Unarmored Space Marine vs. MCU Captain America

[NeoGoomba]

Since I am completely unaware of what Marines can do outside their armor, I figured this would be a decent measuring stick. Let's say a "typical" Astartes outside of his armor finds himself pursued and cornered by MCU's Captain America, who believes the Marine is some random Hydra experiment run amok. So here we go:

Scenario One: Cap with his shield

Scenario Two: Cap without his shield

In either scenario, would someone like Cap be able to knock out/mission kill an Astartes without outright killing him? Or is Cap in over his head?

[TithonusSyndrome]

Didn't Blonsky stand his ground against Banner pretty good in the 2008 Hulk while on a serum pretty well identical to Rogers'? I don't know 40K from Adam but I'm pretty sure the Hulk is stronger than a spess marine.

[NeoGoomba]

I think Blonsky just got swatted, crushed, but not insta-killed. Which...is still pretty damn impressive.

[Crazedwraith]

I think Blonsky just got swatted, crushed, but not insta-killed. Which...is still pretty damn impressive.

Pre-serum he was just kicked into a tree.

Post serum, he did engage in a feat of agility that was quite Cap like.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. The Marine has an edge in experience, maybe NOT physical strength if Cap can hold down a helicopter (see Civil War). His weapons are considerably more dangerous IF he is armed- you didn't specify this.

The Marine has tremendous advantages of resilience (as in, his ribcage has fused into a single solid slab of some kind of hardened ceramic). He may have a few exotic one-off weapons as a function of his biology (i.e. ability to spit poison). Much greater ability to survive hostile conditions (on top of a mountain in a blizzard, fighting in the middle of a cloud of tear gas).

Honestly... I'm going to have to give this one to the Marine if the Marine is armed. Even without weapons, while Cap has a chance I would not bet on him. Practically the whole point of the Space Marines is that they are an army of (heavily armed, further enhanced with bio-implants) Captain Americas Imperiums.

Didn't Blonsky stand his ground against Banner pretty good in the 2008 Hulk while on a serum pretty well identical to Rogers'? I don't know 40K from Adam but I'm pretty sure the Hulk is stronger than a spess marine.

Blonsky lasted for about one (extremely badass) minute, and the only dangerous things he did to the Hulk involved shooting at him with guns. He inflicted no actual injury.

[Zixinus]

Thread title says that he's unarmored, so that also likely means unarmed. Or at least not given Imperium weapons but whatever weapons he could scavenge. Which can still be a tremendous advantage given that the Captain doesn't seem to regularly use guns or heavy weapons. Which raises the question, could an Astartes use modern-day firearms? I recall that their hands are big too.

Even then, I'd put money on the Astartes. They are more heavily bio-moded than the Captain and are even more trained and maybe even more experienced than he is. The Astartes is going to fight to the death and is probably deeply confused about the situation, so it might think it is fighting some demonic illusion or something. Captain is going to need help, luck and probably something nasty to take an Astartes down without killing him.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I seem to recall Blonsky shooting Hulk square in the eye with a full clip as he flipped over his head. Can a Space Marine's eyeball tank that much consecutive 9mm? And if he's blinded, how much less effective will he be?

[Simon_Jester]

Thread title says that he's unarmored, so that also likely means unarmed. Or at least not given Imperium weapons but whatever weapons he could scavenge. Which can still be a tremendous advantage given that the Captain doesn't seem to regularly use guns or heavy weapons. Which raises the question, could an Astartes use modern-day firearms? I recall that their hands are big too.

Big, but I don't think they're that big. Plus a Marine could probably just pinch the trigger guard right off a modern firearm if he wanted to.

Even then, I'd put money on the Astartes. They are more heavily bio-moded than the Captain and are even more trained and maybe even more experienced than he is. The Astartes is going to fight to the death and is probably deeply confused about the situation, so it might think it is fighting some demonic illusion or something.

Eh. Fighting a star-spangled man with a plan isn't something they won't do; they do fight ordinary mortal men (and men who fight physically better than a normal man) often enough. No illusions required.

