Kang the Conqueror vs Thanos
Round #1: Origins
The Origins of the Super Skrull
Nathaniel Richards was born into a utopian future society...that bored him to tears. But things got interesting when he rebuilt a time machine, traveled to ancient Egypt and became a pharaoh. After the Fantastic Four forced him to flee the era, he found Dr. Doom during his time-traveling journey. In the wake of this encounter, Richards accidentally ended up in the violent year of 4000 A.D. He quickly built a suit modeled after Dr. Doom and used abandoned future tech to take over the ruined world as Kang the Conqueror. But he once again found himself dissatisfied. So, he decided to go back to Dr. Doom’s time period and take over.. This marked the beginning of Kang’s journey to take over a younger Earth. Although Thanos was immediately seen as an outsider because of his unusual purple appearance, he eventually made a few friends. Thanos lived a happy life until the embodiment of death encouraged him to take his companions into a deep cave. Unfortunately, his friends had fatal encounters with the creatures inside. Thanos later returned to slay every being that lived in that cave. He eventually moved on from attacking creatures to conducting experiments on his neighbors and even his own mother. Upon alienating most of his loved ones, he tried to cut back on his violent tendencies. But Thanos embraced his bad habits again and reunited with the embodiment of death. He decided to keep committing violent acts in hopes that at least death would love him. Thanos definitely has a more sympathetic story. However, Kang’s origins are full of time travel, encounters with superpowered people and a consistent motivation to rule everything. His larger and more intriguing origins conquered our attention this round. WINNER: Kang 1/ Thanos 0
Round #2: Equipment
Since Kang is from the 40th century, he has access to seriously advanced technology. He combined the best equipment he could find into one powerful suit of battle armor. Kang's outfit lets him do anything from manipulate gravity to summon shields. And since he can control the suit with his thoughts, he doesn't need to say anything to activate those abilities and many more. Kang has also been seen with a sphere that allows him to transport people through time and imprison Avengers. If you want to defeat this conqueror, you need to find a way to disable or overcome all his ridiculously advanced technology. While Thanos has been known to rock an impressive set of armor, the most notable weapon he's associated with is the Infinity Gauntlet. This golden glove allows him to harness the power of six unique cosmic stones. With the gauntlet in hand, Thanos can mess with time and reality, trap souls, teleport, and enhance his own formidable powers. each of those tremendous abilities only takes one stone each. If Thanos uses them all at the same time, he can accomplish horrifying things that could affect the entire universe. But even when he’s using an incomplete gauntlet, multiple Avengers working together still have trouble defeating the Titan. Having access to tech that hasn’t even been thought of yet definitely helps Kang get an edge in most of his encounters. But Thanos can win wars with his gauntlet by just clenching his fist. The power of all six Infinity Stones is simply too overwhelming for most beings to overcome. WINNER: Kang 1/ Thanos 1
Round #3: Intelligence
It wouldn't be smart to underestimate how intelligent Kang is. Not only does he have the intellect to handle all the tech we mentioned, but he’s also good at coming up with battle strategies. Kang has boasted that he was able to build an army and conquer the 40th Century Earth within weeks. He’s also easily outwitted geniuses like Tony Stark and Reed Richards on several occasions. And although Kang can improvise new plots, he also has in-depth knowledge of the timeline’s events. Since he almost always knows what will happen next, his enemies have to deal with both his future predictions and massive brain. When Thanos was just a child, many of his peers and educators recognized he was a genius. After becoming the top student in school, he started surpassing his teachers. Thanos would later use his sharp mind to become a brilliant tactician. He constructed elaborate plans to dismantle his enemies. Even when he didn't have much time to prepare, he knew how to improvise strategies in battle to throw his enemies off balance. The Mad Titan’s combination of well-crafted plans and ruthless tactics led him to many victories over alien enemies. And he's also outsmarted a few of the smartest Avengers during his career. Both these big bads are pretty brainy. However, having the knowledge of future events will always give you an advantage. Even if Thanos came up with an incredibly clever strategy, chances are that Kang already knows what the mad titan’s planning—and how to stop it. WINNER: Kang 2/ Thanos 1
Round #4: Biggest Victory Over the Avengers
Top 10 Biggest Superhero Deaths - Best of WatchMojo
After Kang carefully toyed with historical events, he launched a massive assault against the Earth and The Avengers. During the conflict, he took control of an opposing army of Sentinels, stranded Avengers in the middle of space and completely obliterated Washington D.C. The situation got so bad that a large portion of the world surrendered instead of fighting him further. Although Kang was able to capture heroes and command the planet for a while, the Avengers managed to stop him. However, King was able to escape with the help of his son and start planning his next great conquest over Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The Mad Titan spent years of planning and observing The Avengers before he dealt them an infamous and devastating blow. After gathering the Infinity Stones, he took away half of all life in the universe with a single snap. Not only did the Avengers see their forces cut in half, but the entire universe saw 50% of existence fade away. Undoing the damage the snap caused was no easy feat. In both the comics and MCU, sheer force alone wasn't enough to stop the titan’s grand plan. The Avengers in those realities relied on tiny openings or sheer luck just to get the gauntlet away from Thanos. Although the heroes were triumphant in each reality, they would never be the same. Seeing Kang force the modern earth and its Avengers into submission was pretty impressive. But that conquest pales in comparison to what Thanos accomplished. By leaving the entire universe scarred, the Mad Titan can easily claim he had the more significant victory. WINNER: Kang 2/ Thanos 2
Round #5: Who's Harder to Defeat
Top 10 Characters Who Have Defeated Thanos
Underneath Kang’s advanced armor and wealth of knowledge, he's an ordinary, albeit, very smart human man. If you're decent at hand-to-hand combat and can manage to find a way around his clever plans you can defeat...one version of the villain. Kang’s time-traveling shenanigans caused copies of him to pop up throughout different realities and points of history. So, if you get rid of one Kang, another one may show up literally minutes later. At one time, there was even a council full of copies and variants of the villain that teamed up to scheme together. We're uncertain if Kang himself knows exactly how many versions of him exist. All we know for sure is that defeating him once doesn’t guarantee you’ve beaten the villain for good. There’s no version of Thanos that’s easy to defeat. He's incredibly resilient to damage and an extremely skilled warrior. We've seen him beat down Thor, Captain America and Iron Man all at the same time without a single Infinity Stone. And if he does get his hands on a full or partial set, you might want to throw in the towel right away. Thanos has the power and intelligence to wield the cosmic items in creative ways during battle. And when he has a full gauntlet, the mad titan has been able to imprison impossibly powerful villains like Galactus. Despite the incredibly high odds, it’s possible to catch Thanos off guard and take him down. But doing so will usually come at an incredibly high cost. Honestly, trying to defeat either of these villains is going to take tremendous effort and sacrifice. But if you manage to topple Thanos once, you’ll probably never see him again. Kang is a whole different story. Since you can never be sure if you’ve gotten rid of every variant of the villain, there’s no way to know if you’ve truly beaten him. Another version of Kang could always be ready to fight you all over again. WINNER: Kang 3/ Thanos 2 With a score of 3 to 2, Kang conquers an extremely close match-up.
