“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” -Amelia Barr

Captain Marvel, the high-flying, space-faring Avenger.

Shazam, DC’s Mightiest Mortal and Champion of Magic.

Their power is incredible and their heroism known far and wide. Throughout a tumultuous comic history, both of these superheroes have proudly worn the mantle of Captain Marvel, soaring the stars and achieving feats that few could dream of. But in the ring together, only one will prove themself worthy of the name. Will Carol Danvers show that the original isn’t always the best, or will Billy Batson electrify the opposition? Find out in this marvelous DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

Overall

As with our previous rematch blogs, this match was predominantly researched by two main research leads, rather than a full team. Likewise, as with prior blogs we will be including a retrospective section before the verdicts, covering both characters’ appearances on Death Battle.

Captain Marvel

Carol’s power set fluctuates a lot throughout her history, but her modern version is the strongest she’s ever been, even including her Binary days, so we don’t need to worry about that. She does have a few temporary power boosts that will not be included, such as her brief stint as a Kree Accuser, during which she wielded Ronan’s Universal Weapon. However, though they were destroyed at the end of Captain Marvel Vol 12, we will be including Mar-Vell’s Nega-Bands, as she had them for the entirety of that run and they are very tied-in with the lore and mythos of Captain Marvel. This will be explained in more detail under that section. Lastly, she has occasionally received temporary amps which have boosted her abilities, such as her healing factor. These will obviously be excluded.

Recently, Carol has undergone a power nerf as of Avengers Armageddon #5, as a result of being overtaxed by Red Hulk’s nuclear blast. While the full extent of this nerf is unclear as of yet, Reed Richards stated that she is at roughly ten percent power, can still produce photon blasts, but cannot fly. As we are using Carol at her best, this analysis will be focused on her capabilities pre-nerf.

Shazam

Billy’s continuity might be slightly confusing to an outsider, given that he has been published by two entirely separate comic companies. Originally the property of Fawcett Comics during the Golden Age, Captain Marvel was forced out of publication by a legal battle with DC, who claimed that he was a copyright violation of their flagship hero, Superman. Funnily enough, Captain Marvel was actually outselling Superman by a lot at the time. I’m sure this had nothing to do with the lawsuit whatsoever.

Obviously DC didn’t really have any legal ground to stand on (he’s strong, flies, and wears a cape, waow) but toward the end of the Golden Age, superhero popularity was on the decline and Fawcett was more or less ready to stop printing Captain Marvel comics anyway. So they settled out of court and agreed to put the character to rest. Interesting to consider what might have happened had they held out a few more years until the Silver Age comic resurgence, but we’ll never know.

Fast forward a couple decades and DC decides they aren’t satisfied with bullying the smaller company into submission, so they buy the character and start integrating him into their comic line with a transitionary book. Before long, his original universe was deep-fried by the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Billy Batson was a DC character through and through.

While it might be tempting to handwave all those early comics as retconned events from a different publisher, DC’s Captain Marvel comics (before the Crisis, at least) do take place in continuity with his original Fawcett appearances. While the Crisis did reset him, Pre-Crisis events have since been reintegrated, so all that stuff should be perfectly valid. Obviously Post-Crisis and Post-Flashpoint appearances are included as well. Standard DC fare.

It should also be noted that we’ll intermittently be calling him Shazam in this blog, but technically his current name in the comics is (somewhat inconsistently) Captain Marvel again. It’s also worth mentioning that like any good comic lad, Billy’s had a bunch of different power amps over the years. These will be detailed in their own sections, and discussed briefly in the verdict, but needless to say we’ll mainly be focusing on Billy’s normal power set.

Captain Marvel

Background

Names: Carol Susan Jane Danvers, Car-Ell
Height: 5’11” | 1.8 m
Weight: 124 lbs | 56.2 kg
Species: Half human, half Kree
Aliases: Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, Captain Marvel
Affiliations: Avengers, Alpha Flight, Starjammers, Air Force, N.A.S.A., C.I.A.
Likes: Cats, blueberry muffins, pizza, coffee, model airplanes, War Machine
Fan of Star Wars, D&D, Angel (the show), Game of Thrones
Headmaster of Avengers Academy
Canonically owns a Shazam t-shirt
Inspired the Carol Corps

Throughout Carol Danvers’ childhood, she always wanted to touch the stars. Though her father was a former U.S. Navy officer who had some… less than progressive beliefs about women, it was always her dream to become an astronaut for NASA. In service to this goal, she joined the Air Force after graduating from high school, and quickly became their star pilot. Eventually, she became the youngest security chief in NASA’s history, and her future looked bright.

Unfortunately, everything went a bit off the rails for her when she met a superhero named Mar-Vell, a decorated warrior captain from the starfaring race known as the Kree. Upon the detonation of a device called the Psyche-Magnitron, Carol and Mar-Vell were subjected to intense alien energies, and the radiation awakened something within Carol. Fusing her mind and genes with Mar-Vell’s, she was granted incredible superpowers, and took to the skies as the high-flying Ms. Marvel.

In time, Ms. Marvel became a famous hero, standing alongside the Avengers against threats to the entire planet, but the honeymoon phase of superheroing wouldn’t last forever. In what might be the most… controversial Avengers issue ever, she was abducted and predated upon by an extradimensional being named Marcus. To make matters worse, shortly afterward she had her powers drained by the mutant supervillain, Rogue. But Rogue’s touch didn’t just steal Carol’s powers away; she also drained Carol’s personality and emotions, leaving her a husk of her former self who was completely cut off from her emotional connections with everything she had previously known. And to put the cherry on top of this gigantic string of life-changing trauma… Mar-Vell died. Rest in peace.

Almost completely broken, Carol could find no further happiness on Earth, but when she was captured and experimented on by a race of aliens known as the Brood, her powers reawakened greater and stronger than ever before. Now, she was connected with the universe itself, capable of traversing space on her own as a new superhero. Greater than ever, and fulfilled once again, Carol joined the Starjammers to protect the universe under a new name: Binary. She had finally achieved her dream, and touched the stars.

And then they were ripped away from her. After years away from Earth, Carol’s energy was forcibly severed from the fabric of the universe that she drew power from, and she reverted to her human form. Now back on Earth and much weaker, Carol was left to pick up the pieces once again, still burdened by the scars left by Rogue and Marcus years prior. She rejoined the Avengers under the name Warbird, but it just wasn’t the same. In her pain, she turned to alcohol for a fix, and soon ended up dismissed from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes until she could pull herself together.

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely of places, though. Of all things, it was Scarlet Witch rewriting reality that gave Carol her drive back. In the House of M that she found herself in, Carol was the greatest hero on Earth, beloved by all. Though this new reality didn’t last long, Carol didn’t feel a sense of loss when it dissolved. Rather, she finally had a goal to aspire to. That feeling of helping others, of being the person that everyone relies on, became her new dream. She wanted to be the mightiest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and reclaimed the name of Ms. Marvel once again.