I seem to recall Blonsky shooting Hulk square in the eye with a full clip as he flipped over his head. Can a Space Marine's eyeball tank that much consecutive 9mm? And if he's blinded, how much less effective will he be?

Did any of those bullets hit Hulk in the actual eyeball? I don't recall being able to tell, and I've watched that clip several times over the years for a variety of reasons.

Plus, Cap doesn't carry a Glock as a rule, though he'd know what to do with one if he had one.

Cap with a gun against a Space Marine without one... I'd give that one to Cap, assuming he didn't do anything dumb like throw the gun away and fight the giant roidmonster hand to hand, which his sense of fair play might very well cause him to do.

It's not a scenario I'd considered previously.

[Adam Reynolds]

Plus, Cap doesn't carry a Glock as a rule, though he'd know what to do with one if he had one.

Cap with a gun against a Space Marine without one... I'd give that one to Cap, assuming he didn't do anything dumb like throw the gun away and fight the giant roidmonster hand to hand, which his sense of fair play might very well cause him to do.

It's not a scenario I'd considered previously.

It is interesting that he generally carried a gun in The First Avenger, used one briefly in Avengers, but doesn't seem to have resorted to them after that.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I just watched the clip, and none of Blonsky's bullets can be clearly seen striking Hulk's eyeballs. It's entirely possible that Rogers has more experience being a super-soldier and could do better, but that's purely conjecture.

[Simon_Jester]

Rogers may have more experience as a supersoldier, but not more combat experience as a whole. Then again, Cap's ability or lack thereof to stop the Hulk all by himself is kind of beside the point.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Rogers may have more experience as a supersoldier, but not more combat experience as a whole. Then again, Cap's ability or lack thereof to stop the Hulk all by himself is kind of beside the point.

How do you figure Rogers has more experience as a supersoldier? I only know the MCU not the comics, but he's experienced maybe 8-10 years as a supersoldier, the Space Marine might have anything from 1 to several hundred years experience of both being a supersoldier and of combat.

[Simon_Jester]

I was comparing Rogers to Blonsky from the 2008 Hulk movie. Not Rogers to Bigguyicles Superdupersmurfus the Space Marine.

And come to think of it, Rogers actually has a lot more combat experience now in the MCU than he did when he was defrosted. He went on ice no more than roughly two years after his debut as a supersoldier, with no prior combat experience. I was comparing freshly thawed Cap to Blonsky, who may very well have had a decade or so of special forces experience before he was given the super soldier serum.

[Jub]

Rogers may have more experience as a supersoldier, but not more combat experience as a whole. Then again, Cap's ability or lack thereof to stop the Hulk all by himself is kind of beside the point.

How do you figure Rogers has more experience as a supersoldier? I only know the MCU not the comics, but he's experienced maybe 8-10 years as a supersoldier, the Space Marine might have anything from 1 to several hundred years experience of both being a supersoldier and of combat.

Simon was saying that Cap has more experience than Blonsky at being a super soldier. Thus, he would have done better against the Hulk, and thus a space marine, than Blonsky had.

[Simon_Jester]

Er... sort of. I was actually thinking of Cap in his first few movies. At that time, Cap probably had less total combat experience than Blonsky did in the movie, albeit quite a lot more of it while being a supersoldier.

By the time of Civil War, that balance may be starting to shift.

[Meest]

Space Marines are known to take small arms fire and continue fighting. I think Captain America gets shot or grazed once by the Winter Soldier and once by the Chitauri. I can't remember if his suit is bulletproof or not but he was winded by the Chitauri gun. Winter Soldier hits him with a pistol again to same relative area, mid section and it does hurt him but he's fighting the next second or so. He does seem to do his best in avoiding gun fire, guessing a few more hits and it will put him in some serious danger.

