Marvel Comics is running into a problem thanks to its introduction of some powerful, world-breaking heroes. This happened recently with Sentry in Thunderbolts*, which forced the MCU to find a way to keep him down since his powers are literally enough to destroy the entire world, and it makes it hard to take any villain seriously when Sentry is a hero. However, this isn’t the first time this has happened, as Marvel also nerfed Hulk by giving him Bruce Banner in control, which weakened him enough to hold him down. The problem is that the MCU just introduced another hero, likely more powerful than Sentry.
With the MCU needing to keep things relatively even so they can still introduce threatening villains, this new hero poses a problem that Marvel and the Avengers will have to figure out before it breaks the entire movie world.
Franklin Richards is the Most Overpowered Character in the MCU
Image Courtesy of Marvel
In Marvel Comics, there isn’t a hero who is more powerful than Franklin Richards when he is at the height of his power. He has created entire worlds and species, where the beings there did not exist before he willed them into life. In some issues of Fantastic Four, many of these beings said they consider Franklin to be their God, which is true, since he is their creator. Franklin even created another version of Earth once to save his family, the Avengers, and Hulk after a battle with the X-Men villain Onslaught, who seemingly killed them all. Franklin is that powerful.
The MCU didn’t hold back on how powerful he is, either. In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, his mother, Susan Storm Richards, died while battling Galactus. Franklin used his immense powers for the first time here, resurrecting his mother. Franklin is powerful enough to bring a character back from the dead, which instantly makes him more powerful than anyone in the MCU, including every single member of the Avengers, save for possibly Scarlet Witch.
His origin was similar in the comics and the MCU movie. In the comics, Susan was pregnant with Franklin and ended up in the Negative Zone when she gave birth. The mixture of her and Reed’s cosmic powers and the Negative Zone energy combined to create a hero who was powerful enough to create worlds as a child. He was born in the MCU on the way back from meeting up with Galactus, and once again, it was likely a mixture of these things that gave him his powers over life and death.
The MCU Has to Find a Way to Nerf Franklin Richards’ Powers
Image Courtesy of Marvel
The good news is that Franklin Richards is still a toddler, which means his powers might be strong but not refined, and he likely doesn’t have much control over them. However, The Fantastic Four: First Steps post-credit scene shows Doctor Doom with Franklin, and it has been suggested that Doom will use Franklin’s powers to create Battleworld, the location that should appear in Secret Wars. Doom using these powers might nerf them somewhat when Franklin uses them.
Marvel Comics also showed how to nerf the powers. Reed tried to shut down Franklin’s powers when he was a baby, which almost ruined his marriage. However, Franklin’s powers returned stronger than ever, but with one caveat. They were not unlimited. He made the world believe he was a mutant by wishing it into existence, but that illusion was erased when he undertook a mission that completely wiped out his powers. Franklin realized that using too much of his powers was enough to end them.
If the MCU uses Franklin to create Battleworld, and then his dad helps him re-create the real Earth at the end, it could be enough to sap the child of his powers completely until the MCU needs him to get them back again for future threats. Much like how the MCU has Sentry refusing to use his powers as he fears The Void, it could do the same with Franklin after Avengers: Secret Wars, so the battlefield remains even in the movies that follow that epic storyline.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!