Then Mar-Vell came back! Then Mar-Vell died again. He does that a lot. Still determined, though, Carol claimed his name for herself, to honor him and to reflect her new mindset. As Captain Marvel, Carol became head of Alpha Flight, super-powered individuals employed by the government to protect the Earth. In her new position of responsibility, Carol got serious… and then got tangled up in the second superhero Civil War against Iron Man. In the belief that she could stop crimes before they happen, she ended up alienating a lot of friends, and even putting Tony Stark into a coma. Though she had good intentions, it hardly justified anything.

Eventually, though, she and Tony made amends, and she even rejoined the Avengers to fight alongside him. In the time since, she’s stopped major threats to the planet like Vox Supreme, and even taken down the Brood once again. As she did so, she found herself getting stronger and stronger, until eventually she regained the strength she once had, able to enter Binary form at will. In time, she became the leader of the Avengers, and they’ve even started calling her “Earth’s Mightiest Hero.” Though she still hasn’t fully recovered from Rogue’s touch, her memories and emotions have slowly started to come back as well.

It’s been a long and slow journey, but after being hurt again and again, she’s picked up the pieces, gotten sober, and found a reason to live again. At long last, the future seems to be looking bright for Carol, and as long as she continues to soar through the sky, she won’t rest until the Earth and the stars alike are safe.

Experience & Skill

In terms of overall experience… Carol was in the Air Force for over ten years, as their star pilot and the youngest head of security in NASA’s history. She also used to be in the C.I.A., and was trained in dirty tactics. Notable superhero teams that she has been a part of include but are not limited to the Avengers, the Starjammers, Alpha Flight, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In terms of the Avengers specifically, she served as the Avengers Chair for the duration of the 2023 run, and was generally quite successful. She has spent a brief period of time as a Kree Accuser. She has even fought foes from other franchises, such as Mothra from Godzilla.

In terms of formal training… Carol was trained in martial arts at Kennedy Space Center, which made her an expert in armed and unarmed combat even before gaining superpowers. She also has Mar-Vell’s memories of his imperial training on Kree-Larmar, with Mar-Vell being considered “quite possibly the greatest warrior who walked the stars.” She has undergone Avengers training exercises, and completed specific courses faster than anyone since Quicksilver. Without her superpowers, when she was held at gunpoint by two people, she disarmed one and stole his gun, ending up in a standoff, demonstrating her training and quick thinking.

In terms of martial arts skill… Carol is established to know Judo, which she used against Grotesk, as well as kung fu and karate. She has Mar-Vell’s martial arts skills, with Mar-Vell being described as an expert unarmed combatant. Against Tiger Shark, she was able to hit the pressure points on his neck, which cut off the flow of blood to his brain. Even while depowered, she was able to outskill and overpower Mystique, whose hand to hand skill is comparable to world-class experts like Wolverine. Iron Man was impressed by Carol’s martial arts skills, and compared her to Mantis, who has thousands of years of martial arts training and has defeated experts like Karnak. When facing Star, who was ten times stronger than her, she was still able to maintain an advantage temporarily through sheer skill. Finally, she was able to keep up with Black Panther hand-to-hand, while specifically refraining from using her powers.

In terms of in-character tactics… Carol is very willing to fight dirty and employ cheese tactics. She has flown a Skrull into space and let it suffocate. She once stabbed out a different Skrull’s eyes with her thumbs, to blind it. When fighting Iron Man, she blasted him into space, crushed his throat to prevent him from vocally calling more suits, and then ripped his armor apart so he would choke to death in space (don’t worry he was fine and it made sense in context). When dealing with the Enchantress, Carol sucker punched her with a photon blast before the fight even started, to take Amora out before she could use any magic. Carol is also willing to throw enemies into the sun to defeat them.

In terms of strategy against certain types of foes… Carol can strategize against various opposing abilities, for instance using a vacuum chamber to depower a fire user. When facing a giant Skrull that she struggled to harm, she stabbed it with a radio tower to electrocute it. When facing Thundersword, who drew his powers from his sword, she was able to depower him by separating him from said sword. When she was fighting T’Challa and he turned invisible, she was able to track him by noticing how he disturbed dust when he moved. When fighting Nada, whose power she could not permanently absorb, she considered dragging her to the sun and frying her. When an enemy was able to absorb her blasts, she simply switched to punching. She was able to fight Space Stone Quantum and catch him off guard, even though he could perceive the entire universe in perfect detail. Jean Grey stated that Carol is the best tactician she’s ever met, which is extremely impressive given Jean’s own breadth of experience.

In terms of deductive reasoning… She was able to deduce quickly and effectively that S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sum had been replaced by a Skrull. She successfully figured out that Tony Stark was Iron Man before she knew him and when he was still hiding his identity. When imprisoned as a POW, she was able to deduce how long she had been imprisoned based on her torturer’s offhand comments and through counting the seconds, despite the fact that she was undergoing severe torture at the time.

In terms of improvement over time… Rogue has observed that Carol improves with her powers over time, and does not believe that her own previous usage of Carol’s powers would be good enough to stand up to a modern Carol. Agatha Harkness said during the 2019 Captain Marvel run that Carol is “fast becoming one of the most powerful hammers in the universe,” confirming that Carol got much stronger during that run. Indeed, Carol herself recognized that she was getting stronger, pushing toward something, to the point of being afraid that she might become similar to Wanda. In the 2023 Avengers run, it was made clear that Carol has learned from her mistakes during Civil War II, and she has a monologue in line with this where she says the Avengers are like firefighters, rather than cops.

In terms of book smarts… Thanks to her genetically programmed Kree knowledge, Carol was able to use Kree science to jury-rig power cables into a field generator that subjected Vision’s immaterial form to a stress beyond endurance. Carol is also noted to be fluent in three languages.

Abilities

Half-Kree Physiology

Carol’s mother was an alien Kree, and her father was human, meaning that she is a unique hybrid between the two species. This is something that she was unaware of throughout her childhood, and her latent Kree abilities remained dormant until she was empowered by the radiation of the Psyche-Magnitron. Originally, Carol believed that this machine endowed her with the powers and memories of Mar-Vell, a Kree warrior who was near her at the time. However, in actuality, it activated her own latent abilities, triggering an ancient Kree defense mechanism and irreversibly modifying her genes. Surprise, you’re an alien! That’s just how it be sometimes, when you’re a comic character. Though she does seemingly still have Mar-Vell’s memories.

