It looks like Jujutsu Kaisen is officially part of Marvel’s Omniverse. Written by Murewa Ayodele with art by Federica Mancin, Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #4 portrays the proverbial windrider traveling through endless universes. One specific multiversal image has sparked online excitement and fan theories: A figure resembling Jujutsu Kaisen’s Ryomen Sukuna was shown towering over a devastated Tokyo in a direct reference to JJK’s infamous Shibuya Incident. Giving a nod to this legendary scene, a sign reads, “Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. The Multiverse Cluster of Magic and Death.”
[Ed. note: Spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen‘s finale ahead.]
While this could be nothing more than a fun Easter egg, rumors abound as to what this might mean for future crossovers. If we could, in fact, see the King of Curses himself popping up in a Marvel story, where would he rank when it comes to power? In the world of anime, Sukuna is an iconic villain who defeated even the series’ definition of “strongest,” Satoru Gojo. An unmatched master of cursed energy who evolved into a cursed object to survive after death, he is considered a calamity that can singlehandedly throw the world into chaos. Marvel heroes are capable of some pretty astonishing feats, but Sukuna has access to the Gojo-killing cursed technique, World-Splitting Dismantle, without mentioning his sure-kill domain expansion, Malevolent Shrine.
How would Sukuna fare against the strongest Marvel characters?
When pitted against the majority of Marvel characters, Sukuna’s cursed energy and cursed techniques would give him an easy upper hand. Against more formidable opponents, Sukuna’s genius intellect and talent as a sorcerer would also do a lot of heavy lifting, in addition to his sheer strength. Reality-warpers like Franklin Richards and The Scarlet Witch are undoubtedly more powerful than he is, though each could be especially vulnerable to his manipulation or to a sneak attack. However, these characters have access to such a wide range of abilities that they would ultimately have the advantage in a fight. For example, Doctor Strange could merely teleport Sukuna to outer space or another dimension. That is, if he sees the King of Curses coming.
Characters like Captain Marvel and Thor, whose powers rely on physical attacks, would make for a more interesting fight, and one that is easier to assess. Surely their raw power surpasses the maximum physical reinforcement that cursed energy grants to jujutsu sorcerers like Sukuna, but that’s where cursed technique comes into play. Sukuna’s Dismantle and Cleave have been shown as capable of cutting through animate and inanimate matter with ease. Cleave is particularly nasty because it adapts to its target’s toughness to cut them without fail. Sure, something like Thor’s Asgardian physiology must be harder to cut than a human body, but the World-Splitting Dismantle bypasses the concept of resistance itself. Sukuna used it to hit Gojo, whose Limitless ability essentially manipulated space to make him impossible to reach. If Sukuna’s attack was able to surpass a technique that bends the law of physics, it could also hurt a god-level Marvel character.
Another important factor to consider is Sukuna’s battle IQ. Fights between Marvel characters are usually full brawls based on power rather than technique or finesse. By contrast, Jujutsu Kaisen built its reputation on being one of the most cerebral battle shonen ever produced, and Sukuna sits at the top of that world. His ability to adapt to his opponents and catch them by surprise could throw even the mightiest Marvel brawler off their feet. Characters like Thor or Hercules, with centuries of real battles under their belt, would have a better chance and leverage their superior physical abilities into a victory. That is, until Mahoraga comes into play.
The Mahoraga factor
During the final stretch of Jujutsu Kaisen, Sukuna possesses the body of Megumi Fushiguro, thus becoming able to wield the Ten Shadows cursed technique, which allows the summoning of powerful spirits known as shikigami. The strongest of these is Mahoraga, who possesses the ability to adapt to all attacks, powers, and phenomena. Thus, Mahoraga could nullify even the strongest superpowers after experiencing them once, while relentlessly attacking his opponents. On top of that, Sukuna has access to all the other shikigami from Ten Shadows, which grant him a wide range of attacks and abilities, including healing and regeneration (which he can also perform through reverse cursed technique).
Battles between Sukuna and more street-level characters like Spider-Man, who don’t possess the god-like bodies that could resist Sukuna’s cursed technique, would be one-sided. Conversely, a fight between Sukuna and the top tiers of the Marvel world would probably be decided by specific factors like the presence of Mahoraga and Sukuna’s ability to outmaneuver his opponents to compensate for their physical superiority. A couple of hits at full strength from Mjolnir, for example, would send Sukuna back to the Heian Era, but would Thor survive being hit by a special Cleave that adapted to his Asgardian physiology and perhaps used Mahoraga’s adaptation to reach further heights, as it happened with Gojo?
Can domain expansion tip the scales for Sukuna?
And so we come to the elephant in the room: domain expansion. In Jujutsu Kaisen, this is a special technique obtained only by master sorcerers that allows them to create a space enveloped in a barrier where they can essentially manipulate reality to ensure their attacks always hit (while there are also other applications, this is the most commonly used). Sukuna’s domain expansion, Malevolent Shrine, does not use a barrier and has an effective range of 200 meters, hitting everything and everyone in that area with an unrelentless barrage of Dismantle and Cleave slashes, which only stops if Sukuna is damaged or unable to maintain the domain.
This is what caused the destruction in Shibuya that Storm witnesses on her Omniverse journey. The best counter to this for a Marvel character would be to move at a speed greater than Sukuna’s attacks and strike him directly while he’s maintaining the hand sign necessary for the domain expansion, but only a few characters would be able to do that. Still, if a Marvel character were able to resist Malevolent Shrine either through god-level toughness or regeneration abilities (like Juggernaut, Thanos, or Hulk possess), or by sheer speed (Makkari of the Eternals), or a mix of these (the Silver Surfer being the best example), then Sukuna would be vulnerable as he’s unable to use cursed techniques after activating his domain.
Interestingly enough, Sukuna’s flashiest attack in Jujutsu Kaisen, the activation of Divine Flame that he uses in chapter 259 to create a thermobaric explosion, would do little against the mightiest Marvel characters. Thor and Silver Surfer, for example, can survive near the core of stars and have endured cosmic energy blasts with a much higher destructive power than Sukuna’s explosive attack. So, his best weapon would instead be Cleave’s adaptive slash and the World-Splitting Dismantle, whose target area includes space, existence, and the world itself, transforming the regular slashes into “slashes that cut the world.”
Sukuna vs. Storm
Perhaps most importantly, would Sukuna be able to defeat Storm? Probably not. Storm stalled the Phoenix during the Dark Phoenix Saga, and that was well before her current, even more powerful state. She has taken on many of Marvel’s greatest villains and lived to tell the tale. Most importantly, Storm can rain down attacks on Sukuna while staying far enough away to nullify all his attacks, including domain expansion. This potential match-up is nonetheless fascinating. Neither seems to have a clear upper limit to their power, and both are incredibly sharp. They’re also almost diametrically opposed, with Storm as an Avatar of Life and Sukuna as the King of Curses.
Powerscaling between different fictional universes is a fun exercise, but it’s almost always impossible to come to an objective conclusion. The Marvel Universe operates by the laws of flashiness and spectacle: Things don’t often make sense, nor should they. On the other hand, Jujutsu Kaisen is built on a serious approach to its power system and its fights, which is rare to find even in manga and anime, so it’s safe to say that Sukuna has way more restrictions than any Marvel character ever had. If the Jujutsu Kaisen and Marvel universes truly came into contact, the King of Curses would likely lose his throne soon.
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