Someone who made a deal with the literal devil cant be that smart
MagusUmbraCallidus2025-11-08 01:27
Smart people do that all the time because they think they are smart enough to find a way out of the deal, that they can trick the devil.
It's *wise* people who don't make a deal with the devil.
Sunny-Chameleon2025-11-08 01:28
Or people who didn't play Cuphead
TheForeverUnbanned2025-11-08 01:35
Didn’t Tony stark spent the first half of his life selling weapons of mass destruction while flagrantly making fun of the lack of ethics when it came to mass murder?
Then he developed into a better person.
Riri is incredibly smart. She’s also headstrong, overconfident, and frankly a complete asshole. Smart people can do questionable things because they lack the self awareness to analyze all of their decisions due to most of them being ones that seem well.. smart. That’s really the difference between intelligence and wisdom though.
Put more simply, a smart person can engineer a plague that would kill everyone, a wise person wouldn’t.
theskabus2025-11-08 01:44
Wisdom dump stat
SpookMastr2025-11-08 02:14
Well Tony was developing weapons to use against the enemy who were terrorists, later he found out that those weapons were being used by the very people who they were meant to destroy, so he stopped production which is understandable.
Making a deal with a demon, after seeing the negative effects of such a deal via Hood, is completely moronic.
TheForeverUnbanned2025-11-08 03:08
Trying to spin Tony’s early career as some sort of altruistic peacekeeping mission of good vs evil basically means you missed the entire message of his arc.
And that’s like 7 movies worth of arc. That it was beating you over the head with Tony’s moral plausible deniability in his earlier actions. Dude, why do you think he felt so guilty? Deep down he *knew*, there are facts we don’t know and facts we would rather not know, and he was firmly in the latter category until it blew up in his face, literally.
SoundsGoodYall2025-11-08 01:39
“Hey devil, make me super super smart and you can have my soul”
Check and mate.
Apollo_Sierra2025-11-08 01:41
You can be smart but also dumb at the same time.
DontDoodleTheNoodle2025-11-08 07:51
Intelligence, knowledge, wisdom….
There’s a reason we named things different names
cerbinWedd2025-11-08 01:49
Mephisto isn’t the literal devil, just one of the stronger demons
SinisterMinisterX72025-11-08 10:48
He’s the demon who “inspired” the devil in Marvel.
Wendigo152025-11-08 02:42
Strange fucked up a simple spell
HalfOfLancelot2025-11-08 02:53
Weird qualifier knowing that quite a few super intelligent characters have made deals with Mephisto. Pretty sure Strange and Peter are among those numbers
Of all these people, Strange should know MOST of all not to deal with Mephisto even in cases where he *thinks* he can outsmart him. (i partly give peter a pass, like i would riri for her youth and character development, because bad shit just happens to peter cause the universe hates him. what's a deal with the devil gonna do? 😭 Dr. Strange is just arrogant, but that's kinda his whole deal)
solidsnake0702025-11-08 01:36
People who need to steal instead of using their intelligence to find ways to make legal money shouldn't be on this list.
SoundsGoodYall2025-11-08 02:02
I didn’t realize my MAGA dad had Reddit.
solidsnake0702025-11-08 02:09
I'm not from the US and I don't care about your shit politics. Try to defend that storyline by its merit alone and stop making your personal politics a crutch to defend the bad writing and plotlines.
SoundsGoodYall2025-11-08 02:11
Calm down dad. Eat some cashews and take a nap.
Detective-Crashmore-2025-11-08 05:08
Why not? Who said morality was a factor in the feats of intelligent characters? Rocket Raccoon is a genius and he loves stealing.
carrythewater2025-11-08 06:03
🤮🤮🤮
One-Complex-92672025-11-08 00:42
I bet god emperor is smarter than all combined.
HemingwayKilledJFK2025-11-08 00:43
I think you are adding in things to reed Richard’s that that the others are easily capable of/have done.
These achievements aren’t scaled the same.
_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_2025-11-08 01:19
Like “space monitoring”. They did that no trouble in Endgame.
Stark’s suits are also more “indestructible” than Reed’s.