As a half-Kree, Carol is vastly stronger, faster, and more durable than a human, can fly and manipulate energy, and survive the inhospitable conditions of space with no need to breathe. Moreover, Kree training and combat skills are programmed into her genes, and she can draw on the abilities of a fully trained warrior without the need for any additional training. Even in the event that her powers are lost, she maintains her genetically-programmed combat abilities.

Superhuman Strength

Carol is immensely strong, though her exact strength level varies across her history. In general, her best strength showings have been in recent years, from her 2019 solo run onward, as she got much more powerful around that time, to go along with her MCU portrayal.

In terms of lifting… Carol can easily lift cars, as well as entire skyscrapers. When a dead Celestial was falling on Times Square, she caught it and set it down gently, to prevent it from crushing anyone. When faced with a massive meteor, which had broken off from a much larger asteroid, she managed to stop it in its tracks and throw it away, redirecting it. Perhaps most impressively, in the most recent Avengers run, she was able to lift and move a reactor that contained a black hole.

In terms of striking… During one of her weaker eras, her strikes were measured to equal 44-ton impacts, and then later 92-ton, when she was putting in more effort. She has also smashed through a Hydra ship, and broke apart another chunk of the aforementioned meteor with her strikes. When fighting a battle suit made of Adamantine steel, she was able to smash its louvres. For reference, Adamantine is what Hercules’ club is made out of, and Wolverine’s claws cannot cut it. Lastly, her punches were able to damage Robbie Reyes’ car, which has survived blasts from Silver Surfer and crashing into a planet.

In terms of pulling, crushing, or grappling… Carol once broke out of being encased in a trinitite crystal pillar that was harder than steel, which Hecate believed to be unbreakable. For reference, Hecate destroyed half a million tons of rock in one shot, in the same issue. Similarly, Carol broke out of a chair made of Adamantium and Vibranium while her powers were dampened, though Norman Osborn said this was due to issues with the chair’s manufacturing, rather than a legitimate strength feat from her. More tangibly, Carol has claimed to be able to throw a giant kraken into the sun, and has smashed Thor through a mountain. Given that she was able to grapple evenly with Thor, her lifting strength should be comparable to his.

In terms of scaling to other characters… Carol pretty regularly has been shown to be able to damage or outright defeat powerful characters with her punches. This includes Super Skrull, Cassie Lang, Iron Patriot, Mr. Sinister, Fin Fang Foom (even Symbiote-amped), Iron Man, Amadeus Cho, Blaastar, Sindr, Abomination, every member of Thanos’ Black Order, Genis-Vell, the Wrecking Crew, and even Thanos, just to name a few.

In terms of more noteworthy or drawn-out encounters, Carol has clashed with Iron Man and smashed apart his armor as of Civil War II. She has good showings against Wonder Man, clashing with him evenly and fighting him while he is mind controlled, despite the fact that Wonder Man is stated on various occasions to be nearly as strong as Thor. She has pretty casually overpowered Joe Fixit (the Grey Hulk), though conversely lost immediately to Green Hulk and has struggled to damage him, albeit while in one of her weaker eras. She has matched She-Hulk hand to hand, can hit harder than Wasp’s stings, and punched out Omen, who was able to kill Genis-Vell.

Even early in her history, she was able to harm the villain Grotesk and throw him into a planet busting laser, which collapsed into an interdimensional gateway that twisted apart time and space, crashing stars and planets into one another. This is impressive because it was later revealed he survived. Also relatively early in her history, when training against a robot that was built to fight Hercules, Carol was able to stagger it and then knock its head off with full strength and concentration. However, those two punches took everything she had, and left her so weak she was shaking.

Keep in mind that every feat listed above is without Binary.

Superhuman Speed

Carol has incredible superhuman speed, much faster than any ordinary human, which is applicable in a variety of contexts. Her travel speed, combat speed, and reaction speed are all top-notch, and as a result one of her favorite tactics in combat is to blitz her opponents and defeat them before they even know what’s happening.

In terms of flight speed… Carol can easily reach speeds of Mach 3, and can catch up to a nuclear missile. Even mid-combat, she could carry Thor to Jersey before an enemy realizes what’s going on. She has flown to the edge of the atmosphere in minutes or seconds. She has crossed half the solar system quickly, can travel to the asteroid belt in no time flat, and can keep pace with crystals shooting into space at the speed of light. Taking it up a notch, she casually flew to the Pama star system, 160,000 light years away, between pages. She could escape a collapsing black hole, and was able to fly Blastaar to the other side of the universe and then back, while saying she would join her allies for cleanup “in a few.”

In terms of reaction feats… Carol can dodge bullets from point blank range. She can evade blasts of energy from Ronan’s hammer, and can dodge Destructor’s tachyon blasts, which are explicitly stated to be faster than light in the same comic. She is fast enough to get past photonic nullifier beams, which as the name implies are photon-based. She can react to a massively FTL ship as it was going in and out of hyperdrive.

In terms of keeping up with other characters in flight… She could fly in fast enough to save Jessica Jones from a bloodlusted Vision, getting Jessica away before any of the other Avengers or characters such as the Silver Surfer could stop her. As Binary, she was able to fly away from a planet at high speed alongside Captain Marvel (Monica), Ikaris, and Hyperion, and is stated to be as fast as the Heralds of Galactus.

In terms of keeping up with other characters in combat… She can keep up with Black Panther in pure hand-to-hand combat, without using her powers. War Machine (specifically Frank Castle) admitted that she was faster than him. Likewise, she could keep up with and overwhelm Iron Man by the time of Civil War II, despite the fact that Tony can react in picoseconds. She was able to speedblitz Blaastar. As Binary, she kept up with the Collective, who was on par with Sentry. Also as Binary, she could also match Heralds of Galactus like Firelord and Terrax, who possess immeasurable speed on par with the Silver Surfer.

In terms of judgement and complex actions… Carol has completed an Avengers training course faster than anyone since Quicksilver, who is renowned for his incredible speed. This would include the likes of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and so on.

When deprived of her superpowers… Carol is still fast enough to dodge bullets.

Invulnerability

Carol possesses exceptional superhuman durability, which has been explicitly referred to as “invulnerability,” though it is made abundantly clear that there are limits to her resilience. Because of this, she can withstand many different forms of damage no worse for wear.

In terms of performance against blunt force… Carol has survived crashing to Earth from space. She has endured thousands of tons of steel falling on her. She was once bodily smashed through the entire Manhattan underground, before emerging in the Houston River.

In terms of her performance against piercing damage… Carol is consistently bulletproof, with bullets ricocheting off of her, even from point-blank range. Adamantium, on the other hand, can cut her, but she was actively surprised that a blade could do so.

In terms of her performance against energy attacks… She could withstand the Destructor’s tachyon blasts, which could punch holes in an Imperial Kree starship. She has survived her own energy being blasted back at her with added force. She has endured being blasted by Thor’s lightning for extended periods. She has survived an energy surge from the Warlock’s Eye, which contained magic older than Asgard and was powerful enough to contain Phoenix Jean Grey.

