MCU: World of the Snap

[Psyren]

He does, but only Ebony Maw is worth considering, as all the rest die quite rapidly to an insane storm of blades. Consider the fight against the Valkyries. Arguably, the one surviving Valkyrie is roughly on par with Thor. The two don't seriously duke it out, but they seem to consider each other at least rough equals. Hela solos a few dozen of them at once.

While she does prefer to solve problems with a *lot* of stabbing and weapon conjuration, that's clearly not the limits of Hela's capabilities. She's got the magical mass resurrection spell on tap when needed, and she's quite familiar with magical items and even infinity stones, as shown by her tour of Odin's vault. Magic isn't a showstopper for her the way it might be for others that rely solely on brawn.

Being able to catch and destroy Thor's hammer is also a pretty significant feat that may be as much magic as it is force. She also tanks Thors lightning without effort. She can probably go head to head with Ebony Maw and not break a sweat. The MCU wiki actually lists her as immortal so long as Asgard exists.

It does seem likely that she's utterly connected to Asgard, and destroying it is clearly game over for her. That's definitely one of the reasons the stones can swing things. That said, she does prioritize the Eternal Flame over even an Infinity Stone, so it may be at least an equally powerful magical artifact(and more suited to her abilities). Given her access to one stone and the Eternal flame, she can probably take Thanos, Ebony Maw, the entire army....even with a stone or two, depending on which one and the exact nature of the fight.

Thanos, with only a portion of his army and no stones at all, held his own against literally every Avenger - and nearly won. Hela wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds under those circumstances, zombie army or no zombie army.

Thanos was also subjugating planets before he had any stones at all; see for example the flashback where he "adopts" Gamora. Perhaps even an Odin-less Asgard might be a tougher nut to crack than some of the others, but as far as aliens go they're not major outliers at the end of the day.

Speaking of Asgard, the trouble with Hela's powers is that it's difficult to separate out how much of them derive from it or not. Take her reanimation - yeah it works on Odin's Terra Cotta warriors under the throne room, but that doesn't mean it works on anything else. I also doubt that those warriors would be even a speed bump for Thanos' Children, never mind the man himself.

As for tanking Thor's lightning... It was in fact with a great deal of effort, given how far he sent her flying. Keep in mind too that that was his third-act powerup, and Thanos beat his *** AFTER that, so we already have reason to believe he is stronger than her. It's unclear whether he needed any of the stones to do so - he certainly didn't need any for Hulk.

One thought: if Asgard bends the knee to Hela on her arrival, then it might not be a far stretch for Hela to get Stormbreaker. Mjolnir was made at Nidavellir, presumably Hela knows of its existence. If Hela's claim to Asgard is honoured, and in particular if Heimdall and everyone bar Loki and Thor bend the knee, then Asgard's people aren't in a spaceship when Thanos comes to town. Heimdall presumably can see Thanos coming, or Hela realises the nature of Thanos's threat and goes looking to the dwarves for another weapon since she's already destroyed the hammer.

It's not exactly clear when Thanos attacked Nidavellir (EDIT: and actually, it might've been chronologically before Avengers given Thanos has the gauntlet at that point) but if it was while Hela was distracted fighting her idiot brother, maybe that doesn't happen if Asgard submits to her rule. Maybe Hela takes the legions of Asgard to defend Nidavellir instead.

Stoneless Thanos beat Stormbreaker too. If he hadn't been blindsided by Cap wielding Mjolnir, he would have killed Thor with his own axe.