No one is invincible, not even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Don’t believe us? Well, consider
the following evidence as we look at the biggest weaknesses of every member of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe versions of the Avengers.
Saying that someone's strength can also be their weakness is cliché, but it's cliché
because it's true, and Iron Man is a perfect example. While Tony Stark's mini-Arc reactor
has been the source of a number of close calls, it's his need to shoulder the burden that's
been his biggest weakness.
When the Battle of New York happened in 2012's The Avengers, everything changed for Tony.
The knowledge that hostile alien forces were waiting out in the void was too much for him
to process without doing something about it.
"Stark. You know that's a one-way trip."
"Save the rest for the turn, J."
While this sense of responsibility helps save the world multiple times, it also feeds Stark's
biggest failures. It justifies, in his mind, his deception in Avengers: Age of Ultron and
leads to the creation of a sentient robot that almost destroys the world. It's
also a big part of his motivation to back the Sokovia [suh-KOH-vee-uh] Accords in Captain
America: Civil War, sending him on a collision course with Steve Rogers and leaving the world
divided.
It's true that we tend to expect from the world what we expect from ourselves. So if
you're a selfless and courageous patriot who always demands the best from yourself, then
you're probably going to expect the best from everyone around you.
"I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend."
And if you're Steve Rogers, you'll be disappointed. A lot.
It's this aspect of Steve that helps start so much trouble in Captain America: Civil
War. Of course he doesn't see a need for the Sokovia Accords — he expects the best from
everyone around him. It's why the deceptions he endures from Black Widow and Nick Fury,
who he knows are spies, somehow come as a surprise to him, and it's why he's able to
join S.H.I.E.L.D. without noticing the growing threat of Hydra until Fury is nearly dying
on his living room floor.
Ever since his first big screen appearance in 2011's Thor, the god of thunder struggles
with the fact that he just isn't used to being the loser.
The problem with almost always being the most powerful guy in the room is that you might
not know what to do once that power can't save you. That's true for Thor as soon as
we meet him in his first solo film. He eventually finds the humility to win back Mjolnir
and regain his powers, but when he's first made mortal, all he knows to do is try to
recapture the hammer.
"Hammer. Hammer!" "Yeah, we can tell you're hammered."
Of course, there's also his transformation into the so-called "Bro Thor" in Avengers:
Endgame. Although Thor isn't alone in his failure to stop Thanos from killing half the
universe in Avengers: Infinity War, he lets the weight of everything fall directly on
his shoulders. It's what drives him to kill Thanos... and to fall as low as we've ever
seen him.
One thing that's always been clear about the Hulk is that his biggest weakness — at least
in terms of working with a team — is that you're never really sure exactly which Hulk
you're going to be dealing with. If you get the wrong one, he's just as likely to smash
his teammates as he is to smash the real enemy.
While Loki is doubtlessly using outside power to influence the Hulk when he goes wild on
the Helicarrier in The Avengers, the Hulk isn't someone you have to work that hard to
manipulate. While the moment is arguably one of the most hilarious of the film, and the
Hulk shows his willingness to lash out at allies when he sucker punches Thor in Grand
Central Station.
He's one of four Avengers who are assaulted by Scarlet Witch's mental powers in Avengers:
Age of Ultron, yet he's the only one who goes on a rampage through Johannesburg.
And in Thor: Ragnarok, there are no witches or warlocks playing with his mind when he
chooses to attack Thor in Sakaar's arena. Basically, "the other guy" is unpredictable.
As we've seen from Black Widow time and again, as much as she fights and sacrifices to redeem
herself, a powerful part of her is convinced she's not worth saving. It's what Loki tries
to exploit in The Avengers, and it's one of the things that kills her in Avengers: Endgame.
After Loki's plot to manipulate her in The Avengers is revealed, Black Widow continues
to be shaken by the experience.
"You know what it's like to be unmade?" "You know that I do."
And in spite of her selfless heroics in later installments, in Avengers: Age of Ultron,
she implies that she's as much of a monster as the Hulk and calls the notion of her being
an Avenger "a dream."