In terms of her performance against explosions… She has survived a nuclear missile exploding on top of her, as well as a huge nuclear blast in space that knocked her down to Earth, and other nuclear explosions as well. On another occasion, she was fine after being caught in a massive blast in space that was visible from ground level.

In terms of her performance against high temperatures… Carol has endured the heat of atmospheric reentry, which can reach up to 3,871 degrees Celsius. As Binary, she can survive being near the Sun, or even coming into direct contact with it, reigniting the star entirely. The core of the sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius. She can survive her own photon blasts, which are hot enough to melt through a star. As previously mentioned, she can withstand nuclear explosions as well.

In terms of her performance against other characters… Blasts which Carol could endure were capable of oneshotting Vision. Even though he was using the Thing’s strength, Super Skrull’s blows couldn’t take Carol down. She was able to survive a blast from a mind-controlled Thor. She can easily tank Iron Man’s repulsor blasts, even when barraged by four armors simultaneously. Riri Williams’ repulsor blasts can likewise do little damage to her. She was able to take blows from All-Father Thor for several hours. She later took a beating from She-Hulk for roughly an hour. She was largely fine after a blow from Miracleman.

In terms of pain tolerance… Even without her powers, Carol once endured being tortured as a prisoner of war for three hours, which included getting her arm smashed horrifically by a sledgehammer, among other things. Despite the agonizing pain, she never gave away any secrets, deduced the length of her imprisonment, and then ripped her way out of her manacles. Again, with a crushed arm and no powers. With them, she has burned the flesh from her own bones and just regenerated while showing no pain, and has shrugged off full body impalement.

In terms of stamina… Carol can fight for hours or days without rest. She has fought for days against enemies as fearsome as the Skrulls. She fought She-Hulk for around an hour, taking a beating all the while, and fought Thor for several hours, while constantly enduring his blows and absorbing his lightning blasts. Binary’s energy is infinite.

Flight

One of Carol’s most iconic powers is the ability to fly, both in the atmosphere and in space. She does this by interacting with electromagnetic fields in her vicinity, and it has been described as the most taxing of her powers. Originally, this ability was attributed to the electronic webbing within her costume, but after additional exposure to the radiation of the Psyche-Magnitron, it is now a power innate to Carol.

Over the years, her exact flight speed has fluctuated with her powers as a whole. At her weakest, she can only reach speeds of Mach 3 while flying as fast as she can, while more moderately she can fly to the end of the atmosphere in under two minutes, requiring speeds hundreds of times faster than sound. In the time since then, however, she has gotten much faster, having made the same trip casually in the span of a sentence. Even more impressively, she can pretty easily cross half the solar system, reaching the asteroid belt in moments, or even traverse the distance to other star systems quickly. For instance, she has casually flown to the Pama star system, which is 160,000 light years away. And most impressively, she can cross the universe and back, being able to fly Blastaar to the other side of the universe and return quickly enough to help her friends with clean-up.

Keep in mind that this is all in her base form, with Binary being much faster. As Binary, she effortlessly travels the galaxy unaided and can match the flight speed of characters like Hyperion, Monica Rambeau, and Ikaris. In combat, Binary’s flight can even keep up with the Heralds of Galactus like Firelord and Terrax, who are capable of immeasurable speed, scaling to the Silver Surfer.

Energy Aura

Carol’s body passively generates an aura of energy both inside of her body and outside, which protects her from inhospitable effects and attacks. Most notably, this includes a “breathable atmosphere” around her body that grants her an unlimited supply of oxygen while in space, along with protection from heat, cold, and cosmic radiation. Because of this, things like smoke are not normally able to affect her. Her energy aura can also defend her from harm, even against cosmic entities like the Undone.

Energy Projection

Thanks to her ability to manipulate energy, one of Carol’s primary means of attack is to fire blasts, waves, or explosions of energy to strike her foes with searing heat and concussive force. The exact composition of these beams varies from comic to comic, likely because Carol has control over various forms of energy and can alter the properties of her blasts at will. In some cases, the bolts she fires are composed of plasma, while in other cases they are composed of photons. The latter is notably more common.

These blasts are enormously powerful. They can damage the likes of Annihilus, beam struggle with Thor-level Eternals like Gilgamesh, and match Iron Man’s repulsor beams. In Carol’s own words, they possess enough power to melt a hole through a star, and according to Jessica Drew, Carol could blow up the moon if she gets angry enough. Furthermore, they have consistently shown to be capable of overloading foes who can absorb energy. This includes Blastaar, who once withstood a portion of the Big Bang, Nefaria, a team buster who has claimed that his own energy can atomize people, and the Omen, who killed Genis-Vell. While her blasts have been absorbed successfully before, it has notably been stated that Iron Man would be incapable of absorbing them at all (though Doom can (because he’s Doom)).

After absorbing enough energy, Carol’s blasts can even reach a level of power great enough to knock Thor unconscious. And other Asgardians as well, given they can also harm Loki. Even powerful sorcerers have had trouble due to the strength of Carol’s blasts, as she has strained Agatha Harkness’ magic barrier, causing her to groan from the strain of repelling the assault. In the event that she wants to take a battle to space, she can blast her opponent clean out of the atmosphere and then follow them, which she has successfully done against Iron Man.

It should be noted that beams or bolts of energy are not Carol’s only means of projecting energy. For example, she can fire sweeping waves to strike multiple enemies at once. She once even made a slashing energy wave that cut a group of Skrulls in half across the middle. She can shoot lasers from her fingers (finger gun!) and from her eyes, though in the latter case they’re hard to control and she can’t see while doing it. It has also been established that she is capable of replicating Black Widow’s death touch with her powers.

When held in place by an enemy or object, Carol can expel her energy omnidirectionally, blasting things off and away from her. This ranges from enemies dogpiling her, to ice that is freezing or burying her. She has used a similar tactic to blast off metal restraints, or to get a fake Mar-Vell off of her when he was trying to choke her out.

While Carol’s energy reserves can increase or decrease with absorption and expenditure, her ability to recharge herself means that in theory she will never truly run out of juice. This is exemplified by her encounters with the Undone in her most recent solo run, a cosmic being who has drained entire universes of their energy. Not unlike Galactus, the Undone is constantly in search of power to sate her hunger, but views Carol herself as “the ultimate snack,” an everlasting battery and a meal that would sate her forever.

Energy Absorption

One of Carol’s principle abilities is the power to absorb energy of nearly all varieties. Though there are millions of types of energy in the universe, and the full range of what she can and cannot absorb is unclear, in practice she can intake very nearly anything. However, the difficulty varies between different energy types, and in general Carol typically needs to endure the energy she is absorbing in order to effectively process it. That does not, however, mean that she is incapable of absorbing energy beyond her paygrade; it merely means that she will often be pushed to ascend to her Binary state in the event that she is being overwhelmed.

