Thanos vs. Thragg: Why Gauntlet-Free Thanos Lands in a Different Weight Class

Thanos versus Thragg: who wins now? My answer is Thragg, because Thanos without the Infinity Gauntlet is formidable, but Thragg just operates in a completely different weight class.

Thanos without the Infinity Gauntlet is still genuinely scary

Let me start by giving Thanos his due. Even without the Infinity Gauntlet, he is genuinely scary. He beat the Hulk with his bare hands like it was a warm-up. He crushed the Tesseract, and he made vibranium look like tinfoil.

He's one of the most physically imposing beings in the Marvel universe. Basically, everyone who's ever stood across from him has regretted it. In any other matchup, all of that is more than enough.

Thragg's fight with Invincible and Omni-Man reframes the conversation

Then Thragg showed up and immediately started doing things that reframe the entire conversation. He stopped a full strength punch from Invincible, a guy who can crack planets with his forehead. His forehead.

Then he slapped one opponent's jaw and arm completely off his body. He punched Omni-Man, who was durable enough to fly through planets, so hard that he left the atmosphere. He disemboweled Nolan and decapitated another fighter in the same fight.

Then, when he had Invincible's skull in his hands, he could have ended it. He chose not to because he wanted to survive, not because he couldn't do it. Thragg wasn't beaten in that fight. He simply chose to stop.

The strength and speed gaps both favor Thragg

Thanos's strength without the gauntlet lands somewhere around island to moon level at best. Thragg, meanwhile, is taking hits from guys who break planets apart and calling it a warm-up.

The speed gap is equally brutal. Thragg moves at light speed. Thanos is massively hypersonic at best. There's no scenario here where Thanos figures out a game plan before Thragg is already through him.

Thanos is formidable. But Thragg just operates in a completely different weight class.

Who do you think takes this fight, Thanos or Thragg?