While you could hardly call her sacrifice in Endgame a weakness, it seems likely this
viewing of herself as a monster is part of what convinces her she should be the one to
die on Vormir rather than Hawkeye.
Hawkeye is one of the few Avengers whose greatest weakness is more on the physical side of things,
as he's limited by his ammo.
Without his arrows, Clint is far from helpless. In most of his appearances, we've seen him
the equal of many of his fellow Avengers when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. But when
it comes to the threats that live in the world of the super? He needs those weapons, and
when he runs out, he's in a lot of trouble. In Civil War, he would've been useless without
his arrows, and, even with them, he was no match for Vision.
That's probably why in Avengers: Age of Ultron, we learn he's come up with some creative means
to extend his ammo.
When Scarlet Witch joins the battle against Ultron's drones in Sokovia, that's when we
learn her biggest weakness: a lack of confidence. You can hardly blame her for her fear, though.
Not that long ago, she was on Ultron's side, and she's still pretty new to the superhero
business. It takes a pep talk from Hawkeye to get her back on her feet.
"If you go out there, you fight. And you fight to kill. You stay in here, you're good. I'll
send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger."
But it happens again in Captain America: Civil War. When Hawkeye shows up to free Wanda from
the Avengers Compound, at first it seems like she'd rather stay, and she believes she's
dangerous enough to warrant the house arrest Tony Stark has her under. Once more, Clint
has to make her face some hard truths before she takes action.
Since the death of Vision in Infinity War and her one-sided showdown with Thanos in
Endgame, Wanda's lack of confidence may be less of an issue. We'll have to wait and see.
Unfortunately, Quicksilver didn't live long enough to get an extended look at what he
would've been like as an Avenger, but during his time in Age of Ultron, it's clear the
speedster was usually governed by one thing: his rage.
It's Pietro's anger at Tony Stark that pits him against the Avengers, and it's
eventually what puts him in Ultron's camp. We've seen that fury start to boil up a couple
of times — first against Captain America, and then against Hawkeye when the archer incapacitates
Wanda.
In the comics, Quicksilver's anger leads him to actually betray the Avengers a number of
times. We'll never know if the same would've been true in the films. He's seemed to have
mellowed at least a little, considering both his sacrifice to save Hawkeye and a young
Sokovian boy and his willingness to take a little friendly fire in the arm from a Sokovian
cop without punching him in the throat for it.
Tony Stark says Vision might become the most powerful of the Avengers before the android
comes to life in Age of Ultron, and Vision's entrance into the airport battle in Berlin
certainly makes him seem like the most powerful hero there. But in the end, the Mind Stone
that was the key to bringing him to life proves his undoing in more ways than one.
"Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one."
First, there's the obvious way. When Thanos rips the gem from the android's head in Infinity
War, it kills Vision instantly. Since he isn't one of the victims of Thanos' fateful snap,
his death isn't reversed in Endgame.
But we see some other ways Vision's reliance on the Mind Stone makes him vulnerable earlier
in Civil War. The fact that Wanda's powers come from the Mind Stone is what allows her
to overpower Vision when Hawkeye comes to rescue her from house arrest. Later, his overreliance
on the stone, plus his worry for Wanda's injuries, force him to miss his target and blast War
Machine, nearly killing him.
While James Rhodes' years in the War Machine suit have made him an accomplished Avenger,
there's at least one way in which he'll never be Iron Man's equal. He may have a similar
suit, but he doesn't have the mind that created them.
Rhodey's skills are nothing to sneeze at, even without the suit. As we see in Iron Man
3, his cunning, courage, and marksmanship help him survive fights with multiple Extremis
-fueled bad guys. The problem is that when he's in the suit, and the suit
fails him, he doesn't have the technical know-how to compensate.
Take his fall in Civil War. Tony Stark finds himself in a similar situation in Iron Man
when his push towards the upper atmosphere freezes his suit and causes it to temporarily
lose power. Because Tony is an engineer and he knows what the suit can do, he's able to
get the armor working again before he's a skidmark. Rhodes doesn't have the same capacity.
