saw on screen that Hela was clearly outclassing lightning charged Thor with backup from Valkyrie.

All in all without the stones MCU Thanos has an advantage in raw strength but MCU Hela's in the same league strength wise and has a significant advantage in skill, speed, durability and weaponry. In a fair fight she'll take this and I don't think it's close.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised how close this vote is. The Thanos (with the power stone) vs Hela fight a few months back ended 14-13 but taking away the power stone doesn't seem to have made much difference so far.

There is definitely a Hela bias.

As for the lightning argument, that seems a bit like a cop-out doesn't it? Character statements usually don't hold up against on-screen feats and context. Because the effects Department decided to give ragnarok thor's lightning a greater radius, it is more powerful than a stronger bloodlusted Thor in IW? Come on lol Thanos had a better durability showing against a stronger attack bloodlusted attack. Thats undisputable and you know it. Thanos has greater energy durability than Hela. I think its hard to deny.

As for plot armor..of course! Its relevant. These are in-universe battles
 
That wasn't a love tap, Thanos draws his fist back and throws a full on punch. That is a big deal ( both for Cap's superhuman durability and for the relative power of Thanos' punch). The Hulk took a number of those. Whether Thanos was trying to kill Cap or not doesn't matter. If Cap can take a punch like that and live, Hela will take that punch and laugh.......and then turn Thanos into a titan flavoured shish kebab !

He whacks Wanda pretty hard as well, who is just human, and she survived fine. He just didn't try to do anything more than incapacitate the Avengers, as if he struck them in the way that made Hulk cry out they would be dead, and he'd kill them even more easily by holding back less with the gauntlet. It's not like a human can survive a blast from the power stone if it's not held back to a huge degree.

I'm not making an argument for who wins in the fight, I'm just making a point on a particular argument. If I am to tie that into the fight argument I'd say that if you can hurt Hela by hitting her hard then Thanos can do it.
 
While I concur with most of that, I disagree that Thanos has a strength advantage. Thor is easily the strongest asgardian ( bar one) and not too far off Hulk ( based on feats in Ragnarok). Hela was strong enough to manhandle Thor without showing much effort at all. That's pretty impressive. IMO Hela is at least as strong as Thanos.

However, I agree that it's her death-blades that make all the difference, and in the immortal words of Mr Schwarzenegger "If it bleeds...we can kill it."

Without an infinity stone I can't see Thanos' physical strength alone being able to do much damage to Hela, having seen her ignore weapon strikes which would instanly kill an asgardian. He punches her ( which even Cap could survive), she gets up and sticks a dozen death blades in him, game over !

Don't know why I'm so fired up about this battle...guess that's the sign of a good match up, respect to the OP !

Because it is personal, and you have a bias otherwise you wouldn't be fired up like myself ;) .

But I still have not seen an actual counter to my durability comment. If you are agreeing in that Thanos' durability feat can be discredited due to visual variability, and a character statement, then that is seemingly a mannifestation of bias. On screen feats and canonical context > character statements, especially in battle forums. (Which is why Hela gets a point, given Thanos' one showing of piercing durability, I'll get to that). But I'll play ball. Thor's attack came in IW came after the "biggest lightning in the history..." Comment. But its still just a character statement that has less weight than canon context and on screen feats. Especially when said feat is against the same attack his opponent faced.

Thanos bled from a punch that did nothing. That is not a knock against his durability (it is also not a piercing attack, and cannot logically be used to claim he can be pierced by another attack. It's faulty logic. There is another feat to use against Thanos here, and it isnt this one.) You are using ABC logic in terms of durability, and ignoring the facts that both characters have a durability feat against the same attack, with Thanos fighting a more powerful version of Thor.

Thanos has a piercing durability feat. Stormbreaker. A weapon designed to kill him about half impaled him. It did not kill him, but it did wound him. THAT can be used in support of Hela. The question logically becomes, "how does Hela's blade piercing ability stack up against the piercing ability of stormbreaker?" Not sure. If its even, then she'd probably need to pierce him 3-5 times to put him down with the GIANT blades. Given stormbreaker was a McGuffin, and an all father weapon designed to kill Thanos, I'd imagine its piercing is stronger than what Hela can muster. But we don't know for sure. It just shows that Thanos is vulnerable to TRANS LEVEL piercing attacks. Which Hela has. We just dont know how comparable it is to Thor's. But that is a point I will concede.

Now, I conceded on something. Can't you also concede on the lightning argument I am making lol ? ;). You havent given Thanos a single edge, other than a slight but not really edge in strength. I provided a legitimate, logic and feat based argument for durability to energy attacks in favor of Thanos. It can't be objectively countered with fair logic because he has that genuine advantage. It doesnt mean he wins, but he has an edge there.

