What would happen if Superman were to punch Captain America's shield? Would Captain America be injured? Could Superman break Captain America's shield?

quora.com

Jan 9, 2018 4:36 PM

Thaddeus Howze

Comic Historian

80w ago

Nothing. To the Shield.

To the Captain behind it? It depends on how badly he needs to get past that shield...

​Thor and Cap have done the Battle Royal dance once or twice. Cap keeps his shield between him and Mjolnir, and coupled with his improved agility, battlefield awareness and increased superhuman strength, he manages to survive these encounters relatively unbroken. Neither his shield nor his body suffer too many injuries.

When Thor did manage to break the shield, he was imbued with the Odin-Power and this made him a level of magnitude more formidable than he would be normally.

​No, these covers didn't happen. But they made you want it to, didn't they?

As for Superman, should he encounter Captain America, he doesn't know off the top, its unbreakable. Using his standard operating procedures he would use the minimum force required to get rid of Captain America. He would assume the shield could take a certain amount of stress and try his strength against it.

Since Superman striking Captain America on average should be at least as powerful as Thor striking the shield, the overall effect would be the same. The shield absorbs 99.99 percent of the strike's damage and whatever's left is applied to the poor soul behind it. We do know there is some damage transferred. Kelsey Leigh (Lionheart) died while using Captain America's shield against the menace she believed to be Thunderball.

With the strength and striking power that is Thor or Superman, it should definitely get Captain America's attention, this isn't any normal person punching him.

​​Cap has also had the rare misfortune to be on the other end of a Hulk -punch, another close analog to Superman's punch. Again, no shield breaking happening but definitely an unhappy Captain on the other side.

But of course the real question is COULD HE BREAK IT?

The Vibranium shield from the MCU? Yes. And he wouldn't need to strain to do it. Vibranium alloys can be destroyed with high-quality conventional explosives. Iron Man watched it being done by Roxxon Energy.

• We learn about these energy limits in Iron Man vol 1, #121 when the energy corporation Roxxon Oil discovers a vibranium cache previously unknown on an island in the Atlantic.
• Pretending to be the U.S. military Roxxon established an illegal mining facility to harvest the material until they are discovered by Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner. Roxxon destroys the cache rather than be tied to illegally dumping toxic materials.

​Given what we know of Superman and the relatively unbreakable nature of the Earth-616 Captain America's shield, Superman would have to be in a reality-altering state, to be able to destroy Cap's shield.

What do I mean by that? Superman has several states where he defies the laws of physics as we understand them. Meaning anything is technically possible, even breaking the unbreakable.

Flying many times faster than the speed of light, so fast he can reach from Pluto to the Earth in under two minutes, might be good enough. If Cap's shield was in the way, it might simply shatter with the force of something hitting with the mass of a solar system.

​And lest we forget, Sun-dipped Superman tends to be strong enough to move the entire weight of the Earth and more. Did I mention he could hold small Black holes or other superdense matter in his hands?

Yes, I think he should be able to break Captain America's shield under duress if he really needed to. He's interacting with an extreme state of matter in the Universe, one of the most extreme in fact.

​​On the high end, reality-altering Superman may actually be capable of destroying Cap's shield and killing Captain America to boot. But let's call this an extreme case.

Sun-dipped Superman should be at least physically as strong as Cul Borson, who shattered the shield with pure physio-magically enhanced strength.

​To recap: Superman vs Proto-Adamantium

• Most of the time, Superman wouldn't be trying to break the shield and on casual inspection wouldn't realize its unbreakable.
• He'd assume it was just tough. But if the fate of the Universe required him to get past Cap's shield. He would blow past it at speeds beyond comprehension.
• He can move like that any time he wants to, when his powers are at their normal maximums. He crosses the known Universe in a few weeks...

​He's Superman.

Besides we know the truth of the matter is, if you're the bad guy, when you see Superman and Captain America together, you are going to see two shields come AT YOU.

Anton Vietrov

126w ago

The result depends not only on the SuperMan and the shield, but also on where the shield is. The shield won't break for sure because well, it's Captain's shield. Hence, the force applied by SuperMan's punch will transit to the shields holder. Hope this makes sense :)

Joab Hodge

The greatest superhero of all time.

87w ago

My goodness, the people that type paragraphs and try to make their answer all fancy is a complete waste. In short, the shield would shatter. Depending on how hard he hit it, it probably wouldn't break if he held back, but if he wanted to get his point across, he'd probably take it from him and literally break it in half like ripping paper, because if he punched it hard enough to break it with Captain behind it, Cap would be nothing but red pulp.

Cheers! :)

Alexandre Blanc

lives in France

3d ago

The shield is supposed to be unbreakable, yet isn’t. Although vibranium is an alien metal with strange properties, despite adamantium inner toughness, we’re still talking about an human construct. But you’d have to be at awesome levels of strength to break it. A sundipped Supes could break it, and I believe he’d even pull it off at regular levels

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