Nope. MCU Cap has basically been promoted to a higher strength class. There's really no other way of interpreting the evidence.
MCU Cap is definitely in the super range. The comics have ticked up Cap's abilities into super range as well. Far cry from how he was back in the Silver and Golden Age.
It's never really specified in the movies but from the source material I think the general idea is that he's peak human everything, at least when it comes to anything physical. So the strength of an Olympian power lifter, the speed of a 100m sprinter, the stamina of a marathon runner etc. etc. I think there's a line somewhere in CA1 about the serum unlocking the maximum human potential, but I might be wrong. Of course the average action hero can do things not physically possible, or even survivable--jumping out of third story windows and walking it off, car crashes, gunshot wounds, dislocated or broken bones barely slow them down etc.--and they're generally supposed to be "normal" humans, so they have to proportionally scale it up for the likes of Rogers in a superhero movie. Like I said though, it's difficult to really quantify and is really against the spirit of the thing. The closest you can get is the way Marvel rates these powers on a scale. I think Rogers is a '3' which is at the absolute upper limit of what a human body can physically do before you get into genetic mutations, synthetic augmentation and "magic". Jessica, Luke and Peter are at a '4' and for some perspective I think Captain Marvel is a '5' and the likes of Hulk & Thor are a '7'. How that expresses itself in action scenes is of course entirely subjective and open to interpretation.
There was no line about Erskine's serum unlocking the maximum human potential, only magnifying what's already inside. Good becomes great, bad becomes worse. But yeah, regardless of how Cap's strength is portrayed in the comics, he's pretty clearly superhuman in the MCU. I can't see any ordinary humans knocking a punching bag off its tether and sending it flying twenty feet with one punch, or picking up a motorcycle and flinging it over their heads over a pretty sizable distance, or preventing a helicopter from flying away with their bare hands.
I really like how they have his hands glowing from the inside out instead of the more firey kind of thing they do in the comics. The firey comics version is pretty cool, but this feels a lot more interesting and unique.
‘Marvel’s Iron Fist’ Adds Rosario Dawson, Drops New Teaser Trailer – NY Comic-Con [yt] Is that Avery Brooks narrating? EDIT: Damn - and perhaps apropos - ninja'd by @Turtletrekker!
There are still limits though. Like the helicopter bit from CACW was clearly a serious effort on his part, but I get the feeling that if Luke, Jessica or Peter tried, it would have been a lot easier and Thor or Hulk would hardly have exerted themselves.
Interesting, yes; unique, no. Both the DCEU films and Supergirl do a similar effect with Kryptonian heat vision -- not only do the eyes light up, but the light shines redly through the translucent skin and tissue around the eyes, which is a neat idea that makes it more convincing that the light is actually coming from inside the body. The Iron Fist effect here is similar, although it probably should be redder, as would realistically be the case if the light were filtered through the skin and blood.
Peter Parker more than likely would have had an easier time of it, but I don't think Luke Cage or Jessica Jones are quite on Spider-Man's level. I could be wrong about that, of course. As for Thor and Hulk, yeah, no doubt about it.
In the comics (and this is from marvel.com when it comes to the specific number) Luke Cage can lift 25 tons. So, yeah, they depowered him a bit on his show . Also, Jessica Jones in the comics has been shown lifting a car without putting too much effort into it (plus, she could actually fly pretty well until after head got messed with by Purple Man, she lost it somewhat after she quit being a hero but regained it for the most part over time). I'd prefer something closer to the original power levels, but at the very least Luke is definitely shown as being more powerful in his own show then he was in Jessica Jones. I don't remember the Hand having any supernatural abilities in DD Season 1. I dropped DD Season 2 after Punisher cried like a baby on the roof with Matt, so they might have made the Hand mystical after that point, but I definitely didn't see mystical stuff in Season 1. Still, I'm just glad to see Iron Fist having his power.
in Season 1 in the episode where meets his former master Stick again they go after a Doomsday weapon of sorts called Black Sky.. it is later revealed that it's a little boy and last time i checked little boys don't have the capability to destroy the world. You should definitely watch season 2 to the end, it really is great and the Punisher has quite a few additional scenes to play once his initial arc concludes in the first half of the season after which The Hand takes over as the main opponent and it is discovered that they have mystical powers.
As I said, it's not 100% quantifiable and somewhat subjective. I think part of the misconception that Jessica & Luke were "de-powered" in the shows stems from the fact that they had very little opportunity or need to show their full capabilities. When they did, it was mostly against each other which also makes it hard to gauge since they're pretty evenly matched in terms of raw strength. There are a few points of reference though where we get a better idea of what they can do. Like for instance Jessica jumping clear over a building with Kilgrave over her shoulders, or Luke kicking in a sold steel security door. Both quite beyond Roger's not insignificant capabilities. In fairness it was extremely vague as to what was going on with "Black Sky". The boy could have been an Inhuman, some kind of enhanced test subject, an alien or something more "mystical".