SpringMaleficent96992025-11-08 01:28
I think that’s an invalid argument. Look at what the rest of society was capable of already with each of these characters. What was the rest of the earth doing already to help quantify the impact they were truly having. The fact that Reed is a part of this conversation while his counterparts have 50-60 years of tech/ theory and education to further them shows just how smart Reed is.
AlgerianTrash2025-11-08 02:06
Bit isn't the main difference that Reed lived in the 60s and was the one credited for making the world very technologically advanced for its time period?
Thomas_JCG2025-11-08 00:44
Putting the number of appearances is misleading. Reed has a whole super hero origin that wasn't show, while we had to watch all those other characters evolve from scratch.
relikter2025-11-08 00:56
And the number of appearances is irrelevant to things that happened off screen. Banner earned several PhDs off screen, but has had significantly more time to earn them than Peter. Peter's a teenager doing things that impress some of the smartest people on his Earth.
mouse852242025-11-08 01:02
Perhaps comparing their canonical ages would be better?
justafanboy10102025-11-08 01:03
A very good point. I think OP was trying to say that Reed did all of this with his debut appearance in the MCU but your point still stands
ccReptilelord2025-11-08 01:30
They montaged at least a trilogy of "appearances" in the film. "Number of appearances" is a silly metric to use.
ElectronicRegular2182025-11-08 02:34
Also seems weird to credit Banner with co-creating Vision and Ultron, but not crediting Stark
yaboyskinnydick_2025-11-08 06:06
They did put "created AI" which can mean Jarvis and Ultron/Vision.
Tackit2862025-11-08 03:13
>from scratch
*With a bunch of SCRAPS!!
Darth_Thor2025-11-08 03:50
I'm also wondering if all the appearance numbers are correct.
For Tony OP says 10, but I can only think of 9: 3 Iron man movies, 4 Avengers movies, Civil War, and Homecomomg. What's the 10th?
Similarly, Bruce has 9 listed, I can think of all 4 Avengers movies, Incredible Hulk, Ragnarok, and She-Hulk. What are the other 2?
SuninOrJack2025-11-08 04:44
Maybe they're including camoes. Like Tony in the Incredible hulk, Bruce in Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi
Darth_Thor2025-11-08 21:27
That must be it, thanks!
SpaceCaboose2025-11-08 04:12
Yeah, teleportation is the only thing we actually see him discover. Everything else was done prior to the movie.
Dismal_Ad53792025-11-08 00:46
Not to take anything away from Peter Parker, but wasn't it Ned who hacked Stark's software?
Artisan_HotDog2025-11-08 00:52
And Reeds suits aren’t “indestructible”
MattFromWork2025-11-08 06:08
Well the first ones weren't at least
Diortheking2025-11-08 00:46
Reed is smartest as it should be
FerrusManlyManus2025-11-08 00:47
Shari recreated the plant that gives black panthers their power.
FerrusManlyManus2025-11-08 00:47
Shari recreated the plant that gives black panthers their power.
Zabadaboom2025-11-08 00:49
You should add that Shuri was able to recreate the heart shaped herb, that was quite the achievement.
Also how isn’t Hank Pym on this list.
justafanboy10102025-11-08 01:05
I mean dude synced his brain to ants and talk to them. And was a direct competitor to Howard Stark back in the day
mrbrownvp2025-11-08 01:19
Dude if it wasnt for the Pym particles Avengers Endgame plot would have never happened. Just because he wasnt actively into the Time Travel stuff doesnt mean he wasnt crucial.
justafanboy10102025-11-08 01:26
Yeah I agree since it was his tech that helped them. I wasn’t taking anything away from him in my first comment
ANGLVD3TH2025-11-08 05:19
Speaking of, Banner was instrumental in ironing out the kinks of the time travel too. Tony proved the concept sound, Banner helped make it practical.
Frankie_T90002025-11-08 07:31
Also banner could fly alien spaceships without a degree
wheremyturtles2025-11-08 15:36
His big green hog has to count for something, right?