I feel I'm making legitimate good logic based arguments based in the philosophy of argument that are being talked around by lowballing and biased logic lol throw me a bone here people!

It genuinly comes down to if Hela can pierce him better than stormbreaker
 
And to piggyback of my last comment, speed does not necessarily equate to skill. Hela does have a slight skill advantage. But it isn't any greater than Thanos' strength advantage.

Given Thanos' easy dispatch of Hulk with skill, and the fact that he has never...lost..hand to hand combat shows how skilled he is. Just because he is less flashy, does not mean he is significantly less skilled. Hela's skill advantage = Thanos' strength advantage imo.
 
Thanos bled from a punch that did nothing. That is not a knock against his durability (it is also not a piercing attack, and cannot logically be used to claim he can be pierced by another attack. It's faulty logic. There is another feat to use against Thanos here, and it isnt this one.)

Iron Man wasn't able to significantly hurt Thanos and I agree that's a durability feat. Although as I've said, it's a feat I'm confident Hela could replicate since in the past Iron Man was unable to even scratch Thor and we're talking about Thor's more powerful older sister (pre-Stormbreaker at least).

Iron Man was able to give Thanos a minor cut though and that is a point against Thanos durability, especially since that cut came from blunt force rather than a cutting weapon. Iron Man using a blunt 'nano battering ram' fist that spread the impact over a far larger surface area than a blade would was still able to draw blood. This suggests a far stronger character like Hela, using swords that can focus her strength and cut characters as durable as Thor and Surtur Prime should be able to do far worse.

Thanos has a piercing durability feat. Stormbreaker. A weapon designed to kill him about half impaled him. It did not kill him, but it did wound him. THAT can be used in support of Hela. The question logically becomes, "how does Hela's blade piercing ability stack up against the piercing ability of stormbreaker?" Not sure. If its even, then she'd probably need to pierce him 3-5 times to put him down with the GIANT blades. Given stormbreaker was a McGuffin, and an all father weapon designed to kill Thanos, I'd imagine its piercing is stronger than what Hela can muster. But we don't know for sure. It just shows that Thanos is vulnerable to TRANS LEVEL piercing attacks. Which Hela has. We just dont know how comparable it is to Thor's. But that is a point I will concede.................. It genuinely comes down to if Hela can pierce him better than stormbreaker

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely impressive that Thanos wasn't instantly killed by having Stormbreaker embedded in his chest and despite being physically crippled save for his arm he still had the mental strength to use the Infinity Gauntlet for his snap and then to escape and heal himself. However ultimately, despite being slowed down by having to overpower a blast from the Infinity Gauntlet, Stormbreaker borderline one-shotted Thanos and if he hadn't had the gauntlet he'd have been unable to continue fighting and he'd likely have been dead within minutes. And if Thor had gone for the head he'd have died instantly.

I agree Hela's blades aren't as powerful as Stormbreaker and wouldn't be able to overpower the Infinity Gauntlet and one shot Thanos all in one attack. However, as long as her blades can pierce Thanos - and since they impaled Surtur and maimed Thor, I'm very confident they can - she can hit him with a torrent of blade after blade or get close and use her skill/speed advantage to stab/maim him before he can land a hit on her. And since Thanos doesn't have a healing factor those stab wounds are going to add up. Plus unlike Thor's she's ruthless enough to go for the head when she realises Thanos is a serious opponent.

Now, I conceded on something. Can't you also concede on the lightning argument I am making lol ? ;). You havent given Thanos a single edge, other than a slight but not really edge in strength. I provided a legitimate, logic and feat based argument for durability to energy attacks in favor of Thanos. It can't be objectively countered with fair logic because he has that genuine advantage. It doesnt mean he wins, but he has an edge there.

Sorry man, I stand by my 'Thor's lightning varies' argument.
  • Hela has a few feats of being hit by lightning. She was stunned, ragdolled and briefly KO'd by the 'biggest lightning bolt in the history of lightning' but she was also durable enough to completely ignore his lightning cloak and later - despite being impaled by Valkyrie's sword at the time - we saw her stay conscious when hit by another pretty huge lightning bolt powerful enough to destroy the bifrost bridge underneath her.
  • Thanos was ragdolled but not stunned or KO'd by a visibly smaller lightning blast than the one that stunned/KO'd Hela.
  • Iron Man was hit by a relatively miniscule lightning bolt from Thor when they brawled in Avengers 1.
We could start comparing images of lighting blasts and I could bring up that given she's Thor's more powerful sister she should logically be able to replicate Thor's energy resistance feat (e.g. power stone to the face, "full force of a star"). To be honest though, it's moot. Hela doesn't have energy based attacks to use on Thanos and without the stones Thanos doesn't have energy based attacks to use on Hela so it's not a factor in this fight.

