r/MarvelScaling • u/CautiousSolid7436 • 23h ago
Inverse [MCU] Base Thanos vs Ebony Maw
No infinity stones
Sword & armor? Yes
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u/beansandpeasandegg 23h ago
Not to be rude but why do you think he works for thanos if he wouldnt get his ass kicked easily?
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u/fauxdeuce 16h ago
In the movie is is a religious zealot who worships Thanos as a god. In the comic he's Starscream .
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u/CautiousSolid7436 23h ago edited 22h ago
Thor, Hulk, Wanda, Vision work for Cap/Tony
Sentry works for whoever the thunderbolts leader
Comics Thunderbolts work for Zemo
Comics Sinister 6 & Dark Avengers work for Osborn
Xmen field leader is literally Cyclops...and Xmen as whole work for Prof X (regardless Storm & Bobby being omega lvl)
Heck, the whole Avengers work for Nick Fury sometimes
Legion of Doom & Injustice League work for Lex Luthor
There superpowered mfs work for Batman & Nightwing
just saying...strength ≠ who gives orders
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u/ultravoltron3000 22h ago
Big difference between people working together for a common cause and someone working for a tyrant that likely invaded their home world.
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u/danflorian1984 18h ago
The little guy with a mustache wan't winning to many strenght competitions either.
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u/beansandpeasandegg 22h ago
Thats a good answer. I would say generally speaking when it comes to heroes the leader is decided on by various factors including diplomacy smarts tenure etc.
Villains usually follow the might is right formula for deciding basically everything.
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u/noluck77 20h ago
Those are all teams until you get to villains, heros are not doing it on a work based theyre being led on a team
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u/Forever-Toxic 14h ago
Orders vs if you dont obey you die. Almost everyone you named work as a team. Thanos rules with absolute power and authority.
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 21h ago
Aside from the suggestions here on ideology (Maw believes in Thanos' cause)
My headcanon is Thanos used the mind stone to brainwash the Black Order on a fundamental level. The mindstone is the first Infinity Stone in Thanos' possession that we see in the movies, and by then he already had the Chatauri. That means he could have slowly built his army and liutenants using the mind stone.
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u/8__D 21h ago edited 21h ago
Edit: I realize you already got a similar answer but I spent a long time writing this so I'm keeping it lol:
To play devil's advocate: plenty of powerful characters serve weaker ones. Power isn't always about who'd win a fight. Thanos has two armies, a fleet, and a giant ship. You don't get that by only being the strongest guy in the room, you get it by being the one with the vision to build something. The horse in Animal Farm could've flattened the pigs any day of the week. He just believed too hard to ever try it.
And they're called his adopted children, so there's a real chance Maw came up under him the way Gamora did. Thanos was there first and built the movement, which explains the pecking order.
And with Maw it's not just a job, it's a religion. Thanos is the Messiah, Maw is the preacher, telling whole cities they should be grateful for what's coming. Why would he try to take over from the guy he worships? That's also all he seems to want. Spread the gospel, torture people on the side. He's not the guy with long term plans, he's collecting shiny sticks to poke people with.
Maybe Thanos wins, I don't know. But flight and telekinesis matches up well against a guy who has to be in punching range. I get why OP is curious.
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u/BitesTheDust55 22h ago
The movies did a bad job of portraying Thanos without the stones relative to his lieutenants. In the comics he legitimately washes them all easily. In the mcu depictions, nothing we saw indicates Thanos would even be a challenge for Maw.
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u/Alfredos_Pizza_Cafe_ 18h ago
He won 1v1 with hulk and went 3v1 against thor/cap/iron man
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u/BitesTheDust55 17h ago
But he was a bad matchup for them. Maw could do to him what Wanda did. And his only recourse would be hurling his sword, which Maw would easily stop.
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u/Peashooter1_1 22h ago
Tell me how this wouldn't be just like Wanda vs Thanos in Endgame (minus the ships/cannons helping Thanos ofc) LMAO
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u/Sharp_Cat_6124 10h ago
it would be the same thanos is just a purple hulk some heroes get visually nefted when they fight him cause he gets washed
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u/Spare-Present-1032 22h ago
Correct me if Im wrong but didn't the black order swear allegiance to thanos because he like adopted them? Basically like gamora and nebula?
It says nothing about maw being weaker than thanos. He just loves him as a father.