Frankie_T90002025-11-08 17:40
I see you are a man of culture
Kobe_curry242025-11-08 14:23
I’m glad to see banner up there he deserves respect he almost had the time travel figured out Lmfaoooo turnt dude to a baby 😂
TheForeverUnbanned2025-11-08 01:31
It’s because Hank Pym plays a small part.
Ba dum tisss
AnnaSweet882025-11-08 07:54
that doesnt mean hes insignificANT
pakattack912025-11-08 01:42
Also figured out how to take the stone out of visions head (despite not having the time)
SharpshootinTearaway2025-11-08 01:46
Among Shuri's achievements, the Avengers traveled all the way to Wakanda to save Vision because they believed she was the only person still on Earth who could remove the Mind Stone from his head without killing him. And she had figured how, she just needed more time to perform the surgery.
So her knowledge in Artificial Intelligence seems on par with Tony's, Bruce's and Reed's.
bjeebus2025-11-08 06:34
>So her knowledge in Artificial Intelligence seems on par with Tony's, Bruce's and Reed's.^*
__\*__ ^(Reed can't really be compared to the others in this field. We just didn't know enough. We don't know how sophisticated HERBIE is.)
SharpshootinTearaway2025-11-08 08:30
I think we've seen enough of HERBIE to assert that he is more advanced than DUM-E, but less advanced than what's basically a human being made of vibranium like Vision. It actually even feels kinda wrong to compare Vision to HERBIE given how person-like the former is, lmao.
TomorrowFinancial4682025-11-08 01:48
Technically her AI did that
CthulhuAlmighty2025-11-08 02:47
Sure, but remove the “almost cured”, because that’s not an achievement.
John_Wicked12025-11-08 04:22
Well they had to do “almost” for obvious reasons.
thatmferr2025-11-08 03:37
I came here to comment the first part. Why put what she almost did instead of what she DID achieve
spanchor2025-11-08 00:52
Pretty sure Dr. Strange is a M.D., not a Ph.D.
FelixEylie2025-11-08 01:04
He's both.
spanchor2025-11-08 02:12
Overachiever huh
ck6142025-11-08 15:57
He says in his first movie, “I have a photographic memory, it’s how I got my MD and PhD at the same time”
AmeriCanada982025-11-08 00:52
Howard Stark was 90% of the way to flying cars in the 40s in the main timeline. Fairly confident Tony could bang that one out in an afternoon given what hes accomplished
Also worth noting that Peter and Shuri are much, much younger than the others
MarlinMr2025-11-08 02:20
Peter was in high school and had no resources.
All the others had huge amounts of resources as they got older.
bullwinkle80882025-11-08 07:34
Flying cars have existed right here in this reality, in several incarnations.
They are not an impressive accomplishment.
Want to impress me? Make it so the average moron who makes a riced out Honda can *safely* fly without crashing into things and killing other people. That is the hard one.
Also even near light speed spaceships are planet killing weapons. So they invented that too.
arfelo12025-11-08 10:26
Yeah, flying cars are just helicopters with a paint job. The problem isn't the flying part, it's the human part
Brouxby2025-11-08 00:53
Is it really "Co-creating" when you're doing it with yourself?
Apollo_Sierra2025-11-08 01:43
He co-created Ultron and Vision with Tony, not Hulk.
Brouxby2025-11-08 01:53
I was talking Spider-man, but I was not clear at all.
SeekerVash2025-11-08 04:48
There is a joke in there that would probably get me moderated...
Brouxby2025-11-08 04:55
I chose my words carefully.......
Dave_B0012025-11-08 00:53
Got Dormammu to Bargain
BodaciousTacoFarts2025-11-08 00:56
It's missing Riri and Hank Pym
Linnus422025-11-08 00:58
Reed has the advantage of arriving when the MCU was done being so grounded
FadeSeeker2025-11-08 13:28
and also being in a movie where they montaged past at least a full trilogy we didn't get to see
thinkUtheshit7872025-11-08 01:02
Top tier glazing OP
bchec2025-11-08 01:03
I don’t think Reed can be credited for the flying cars 😂. That’s a bit of a… stretch.
