How Powerful Is America Chavez? Powers & Abilities Explained

America Chavez is the latest young Marvel superhero getting introduced into the MCU. It has been confirmed that Xochitl Gomez will portray Miss America in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Even if you know nothing about Chavez, the trailer shows she’s quite powerful – and could be useful later in the MCU. But, just how powerful is America Chavez?

America Chavez is incredibly powerful in the comics – so much so that her limits haven’t even been determined yet. She’s certainly one of the most powerful Young Avengers, capable of opening multiversal portals, along with superhuman strength, speed, flight, and much more.

How much of the comic book America Chavez will translate to the MCU version is uncertain. One thing is certain, though: America is set to shake things up on the power ranking table in the MCU and bring some welcome diversity as the first-ever Latin-American LGBTQ Marvel hero. Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about America’s powers.

How Did America Chavez Get Her Powers?

America Chavez and her sister Catalina lived a happy life with their mothers, Amalia and Elena. Amalia and Elena were expert microbiologists and pathologists, respectively. The girls were happy. However, they suffered from a rare genetic disease of the XX chromosomes called the Edges Syndrome.

Their mothers, being expert scientists, did everything they could to find a cure for the girls. They even went to a facility on a private island owned by a guy called Mr. Gales, who gave them all the resources to conduct benevolent experiments on their daughters, trying to find a cure for the disease.

The experiments eventually gave America her powers. She went into remission from her illness, and the powers started manifesting themselves. That’s when Mr. Gales’ malevolent intentions were discovered. He tried manipulating America into defying her mothers and using her powers against them.

Eventually, Mr. Gales killed Amalia and Elena when they tried to take the girls to safety. America opened a portal with her powers to take Catalina to safety, but as she walked through, Gales snatched Catalina away, so America seemingly lost her entire family in a day.

She was later adopted and started learning more about what she could do after regaining her memories three years after the adoption. 

America Chavez Powers

As I mentioned before, America’s power limits haven’t even been explored yet, but she has some astonishing powers that not a lot of characters can say they have.

It starts with the basic stuff, like superhuman strength, to a level where Loki calls her nearly indestructible and says, “she could throw tanks to the Moon” in Young Avengers Vol. 2 #1. America can also fly without aid with incredible superhuman speed. It goes without saying that Chavez hardly ever gets tired, but what’s most impressive about her physiology is her durability.

America Chavez is practically invulnerable to damage. She was shown to withstand bullets, fire, superhuman punches, and even travel in space without aid, meaning she can also survive without food or air.

Additionally, America has been empowered to have a prolonged lifespan, meaning she ages at a much slower rate, as shown in America #6.

You probably noticed the cool jacket with a star on the back that America wears in the trailer. She wears the same jacket in the comics, depicting her awesome ability to create Star Portals. Not only does it allow her to teleport to where she wants to go, but also travels inter-dimensionally through the multiverse. 

That’s something that’ll certainly come in handy for Doctor Strange. As a side-effect of the interdimensional travel, America Chavez can also travel back and forth through time, but she needs a focusing stimulus to do so.

That’s one side of her energy projection. The other side manifests as the Energy Infusion, an ability that allows America to harness inner power and energy and use it to amplify her strength incredibly.

Finally, possibly the most important part of America’s powers is her hyper-cosmic awareness. Chavez can sense everything that’s going on in every multiverse there is, in infinite dimensions. That’s what allows her to travel through the multiverse so effortlessly.

America Chavez Abilities & Weaknesses

Every superhero has powers, but what about the other side of the coin – the non-supernatural skills? Rest assured, America Chavez has those, too.

Despite being quite young, America already has some incredible skills and abilities thanks to her multiversal travels. She’s fluent in English and Spanish and is quite intelligent. Despite not being a professional investigator, Chavez was smart enough to put pieces and clues together on her own to find her long-lost sister, Catalina.

She was quite a troublemaker to her adopted parents, often getting into street fights. Ultimately, it gave her a lot of experience, making Chavez quite a good hand-to-hand combatant that went toe-to-toe with Carol Danvers on several occasions.

Now, her biggest weakness was her age. She’s sometimes too reactive and tends to act on emotions instead of planning, but as she gained experience and worked as a member of a team, America became much more mature.

Her other big weakness turned out to be the Edges Syndrome, the disease her mothers tried to cure, to begin with. The cure her mothers found had been undone after thirteen years, so the disease returned, and America’s cellular degeneration continued. It vastly affected her powers – although she still had them, Chavez’s powers were severely weakened.

How Powerful Is America Chavez (Compared To Other MCU Heroes)?

It should be obvious by now that America Chavez is incredibly powerful. So, how powerful is she compared to some other MCU characters. Well, it’s hard to tell right now since we don’t know which version of America will be depicted in the MCU, nor which powers will she have. However, we can compare what she had done in the comics to get a clearer picture.

Seeing that America Chavez will first appear in a Doctor Strange movie, it’s no wonder that fans compare the two instantly. There aren’t many characters that can match Doctor Strange power-wise, but America is certainly one of them. 

She killed a Sorcerer Supreme in another dimension with one blow. One would think Strange is more powerful than that, but still, it puts Chavez right into his ballpark, at least.

When Spectrum, aka Monica Rambeau, turns into her light form, she travels so fast that everything around her seems to be standing still. Not America Chavez, though – she still moves so fast that Spectrum can hardly see her.

She can open up multiversal portals on a whim – an ability we haven’t seen from any MCU character so far. Power-wise, I’d say she’s around Doctor Strange’s level, a similar level as Captain Marvel or Scarlet Witch. Of course, that depends on how powerful the MCU version of the character will be.

She’s above and beyond more powerful than Kate Bishop, aka the new Hawkeye, that was also a member of the Young Avengers.

Strength-wise, she’s pretty high on the list. I wouldn’t say she’s on Thor’s or the Hulk’s level, but I believe she could match She-Hulk, Iron Man, or Captain America – strength-wise, not skill-wise.

In the end, all we know for sure is that America Chavez will certainly play a crucial role not just in the upcoming Doctor Strange movie but in the entire MCU landscape after that. I can’t wait to see what Marvel has in store for us!