And to piggyback of my last comment, speed does not necessarily equate to skill. Hela does have a slight skill advantage. But it isn't any greater than Thanos' strength advantage.
Given Thanos' easy dispatch of Hulk with skill and the fact that he has never...lost..hand to hand combat shows how skilled he is. Just because he is less flashy, does not mean he is significantly less skilled. Hela's skill advantage = Thanos' strength advantage imo.

Speed doesn't necessarily equate to skill but in this case Hela has a speed advantage and a skill advantage. I wouldn't say Hela's speed advantage is a game changer on its own but it's significant enough to help give her an edge when you combine it with her skill.

Based on feats, Hela's skill advantage is pretty major though. You never addressed my point that Thanos' main skill feat is outskilling an unskilled brawler like Hulk and your point about him never losing a hand to hand fight pre-Infinity War doesn't mean a lot since other than Hulk we have no idea who he's fought without using the stones and how strong/durable/skilled they were.

On the other hand, Hela taking on Thor and Valkyrie (both far more skilled than Hulk) at the same time without ever taking a clean hit and taking on hundreds of Asgardian soldiers in close quarters and only taking one hit are two of the best skill feats in the MCU.

The gap in skill seems more significant to me than the gap in strength. For now, all we know strength wise is that Hela is stronger than Thor and Thanos is stronger than Hulk. Hulk has a strength advantage over Thor so I think it's fair to give Thanos a strength advantage over Hela. Thor and Hulk are still in the same league strength wise though so Thanos and Hela should be.

I feel I'm making legitimate good logic based arguments based in the philosophy of argument that are being talked around by lowballing and biased logic lol throw me a bone here people!

I don't agree that I'm 'lowballing' MCU Thanos, I've given you logical arguments for Hela's speed/durabilty/skill/weaponry advantages and comparable strength. What I'm doing is making a judgement based on the feats/statements we've seen in the MCU and treating the MCU as its own canon rather than factoring in how powerful Thanos is without the stones in the comics. I actually don't have a strong bias here, I prefer Thanos as a character and I'm happy to admit he's more powerful than Hela in the comics.

If Thanos gets some new non-Infinity Stone based feats in Avengers 4 that put him above Hela we can have a rematch on here and I'll be happy to change my vote. For now though, MCU Hela has better skill/durability/speed feats along with comparable strength feats plus an advantage due to her swords giving her cutting/piercing and ranged attacks.
 
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Based on feats, Hela's skill advantage is pretty major though. You never addressed my point that Thanos' main skill feat is outskilling an unskilled brawler like Hulk, whereas Hela's skill feats include taking on Thor and Valkyrie (both far more skilled than Hulk) at the same time without ever taking a hit and taking on hundreds of Asgardian soldiers in close quarters and only taking one hit.

Thor hit Hela 2-3 times on the bifrost bridge (and several times in the throne room fight) and Valkyrie also landed a head kick.
 
Thor hit Hela 2-3 times on the bifrost bridge (and several times in the throne room fight) and Valkyrie also landed a head kick.

What I meant was that Thor and Valkyrie never land a clean hit on Hela in a two on one fight and after rewatching the fight I still think that's an impressive display of skill. Valkyrie lands two kicks but what matters is that she isn't able to land a hit with her sword (she does later pull off a backstab when Hela's distracted by Surtur but I'm not counting that). Thor has Hela on the backfoot at times and at one point she's forced to dive backwards and his lightning knocks her into the ground but again, he's never able to land a hit with his swords. After being disarmed he does manage to grab her arm and throw her once but she just flips out of it and carries on fighting. In the same fight, Hela hits Thor with four swords to the chest, disarms Thor, throws Thor into the ground once and Valkyrie into the ground twice.

Given that Thor is far more skilled than Hulk (this is made very clear the moment Thor gets serious in the Thor vs Hulk fight) and Valkyrie is also an elite Asgardian warrior, I stand by the point I was making that outskilling both of them at once is a far better skill feat than Thanos outskilling Hulk.

And then there's her ridiculous skill feat against Asgard's army to think about........
 
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Thor hit Hela 2-3 times on the bifrost bridge (and several times in the throne room fight) and Valkyrie also landed a head kick.

True, and the effect of those hits was.....nothing, including Val impaling her from behind with the Dragonfang sword. Whereas Hela threw Valkyrie around effortlessly, cut out Thor's eye and speared him more than once.