MCU Cap has a chance because he is up powered from his comic counterpart, comic Cap I think has almost zero chance. MCU Cap takes hits from Iron Man and Winter Soldier who can dent cars and punch concrete, so he would be facing similar strengths. He out muscles a young Spider-Man who in the same battle holds a airplane walkway above his head. Though I think the Space Marine has the edge overall, in Civil War the Iron Man fight really took a lot out of Cap, where as there's examples of Space Marines fighting for days. How much the suit figures into that, I'm not sure, but can just view a Space Marine as a super heavy weight Captain America with more specialized enhancements.

[Zixinus]

Fighting a star-spangled man with a plan isn't something they won't do; they do fight ordinary mortal men (and men who fight physically better than a normal man) often enough. No illusions required.

The point wasn't illusions but that he'd be deeply confused about what's going on and the world he is in. The question isn't that he would fight, that's kind of the default response for a SM to most things, but he might have crazy ideas about what's going on. He'll definitely be upset about people having no idea who the Emperor is.

[Simon_Jester]

MCU Cap has a chance because he is up powered from his comic counterpart, comic Cap I think has almost zero chance. MCU Cap takes hits from Iron Man and Winter Soldier who can dent cars and punch concrete, so he would be facing similar strengths. He out muscles a young Spider-Man who in the same battle holds a airplane walkway above his head.

Did Cap win a straight-up contest of muscle there? I don't remember. My impression of the fight was that Cap was basically getting his ass kicked at first due to having trouble adapting to Spider-Man's fighting style, and generally getting thrown around all over the place, until he started fighting clever and used his environment tactically in a way that Spidey would not foresee or could not easily prevent.

I think MCU Captain America could take a Space Marine's punches, but I don't think he'd have much luck putting the Space Marine down with his own punches. It'd turn into a contest of endurance, and the Space Marine's biology is so mutated and inhuman that I suspect they have the advantage there.

[streetad]

I don't think he would be that disoriented. There are TONS of human inhabited worlds of various tech levels that have never heard of the imperium being discovered all the time even in the current time period of 40k - what with being cut off by warp storms, never rediscovered by the Great Crusade, or simply having fallen through the cracks of Imperial beureocracy hundreds or thousands of years ago. It wouldn't be a totally out-of-context situation for a Space Marine.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Until/unless the Marine figures out he's on ancient Earth, there won't be any particular weirdness.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I was comparing Rogers to Blonsky from the 2008 Hulk movie. Not Rogers to Bigguyicles Superdupersmurfus the Space Marine.

And come to think of it, Rogers actually has a lot more combat experience now in the MCU than he did when he was defrosted. He went on ice no more than roughly two years after his debut as a supersoldier, with no prior combat experience. I was comparing freshly thawed Cap to Blonsky, who may very well have had a decade or so of special forces experience before he was given the super soldier serum.

Ahhh I see. Thanks for clarifying.

I still think the Space Marine would take this one though.

[Q99]

Steve definitely needs his shield in this one, IMO. It's great for defense and, importantly, offense. Edge on it is very dangerous.

[Simon_Jester]

Ahhh I see. Thanks for clarifying.

I still think the Space Marine would take this one though.

Well yeah, so do I, unless you give Rogers some kind of shoulder weapon (shotgun, submachine gun, or something heavier) while leaving the Marine completely unarmed.

[Sea Skimmer]

With the shield Captain is totally going to win, he can pull off so many impossible throws and bounces with it he'd have no trouble hitting the Marine in the head or at work the hand, from a block, either one would cause massive trauma. Then a killing followup is easy.

Without the shield the Marine can probably avoid being defeated, actually winning the fight might be difficult though depending on relative speed.

[Kojiro]

If Cap has his shield, he'll likely take it I think. If he believes the marine to be a Hydra super soldier experiment, he won't hold back and he can hit pretty hard when he wants to and with the shield, hard enough I think even to break astartes bones. He also has one other advantage- the marine will be completely blindsided by this 'human'. It'll likely be a jaw shaking realisation that this puny human is frighteningly strong and quick, but a moment or two of being stunned could be enough for Cap to finish him off, or at least gain enough of an advantage to win overall.