Khan vs. Captain America.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just a little crossover duel.

Scenario One. Original Kahn as of "Space Seed" fights Cap. as of Civil War. Kahn has a phaser. Cap. has his shield.

Scenario Two. CummberKahn as of Into Darkness vs. Cap., again as of Civil War. Kahn has that big energy weapon mini-gun thing he used on the Klingons. Cap., again, has his shield.

In both scenarios, assume that Cap's shield is roughly as effective against Kahn's weapon as against Hydra energy weapons in the first Captain America film.

For the first one, I think Cap. takes it handily. Kahn's smart when ego and bloodlust aren't getting in the way, but in a brute force match, Kirk, an ordinary human physically, defeated him.

For the second one, I think Cap. still wins, given the caliber of some of his opponents, but not as easily. He'll likely disarm Khan early by throwing the shield, but unless Kahn catches his shield like the Winter Soldier did, it comes down to a close quarters fight which Cap. eventually wins with the help of the shield. That said, as shown when he fought Spock, Kahn can take a hell of a pounding before going down.

[Cykeisme]

That shit Cap did stopping a helicopter from lifting off was pretty crazy. Doesn't that put his strength way beyond the "peak human" idea?

[The Romulan Republic]

Probably, yeah.

Then again, Kahn is also beyond peak human, isn't he? Particularly, I think, new Kahn (seriously, the shear amount of punishment he withstood during his final fight with Spock, and the way he just shrugged off Kirk pounding on him when he was captured...).

[Lord Revan]

Just a quick question but wasn't the name of the ST character spelled Khan? Also wouldn't "peak human" strength be something like strength equal to world's strongest man winner, basically cap's abilities are the best that's physically possible for a human to achivive.

[Lost Soal]

The fact his skull wasn't in pieces following all the punches Bucky & Stark have given him mean Cap is far beyond simple peak human condition

[Crazedwraith]

The fact his skull wasn't in pieces following all the punches Bucky & Stark have given him mean Cap is far beyond simple peak human condition

Yeah, the Captain America films have increasing him made him more and more superhuman. To the point that in CW
Spoiler

he bests Iron Man in a fist fight at the end, and for a lot of the time he wasn't even using the shield.

[NecronLord]

Just a little crossover duel.

Scenario One. Original Kahn as of "Space Seed" fights Cap. as of Civil War. Kahn has a phaser. Cap. has his shield.

Unless Cap is vulnerable to wide-beam stun, I can't see this ending in Khan's favour.

Scenario Two. CummberKahn as of Into Darkness vs. Cap., again as of Civil War. Kahn has that big energy weapon mini-gun thing he used on the Klingons. Cap., again, has his shield.

Harder to say, I'd say it somewhat comes down to chance; those are very effective weapons that Khan has; I still think Cap would win but I'm not going into a blow-by-blow of their feats of strength or analyzing their combat skills. Unless someone wants to do one or both of those things we can't really say objectively.

[NeoGoomba]

Basically it comes down to if Cap's shield allows him to close the distance, it's over for Khan. NecronLord nailed it, I think, with the wide beam stun vulnerability. If Cap can block most of it, power through the rest, and still make it to melee range, he'll murder Khan.

MCU Cap is more like Ultimate Captain America, if not more potent. He's super human, not peak. And the growth of his abilities can probably be attributed to actually learning advanced combat, mobility, and strength-building techniques at his disposal. In Captain America 1 and Avengers 1, he's little more than a super strong, fancy brawler. But by Winter Soldier he's an incredibly deadly tornado of hell, even without his shield.

I mean, Civil War finally showed him go all-out, or close to it, and when he did Spoiler

even Iron Man's on-board computer knew Stark was screwed.

[Simon_Jester]

Is this a cage match or is it happening in the context of a larger fight? What's the terrain?

I wouldn't put it past Cap to pick up someone else's phaser. We've seen him use guns when necessary and appropriate, after all, though he seems to be evolving away from that in later movies.

Conversely, Khan might be actively at a disadvantage if he's trying to use that phaser-bazooka or whatever it was in close quarters. It's a heck of a weapon. I mean, that thing shot down what appeared to be a small starship, or at least a large-ish shuttlecraft. It probably has a considerable blast radius. Not a weapon I'd willingly use in the corridors of a starship.

And come to think of it, while I believe Cap's shield could stop the bolt (it handled Thor's hammer)... a near miss might actually be worse than a hit on the shield. Again, blast.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hadn't considered the effect of a near-miss/blast radius.

Then again, the energy weapon from Into Darkness didn't seem that powerful when it was cutting through Klingon infantry. It wasn't blowing them apart or vaporizing them or anything like that from what I recall. How that squares with it being able to shoot down a ship I don't know. Maybe Kahn knew a weak spot and the vessel didn't have shields (or didn't have them up) for whatever reason?

As to terrain...

Let's say something neutral. Deserted parkade in a modern city (Kahn will actually be about as at home in our time as Cap., as he was a frozen 90s' dictator in his reality).

[Elheru Aran]

Or possibly the blaster has adjustable settings. It's certainly not unprecedented in Trek. He sets it to 'missile launcher' against ships, for blowing apart mooks he just changes it to 'shotgun' or whatever.

Physically, Cap is probably superior. So it pretty much comes down to whether Khan can take Cap down before Cap can close the distance. If they were starting on opposite sides of the map and Khan has time to set up some traps or whatever, then he would have more of a chance as he may be more intelligent.

[biostem]

Cap took a gut-shot from one of those Chitauri weapons in Avengers 1, and was back up and fighting in mere moments. Consider how resistant Roga Danar, (an engineered soldier), was to stuns in TNG as well, and he didn't show feats as great as Cap. I think Cap will be able to defeat the original Kahn pretty easily, but the Into darkness one may be just as strong and more durable than Cap.