Because it is personal, and you have a bias otherwise you wouldn't be fired up like myself ;) .

But I still have not seen an actual counter to my durability comment. If you are agreeing in that Thanos' durability feat can be discredited due to visual variability, and a character statement, then that is seemingly a mannifestation of bias. On screen feats and canonical context > character statements, especially in battle forums. (Which is why Hela gets a point, given Thanos' one showing of piercing durability, I'll get to that). But I'll play ball. Thor's attack came in IW came after the "biggest lightning in the history..." Comment. But its still just a character statement that has less weight than canon context and on screen feats. Especially when said feat is against the same attack his opponent faced.

Thanos bled from a punch that did nothing. That is not a knock against his durability (it is also not a piercing attack, and cannot logically be used to claim he can be pierced by another attack. It's faulty logic. There is another feat to use against Thanos here, and it isnt this one.) You are using ABC logic in terms of durability, and ignoring the facts that both characters have a durability feat against the same attack, with Thanos fighting a more powerful version of Thor.

Thanos has a piercing durability feat. Stormbreaker. A weapon designed to kill him about half impaled him. It did not kill him, but it did wound him. THAT can be used in support of Hela. The question logically becomes, "how does Hela's blade piercing ability stack up against the piercing ability of stormbreaker?" Not sure. If its even, then she'd probably need to pierce him 3-5 times to put him down with the GIANT blades. Given stormbreaker was a McGuffin, and an all father weapon designed to kill Thanos, I'd imagine its piercing is stronger than what Hela can muster. But we don't know for sure. It just shows that Thanos is vulnerable to TRANS LEVEL piercing attacks. Which Hela has. We just dont know how comparable it is to Thor's. But that is a point I will concede.

It genuinly comes down to if Hela can pierce him better than stormbreaker

I think the quote below kind of sums it up, it's the physics of a blunt force attack vs the physics of a piercing attack. If Thanos' durability is such that even a blunt force attack can draw blood, it follows that a piercing/cutting attack will have an even more damaging effect. It's all about the surface area.


Iron Man was able to give Thanos a minor cut though and that is a point against Thanos durability, especially since that cut came from blunt force rather than a cutting weapon. Iron Man using a blunt 'nano battering ram' fist that spread the impact over a far larger surface area than a blade would was still able to draw blood. This suggests a far stronger character like Hela, using swords that can focus her strength and cut characters as durable as Thor and Surtur Prime should be able to do far worse.


Now if this was the comics the fight might be more even as comic book Thanos has a bunch of powers that MCU Thanos doesn't.

However, while MCU Thanos has Hulk level strength and durability he's clearly mortal, whereas Hela is a goddess whose nearly unkillable, and whose main superpower is killing things.

Thanos with an infinity stone might be able to take her - but without the stones, just can't see it.

In the end we must simply agree to disagree.

This has been a really intense battle - again, respect to the OP for such a good match-up!
 
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What I meant was that Thor and Valkyrie never land a clean hit on Hela in a two on one fight and after rewatching the fight I still think that's an impressive display of skill. Valkyrie lands two kicks but what matters is that she isn't able to land a hit with her sword (she does later pull off a backstab when Hela's distracted by Surtur but I'm not counting that). Thor has Hela on the backfoot at times and at one point she's forced to dive backwards and his lightning knocks her into the ground but again, he's never able to land a hit with his swords. He does manage to grab her arm and throw her once but she just flips out of it and carries on fighting. In the same fight, Hela hits Thor with four swords to the chest, disarms Thor, throws Thor into the ground once and Valkyrie into the ground twice.

Given that Thor is far more skilled than Hulk (this is made very clear the moment Thor gets serious in the Thor vs Hulk fight) and Valkyrie is also an elite Asgardian warrior, I stand by the point I was making that outskilling both of them at once is a far better skill feat than Thanos outskilling Hulk.

And then there's her ridiculous skill feat against Asgard's army to think about........

Thor definitely uppercuts her with a sword then hits her with a downward blow that slams her into the ground. After that she rolls out of the way of his follow up stab which causes his sword to pierce the bifrost
 
Thor definitely uppercuts her with a sword then hits her with a downward blow that slams her into the ground. After that she rolls out of the way of his follow up stab which causes his sword to pierce the bifrost

We're both talking about this moment:
giphy.gif

It's the lightning arcing out from the sword that hits her, she keeps dodging the sword itself which is what I'm calling never taking a clean hit.

Anyway, the point I was making is that Hela has a feat of outskilling Thor and Valkyrie which is better than Thanos best skill feat of outskilling Hulk (a relatively unskilled brawler).

