Ikaris vs Captain Marvel: Who Would Win?

Anticipating the release of Marvel’s Eternals has inspired us to continue our series of comparisons including characters from the Eternals. We have already done several lists and individual articles, but this series is going to focus on some individual Eternals and their powers when compared to some other characters. As for today’s article, we are going to pit Ikaris, one of the famous Eternals, and Captain Marvel, a heroine who became more popular thanks to the MCU. Who would win in a fight between the two? Keep reading to find out!

Ikaris is a much more powerful character than Carol Danvers and he could easily defeat her in a fight. Captain Marvel is a powerful heroine, but the perception of her powers has mostly been overestimated thanks to the MCU.

Our comparison is going to be divided into three sections. The first is going to bring an overview of the two characters, after which we are going to compare their powers, including their signature weapons. Finally, we’re going to bring you a detailed analysis of the two characters to determine which one would win in a direct clash.

Ikaris and his powers

Ikaris takes its name from a tragic accident that took place hundreds of years before his birth. While fighting the Deviants in ancient Greece, the Eternal, later known as Ikaris, met and married a human woman. The two fathered a son named Icarus, who loved to soar in the air with his father over the seas and mountains of Greece.

Once, the Eternal made his son a pair of mechanical wings so that he could fly alongside him. When his father disappeared while he was fighting the Deviants, the young Icarus tried to follow him using his mechanical wings. For too much inexperience in flight, the young Icarus hovered too high in the air, losing consciousness in the high atmosphere, falling towards his death. Thus, having found his dead son, the Eternal took his name, Ikaris, in remembrance.

Ikaris has the typical powers of all the Eternals: he does not age and if he were killed he would be reborn in Olympia in the reactivation room with the body already an adult and the memories intact; he is able to manipulate matter at the molecular level; he is able to levitate objects effortlessly (even a plane); he is almost invulnerable, given the presence of a continuous force field in contact with his skin; he is much stronger and more robust than a normal man and his healing ability is very fast. T

he Eternal can also exercise weak mind control: in the fifth issue of Secret Invasion, for example, Ikaris convinces Hercules that he is the Forgotten Eternal. Ikaris is also endowed with powers that other Eternals do not have: he can emit energy beams from his eyes and fly at enormous speeds (other Eternals can only levitate).

Captain Marvel and her powers

The character of Captain Marvel has a very long and interesting history. The first Captain Marvel wasn’t actually a Marvel Comics character, but rather the superhero that we today know as Shazam, who is part of the DC Comics universe. The original Captain Marvel debuted back in 1939/1940, while Marvel’s character of the same name appeared in 1967.

It is interesting to know that the original Captain Marvel wasn’t even a DC Comics character, but a character created belonging to Fawcett Comics; in 1953, DC Comics sued Fawcett over Captain Marvel, alleging that he was a copy of Superman, after which Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel stories, before selling the rights to the character to DC in 1972. But, since this text is about the Marvel Comics character, let us see how that character developed.

Jumping in the void created by the DC-Fawcett lawsuit, Marvel Comics created their version of Captain Marvel in 1967, with the character debuting in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (1967). The first among several iterations of the character was a member of the Kree race known as Mar-Vell, who donned the costume until 1982, when he was replaced with Monica Rambeau, after dying from cancer.

Monica Rambeau as Captain Marvel until 1993, when she gave the title to Genis-Vell, Mar-Vell’s son. After more than a decade, Genis-Vell gave the mantle to his sister, Phyla-Vell, who would be known as Captain Marvel from 2004 to 2007. A Skrull sleeper agent known as Khn’nr became the fifth Captain Marvel in 2007, donning the name for just a couple of years, until 2009, when he was by Noh-Varr.

The most recent and current Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers, who inherited the title in 2012 and has been further popularized by MCU, where this iteration appeared in the movie Captain Marvel and in other Avengers movies. Because of this fact, we are going to use Carol Danvers as the protagonist of our article.

Carol Susan Jane Danvers is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by Marvel. Carol Danvers is best known as the current Captain Marvel, although she has a much longer history within the Marvel universe. She was created by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan.

The character of Carol Danvers debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (1968) as an officer of the United States Air Force. She was a colleague of Dr. Walter Lawson, the human alias of Mar-Vell, the first Captain Marvel. The first major event of her history happened when she was hurt in an explosion of a Kree device; Mar-Vell saved her life, but she was seriously injured. During the explosion, her DNA got mixed with Mar-Vell’s, which gave her superhuman abilities.

