What would happen if the unstoppable Juggernaut collided with Captain America wielding his legendary unbreakable shield? Unstoppable versus unbreakable – who wins out?
In Comic Book Questions Answered, I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).
Reader Hunter S. (who always has interesting questions about Captain America’s shield. I’m sure I’ll feature some more of his questions in the future) wrote in to ask, “Has Captain America’s shield ever stopped the Juggernaut? The Juggernaut is nigh-unstoppable once he gains momentum. Captain America’s proto-adamantium shield can stop the Hulk’s punch and Mjolnir blows to a dead stop. So can Captain America’s shield stop the unstoppable Juggernaut?”
HAS JUGGERNAUT COLLIDED WITH CAP’S SHIELD?
First off, let’s go to the easiest question – HAS Captain America and Juggernaut fought against each other before? The answer is no, they have not, at least not in the way that we’re talking about here, where it’s Juggernaut charging against Captain America’s shield.
WHAT WOULLD HAPPEN IN JUGGERNAUT COLLIDED WITH CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD?
Now, let’s go to the more difficult question, what would happen, therefore, in the yet-to-be-seen situation where Juggernaut collides head on with Captain America’s shield?
One of the first things to understand is that despite it SOUNDING like it is a physics problem (how much kinetic energy can be absorbed by the shield and how much is left over after that), it’s really more like a magic problem. What I mean is, Captain America’s shield does not follow the laws of physics. Heck, it doesn’t even follow the ostensible laws of vibranium, which is the metal that makes up most of Captain America’s shield.
Captain America’s special vibranium/steel alloy has a unique reaction to kinetic energy, a reaction that is different even than standard vibranium. You see, the concept of vibranium is that it absorbs kinetic energy, so that you can have a vibranium shield, get hit in the shield with tremendous kinetic force, and instead of sending you flying, the vibranium will absorb the force of the blow so well that you’re barely knocked backwards. However, if the shield absorbs kinetic energy so well, then it specifically should NOT ricochet when thrown, right? Shouldn’t it just absorb the energy from hitting a wall and stop dead? Probably. But since the shield is a SPECIAL mix of vibranium and steel, it is somehow able to be thrown in just such a way that it DOES ricochet.
Or, in other words, Captain America’s shield is basically magic. No one knows what happened to bond vibranium and steel in such a fashion to create this bizarre new alloy. It’s more or less like the bit in “Frosty the Snowman,” where the magic hat brings the snowman to life, “There must have been some magic inThat Old top hat they found.For when they placed it on his headHe began to dance around.”
Similarly, there must have been some magic in that vibranium/steel mix that night, as the result is a metal with roughly magical properties.
And when you’re dealing with magic, it’s not so much that all bets are off, but it’s more that you have less of a outside frame of reference. You’re pretty much just stuck with whatever we’ve seen the shield actually do in the comics as our guide of what the shield CAN do.
SO HOW HAS CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD HELD UP IN SIMILAR SITUATIONS?
In the old days of the Justice League of America, writer Gardner Fox knew that there were only two real weaknesses for Superman, kryptonite and magic, and so somehow, the Justice League would ALWAYS come up against either a magic villain or a bad guy who had some kryptonite on him. Similarly, since Captain America’s shield is basically magic, then it stands to reason that you would need, in effect, magic to break it and so sure enough, many times over the years, Cap has run afoul of some magical bad guys.
That, then, leads to the question – is Juggernaut a magical bad guy? He’s POWERED by magic, the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, but is he inherently magic himself? This goes back to an old question people have had about Superman for years, is Superman susceptible to magic or is he just not IMMUNE to it? In other words, if someone is magically strong, would that person have MORE of an effect on Superman than somehow with the same amount of strength who got their powers from another means? I lean towards the position that no, Superman is not EXTRA susceptible to magic, he just isn’t immune to its effects, the same as anyone else, which, when you’re otherwise invulnerable, just makes it a bigger deal to Superman than to other people.
I bring this up because no general physical attack has ever broken Captain America’s shield. Most of the times that the shield has been broken, it has been via weird molecular-based powers (Doctor Doom with the power of the Beyonder in Secret Wars and Molecule Man in an issue of Avengers where he disintegrated Cap’s shield, Iron Man’s armor and Thor’s hammer all at once)
However, there have been a few examples of people physically breaking (or if not breaking, affecting the shield enough so that it is clear that they COULD break it if they wanted to) the shield.
In Avengers #63 (by Geoff Johns, Alan Davis and Mark Farmer), Thor, using the Odinforce, hits Captain America with an Odinforce-fueled blow from Mjolnir and it sends Cap flying and dents the shield…
Importantly, though, Cap was not really hurt despite Thor hitting him with literally the ODINFORCE.
In Fear Itself #5 (by Matt Fraction, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger and Laura Martin), the Serpent, who, at this point in time had been so fueled by fear that he was actually MORE powerful than even Odin, ripped Captain America’s shield to shreds….
And finally, in Infinity Gauntlet #4 (by Jim Starlin, Ron Lim and Joe Rubinstein), an Infinity Gauntlet-powered Thanos breaks the shield with one punch…
The important thing about that last one is that you can see that Cap still stands up even after Thanos punched the shield to smithereens, which is very impressive by Cap.
A fully-powered Juggernaut hits harder than Thor (as revealed in a recent issue of Savage Avengers), but likely less than the Odinforce, so I think it is fair to say that Captain America would not stop the Juggernaut, but Cap would survive the encounter. He’d go flying, but he’s survive.
Now would his SHIELD survive? Are Juggernaut’s magical energies enough that he would have an effect on the shield like Thanos or the Serpent? I don’t think so. I lean towards the magic just fueling general strength/force and thus, the shield would ultimately hold up to the impact, but it wouldn’t slow the Juggernaut down much at all.
Thanks for the question, Hunter! Keep ’em coming!
If anyone else has a comic book related question, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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