It should be noted that she can absorb energy through a variety of means. Most commonly, she intakes beams or fields of energy from her surroundings, via direct contact; that is to say, she touches the energy and absorbs it. However, she can also suck the energy directly out of an object, even if that energy is contained within said object and not being emitted. This can be done through physical contact or from a distance, meaning she can essentially pull the energy out of something or someone without needing to touch or be close to the target. In the event that she is in close proximity with black or white holes, or some other source of massive energy, she can likewise tap into that power without needing to actually be in contact with the power source.

It is somewhat inconsistent whether Carol’s absorption is active or passive. There are a fair number of instances in which she has been caught off-guard by an energy blast and thus fails to absorb it. However, she has also been explicitly caught off-guard by a blast from Black Panther, and still absorbed it, though it did hurt. Subsequently, when she was on-guard, she was able to absorb the same blasts with no such pain. Lastly, there are some cases where her absorption is presented as entirely passive, even allowing her to absorb things while unconscious. The Mighty Avengers: Most Wanted Files guidebook attempts to explain her occasionally taking damage with the justification that her absorption is “rarely instantaneous” unless she is prepared, essentially confirming that she can be caught off-guard.

Likewise, it is inconsistent whether there is an upper limit to the amount of energy that Carol can absorb. There are several instances where she has been overloaded, or where it has been otherwise established that she does have an upper limit. Sometimes she’s even been depicted as being in danger of exploding or dying if she absorbs too much. However, these instances are pretty strongly contradicted by the existence of Binary, as she should simply undergo a transformation if she is truly pushed beyond her limits. As Binary, as well, she explicitly has completely limitless reserves of energy, never running out of power and being impervious to overloading because of the fact that her reserves are unlimited. With this in mind, the most consistent answer is that there is not an upper limit, so long as Carol is not attempting to absorb a form of energy that she cannot absorb safely in the first place.

This is somewhat rare, but not unheard of. She could not absorb Cobalt Man’s energy blasts, for instance, nor the energy of an alien ship. Though, the exact reason why not is, in both cases, unexplained. Moreover, in many instances, even if energy is deliberately contaminated to make it difficult to absorb, Carol can still do so. For instance, Iron Man designed some of his suits to produce “tainted” energy that would harm Carol if she absorbed it, and she later adjusted for this issue, and subsequently could absorb them with no drawbacks. She has also absorbed energy from Mar-Vell that was described as “diseased,” and energy from Ultron, whose energy Absorbing Man could not absorb. With this in mind, she can actually absorb the vast majority of energy sources without significant issue. The primary exception to this is magic, which will be covered in its own section.

In terms of sheer power, Carol has absorbed energy from a sentry that could overpower Thor, as well as blasts from Phyla-Vell, who has fought the Olympian gods. Warbird era Carol has absorbed the Starbrand’s power , which was able to short out Arcade’s energy absorbing tech. This same version of Carol absorbed an attack from Starbrand Hank Pym that she claimed could have killed all of the heroes present, including a weakened King Thor. Much later down the line, a modern Carol could absorb energy blasts from Ego the Living Planet.

Now, let’s cover her showings against specific types of energy, at least insofar as they are notable. Starting with…

Heat & Fire Absorption

While you may not immediately think of fire as energy that can be absorbed, Carol has been shown on many occasions to be capable of drawing power from flames, more specifically the heat that they emit. This includes regular fire and lava, battery gas from a lithium fire, and even more powerful sources, like stars. Even if Carol is unconscious, she is capable of absorbing heat around her, for instance from atmospheric reentry, to jumpstart her heart and resuscitate her. Once she has absorbed heat, she can convert it into other forms of energy for other purposes. Conversely, she can also convert other forms of energy into heat for her own use; electrical, repulsive, kinetic, it doesn’t matter.

Radiation Absorption

On occasion, Carol has shown difficulty safely absorbing nuclear radiation specifically, for instance being unable to absorb more than half the energy of a nuclear core without killing herself. However, she has shown to be perfectly fine in other instances. She has absorbed the energy of a thermonuclear warhead, and been directly exposed to nuclear blasts no worse for wear. Of course, she was also recently overtaxed and reduced in power after absorbing a nuclear blast in Armageddon, but that whole event was about nukes getting a lot more powerful and dangerous, so the exact threshold of how much nuclear radiation she can handle is nebulous.

In fact, due to her body’s ability to absorb EM radiation, it’s hard to x-ray her, so she’s actually passively absorbing incoming radiation all the time and is unable to stop doing so. What’s that, you ask? How is she not horribly Vitamin D deficient if she constantly absorbs any radiation and can’t turn it off? Haha… next question.

Electricity Absorption

Carol has a number of showings demonstrating that she can safely absorb electricity, even from magical and/or immensely powerful sources. On the lowest end, this encompasses energy from wires in the ground or from power surges, but she has also absorbed electricity strong enough to tax Iron Man’s barriers, or from Monica Rambeau, whose electricity can harm Zeus. You know, the Greek god of lightning. After Carol absorbed said electricity from Monica, she was able to use that energy to amp the rest of her powers, and fire a giant blast of light from her chest that oneshot a giant robot.

Perhaps most impressively, Carol was able to absorb lightning bombardment from All-Father Thor for hours, empowering herself with his blasts until she was strong enough to defeat him. Worth noting: the actual timeline here makes it unclear whether Thor has the Odinforce or not. This takes place prior to the first issue of Thor’s 2020 run, since he still has his prosthetic arm and eyepatch, but Carol calls him the king, meaning he’s already All-Father. Basically, this means that the fight takes place during a several month time skip, during which Thor gains the Odinforce. With that in mind, it is ambiguous whether the fight takes place before or after his power boost. However, absorbing blasts of lightning from Thor for hours is extremely impressive, regardless of whether he has the Odinforce or not.

Neuroelectricity Absorption

A recent application of Carol’s energy absorption, and arguably her most deadly, is the ability to absorb the neural electricity out of a target’s brain, draining the signals that would normally allow for conscious thought and control of their body, until they are left with nothing. This ability was powerful enough to completely incapacitate a full power She-Hulk in moments, and according to Carol it would have killed anyone other than a Hulk.

She was even able to use the same tactic effectively against Ego the Living Planet, nearly putting him to sleep, though he was able to use his powers to force her off of him in time to remain conscious. Notably, when she did so, she was able to connect her own mind to Ego’s and read his thoughts.