Carol Danvers returned during the 1970s with her superhuman abilities as the superhero Ms. Marvel, debuting in the comic Ms. Marvel #1 (1977). She was a very progressive character at the time and has since become one of the foremost female superheroes in the Marvel universe. Carol Danvers worked with the Avengers and has appeared in titles involving other characters. She herself has changed superhero identities again in 1982 (when she became Binary) and in 1998 (when she became Warbird), before finally becoming Captain Marvel in 2012’s Avenging Spider-Man #9 (2012). The role of Captain Marvel has increased Danvers’ popularity so much that she has now become an essential Marvel superhero.

Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel has appeared in several animated movies and TV shows, video games and the MCU, where she appeared in both her own stand-alone movie and the Avengers saga. In the MCU, she is played by Brie Larson.

Comparing the powers of Ikaris and Captain Marvel

Our second section will contain a comparison of the two characters’ powers. It won’t be a direct comparison as much as a listing of their powers abilities, which is going to serve as a basis for our analysis in section three of our article. Now, let us begin.

Ikaris’ life force is augmented by cosmic energy and he has full mental control over his physical form and bodily processes, even when he is asleep or unconscious. As a result, he is virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging, and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. If Ikaris were injured in any way, he could regenerate any injured or lost tissue.

Cosmic energy strengthens Ikaris’ metabolism so that he does not tire of any physical effort. He can withstand extreme temperatures through mental concentration. Ikaris can levitate himself by mentally manipulating the gravitons around him. He can also levitate other people and objects, even while they are already levitating.

Ikaris can fly through self-levitation at approximately 850 miles per hour, a speed that most other Eternals cannot match.

Ikaris has low-level psychic abilities, allowing him to scan the surface thoughts of any mindless adept than his own. He can mentally create illusions to disguise himself. Ikaris can also psionically manipulate atoms and molecules to transform the shape of an object. However, Ikaris is only a second-level adept on a scale of five levels (the fifth level being the highest) in this discipline.

He can rearrange molecules in the air to create a virtually impenetrable shield over himself. Ikaris can project cosmic energy in the form of rays from his eyes or rays and flashes from his hands. This cosmic energy, stored in specialized enclaves of cells in his body, can be used as force, heat, light, and possibly other forms of electromagnetic energy.

Ikaris can project a maximum concussive force of at least 260 pounds per square inch. He can project heat to a maximum temperature of at least 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt iron. It takes him about a minute to reach this maximum temperature.

Because Ikaris heat rays can vaporize solid objects, they are often called death rays. The maximum range for energy beams from him is approximately 200 feet. Ikaris is a fourth-level adept on a scale of five levels (the fifth level is the highest) in this discipline.

Expenditure of cosmic energy in this way continuously for several hours will temporarily deplete Ikaris’s physical strength, but not his resistance to injury, although it will temporarily increase his sensitivity to pain. He will quickly return to normal after that prolonged energy expenditure is over.

Ikaris can teleport psychically, but he prefers not to, as, like other Eternals, he finds the process of self-teleportation physically unpleasant. He can also teleport other people along with himself.

Carol Danvers, as Captain Marvel, has an interesting plethora of abilities, but they aren’t that strong as Ikaris’. Captain Marvel has several superhuman traits (strength, stamina, durability, speed) and can even fly.

She has regenerative abilities and can harness and use different types of energy for both offense and defense. Her real powers are unlocked when she manages to activate her Binary Powers.

Before we continue, let us see how the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z (2010) compares the two characters:

Ikaris vs Captain Marvel: Who would win?

And now for the most important and interesting section of our article – the analysis. Here, we are going to use what we have found out about these two characters and analyze how all these facts would (or would not) help them in a fight against each other. Let us continue.

This one was relatively simple, seeing how the situation is quite clear. Although the above-shown official power grid doesn’t really reveal such a large difference between the two, it is quite clear that Ikaris is the more powerful character of the two. To a degree, their powers are similar, but Ikaris has a much wider array of powers and has a lot of powers that Captain Marvel couldn’t do anything against. On top of that, he is nearly invincible and Captain Marvel doesn’t really have anything in her “bag of tricks” to harm him permanently.

Captain Marvel is wrongly perceived as being exceptionally powerful, which is a consequence of her interpretation within the MCU. But the MCU version of Captain Marvel is much more powerful than the comic book version of the character and we cannot really take that into consideration, as the comic books are the only relevant canon we can consult.

In a fight between the two, Ikaris would win with relative ease. It’s not that he would trash Captain Marvel around, but he would defeat her with more ease than Thor would defeat him, and Thor is – as we have established – much more powerful than Ikaris. This is why Ikaris is the winner of this duel.

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