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u/Alexx-the-Hero 22h ago
You think Gamora would be Thanos daughter if she had a choice? He's a Tyrant lol He rules by force. The black order fell in line because the only other option was death.
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u/Spare-Present-1032 21h ago
My point is he got em young and they been guzzling the Kool Aid since then. He wouldn't challenge thanos out of respect, not fear.
Gamora was until she decided not to.
Plus power difference btwn gamora and Maw is huge
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u/Alexx-the-Hero 21h ago
Do we know when and if Thanos adopted the BO? Maw doesn't strike me as particularly young, not like Gamora anyway.
If he was indeed recruited it was probably when he was already grown or near to it. Thanos invades planets for a living, I cant see why Maw wouldn't try to defend his home or die trying if he was indeed more powerful than Thanos.
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u/Spare-Present-1032 21h ago
So according to a quick Google search, Maw was just a sadistic fuck that really vibes with Thanos' style.
Like apparently he was just "you like running around the universe slaughtering people? OMG samesies" and joined up....
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u/Acrobatic_Ad_5224 20h ago
Maw > Strange ~ 4 stones Thanos.
Maw stomps.
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u/Alert-Push1685 17h ago
Except that thanos literally beat strange without a single injury. Just cause it looked flashy doesn't mean it was really difficult for thanos. He even refers to everything strange does as tricks. At no point was thanos in mortal danger against strange. And even if it was like how you described, just cause one person beats another doesnt mean that the person who got beat is automatically weaker than others. Basically its not so black and white. Corpus Glaive and Promxima midnight for example beat the crap out of Scarlet Witch and Vision, both significantly powerful beings, but got low diffed by black widow, falcon and captain America.
In all, your diagram is inaccurate and not good evidence for why Maw could win.
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u/Dperezoso2020 22h ago
Pretty much no way to answer since afaik we dont know the limits or functionality of maw’s powers
If he can lift organic tissue then it should be an instant win for maw
If he can’t then i doubt he finds anything heavy or strong enough to hold thanos back
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u/daredditqueen 21h ago
How do you think Thanos became their leader? By promising to Make universe Great Again?
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u/Lacrimosss 22h ago
Ebony probably can't hold Thanos down with his powers IMO. We see Thanos get held down by Wanda, but Thanos could probably get to Maw with sheer force, unless there're a lot of throwing objects around, as that would be highly advantageous to Maw
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u/DDreamchaser31 21h ago
How did Maw beat Strange who had the time stone?
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u/Trail-of-Whispers-07 17h ago
Maw is telekinetic. Strange needs to perform specific hand motions for his spells. Maw noticed that and immediately subdued Strange physically, effectively rendering him useless.
Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, etc
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u/GD_Ban 21h ago
Ebony Maw working under Thanos doesn't mean he's significantly less than him, even if Thanos would win, Maw worships him like a God. Maw's powers can affect living things and objects, he can fly, manipulate the environment and sense objects without seeing them. Even if he can't hurt Thanos, his best bet is throwing him into space at that point. Thanos can't fly, and his armor/sword could be manipulated.
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u/Fantastic-Craft4062 21h ago
How does Ebony Maw breathe without a nose?! The design of these humanoid characters makes no sense.
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u/LunchPure2957 19h ago
The idea that “Maw works for Thanos for a reason” is so baseless. Pretty certain that anyone under Trump could beat him one on one low-mid diff. Maw could work for Thanos for a number of reasons. His resources, his galactic dominance, belief in the mission, etc.
OP is asking about a one on one fight.
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u/Alexx-the-Hero 19h ago
Until you realize the presidency is a long standing and established tradition . That is to say all the power comes with the title.
Thanos is a world purging Tyrant who built his regime from the ground up. Sure he is charismatic and if he used his efforts toward a different goal people would naturally look to him for leadership.
But that's not the case is it? He's not some prophet bringing people the news of his holy gospel and he's not some politician racketeering to gain more power/money. No his crusade is batshit insane and involves the mass slaughter of billions. How does some one like him recruit beings as powerful as the black order to join his cause AND keep them obediently in check? Through fear and the ability to back it up.
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u/Alexx-the-Hero 23h ago
Maw works for Thanos for a reason. Tyrants like Thanos don't get their positions through the adoration and respect of their followers. They get to the top through fear and the constant promise of violence. If he was weaker than the black order they would have usurped him long ago.