Kang is a brilliant engineer, a master politician, and has trained himself to become as skilled in combat as a human can be. That’s because Kang can freely travel through time, gathering wondrous weapons and tactical information about his enemies.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for 1964’s Avengers #8, Kang is a recurring thorn on the Earth’s Mightiest Defenders' side, attacking when they least expect. That alone should be a statement of how dangerous a man can be when fueled by knowledge, tech, and determination. Kang, the Conqueror, is the only character on this list deprived of superpowers. RELATED: 5 Most Curious Marvel Movies Never Made, From Quentin Tarantino's 'Luke Cage' to James Cameron's 'Wolverine' We’re well aware that your nerd knowledge is infallible. And when I say cosmic beings, I mean true cosmic beings, not aliens or Earth-born spacefarers, so let’s not hit the Twitter comments with our superior Marvel prowess all at once. It should be noted, though, that for the sake of not boring readers with a bunch of unknown names and Lovecraftian space monsters, Eternals, Celestials, and cosmic beings have been left off the list. And so, we present you with the 20 most powerful Marvel characters, ranked according to utility of abilities. While we have seen quite a few extremely powerful heroes and villains in live-action, the vast majority of the most potent Marvel entities haven’t made their way off the comic book page yet. Only a small fraction of these have been introduced to the big and small screens, so many in the larger public know little about the expansively populated universe encompassed by the Marvel brand. Marvel has a massive catalog of characters in its comic book history – somewhere around the range of 8000 staple characters, and exponentially more if you count ancillary, one-offs, and multiverse versions of folks.

Thor, Vol. 1 by Jason Aaron