Adamantium is a fictional metal

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

, most famously appearing in

American comic books An American comic book is a thin periodical literature originating in the United States, commonly between 24 and 64 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publ ...

published by

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...

. It is best known as the substance bonded to the character

Wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

's skeleton and claws.

First mention in Marvel comics

It was first mentioned in

in a story scripted by writer

Roy Thomas Roy William Thomas Jr."Roy Thomas Checklist" ''Alter Ego'' vol. 3, #50 (July 2005) p. 16 (born November 22, 1940) is an American comic book writer and editor. He was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and possibly bes ...

and drawn by

Barry Windsor-Smith Barry Windsor-Smith (born Barry Smith, 25 May 1949) is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best-known work has been produced in the United States. He attained note working on Marvel Comics' ''Conan the Barbarian (comics), Conan t ...

and

Syd Shores Sydney Shores (1916 – June 3, 1973) was an American comic book artist known for his work on Captain America both during the 1940s, in what fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books, and during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books. B ...

in ''

The Avengers Avenger(s) or The Avenger(s) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Marvel Comics universe * Avengers (comics), a team of superheroes **Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a central team of protagonist superheroes of "The Infinity Sag ...

'' #66 (July 1969). Here, it is part of

supervillain A supervillain, supervillainess or supercriminal is a major antagonist and variant of the villainous stock character who possesses Superpower (ability), superpowers. The character type is sometimes found in comic books and is often the primary ...

Ultron Ultron () is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, the character first appeared as an unnamed character in ''The Avengers (comic book), The Avengers'' #5 ...

's outer shell. In the stories where it appears, the defining quality of adamantium is its indestructibility.

Etymology

The word is a pseudo-Latin

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

(real Latin: ''adamans'', from original Greek ''ἀδάμας''

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''adamantem'' atin accusative based on the English noun and adjective ''

adamant Adamant in classical mythology is an archaic form of diamond. In fact, the English word ''diamond'' is ultimately derived from ''adamas'', via Late Latin and Old French . In ancient Greek (), genitive (), literally 'unconquerable, untameable'. ...

'' (and the derived adjective ''adamantine'') added to the neo-Latin suffix "

-ium A systematic element name is the temporary name assigned to an unknown or recently synthesized chemical element. A systematic symbol is also derived from this name. In chemistry, a transuranic element receives a permanent name and symbol only af ...

". The adjective ''adamant'' has long been used to refer to the property of impregnable, diamond-like hardness, or to describe a firm/resolute position. The noun ''adamant'' describes any impenetrably or unyieldingly hard substance and, formerly, a legendary stone/rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness and with many other properties, often identified with

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

lodestone Lodestones are naturally magnetization, magnetized pieces of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, which can attract iron. The property of magnetism was first discovered in Ancient history, antiquity through lodeston ...

. Prior to adamantium's introduction, the term was used as a brand for The Metallurgo Syndicate, Ltd., of Balfour House, and in the 1941 short story "Devil's Powder" by

Malcolm Jameson Malcolm Routh Jameson (December 21, 1891 – April 16, 1945), commonly known as Malcolm Jameson, was an American science fiction author. An officer in the US Navy, he was active in American pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fic ...

Fictional history and properties

The components of Adamantium are kept in separate batches before molding. Adamantium is prepared by melting the blocks together, mixing the components while the resin evaporates. Adamantium has a stable molecular structure that prevents it from being further molded even if the temperature is high enough to keep it in its liquefied form. In its solid form, adamantium is near-impossible to destroy or fracture, and when molded to a sharp edge, can penetrate most lesser materials with minimal force. Adamantium is used in

's shell,

's skeleton and claws,

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's skeleton,'' Daredevil'' #197 (August 1983)

Lady Deathstrike Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama), occasionally spelled Deathstryke, is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is a foe of the X-Men, especially Wolverine (character), Wolverine. Her father Lord Dark Wind ...

's skeleton and talons, Cyber's skin and claws,

X-23 Laura Kinney (designation X-23) is a fictional superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with Wolverine (character), Wolverine, whose codename she has also used, and the X-Men. The characte ...

's claws,'' X-23: Target X'' and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

's body.

Other versions

Secondary adamantium

Marvel's comic books introduced a variant of "true" adamantium, "secondary adamantium", to explain why in certain stories adamantium was shown to be damaged by sufficiently powerful forces. Its resilience is described as far below that of "true" adamantium.

Ultimate Marvel

In the Ultimate Marvel imprint, adamantium possesses the additional ability to protect against

telepath Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

ic probing or attacks. Unlike its main universe counterpart, adamantium is not depicted as indestructible.

Comparison with real materials

Scientist David Evans argued that as adamantium "is considered to be a very dense and indestructible metal" the most suitable real material to model it would be

osmium Osmium () is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Os and atomic number 76. It is a hard, brittle, bluish-white transition metal in the platinum group that is found as a Abundance of elements in Earth's crust, trace element in a ...

, "the densest known metallic element".

References

{{Marvel Characters Fictional elements introduced in 1969 Fictional metals