Bruce Banner’s Hulk has long claimed to be “The Strongest One There Is,” but as of this year, he’s actually only Marvel’s third most powerful hero at best. Infused with gamma radiation, the Green Goliath grows stronger with rage, possessing seemingly limitless physical might. However, in the wide world of Marvel there are enough bizarre phenomena that even Hulk can’t afford to rest on his laurels.
There’s finally a Marvel hero who can beat the Hulk at arm wrestling…
2025 Has Knocked Hulk Down to Marvel’s Third Strongest Hero
Silver and Gold Both Come from the Same Franchise
It’s been a while since Hulk was at his strongest, with Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Nic Klein’s ongoing The Incredible Hulk volume 4 downgrading the Jade Giant to more of a monster hunter than a cosmic powerhouse. However, no matter how strong he gets, Hulk can’t compare with the new hero Marvel just introduced – in fact, the stronger Hulk gets, the stronger they get…
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Hulk’s Strength Has Been Topped by a Mutant
Superior Is the Mutant Who Rejected Professor X
In Giant-Size X-Men #1‘s short story ‘Revelation: Superior,’ Al Ewing, Sara Pichelli, Federico Blee and Clayton Cowles introduce Justina LaGuardia – a mutant hero seemingly codenamed ‘Superior.’ Justina is one of the mutants Xavier contacted for his second official X-Men team, which introduced icons like Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Wolverine to the franchise. However, Justina read Xavier’s mind and decided he was putting innocent people at risk with his “paramilitary cell of teenagers”, turning down his offer and removing all knowledge of her existence from his mind.
Whatever superpower she encounters, Superior gets a better version.
Justina was able to do this because of her mutant powers, which make her superior to anyone in her vicinity. Up until Xavier arrived, Justina was used to just being stronger, smarter and faster than everyone around her, but the arrival of a fellow mutant granted her telepathic powers, making her realize that her gift also applies to superhuman abilities. Whatever superpower she encounters, Superior gets a better version. And with Xavier being an Omega-level psychic, there’s apparently no limit to what Justina’s powers can do.
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The flashback story reveals that after encountering Xavier, Justina went into training to totally master her abilities, preparing to re-emerge in the modern day. The moment she encounters the Hulk (if she hasn’t already in the years since she met Xavier), she’ll possess even more physical strength than Bruce Banner’s other half, no matter how strong he gets.
For decades, the X-Men franchise has fielded runner-up powerhouses like Colossus and Juggernaut, who could give Hulk a fight but never genuinely overpower him. Now, there’s a mutant who would beat the Hulk in an arm wrestle. Shockingly, Superior isn’t the only mutant who can overpower Hulk at the moment…
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Another X-Man Is Officially Marvel’s Most Powerful Hero
Marvel Has Never Been This Explicit About the #1 Spot
While Justina’s powers are impressive, even they may pale in comparison to Jean Grey’s Phoenix. In 2024’s Phoenix #5 (Stephanie Phillips and Marco Renna), Jean was invited to join the pantheon of Marvel’s cosmic abstracts – the embodied fundamental forces of the universe, above even the gods. Having merged with the Phoenix Force deeper than ever before, Jean has come to embody the concept of creation, with the issue’s narration stating that – now at the peak of her power – “Jean Grey was the most powerful person in the universe.”
Jean Grey’s ultra-powerful new status is a fallout of X-Men‘s Krakoan era, when Jean was forced to connect every mutant past, present and future into a single fiery form. This moment acted as the birth of the Phoenix Force (which doesn’t obey normal temporal rules), explaining why the Phoenix has been so obsessed with Jean throughout Marvel history.
Combining every mutant across time and the multiverse, Jean came to terms with her true connection to the Phoenix, finally entering into a fully symbiotic relationship with the cosmic force. Since then, she’s fought dark gods and Thanos himself, proving her incomprehensible, essentially omnipotent power. As Marvel’s “most powerful person in the universe,” Jean makes even the Hulk look weak, and thanks to her ability to manipulate physical laws, she could likely even physically overpower him if she chose to. Sadly, this shunts Hulk into third place… if not lower.
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Is Hulk Really In Third Place?
There Are Other Heroes Who Might Push Him Even Lower
Truthfully, while Jean Grey and Superior are explicitly stronger than the Hulk, he may not even be worthy of the bronze medal. Someone who should logically push him into fourth place is Power Man – a new variant of Luke Cage who debuted in 2023’s Timeless by Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing and Juan Cabal. This version of Luke Cage is from a distant future where he’s the last superhero, combining the powers of the Hulk, the Sentry and the Iron Fist in a single body. His recent introduction to Marvel’s mainstream Earth-616 directly challenges Hulk’s muscle.
Fans of the Hulk may be in luck when it comes to his “Strongest One There Is” status…
Other candidates include the spectacular magical might of the Scarlet Witch, who recently achieved her ultimate form, and Solarus, who has inherited the powers of Sentry (though it’s worth noting that in World War Hulk, the Green Goliath technically won a one-on-one fight with the original Golden Guardian of Good.)
At the same time, the X-Men franchise isn’t done with Hulk. Rogue recently revealed that she has the combined strength of both Captain Marvel and Wonder Man, having secretly kept Carol Danvers’ abilities even after absorbing those of Simon Williams. Also, potentially equaling Jean Grey’s Phoenix is Storm, who has become the herald of Eternity (another of the Cosmic Abstracts.)
In the recent Storm #9 (Murewa Ayodele and Lucas Werneck), Storm merged with the “bomb entity,” gaining ultimate destructive power in order to take on Obliviion (the embodiment of chaos and destruction) and the ancient storm god Hadad. This placed Storm on the level of the most powerful cosmic abstracts, with fans bitterly debating whether this means she or Jean is really Marvel’s most powerful being.
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Hulk May Be About to Reclaim His Title
Angrier Than Ever, Bruce Banner Is Beginning a New Era
Fans of the Hulk may be in luck when it comes to his “Strongest One There Is” status, following the events of Imperial #1 (Jonathan Hickman, Federico Vicentini and Iban Coello.) In the new series, Hulk travels to space after being informed his son Hiro-Kala has been murdered. Hulk claims leadership of Hiro-Kala’s former planet Sakaar En Nevo, declaring that his son dying while hating him has filled him with rage.
The comic ends with the seeming confirmation that Hiro-Kala was killed by Black Panther’s Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda, leading Hulk to declare war. Given his renewed rage and the cosmic scope of his new status quo, it’s possible Hulk will be able to unleash his strength like never before. It should be technically possible for Hulk to reach the same level as the Cosmic Abstracts, as Immortal Hulk revealed he draws his power from the Below-Place – a hellish dimension underneath the multiverse which influences Earth-616 via gamma energy. In that sense, Hulk has his own cosmic-scale ‘patron’ (the One-Below-All) who may see fit to bless him with an upgrade.
Until then, Hulk will have to be happy with his bronze medal as Marvel’s third-strongest hero, though even that is in dispute. Thankfully, in the world of superheroes, no power level is ever permanently settled, and while Hulk is third-place at the moment, it’s always possible that something will make him angry enough to reclaim the #1 throne.
Giant-Size X-Men #1 and Imperial #1 are avaialble now from Marvel Comics.
- First Appearance
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The Incredible Hulk (1962)
- Alias
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Robert Bruce Banner
- Alliance
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Avengers, Defenders, Horsemen of Apocalypse, Fantastic Four, Pantheon, Warbound, S.M.A.S.H., Secret Avengers
- Franchise
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Marvel