She also has these ridiculous skill feats:
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giphy.gif


Are you with me that she's shown far more skill than Thanos?
 
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Just to be thorough here's Thanos' best skill feat one on one against Hulk (an unskilled brawler with no physical advantage over Thanos) for comparison
giphy.gif


I think it's worth remembering we've seen limits to Thanos' hand to hand skill and ability to dodge by the way.

giphy.gif


giphy.gif


giphy.gif
 
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I think Thanos has the abilities to defeat Hela if she can be harmed by force, but given what we see in Ragnarok I'm not sure that's possible. With Asgard around she'll just regenerate any sort of injury. The only thing that took her out of the fight for a couple of minutes was Thor's huge lightning blast, and even after that she showed up unscathed again.
 
We're both talking about this moment:
giphy.gif

It's the lightning arcing out from the sword that hits her, she keeps dodging the sword itself which is what I'm calling never taking a clean hit.

Wow that's cool af, I never noticed that it was Thor's lightning arcs that were hitting Hela there. He was literally using lightning as a solid weapon, that's just plain awesome.

Anyway, the point I was making is that Hela has a feat of outskilling Thor and Valkyrie which is better than Thanos best skill feat of outskilling Hulk (a relatively unskilled brawler).

She also has these ridiculous skill feats:
giphy.gif

giphy.gif


Are you with me that she's shown far more skill than Thanos?

Yep she is clearly more skilled than Thanos imo and it's not really that close.
 
True, and the effect of those hits was.....nothing, including Val impaling her from behind with the Dragonfang sword. Whereas Hela threw Valkyrie around effortlessly, cut out Thor's eye and speared him more than once.




I think the quote below kind of sums it up, it's the physics of a blunt force attack vs the physics of a piercing attack. If Thanos' durability is such that even a blunt force attack can draw blood, it follows that a piercing/cutting attack will have an even more damaging effect. It's all about the surface area.





Now if this was the comics the fight might be more even as comic book Thanos has a bunch of powers that MCU Thanos doesn't.

However, while MCU Thanos has Hulk level strength and durability he's clearly mortal, whereas Hela is a goddess whose nearly unkillable, and whose main superpower is killing things.

Thanos with an infinity stone might be able to take her - but without the stones, just can't see it.

In the end we must simply agree to disagree.

This has been a really intense battle - again, respect to the OP for such a good match-up!

Yes, intense across the board.

Thanks for being here every week and helping keep the battles alive! You're always one of the first to post and get the thread going.

Next we are going to battle Iron man up to the powerhouse tier. As he got a clear upgrade in IW
 
Wow that's cool af, I never noticed that it was Thor's lightning arcs that were hitting Hela there. He was literally using lightning as a solid weapon, that's just plain awesome.



Yep she is clearly more skilled than Thanos imo and it's not really that close.

Its close imo. His fight with Hulk showed a very realistic kind of fighting skill that wasn't dependent on flare. When wearing a glove that has crystals that control elements of existence, I doubt you are going to try to outskill iron man, and captain america who are significantly beneath you. Hela has a skill edge but it isnt massive imo.

But I dont think Thor is using lightning as a physical power. Thats a sword he is holding, engulfed in lightning
 
Its close imo. His fight with Hulk showed a very realistic kind of fighting skill that wasn't dependent on flare. When wearing a glove that has crystals that control elements of existence, I doubt you are going to try to outskill iron man, and captain america who are significantly beneath you. Hela has a skill edge but it isnt massive imo.

But I dont think Thor is using lightning as a physical power. Thats a sword he is holding, engulfed in lightning

Yes but the sword itself doesn't touch her, just the lightning and her body reacts to the lightning like it's being hit with a solid object.
 
Its
Yes but the sword itself doesn't touch her, just the lightning and her body reacts to the lightning like it's being hit with a solid object.

It's hard to tell, precisely what happened without going frame by frame. What is clear is that Thor's lightning blasts have unusual effects and are quite versatile e.g. in Ragnarok he uses a lightning bolt to throw some of the zombie warriors around.

Regardless of the hits that Hela takes/doesn't take during that fight or whether its from fists, swords, lightning or a combination thereof, none of it has much effect other than to slow her down.

Thor and Val have only one goal, that's to delay Hela long enough for the refugees to escape and for Loki to unleash Surtur prime.
 
Even though I voted for Thanos I’m totally fine with Hela’s victory. It isn’t a big deal. Hela was a force to be reckoned with and only a being of immense power was able to take her out...

I also think Surtur would obliterate Thanos.
 

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