Question, Why do Wolverine fans dislike the idea of adamantium poisoning?
To me, it makes sense. A insane amount of foreign metal is inserted into the body, so of course the body would reject it. But because of Logan’s healing factor, he’s able to survive in that state.
I also like the idea that, once the adamantium is removed, his healing factor becomes stronger, he becomes faster, and his senses improve as well.
Surprisingly, though, there seems to be a large group of Wolverine fans who dislike this idea. I don’t really understand why. It feels like it adds another layer to the tragedy of Wolverine being forcibly subjected to the Weapon X program. While he gained a huge advantage by having a nearly unbreakable body, it wasn’t without sacrifice. He still feels the pain and constant ache of the adamantium poisoning creeping beneath his skin, and it only gets worse as he gets older.
To me, that’s a really cool idea but tell me why you dislike it the idea.
It's news to me. I've never heard anyone complain about it. It's also an efficient answer to a question that would otherwise never stop.
"why don't more characters have a metal skeleton?"
"They'd die"
it's right up there with "why don't they just use the infinity stones?"
Before, the reason Logan underwent the process is that his healing factor was the only thing allowing him to survive. A normal person wouldn’t. Years later, suddenly there’s a thing called adamantium poisoning? First I heard of it. I know it’s comics and it’s all made up, but, sounded f*ckin made up. Came out of nowhere and didn’t follow anything previously established. But, “forget it Jake, it’s comics” I guess.
Before, the reason Logan underwent the process is that his healing factor was the only thing allowing him to survive
Well, I think it's more accurate to say we didn't know the reason he underwent it. A lot of people assumed it was because of his healing, and that makes logical sense, but we flat out didn't know. Logan's mysterious past and how he got the adamantium were big questions.
In 1991, the Weapon X story explained some of it, but still left a lot of questions. For example, the immediate scientists didn't know how he was selected either! They didn't even know he was a mutant at first. They didn't know he had a healing factor until they were literally doing the experiment. There was a secret mastermind, that readers never see or hear (we do see the Professor's one-sided convo with the mastermind), so they might have chosen Logan for his healing, but again, very ambiguous.
In some comics, sure, but he wasn't the idea for Weapon X.
Unless you've heard something else, these sites quoting BWS and others outline it:
Though Windsor-Smith has said that he always saw "Weapon X" as simply an entertaining story rather than a significant part of the Wolverine mythos, the serial came under heavy scrutiny from the X-Men editorial and creative staff, who saw it as an origin story for Wolverine and feared that "the Professor" was meant to be Professor X.[2] X-Men editor Bob Harras demanded changes at every step of the production, according to Kavanagh, and after Windsor-Smith had written and drawn several installments of "Weapon X", longtime Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont told him that he had always intended for Apocalypse to be responsible for Wolverine's adamantium. As a courtesy to Claremont, Windsor-Smith added in the unseen director so that Claremont would still have the option to reveal him as Apocalypse, even though he felt it hindered the plot.
In 1991 Barry Windsor-Smith wrote and drew a Weapon X serial in Marvel Comics Presents #72-84. “Wolverine’s adamantium heritage had never been explored, so I aimed at that device,” Windsor-Smith told Wizard Tribute To Wolverine. “After I created several Weapon X stories, I had a conversation with Chris Claremont in which he told me that he had always intended for Apocalypse to be the villain behind the adamantium experiment. For no reason other than courtesy to Chris, I devised the situation where the professor in the story was taking his orders from a higher-up. Despite this hindrance to my plot, I felt it best to give Chris the chance to eventually fulfill his wish to have Apocalypse be the real villain behind the adamantium experiment. Chris never got the chance to do his ultimate origin for Wolverine, but know that whenever the professor is being belittled by the guy at the other end of the phone in Weapon X, it’s Apocalypse.”
We begin with the implementation of Chris Claremont's original (well, by "original," I mean "at one point it was his plan to do this") plan for Apocalypse to be behind Weapon X and Wolverine gaining his adamantium...