Persas122025-11-08 01:05
Loki deserves a spot too
Vumi_2025-11-08 12:10
Loki, HWR and OB are definitely among the smartest in the entire multiverse
chewywheat2025-11-08 01:07
Reed Richard is suppose to be the smartest man in the world (as cheesy as it may seem), if anything his feats should just be, “if you can think of it, then he can make it.” A version of himself does end up calling himself The Maker.
SuperJordan252025-11-08 01:07
Should also have rocket on that list. “Remember you’re only a genius on Earth”
ThatIowanGuy2025-11-08 03:22
This. The entire plot of Guardians 3 revolves around how rocket’s knowledge is a fucking superpower
aravena2025-11-08 06:41
That line is so underappreciated in the general sense.
kennyofthegulch2025-11-08 01:07
There is no such thing as a PhD in Medicine. If you’re a Medical doctor, you get an MD.
That's a research degree, you don't get to cut people open or prescribe painkillers with that.
THIS_GUY_LIFTS2025-11-08 01:07
Was it explicitly stated that the film took place during the 60's though? I mean, they had HUDs in their space suits, but all televisions and screens were tube tv's.
FlashMcSuave2025-11-08 01:11
I would suggest Rocket should be eligible for this list.
tobs_812025-11-08 11:09
I agree, but could you list his accomplishments
TeaThese31632025-11-08 14:56
* Invented anti-gravity boots
* Co-created time travel machine
* Key architect of the Nano Gauntlet that harnessed the Infinity Stones
* Discovered the flaw in the High Evolutionary’s evolution accelerator
* Escaped from 23 prisons
* Co-piloted and repaired advanced spacecraft like the Benatar and Bowie
* Reforged Bucky’s vibranium arm into a cutting-edge transformable weapon arm for Nebula
* Improvised a high-power weapon in seconds to neutralize Ronan’s Universal Weapon and saved the freaking galaxy
jtfjtf2025-11-08 01:11
The interesting thing about Reed is Pascal Reed is working on a teleporter, but Krasinski Reed already has a personal teleporter which he uses and most likely made.
_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_2025-11-08 01:22
Pascal Reed is ~60 years earlier than Krasinski Reed.
Character-Owl94082025-11-08 01:12
How was Dr Strange the only one who knew how to beat Thanos? They literally undid the snap without his help because he was snapped
theknyte2025-11-08 01:28
He was the only one who saw the one timeline where they win, and set that one into motion by willingly giving up the time stone.
Character-Owl94082025-11-08 01:39
Only one who saw the future, but he didn’t tell them how to beat Thanos. They still figured it out without him
theknyte2025-11-08 02:21
Remember, how he told Stark early on that if came down to anyone's life and the time stone, he would have to choose the stone? That was his sacred duty and oath. Keeper and protector of the time stone. That one chance he saw, where they won, was because he did something he and no one else would ever expect him to do. Willingly give up the stone. Even the Ageless One was shocked when Bruce told her.
He really was the key to the only way for them to win. He had to do something completely against everything he stood for and believed in.
throwtheclownaway202025-11-08 01:13
I don't know if they intended it to be funny, but the way Reed was just literally manufacturing all kinds of shit in between scenes had me dying laughing. "The new Interna-Scan is finished!" "Oh, there's your new suit!" "Okay, here's the nigh-invulnerable car seat" 😂
Blossoming_blonde2025-11-08 01:19
I feel like we have a reed Richards fan here lol
Some of these in my opinion are redundant.
TowelFine69332025-11-08 01:22
Reed prolly should have figured out LED screens, too, so they could ditch all those CRT monitors.
Darth_Thor2025-11-08 03:59
Especially the giant ones in Times Sqaure. Can you imagine how big the backside of those things must be?
TowelFine69332025-11-08 05:14
life_is_a_burner2025-11-08 01:22
Now do Madisynn.
Afwife19922025-11-08 01:23
Poor Howard stark. Some erasure there!
ABC_Dildos_Inc2025-11-08 01:23
Tony Stark didn't invent time travel, only the tether.
For a time travel machine primarily made by Hank Pym, with controls made by Bruce Banner.