Kinetic Energy Absorption

Little known fact: Carol isn’t just capable of absorbing energy in the form of blasts and charges; she can also absorb the kinetic energy from physical blows! No matter how you choose to hit her, all of that energy will be absorbed and internalized, stored up until Carol rebounds it onto her attacker tenfold. This can either be used to increase the strength of her own strikes, or she can convert the kinetic energy into other forms and release it as, say, a blast, even one powerful enough to harm Symbiote Fin Fang Foom. Notably, though, she does still feel the impact of hits she takes, even if she is able to neutralize them, so she still needs to take the pain in order to use that force for her own means. Though, that’s no different from her other forms of energy absorption.

To put it more bluntly, this means that an opponent cannot circumvent Carol’s energy absorption simply by avoiding traditional energy attacks. Physical blows will empower her just as effectively.

Gravity Absorption

Though an ability that Carol has currently only used once, it has been shown that she is capable of absorbing gravitons, the particles responsible for gravitational force. Specifically, she was tricked into absorbing them by Moonstone, in an attempt to dramatically increase Carol’s own personal gravity and collapse her body into a black hole. However, Carol was able to counter this by converting the gravitons into gamma rays, and use those to empower She-Hulk.

Sound Absorption

Though you might not immediately intuit it as “energy,” Carol is fully capable of absorbing blasts of concentrated sound from Ulysses Klaw. She even comments her surprise at this, noting that she was unsure beforehand whether she would be able to.

Antimatter Absorption

On several occasions, Carol has absorbed energy willingly provided by Adam Brashear/Blue Marvel, who manipulates anti-matter. This is despite the fact that Carol is typically physically subjected to the things she absorbs, implying a degree of resistance to antimatter. Absorbing antimatter is frequently shown to be sufficient to initiate a Binary transformation.

Magic Absorption

Perhaps most important to cover in full would be Carol’s performance against magic, which is consistently much poorer than against other energy types. For large portions of her history, she was unable to absorb magic entirely, and even when she can do so, she tended to have difficulty with it. For instance, it might cause her intense pain, requiring her to discharge the energy to remain safe from it. Or it might knock her out, requiring her to be resuscitated, even if she does successfully absorb it. At one point, Carol went to Doctor Strange in hopes that he would help her eliminate this weakness entirely, but he laughed at her and refused, believing that someone as powerful as Carol should have a weakness, for the good of mankind. This is a perspective that the rest of the magic community shared as well, as they all collectively refused to train her.

However, your honor, fuck Doctor Strange. In the time since then (and occasionally beforehand) Carol has been shown to be capable of absorbing magic, often massive sources of it, without experiencing any such issue. For example:

She once absorbed the power of the Collective, a being who was powered by the energy of Scarlet Witch’s No More Mutants spell. Though seemingly overwhelmed at first, Carol used this energy to undergo a Binary transformation.
On another occasion, she was able to drain energy from a magical force field that was stated to possess infinite energy, and while she did not successfully get rid of the force field, it didn’t hurt her either.
As previously mentioned, she fought All-Father Thor for several hours and absorbed his lightning continuously throughout. While Thor’s lightning is made of electrons and mimics real electricity in terms of its effects, Tony Stark has explicitly identified it as magic, and the Marvel Anatomy guidebook states that it is mystical in nature. This was stated specifically in contrast with Storm, whose lightning is superficially similar but not mystical. Additionally, it has been established that since Thor’s lightning is divine, mortal technology cannot absorb it, with magic-absorbing Adamantine being required to achieve that effect. Despite this, Carol was able to absorb it just fine, continuously for hours.
During the most recent Avengers run, Carol was able to channel Wanda’s Chaos Magic and manipulate it in accordance with plans for a magical bomb that were projected into her mind by Tony. This is notably even more impressive because other people who have absorbed Wanda’s power have proven incapable of controlling it at all.
At one point, Strange and Carol actually swapped bodies and got access to each other’s powers temporarily. During this time, Strange in Carol’s body was able to absorb magic from Carol in Strange’s body. So essentially, “Carol” was able to absorb magic from “Strange.” Way to debunk yourself, Strange! Idiot! Bozo!

Energy Redirection

Once Carol has absorbed energy from an external source, she does not necessarily need to hold onto it, as she can store the energy and then output it against opponents. She has, for example, fired incoming lasers back at the attacker, or used the energy of an explosion offensively immediately after absorbing it. Perhaps most impressively, she can store up the kinetic energy imparted onto her by physical blows, before rebounding it tenfold against the attacker.

Additionally, it is worth noting that while Carol can convert energy she absorbs into other forms to neutralize or repurpose it, she does not have to. There are many examples in which energy that she absorbs maintains its special traits when she makes use of it. For example, she was able to channel solar energy to amp Groot via photosynthesis, or store energy absorbed from Ultron for later analysis. Once, she channeled Iron Man’s repulsor blast like a prism, through a Cosmic Cube fragment that Captain America is holding, producing enough power to move the moon.

In a standard scenario, Carol should be capable of replicating the first, intangible Binary duplicate that she created in space. However, manifesting a fully sentient and autonomous Binary required external factors (Mar-Vell DNA and Phoenix energies), thus she could not replicate the second one in an ordinary situation.

Seventh Sense

Most prominently showcased at the beginning of her history, Carol has a “Seventh Sense” that gives her precognitive awareness of her surroundings. In combat, this allows her to sense what an opponent is going to do before they do it, or see attacks coming from her blind spots. Out of combat, it takes the form of trance-like visions that can show her events happening far away, up to hundreds of miles. This can even show her events that have not happened yet, such as her own death via fire, that she can then take steps to prevent.

However, as great as this all sounds, it’s a remarkably unreliable power. Carol cannot use it at will, and it oftentimes will simply not activate to warn her about incoming attacks. Furthermore, the visions that accompany its activation are often lengthy and will take her by surprise, incapacitating her temporarily (though this has never happened in combat). Shortly after the start of her history, this power became dormant as a result of her power fluctuations, but in her most recent comics, it has actually come back and started activating again. During this period, she showed the ability to tap into her own “future memories” with the Seventh Sense. She has even received some advice from Jessica Drew about how to control it, given that it is somewhat similar to the Spider-Sense, but it remains to be seen whether she will ever master the ability.

Regeneration

Carol possesses a natural healing factor, which comes up less often than you would think but is actually relatively potent. For example, when impaled all across her body by massive blades (pic above), she was able to burn those blades out of her body with her energy, and heal quickly from those wounds, even while her healing was slowed. On another occasion, when she had gauntlets attached to her arms that were subjecting her to an illusion and memory modification, she burned the gauntlets off of her own arms with laser vision, literally searing the flesh from her bones in the process. Despite her forearms being reduced to nothing but bone, she healed the flesh back within a few pages and was good as new. On another occasion still, when she had a power siphoning device implanted in her chest, she was able to pierce into her chest and rip it out with her bare hand. So yeah, her healing is pretty hardcore.