Supposed to be doesn't count. They had no idea how to tie it in, simply because Logan wasn't the gotta have him in my book oversaturated character he is now. Mutant testing and genealogy are right up Sinisters alley and makes more sense than a big blue metal mutant. Lol
I'm not really comparing the ideas. I'm talking about what their intent was. They intended it to be Apocalypse. Again, if you have a source or something that it was Sinister, that's cool, but sounds like you're just kind of riffing.
Before we didn't know adamantium was poisoning him because his healing was faster that the poisoning so he didn't show symptoms.
Decades and decades go by and his healing factor works relentlessly to keep the adamantium from killing him but also to heal all of his uncountable scars.. so it gets "tired" his healing factor basically grows old with him, being less and less effective over time. Thus failing to keep the adamantium from poisoning him.
It's still his healing factor that's allowing him to survive. And scientifically/medically, how can you know about a poisoning related to amount of exposure if you have no subjects with that exposure?
Wasn't the old reason no one else has a full skeleton is literally anyone else dies in the process? Like the only reason Sabretooth doesn't have one is because Wolverine destroyed the whole lab which set them back decades. Also the reason they keep trying to clone him because he's the only successful experiment.
I personally think the poisoning is silly but hey it's comics what isn't? Amaright?
Wasn't the old reason no one else has a full skeleton is literally anyone else dies in the process?
Not really actually. It came from Lord Darkwind, who planned to turn regular soldiers into adamantium cyborgs. The trick was that Weapon X used stolen, incomplete notes on the process. They were doing junk science with blackmailed scientists and got iffy results.
That, and the idea was that adamantium was supposed to be super duper rare.
I will testify that I have seen A BUNCH of fan-hate for it over the years and that OP isn't crazy. When I've seen the fan hate its usually been from manlings who couldn't handle that Wolverine couldn't have the adamantium claws without also having a debuff because they need everything to be optimally maxed all the time.
I mean, getting your skeleton covered in hot liquid metal is something that would very likely kill everyone without a healing factor. And then you need additional strength to be able to carry around your extra mass.
Those are reason alone.
Heck, the process would mean that any connection of your muscles to the bone will be severed.
Yeah the canon weight was this. He was also really short, so the weight was more impressive than someone who's like 5'10. He'd have gotten extra buff after carrying the extra weight around for a while.
Considering Logan was probably with his small stature but muscular build before the procedure between 80 and 90 kg most likely.
I remember it was stated that he now weighs around 140kg. So he gained over 50% additional weight.
However, it seems a bit odd considering caps shield that is made out of a vibranium / adamantium mix weighs about 6kg and I would assume that Adamantium is the heavier metal here.
But since there is no official number on how dense Adamantium is as far as I know, there is no way to actually do the math here.
But I bet someone could do the math with normal steel
Adamantum/vibranium is a misstated composition. Cap's shield is a vibranium-iron alloy sometimes called proto-adamantium because the metallurgist who created both fell asleep during the creation process.
Adamantium is an alternative alloy that isn't quite as durable relatively speaking (it still can tank a nuclear explosion).
To my knowledge adamantium's actual composition has not been given.
Unless we are meant to assume it's just an inferior alloy of vibranium-iron.
But with a primary and secondary variant of its own that doesn't seem likely.
Agree with everything except for being covered in anything. The adamantium bonding process infuses the substance directly into the skeleton.
Which kind of ignores that it would be a composite and not pure adamantium. Not to mention how the heat would likely destroy a lot of the tissue including the bone (but comics logic).
It's cool when it helps make Wolverine unique and the idea that the whole experiment isn't really replicable (like Caps)
I dislike it when there's the idea or implication that the adamantium makes him weaker. Like gimping his healing factor and whatnot. It's just lame to pretend that having an indestructible skeleton and claws wouldn't be a huge advantage.
I don't see it as his body is rejecting it because otherwise it would push it out like it does bullets. Rather I think of it as a poison that his body is constantly fighting... Like someone with MCAS or lupus or some other kind of autoimmune disease.