When Vision accidentally blasts him in Civil War and he falls, his fate is sealed.
Ever since he was introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Falcon has proven himself
to be a fierce fighter. In Civil War, he goes toe-to-toe with several Avengers, and he makes
short work of Crossbones' mercenaries, and in Endgame, he takes down alien monsters twice
his size.
But without his wings? Sam Wilson is still an accomplished professional soldier whether
he can take to the sky or not, but from what we've seen of him so far, his hand-to-hand
skills need some work. He isn't much help against the Winter Soldier without his wings,
and in his clash with Brock Rumlow, the villain says it best:
"You're out of your depth, kid."
While he could probably knock your average person on their butt, without his wings he
can barely keep up.
In some ways, when Tony Stark barged into Peter Parker's life in Civil War, it was a
gift. In other ways, it's been a burden. While Stark helps to enable Peter to become the
best hero he can be, he also imposes a large shadow over Spider-Man's life that the younger
hero constantly feels pressured to live up to.
"What is he, your ward?" "No. I'm Peter, by the way."
"Doctor Strange." "Oh, you're using your made up names. I'm
Spider-Man then."
He wants to do nothing but impress his mentor and prove his worthiness as an Avenger. After
Iron Man's death, Peter feels the responsibility to fill the void Tony left behind.
It's this drive to live up to the legend of Iron Man that leads him to make some questionable
decisions. It pushes him to do a lot more than "web 'em up" and keep his distance like
Tony tells him to in Civil War. It gets him in a number of fights that don't end well
in Homecoming, and it drives him to intervene in the arms sale that leads to the Staten
Island Ferry being blasted in half. And in Far From Home, his feelings of inadequacy
make him an easy target for Quentin Beck's manipulations.
Imagine the level of distrust you must have toward yourself to not only insist you be
stored in cryo-freeze, but to agree that your caretaker will be the guy who — until a
few days ago — blamed you for his father's death. That's the situation in which Bucky
finds himself in the mid-credits scene of Civil War.
"You sure about this?" "I can't trust my own mind."
Bucky doesn't trust himself and with good reason. In spite of being free of Hydra's
control and living incognito for two years, a man he's never met is able to find the code
that unlocks the assassin living in his brain and unleashes him on innocents. We don't even
know if Shuri [SHOO-ree] or anyone else in Wakanda [wuh-KAHN-duh] was able to cure Bucky
of his Hydra conditioning, as it hasn't been mentioned since Civil War.
We've mostly only seen Bucky as part of battles with huge opposing armies. What's going to
happen when he has to deal with a smaller-scale, domestic situation? Is he going to be able
to trust himself knowing the damage he's capable of?
Scott Lang has a massive inferiority complex when it comes to other, more experienced superheroes.
We see it as early as his first fight with Falcon. What we do see of him in Civil War
makes it clear that he's utterly starstruck by Captain America.
"Captain America." "Mr. Lang."
"It's an honor. I'm shaking your hand too long. Wow. This is awesome. Captain America."
But his feelings of inferiority are most clear in Endgame, where his teammates enjoy picking
on him because of it. And even though everyone else seems to be embarrassed to even be in
the same room as the diminished "Bro" Thor, when the thunder god talks, Scott grins and
nods like a little kid listening to his favorite baseball player tell a story.
What's so sad about it is how often Scott proves himself equal to his teammates. He
kicks Falcon's butt in Ant-Man, does some serious damage in Civil War, and he's one
of the most pivotal heroes in Endgame, regardless of how the other Avengers talk to him. He's
the one who comes up with the idea of using the Quantum Realm to travel through time,
he saves a number of Avengers from drowning when Thanos attacks, he takes out a Chitauri
Leviathan by punching it in the face, and he kills Cull Obsidian
by stepping on him. So come on, Avengers, give this guy a break.
Caring about your family should hardly be seen as a weakness, but the sad truth is when
you want Black Panther to make mistakes, the clear route seems to be to attack his family.