On top of that, absorbing energy from her surroundings not only speeds up her healing, but also can do things like restart her heart and force her to regain consciousness. In the event of a foreign mass invading her body, her healing factor will naturally expel it, and she can even heal from brain hemorrhages, though will still lose memories from them. At one point, when her entire body exploded into energy, that energy was able to remain intact and form into four energy beings, which were re-combined back into Carol. However, this required outside assistance and she could not return to normal on her own.

Lastly, the Nega-Bands may boost Carol’s regeneration substantially. When she was originally blasted by the Psyche-Magnitron’s radiation, she unconsciously tapped into the power of Mar-Vell’s Nega-Bands to rebuild her body cell by cell. Now that she is in possession of the Nega-Bands, she may be capable of replicating this again. This is actually consistent with regenerative showings from other users of the Nega-Bands; Genis-Vell for instance was able to use his Nega-Bands to pull himself back together from pure energy after being molecularly disintegrated.

Superhuman Eyesight

Though not a commonly-shown ability, Carol’s eyesight has been established to far exceed that of a normal human. With the naked eye, she detected a seam on Doomsday Man’s neck that would normally have required a microscope to be seen.

Molecular Alteration

While this ability is very limited and has never been used in any offensive manner, Carol does change clothes by rearranging the molecules around her body, allowing her to conjure her costume seemingly out of nowhere.

Cosmic Awareness

This may be vaguely related to her Seventh Sense, but Carol has used this power a few times during periods in which she was not supposed to have the Seventh Sense anymore, and could do so at will, so it seems to be distinct. In short, she can perceive and interact with the energies of the cosmos, even without Binary. In doing so, she can do things like sense the source of a strange energy, or integrate herself into Ultraman’s telepathic communication.

It’s worth noting that Carol originally had her powers awakened via the Psyche-Magnitron fusing her DNA with Mar-Vell’s, and he has his own cosmic awareness that other Captain Marvels like Genis-Vell and Phyla-Vell would later inherit. This cosmic connection allows the Vells to perceive the entire multiverse and its many possibilities with near-omniscient awareness, so it would be a pretty big deal if Carol could replicate their feats with it. However, Mar-Vell first gained his cosmic awareness from the being Eon after Carol got her powers, and whenever any of the Vells use their cosmic awareness, it’s visually signified by a star field appearing on their skin, called the cosmic ether. That’s why Genis looks so space-y all the time; he never turns his off. Since Carol’s uses of cosmic awareness do not feature the cosmic ether, it’s clear her ability is different from theirs. Probably for the best, considering it drove Genis insane.

Thunderclap

As Carol herself has acknowledged, this is more of a Hulk ability than a Captain Marvel ability, but she is capable of doing it should the need arise. By clapping her hands together with immense concussive force, she can produce a shockwave of sound intense enough to knock the people near her unconscious.

Resistances

Vulnerabilities

This section will encompass hax abilities that Captain Marvel has fallen victim to, and has no particular resistance against. While her performance against some abilities vary, with showings both positive and negative, this list will consist of those with only negative showings. Note that this also does not include abilities that she hasn’t encountered, which she should also have no special resistance to.

Genetic Alteration: Affected by a G-TAC Scrambler bomb that alters her genetic code at a root level. Consistently empowered or altered by genetic experimentation, by the Psyche-Magnitron, Brood, etc.
Soul Removal: Getting her astral form forcibly removed by Dr. Strange.
Phasing: Vision phasing through her attack and then phasing his arm through her.
Corruption: Gets her body and powers taken over by some kind of corruption.
Body Swapping: Body swapped with Doctor Strange by the Enchantress.
Power Retraction: Can’t permanently steal Nada’s power because it always comes right back to her.

Equipment

Hero Costumes

Carol has worn many costumes throughout her tenure as a superhero, with three main noteworthy examples: her original red Ms. Marvel costume, the black Ms. Marvel costume, and then her modern Captain Marvel apparel, which has varied since her change in moniker.

In terms of combat-applicable traits, her original red costume was the most noteworthy of the bunch, given that in the aftermath of her initial exposure to the Psyche-Magnitron’s radiation, it was actually her costume that was responsible for most of her powers. Because of this, damaging the suit could prevent her from flying, or remove her defenses against the vacuum of space. However, after a second batch of radiation, this was quickly phased out, and the powers became innate to her. It is not really explained how the initial costume-based powers gel with the retcon that she was actually Kree all along, so you can probably consider this a case of early installment weirdness.

Moving on to the black costume, Carol’s suits tend to be made of Unstable Molecular Fabric, which she originally received as a gift from Janet Pym. Unstable Molecular Fabric is extremely durable but still maintains its elasticity, boasting high resistance to piercing damage, high temperatures, and is insulated against electricity. However, they do not protect from impacts, as a strong enough blow can still harm the wearer, even if it does not damage the fabric. Lastly, her modern suit has a cloak-field which prevents mind readers from probing her mind.

Nega-Bands

During her most recent solo run, Carol acquired Genis-Vell’s Nega-Bands, a pair of golden bracelets which transform mental energy into physical, facilitating a number of incredible abilities. She uses them continuously throughout the entire run in her ongoing conflict with the Undone, before they were destroyed at the end of the run. However, these Bands are an extremely important part of the Captain Marvel mythos and the lore of the Kree, originally wielded by Mar-Vell, and then his son Genis-Vell, before finally transferring to Carol, at which point they were destroyed. With all this in mind, since they’re closely connected with Carol’s story and powerset, she had them for an entire solo run before they were destroyed, and she was the last of their three prominent wielders, we will be including them as a viable part of her arsenal.

What exactly do they give her, you ask? Well, that’s complicated. Carol herself primarily uses them for two purposes, the first being to travel between dimensions. By striking the bands together, Carol can swap places with a human that the bands are linked to, Yuna Yang, as well as create more general portals between worlds. Primarily, this allows her to travel back and forth between the main universe and the Negative Zone, but it can also be used to travel to other cosmic locations. For example, Genis frequently used them to travel to and from the Microverse, and in other continuities, technology based on the Nega-Bands could even bridge the main reality and the White Hot Room via the same principle.

Additionally, the Nega-Bands possess extremely powerful energy manipulation, far beyond even Carol’s own. They can absorb massive amounts of energy and project it outward in the form of photonic blasts. While it’s debatable whether Carol can tap into the bands’ full potential, since they seem to vary with the will of the wielder, Carol’s fight with the Undone actually overloaded and destroyed the Bands, something that has never happened with any other user. Genis-Vell notably was able to kill Eternity and then recreate reality with a new Big Bang, rearranging other timelines in the process, without damaging the Nega-Bands whatsoever. In practice, having an additional form of energy absorption is actually a substantial boon for Carol, since it bypasses a lot of her established weaknesses. For example, while she often struggles to absorb magic through her body, the Nega-Bands have no such issue. They also recharge the user’s energy passively by drawing energy from their surroundings, so while wearing them she should never run out of juice.

