The contingent of female characters is constantly growing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and some of them are proving to be just as tough as their male counterparts. Although no female character has yet been granted her own titular movie (which is something of a shame), they are proving to be every bit as interesting, formidable and compelling as the male characters - and there are more to come, like Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron and, hopefully, the likes of Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk and Wasp in the near future. From highly-skilled Earth-based humans to cosmic space warriors, and from queens thought to be from legend to artificially enhanced experiments, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is filling up with women you wouldn't want to mess with. Of course, the scale on which these characters are "tough" is measurable by their feats on screen, so it's possible to place them in order. In this article, that's exactly what we're going to attempt to do. So, without further ado, and by using their on-screen actions as evidence and as measuring tools, here are the ten toughest females in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date (contains spoilers for several films from the franchise, including the most recent offerings)...
Honourable Mention: Pepper Potts
By default, Pepper Potts is just a woman who went from being Tony Stark's assistant to being his girlfriend and, as such, her most consistent showings don't show too much in terms of physical toughness. However, she deserves a mention due to her short stint as an Extremis-infected individual. In order to goad Tony Stark, Aldrich Killian infected Potts with his Extremis virus and it wasn't known whether or not she'd be able to house it or if it would kill her. However, it turned out that she could house it and she ended up saving the day in Iron Man 3. Thought to have perished after a fall into an inferno, Potts re-emerged and struck Killian down when he was about to kill Tony Stark. She ambushed a passing Iron Man armour, ripped a missile and a repulsor from it using her Extremis-granted super-strength and kicked the missiles towards the villain. Then, with perfect aim, she fired the repulsor at it. The impact detonated the missile directly in front of him and blasted him to smithereens. And now on to the actual list...