[The Romulan Republic]

By way of demonstration

Kahn vs. Kirk ("Space Seed"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_c1Odol9xw

Kahn is fairly tough and can crush a gun with his bare hands, but other than that, doesn't seem terribly superhuman.

Kahn with giant gun vs. Klingons (Into Darkness): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_7phpFb-c

Kahn vs. Spock and Uhura (Into Darkness): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhRzfg3zLbA

Note the shear amount of damage that Kahn can soak up. He takes numerous physical blows from the superhumanly strong Spock, a broken arm, a Vulcan neck pinch (which causes pain but does not knock him out) and what looks like an attempt at a Vulcan mind meld, and by my count 7 or 8 point blank range phaser shots to the back and chest (presumably stun setting, because Uhura was trying to take him alive) before going down.

For comparison, here's a good clip of what Cap.'s capable of in a relatively high-end fight (fighting Ultron in Age of Ultron):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=110-dXYmJ6Y

[Batman]

Um-I don't recall neither TOs nor nuTOS Type IIs using widebeam stun?
Besides, Cap's shield should protect him since pretty much everything blocks even kill level phaser shots.

[The Romulan Republic]

The only example of a wide beam stun with a hand phaser that I recall is in Voyager's "Cathexis", when their's a body-jumping alien and Tuvok uses a wide-beam stun on everyone on the bridge.

The Enterprise's phasers are fired on wide beam stun in TOS's "A Piece of the Action", however: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o1rH63IaDA

Reboot Trek's phasers have never been shown to fire on wide beam as far as I recall. They also appear to fire pulses rather than beams, which are bluish instead of orange as well. About the only commonality they have to original continuity phasers is a) being energy or particle weapons and b) having both stun and kill settings.

[NeoGoomba]

Just based on your clips alone Khan is going to get absolutely shredded if Cap engages him. Khan shows zero training, just simple punches and kicks. Nothing he demonstrated will stop Cap from pummeling him into the ground.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, like I said, I think Cap. probably takes it both times. In particular, I think Cap. would wipe the floor with original Kahn in seconds in a straight fight. No offence to Kirk, but he's physically an ordinary human and he won that fight. Cap. is more than that.

What made me think it would be a tougher fight against Into Darkness Kahn, though, is shear durability (plus the fact that he's packing a big ass energy weapon while Cap. has a shield doesn't hurt his chances, unless Cap. just deflects his shots back at him).

Edit: Of course, Kahn is hurt by the fact that a lot of Marvel's fight choreography is just better than Star Trek's generally is.

[Lord Revan]

Pretty much there's 2 main characteristics that are in common in all 3 depictions of Khan (TOS, ST2 and the reboot) that he cares for his fellow augments and more importantly for this debate Khan is arrogant to the point while he has decent basic skills and intelligence he lacks refinement that allows people like Kirk to easily lure Khan in to situations where they can beat him with experience.

Also this might just be my dyslexia, but where is the "kahn" spelling coming from only time I've seen that is here, I've seen it always with K-H-A-N

[The Romulan Republic]

You're right on the spelling. My mistake.

Edit: Reposting the Cap. vs. Ultron link, because I guess I mistyped it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II0-dXYmJ6Y

And... nope. Checked it and double checked it. The video is there. For some reason the link doesn't work.

Here's an alternate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY9EEp4_9Cc

[Elheru Aran]

Essentially, it comes down to whether Khan's intelligence can balance out Cap's pragmatism, magic shield and fighting skills. Khan in the Abramsverse is far more of a thinker, a strategist, schemer, planner type. Certainly he's physically powerful, but the comic adaption of his story (which, as far as I know, isn't *actually* canon... but is pretty close to it) shows him as more of a strings-puller deal-maker type of leader rather than an active combatant. Fact is, he's just not that much of a hand-to-hand fighter. If he can think his way around Cap, that gives him an edge-- drop Cap off a cliff or something. Otherwise, he loses.

Now, Khan versus Stark in a competition of intellects, or Khan versus Loki... *that* would be rather more interesting.

EDIT: I mean, shit, look at that video of Cap versus Ultron. Cap is taking blasts to the chest (without the shield) and bouncing right back, and *car surfs a flipping vehicle*. There's no question that he could beat Khan easily in hand-to-hand. As I said, it comes down to whether Khan can figure his way out of being in that situation.

[Lord Revan]

You're right on the spelling. My mistake.

no worries, as I stated I'm mildly dyslexic so such minor things bug more then they should, even if I knew what was being said.

[NecronLord]

Um-I don't recall neither TOs nor nuTOS Type IIs using widebeam stun?
Besides, Cap's shield should protect him since pretty much everything blocks even kill level phaser shots.

You know, I wasn't sure. I'd always assumed the dial on the front was beam spread. So I went looking. Turns out that Return of the Achons shows their wide-beam setting.




All four drop to the ground a few frames later.

The shooters are two security men using standard type IIs; there's another shot where two beams stun three mind-controlled people.

I'd think that the shield could block them at that range, and we don't know if it is effective beyond that range.

And as others have mentioned, really I doubt Cap could be stunned. So yeah, Khan is fucked IMO.

[Batman]

Widebeam stun for TOS Type IIs conceeded, I didn't remember that. While I still maintain the shield should protect him I'm iffy about Cap resiting phaser stun because we have no idea how the blasted things actually work.

[NecronLord]

While that's true, we see a 'super-soldier' resist stun in TNG so I'm falling back to comparing like with like.



And I think Cap resisted beams from Ultron at some point?

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't recall him withstanding hits from Ultron, though its possible.

He did survive being hit in the gut with a Chitauri weapon in the first Avengers film, as I believe someone already mentioned.