ChronoMonkeyX2025-11-08 01:28
Reed created artificial intelligence on TAPES. Wait until he gets his hands on microprocessors and SSDs.
addictedtoanimeandfn2025-11-08 01:30
Ouroborus...
LexiYoung2025-11-08 01:31
for tony dont forget he also discovered a new element (not how it works in the slightest irl btw) which allowed him to make a perfectly clean and safe and hugely scalable energy source with the arc reactor, id say that's up there with time travel
Buckhead252025-11-08 02:00
to be fair his dad discovered it. he just figured out the blueprint and make it with tech his dad didnt have.
GentlePanda1232025-11-08 01:36
How did he not think to teleport Galactus away instead of the whole freaking earth tho???
Buckhead252025-11-08 02:02
galactus may have had abilities to resist teleporting. the planet however does not
WanderingDelinquent2025-11-08 01:41
Don’t forget that Reed solved crime! Or created a police state depending on how you look at it
Ranos1312025-11-08 01:46
Yeah. When you limit all of the other smart characters to only a handful of things rather than all of their achievements, it’s going to make Reed look better. Let’s take Tony:
- Jarvis
- Repulser technology
- Miniaturized Arc reactor
- Armor built in a cave
- Upgraded the armor to a more advanced design
- Created a concoction to counteract palladium poisoning.
- Invented a suitcase armor suit
- Figured out the clues his father left him to rediscover a new element and figured out how to synthesize that by building a particle accelerator in his house.
- Laid the plans to allow his friend to think he was taking one of the suits when he actually wanted said friend to have it.
- Refined the design of the arc reactor for practical use.
- Learned thermonuclear astrophysics in a day.
And improbably missing a few. And that’s just the first three movies.
Yeah you can make Reed look amazing by only giving the bullet points of everyone else’s achievements but it’s disingenuous at best.
Darth_Thor2025-11-08 03:56
- Armor built in a cave
#WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!
Gilded-Mongoose2025-11-08 01:47
All I know is I'm really looking forward to Reed being in the mix of the modern MCU/Avengers. They were satisfactory enough in Fantastic Four, but would do so much better in the kind of labs that we saw Tony and Banner in.
Agathario-10312025-11-08 01:50
Rocket should be on here. At the very least he's above Tony given that in Endgame he calls him "only a genius by Earth standards"
Agreeable-Wallaby6362025-11-08 01:52
Reed also co-created Franklin..
one_pound_of_flesh2025-11-08 02:04
Solving time travel in one all-nighter is a mic drop. Tony is a superhuman intellect.
What makes Reed and Sue great, and far greater heroes than Tony and Wakanda, is their willingness to share all their knowledge with the world.
Lazy_Future_29432025-11-08 02:10
totally, that herb thing was impressive and yeah, where’s hank in all this?
ZardozSama2025-11-08 02:15
Starks feat list should also include the arc reactor. Miniturized cold fusion is a pretty big goddamn feat.
END COMMUNICATION
Tron_19812025-11-08 17:08
In a cave, from a box of scraps.
jaylerd2025-11-08 02:17
Hulkbuster seems redundant to advanced armor
G0ourSeparateWays2025-11-08 02:25
I want to see Reed’s face when he learns of the Bifrost and Strange’s sling ring
Think-State302025-11-08 02:28
They really built him up well with just one movie.
marvelcomics222025-11-08 02:28
Are you counting Fitz and Simmons? Because between the both of them, they did the following:
* Hologram technology
* Perfected Time Travel
* Fitz Co-created AIDA
* Simmons perfected Deathlok
* Have at least three PhDs combined (Simmons has two, Fitz has at least one)
* Fitz created the mouse hole
* Perfected bionic technology
And a lot more that isn't at the top of my mind.
CaptHayfever2025-11-08 06:49
True, but their appearance count is way higher than the others, so it's less overwhelming that they accomplished so much.
marvelcomics222025-11-08 07:33
It depends on what you classify as an 'appearance', because it can be somewhere for 120-136 for Fitzsimmons, to 2 because they're only in two projects (AoS and Slingshot)
CaptHayfever2025-11-08 08:22
I would count each episode for this kind of a thing.
bergamote_soleil2025-11-08 16:17
I feel a season of television is more comparable to a movie for this purpose. Heroes usually invent crazy new things out of necessity to defeat a Big Bad, which in television typically spans a whole season.