Yes but it was still something that appears to be mystical and outside the realm of Marvel Netflix pseudoscience, i.e. Murdock had his senses amplified by way of chemical accidents, Cage was experimented on and Jones had a car accident with a military convoy carrying radioactive chemicals. So all power sets currently are explained by way of science having an unusual effect on people. This was the first event in the Netflix show that alluded to something bigger and mystical and it was expanded on in Season 2 of Daredevil. I expect Iron Fist to also go much deeper into that direction since he is supposed to be the warrior to defeat the Hand so i guess The Hand might be one of the main villains of the show and possibly lead into them being a factor in The Defenders also by way of the season 2 Daredevil finale that might get resolved in Defenders (or kept for Daredevil since it's the more personal story, no ones besides the producers know at this point). I'm cool with this approach. I really like the more subdued powers in the Netflix shows when compared to the movies where they blow through tanks with ease and have all this flashy high tech gear to use against world threatening enemies. Cage and Jones might be physically stronger than Captain America and Daredevil might match him in hand to hand combat (though 1-2 good hits by Cap would put him out of action) but that's not the point of the shows.. it's the street level and more confined areas of storytelling that make these shows so good (and the fact that they're not sanitized like the PG13 Marvel movies). So i'm not too bothered if they broaden the scope a little because their fight will still not make national or world news even if it appears it could endanger the world (just remember what Killgrave might have done if he ever decided to visit the President of the US).
Oh I don't dispute that there's an allusion there, but it's a *very* ambiguous one. For all we know the kid was just a host for some exotic living bio-weapon that died with him. We still know literally nothing about it and it's only in season 2 that anything overtly supernatural (or seemingly supernatural) starts happening. There does seem to be an implication of escalation going on here and all signs do seem to point to it drawing mostly from Marvel's mystic/supernatural lore. How that will ultimately be interpreted by the time 'Defenders' rolls around is still an open question as it seems even 'Doctor Strange' looks to be taking the Clark's Law approach to "magic". Of course when you're mostly drawing on the same tropes as straight-up magical fantasy, the distinction is largely an issue of semantics. I agree, I like that in the Netflix shows that the even have powers at all is almost incidental to their very human and grounded stores. That's not to say that they're not an important part in each show's thematic texture. For example, Jessica's physical strength helps to underscore the psychological nature of the battle she's really fighting. After all you can't punch your way out of your own mind. Matt & Luke's powers are also important not in-and-of-themselves but in how they contextualise their character. The "blind justice" thing is perhaps a little on the nose but it also plays into how he's partially driven to circumvent the law as he physically can't not perceive the full extent of the suffering of those around him. Blind in name only one might say. And of course: bulletproof black man in a hoodie. 'Nuff said.
I vaguely remember the kid, and I just thought he was a metahuman/inhuman. As for DD Season 2, I really disliked what I saw, and between whiny Punisher, Foggy constantly nagging Matt to quit (a trope I hate, Alfred in the Nolan Batman movies did it so much I actually kind of hate Michael Caine whenever I see him because of how much I loathe the Alfred he played), and the fact that Elektra is apparently a sadist who acts nothing like the actual character I don't intend to watch a second more of Daredevil Season 2, or any future seasons (assuming he has any). I also won't be watching a single second of The Whiny Crybaby (aka "The Punisher") when he gets a show. Anyway, I really don't think the kid, who wasn't really connected to The Hand, means that The Hand is mystical. It should be, but there are a lot of things that "should be" that Marvel's Netflix shows have completely botched. Maybe Iron Fist will turn that around, and I hope they do. Seeing IF punch a ninja and having the ninja turn to dust (like the undead Ninja's of the hand do it the comics) would be great. I just won't be holding my breathe.
Well, if you watch it, you'll see it clearly get supernatural (even if theoretically science-based, it's not explained). ETA: And you certainly shouldn't be speculating on whether the kid is mystical when you have no idea whether season two added additional context that could inform your opinion.
Well, I was speculating based on what I knew of the MCU when Season 1 happened, and metahuman seemed the best explanation. I have literally not thought about the kid since then, and forgot about him until he was brought up here, so I was just repeating what my theory was at the time. I honestly don't really care what he actually was, because I don't care what happens on Daredevil past season 1. The kid is dead anyway, so we'll never know what he was and its not relevant to anything now. Heck, looking at the wiki, it says that Elektra was another "Black Sky", while also confirming that she had no super powers. So, the kid could easily have been powerless the whole time, anyway. So, yeah, I got enough context about the kid and without suffering through anymore of the worst thing connected to the MCU. In fact, the wiki basically confirms that The Hand has no confirmed supernatural elements, outside of possibly resurrecting Slasher Movie Villain Elektra, and since the MCU hates magic anyway I'm sure they'll eventually reveal that "Elektra" was never dead, just mostly dead, and The Hand just healed her. I don't really care, because Daredevil season 2 is worse then Jessica Jones and its version of The Hand is almost as bad as its versions of The Punisher and "Elektra". If the Hand shows up in Iron Fist, I'll treat them as a different entity. I hope, if they show up, they're the traditional mystic ninja assassins.
Once again, please don't speculate about something when the show you refuse to watch directly addressed it. It's OK to say nothing on the subject, but not something you could easily verify as being different than what you're saying. Spoiler: Daredevil Season Two The show revealed that people who were dead were brought back to life. It wasn't mostly dead, it was dead, dead. We're talking Nobu from season one, at a minimum, and many unnamed Hand soldiers who had autopsy incisions because they were dead. So saying you're "sure they'll eventually reveal that Elektra was never dead" is absurd. It's generally a bad idea to be confident about something when it's already been established to be the opposite.
Spoiler: Daredevil Season 2 Well, I only said that based on Marvel netflix's hatred of anything superpowered. Its trying to be "grounded" like Nolan's Batman movies, instead of being real MCU shows. So, resurrecting dead people is very not grounded, so I assumed they'd never do it, at least not on Daredevil. The only thing I'm confident in is Daredevil Season 2 being garbage. But, if they actually had supernatural stuff with The Hand, that's great. It doesn't make up for their in-name-only Elektra, ruining Matt's supporting cast or having the worst version of The Punisher in the history of the character, but it might mean Iron Fist could have something cool.