Technically, Carol has also showcased a third ability with the Nega-Bands, back in the 70’s when she was first irradiated by the Psyche-Magnitron. As alluded to in the Regeneration section, Mar-Vell’s Nega-Bands reconstructed her body on a cellular level at the time. This is actually rather consistent with regen feats from other users like Genis-Vell, whose Nega-Bands regenerated his body from molecular disintegration into energy, as well as cellular dissolution in another instance.

On that note, in addition to the abilities that Carol has shown so far, Nega-Bands also have showcased a vast variety of other abilities, when wielded by other notable users – those being Mar-Vell and Genis-Vell. Other characters like Quasar, Annihilus, and Phyla-Vell have also used similar weapons called the Quantum Bands, which are modeled after the Nega-Bands and have comparable powers. As mentioned before, the Nega-Bands’ power scales with the wielder’s willpower, so whether Carol can use all of these (or whether she would know about them) is up in the air. However, hypothetically, they can:

Lastly, while it’s highly dubious how reliable or consistent this statement is, the Marvel Arms & Armor guide, which includes information on numerous weapons throughout the Marvel Universe, describes the Nega-Bands as comparable in power to the Cosmic Cube and Ultimate Nullifier. Make of that what you will lol; technically the Nega-Bands also scale to the Quantum Bands, which are stated to be on par with Galactus and the Celestials by Captain America, and Genis with the Nega-Bands could kill Eternity, so maybe you could argue it’s consistent-ish if you want to get real crazy with it.

Warp Grenades

Thanks to her connections with Alpha Flight, Carol has been known to call in “omega-level” warp grenades which can teleport things to the sun. Handy for when she feels like burning someone alive and is feeling too lazy to just throw them.

Closet

Created for Carol by the cosmic being Singularity, who is a sentient pocket dimension, this special “closet” allows Carol to access said pocket dimension to hide stuff without being detected. Specifically, she used it to hide the rest of the Avengers when she was instructed to kill them by Vox Supreme. Because Singularity’s dimension is closed off from the outside world, Vox Supreme was unable to sense the Avengers within it, and thus believed that they were actually dead.

Forms

Binary

Upon undergoing experimentation by the Brood, which modified her DNA and forced rapid evolution, Carol ascended permanently to a vastly more powerful state known as Binary, which became her status quo for years. Eventually, however, she was severed from that power, and for a long time could only access it again via absorbing energy from massive external sources. However, in recent years, her base form has become vastly more powerful, arguably exceeding even her former Binary state, and she can now assume the form at will, without needing to absorb energy. Nowadays, T’Challa has described the Binary form to simply be a state that Carol enters when she stops holding back. Basically, it’s just Super Saiyan now.

So what can Binary do exactly? Well, for starters she has infinite energy, and I mean literally infinite. Like, a guy who can access the upper limit of someone’s power couldn’t access Binary’s power because there was no upper limit. Because of this, the original Binary never ran out of juice, and could very casually produce power equivalent to a star to regenerate matter and antimatter cores. Primarily, she draws this unlimited power from the primal fabric of the universe itself, as well as black and white holes in her vicinity. However, she can also draw energy from stars, other characters, pretty much anything.

With this energy, she can create white holes inside of stars, powerful enough to vacuum up antimatter contaminating it and reignite said star. She can match Heralds of Galactus like Firelord and Terrax, cause Captain Britain to cry out in pain, and blast Rogue to the moon casually. When her powers go out of control and start radiating waves of anti-gravity, she’s capable of instigating the demise of all life forms within an entire sector of space. Likewise, she created a white hole star capable of going supernova and destroying any planet within 10 to 15 light years, and on a different occasion she was capable of blowing up a section of the galaxy.

Binary can take on foes like the Gladiator or Hyperion, as well as the Collective, whose might rivaled the Sentry. In more recent comics, she easily overpowered Ove, who had Namor’s strength and the Enchantress’ magic. She could absorb large portions of the Phoenix’s energy, though needed to discharge that energy in order to safely handle it. While in her weakened state, she was able to absorb 86% of a massive black hole. She could traverse the galaxy unaided, and survive blasts from the Builders, whose ships are reputed to be planet-killers. When connecting to a white hole in another dimension, she risked extinguishing the newly-formed universe on the other side, with similar baby universes in Marvel possessing enough power to destroy full-sized universes.

On top of sheer power, she has access to a vast range of abilities. She can generate heat, light, radiation across the spectrum, and gravity, as well as energy in all its various forms. Her gravity manipulation functions similarly to telekinesis, and she could easily power a stargate machine which creates portals to other galaxies. She possesses an ambient heat aura that can liquefy alien metals, even from a distance. While in her Binary state, her perceptions and awareness of the cosmos are massively enhanced, allowing her to sense things as distant as black holes, or as precise as other people’s heartbeats. Her powers as Binary were able to penetrate and overload Lord Ennui’s entropic field, which can age things, slow them down, dissipate energy, drain life force, and dissolve molecular bonds, making him normally completely untouchable. But not against Binary.

White Binary

While it is not explicitly clarified whether this is “technically” distinct from her normal Binary form, it is drawn differently even by the same artist in the same run, and is narratively insinuated to be, at minimum, a more powerful variation. For that reason, we will delineate it as a separate transformation.

After being kidnapped by the Brood again and experimented on again, Carol witnessed the death of Binary, whom she had previously separated from herself (energy duplicate, remember?). Her sheer rage at Binary’s death allowed her to break free of the Brood’s imprisonment and undergo a “wild powerup,” at which point she completely decimated the Brood. In this state, her body became pure energy, capable of flying to the deepest reaches of space or siphoning the power of a white hole. She could effortlessly blow up the planet, and with the energy of a star boiling inside of her, she could have gone supernova and created a black hole that would devour all of existence, “or at least some of it.” It took Rogue siphoning off some of Carol’s newfound power and anger to stabilize her, though this did not cancel the transformation.

Of note, the Brood had previously implanted a bomb inside of her that was designed to target only Kree DNA. Upon transforming, Carol was able to use matter manipulation to change the bomb’s effects, so that it would target Brood DNA instead of Kree. By releasing a wave of this explosion, she was able to destroy the Brood DNA inside the nearby Broodlings while leaving the hosts unharmed. However, she says later on that this was a one-time thing, so it was likely reliant on the Brood bomb, and she cannot just DNA nuke people whenever she wants. Sad!

In a possible future, White Binary Carol was able to reignite the sun, though transformed fully into energy to do so and thus sacrificed her own life.