CaptHayfever2025-11-08 18:41
That's a good point.
Haunted_by_Camus2025-11-08 02:32
Reed by a longshot. I’m probably riding the “Reed Richards is the smartest in the MCU” train way too hard, and yeah, I have blind spots. But hear me out, if you judge “smartest” not just by flashy tech or witty one-liners but by actual world-shaping impact, then I think Reed Richards might be the frontrunner.
Sure, Tony Stark builds awesome suits and Shuri is brilliant, and I love them both. But Reed doesn’t just invent stuff; in the version we’re talking about he helps steer humanity into a state of peace and prosperity. That’s not just being a genius engineer; it’s essentially solving civilization-level problems.
Now, full disclosure: I don’t know if every story in the MCU fully supports that world-peace result yet. There are gaps, plot holes, ethical ambiguities (because hello, genius often comes with hubris). But I think the potential alone puts him onto another tier.
I’m picking Reed. Not because he’s perfect. Because I believe the measure of intelligence is: “What can you do for everyone?” And he isn’t just tinkering at the edges, he’s apparently rewiring the map.
If you hate this take, fire away, I’ll concede there are big “ifs” and “buts” here. But damn if it isn’t fun to imagine the smartest guy in the room really making the entire world better (instead of just one planet, one suit, one ego).
Wendigo152025-11-08 02:43
Did Peter hack tony tech? Pretty sure that was ned
Dabochman2025-11-08 02:45
I have 2 points:
1. Is it co-creation when the other creators are also you?
2. There is an issue of Exiles where they go to a reality conquered by the Skrulls in the 1800s. In that reality Reed invented radio out of nothing. Dudes just on another levels in any reality.
No-Thought75712025-11-08 02:47
"Avanced"
Mr_Noms2025-11-08 02:47
Dr. Strange has an MD.
Maybe a phd as well, but he is a surgeon. That means it’s an Md/DO degree. Since he is a neuro surgeon and it’s mainstream the safe bet is an MD.
Vashishth_322025-11-08 02:59
Riri and Hank Pym should be in there too
themewzak2025-11-08 03:21
Bro just did Hank Pym dirty.
Biggby722025-11-08 03:36
Tony Stark also created an Avengers level threat... credit where it's due.
Captain_6162025-11-08 04:24
No Rocket?
Maxpo2025-11-08 04:25
Indestructible uniforms? It looked to me like Galactus was a one clobberin’ time away from dethreading Reeds uniform along with Reed ( and his underwhelming ability to stretch).
poopoobuttholes2025-11-08 04:29
Indestructible uniforms? Must be my imagination then when Galactus was stretching Reed and his uniform started ripping.
Commentaires
It's *wise* people who don't make a deal with the devil.
Then he developed into a better person.
Riri is incredibly smart. She’s also headstrong, overconfident, and frankly a complete asshole. Smart people can do questionable things because they lack the self awareness to analyze all of their decisions due to most of them being ones that seem well.. smart. That’s really the difference between intelligence and wisdom though.
Put more simply, a smart person can engineer a plague that would kill everyone, a wise person wouldn’t.
Making a deal with a demon, after seeing the negative effects of such a deal via Hood, is completely moronic.
And that’s like 7 movies worth of arc. That it was beating you over the head with Tony’s moral plausible deniability in his earlier actions. Dude, why do you think he felt so guilty? Deep down he *knew*, there are facts we don’t know and facts we would rather not know, and he was firmly in the latter category until it blew up in his face, literally.
Check and mate.
There’s a reason we named things different names
Of all these people, Strange should know MOST of all not to deal with Mephisto even in cases where he *thinks* he can outsmart him. (i partly give peter a pass, like i would riri for her youth and character development, because bad shit just happens to peter cause the universe hates him. what's a deal with the devil gonna do? 😭 Dr. Strange is just arrogant, but that's kinda his whole deal)
These achievements aren’t scaled the same.
Stark’s suits are also more “indestructible” than Reed’s.