The first big mistake we see T'Challa make is when he dedicates himself to killing
Bucky in Civil War. The reason, of course, is because he incorrectly believes Bucky planted
the bomb that killed his father. T'Challa fails in his quest for revenge, but it's not
for lack of trying.
"So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend
safe from me?"
In Black Panther, Killmonger's initial victory over T'Challa at Warrior Falls is only possible
because of the very notion of family. The revelation that T'Challa's father killed his
own brother and abandoned the young Killmonger in America leads Black Panther to make the
bad choice of accepting Killmonger's challenge, which ends with an epic beatdown.
Some may argue the point — the sorcerer himself would probably take issue with it
— but Stephen Strange's penchant for keeping his own counsel is something that's bound
to betray him one of these days.
Strange makes a lot of pivotal decisions that seem inexplicable to his allies, and more
often than not, he does it without bothering to explain himself. In Doctor Strange, Mordo
and Wong both think he's abandoned them when he actually has a plan to trick Dormammu.
In Infinity War, he surrenders the Time Stone to Thanos without letting anyone else in on
the reason why.
"There was no other way."
Of course, in those instances, things ultimately worked out, although not without cost. The
Avengers were left dumbfounded for years about his decision on Titan. And things haven't
always worked out, like when he transported everyone into the Mirror Dimension in Doctor
Strange, where he made things worse. He and Mordo eventually escape, but it ultimately
leads to the death of the Ancient One.
We haven't seen Captain Marvel's confidence backfire on her yet, but it's a good bet we're
bound to.
In the beginning of Endgame, Carol Danvers is convinced that the only reason the Avengers
weren't able to defeat Thanos is because she wasn't with them. Her comments rub the group
the wrong way, but she doesn't back down. It seems likely that confidence, in part,
is what helps keep her a loner. Perhaps one of the biggest differences between the Carol
Danvers of the comics and the screen is that, so far, the Captain Marvel of the MCU doesn't
seem like much of a team player.
When she returns to Earth at the end of the movie, she gets some more fuel for her confidence.
Thanos' strongest blow barely fazes her, and he's only able to throw her aside because
of the Infinity Stones. From what we've seen of her interacting with other heroes, she
doesn't seem to like asking for help. Eventually, that's going to get her into trouble.
Rocket has some fairly significant character flaws. He's rude, he pushes people away, and
he's got an ego the size of Ego's planet. But at the end of the day, Rocket's biggest
weakness is simply that he's small.
Rocket can be a terrible opponent. He takes on almost all of Yondu's Ravagers
in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 by himself. He's a terror with a gun in his hand, and
given the right tools and materials, he can make you a high-tech super weapon faster than
you can say "MacGyver."
But catch him without a gun, a high-tech gadget, or at the controls of a spaceship? He's helpless.
When he attacks Ronan at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, the Kree barely
has to even move to knock Rocket into next week. He's almost completely useless against
Gamora early in the movie when they're fighting over Quill. We wouldn't want
to make him mad if there's so much as a butter knife nearby, but Marvel's favorite trash
panda is, in the end, the size of a build-a-bear, and it can be a huge disadvantage.
"Honestly, at this exact second, I thought you were Build-a-Bear."
"Maybe I am."
Shortly after Endgame opens, we find Nebula playing paper football with
Tony Stark on board the Benatar. When she shakes Tony's hand after her victory, this
is about the most cordial and social we've seen her. She also practically looks like
a starving dog trying to decide whether or not a concerned human handing her food was
trustworthy.
Like Gamora, Nebula has spent most of her adult life as an assassin under Thanos' thumb.
Now that she's free of him, she's going to find herself in something of a new life, and
a lot of it will be challenging. When Quill comments on how bad Nebula is at lying in
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, it's more than a joke. Of course she's bad at lying.
She's spent her whole life outside anything approaching a normal social situation.
Assuming Nebula is planning on becoming a regular member of the Guardians, she'll likely
find it difficult to figure out how or who to be.
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