*With a bunch of SCRAPS!!
For Tony OP says 10, but I can only think of 9: 3 Iron man movies, 4 Avengers movies, Civil War, and Homecomomg. What's the 10th?
Similarly, Bruce has 9 listed, I can think of all 4 Avengers movies, Incredible Hulk, Ragnarok, and She-Hulk. What are the other 2?
Also how isn’t Hank Pym on this list.
Ba dum tisss
So her knowledge in Artificial Intelligence seems on par with Tony's, Bruce's and Reed's.
__\*__ ^(Reed can't really be compared to the others in this field. We just didn't know enough. We don't know how sophisticated HERBIE is.)
Also worth noting that Peter and Shuri are much, much younger than the others
All the others had huge amounts of resources as they got older.
They are not an impressive accomplishment.
Want to impress me? Make it so the average moron who makes a riced out Honda can *safely* fly without crashing into things and killing other people. That is the hard one.
Also even near light speed spaceships are planet killing weapons. So they invented that too.
* Co-created time travel machine
* Key architect of the Nano Gauntlet that harnessed the Infinity Stones
* Discovered the flaw in the High Evolutionary’s evolution accelerator
* Escaped from 23 prisons
* Co-piloted and repaired advanced spacecraft like the Benatar and Bowie
* Reforged Bucky’s vibranium arm into a cutting-edge transformable weapon arm for Nebula
* Improvised a high-power weapon in seconds to neutralize Ronan’s Universal Weapon and saved the freaking galaxy
He really was the key to the only way for them to win. He had to do something completely against everything he stood for and believed in.
Some of these in my opinion are redundant.
For a time travel machine primarily made by Hank Pym, with controls made by Bruce Banner.
- Jarvis
- Repulser technology
- Miniaturized Arc reactor
- Armor built in a cave
- Upgraded the armor to a more advanced design
- Created a concoction to counteract palladium poisoning.
- Invented a suitcase armor suit
- Figured out the clues his father left him to rediscover a new element and figured out how to synthesize that by building a particle accelerator in his house.
- Laid the plans to allow his friend to think he was taking one of the suits when he actually wanted said friend to have it.
- Refined the design of the arc reactor for practical use.
- Learned thermonuclear astrophysics in a day.
And improbably missing a few. And that’s just the first three movies.
Yeah you can make Reed look amazing by only giving the bullet points of everyone else’s achievements but it’s disingenuous at best.
#WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!
What makes Reed and Sue great, and far greater heroes than Tony and Wakanda, is their willingness to share all their knowledge with the world.
END COMMUNICATION
* Hologram technology
* Perfected Time Travel
* Fitz Co-created AIDA
* Simmons perfected Deathlok
* Have at least three PhDs combined (Simmons has two, Fitz has at least one)
* Fitz created the mouse hole
* Perfected bionic technology
And a lot more that isn't at the top of my mind.
Sure, Tony Stark builds awesome suits and Shuri is brilliant, and I love them both. But Reed doesn’t just invent stuff; in the version we’re talking about he helps steer humanity into a state of peace and prosperity. That’s not just being a genius engineer; it’s essentially solving civilization-level problems.
Now, full disclosure: I don’t know if every story in the MCU fully supports that world-peace result yet. There are gaps, plot holes, ethical ambiguities (because hello, genius often comes with hubris). But I think the potential alone puts him onto another tier.
I’m picking Reed. Not because he’s perfect. Because I believe the measure of intelligence is: “What can you do for everyone?” And he isn’t just tinkering at the edges, he’s apparently rewiring the map.
If you hate this take, fire away, I’ll concede there are big “ifs” and “buts” here. But damn if it isn’t fun to imagine the smartest guy in the room really making the entire world better (instead of just one planet, one suit, one ego).
1. Is it co-creation when the other creators are also you?
2. There is an issue of Exiles where they go to a reality conquered by the Skrulls in the 1800s. In that reality Reed invented radio out of nothing. Dudes just on another levels in any reality.
Maybe a phd as well, but he is a surgeon. That means it’s an Md/DO degree. Since he is a neuro surgeon and it’s mainstream the safe bet is an MD.