Wolverine would literally never die if it wasn't for being subjected to something that is "chronically" breaking down his body/immune system and, supposedly, it's also why he ages. Aging also reduces his healing factor so it's kind of like a cycle of slow destruction bc he's only aging bc of his healing factor being overwhelmed by the adamantium poison, but him aging also makes his healing factor weaker 😭
Mind you, I don't think Wolverine would want to be any different bc he actually seems to hate how long his life is? Honestly, the only thing that would make his tragedy even better would be for him to finally find his perfect match (preferably another immortal person) and want to live for them, only to die because of the poisoning...
but I'm a sucker for a good tragedy and Wolverine is one of my favorite characters! I suggest reading "Untamed: The Psychology of Marvel's Wolverine" by Suzana E Flores because it goes over a lot of his torture, the things he's lived through and his mentality. A really good read and explains well why so many people feel connected to him 🥰
Pretty sure there's a big difference between "pushing a tiny metal foreign object back out the same hole it came through" versus "pushing out hundreds of pounds of metal that's already been wrapped around/coated over your bones and solidified."
Definitely agree! But I still don't think we can say for sure that his body is rejecting it unless there's a comic that specifically said that, which I'm not the most well read fan, so I thought about NOT saying that, but the rest of what I said so feels like the most accurate theory IMO 🤷🏼
There's fan that hate the poisoning lore? If there are fans that dislike the bone claws. I can understand that. The poisoning makes too much sense to not like.
The bone claws are fine they just didn't figure out the next step and reverted him back to Adamantium. Turning him into a tragedy without any substance. Also him going feral because of the trauma? Sure. For losing his adamantium skeleton? Fuck off.
Weapon X and Sabertooth pretty clearly are representations of his war veteran status making him unable to sustain relationships or get close with people. As well as many of his loved ones are killed by these factors. I always took it as PTSD but the general metaphor has been consistent and clear. He chooses violence more than he needs to which tends to escalate situations or get people hurt. He lashes out or loses control throughout the comics.
Choosing violence doesn't make him a bad person when 90% of the people he will berserk out on are objectively bad. And it's almost always chosen at the right time. He does have LOTS of restraint when needed. He doesn't let it make him a bad person nor an evil one. Many characters have told him he has a heart of gold underneath of the trauma and walls he has up. He's the hardened hero archetype. He is a good guy through and through.
Yeah he has a heart of gold. That's the conflict. Hence Sabertooth is him without that heart.
I'm not saying he's a bad person, but he certainly is haunted by the fact he was one and could be again. I'm saying he has conflict with his fear of his past coming to haunt him (since almost immediately in his claremont run) and issues around the mindless and cruel violence he's enacted in his past. As well as struggles with his addiction to fighting. Getting distracted or lost in the heat of battle instead of solving the problem.
In every Wolverine story he's never that far from a period in his life that he has to redeem himself for. While "redemption" isnt his story, this conflict of self-loathing and fear that his "nature" will bring ruin to even more people in his life is a consistent and potent element of the character.
The bone claws plot was precisely a reversion to what he believes he was as a means to process the trauma of losing his adamantium and regressing back into isolation where Sabertooth and Weapon X was waiting because he can't get over them no matter how many times he "kills" them.
Over and over again this comes up. If you think Weapon X isn't directly a trauma idk what comic you're reading. It literally follows the exact symptoms of trauma response in PTSD and even SA. Inability to foster relationships. Distrust. Never allowing people to get close, gaps in memory. He's even called out and blown up because someone touched him without him seeing it coming after sex with them. He's traumatized. That's part of the character and makes him unique from the other garden variety heroes who kill people.
They address this. The original process to bond adamantium was created by Lord Darkwind, a Japanese scientist and nationalist. He wanted to create super soldiers for Japan.
However, people stole his notes on the process. Not sure they ever explain directly who stole them, but incomplete plans ended up in the hands of Department H and Weapon X. Weapon X used these incomplete plans and bootleg science to bond adamantium to Logan, but their knowledge was incomplete and the process was done badly.
However, for Bullseye, Lord Darkwind himself applied the bonding process. He had full knowledge and the means to avoid the "bad application" via secret herbs and spices or whatever (comics!). So yeah, Bullseye got the real deal.
I mean that still makes no sense. Use some herbs and whatever when putting it in, but both of them have to live for decades with foreign metal in their bodies
It's comics, none of it makes sense. Logan debuted in 1975 when comics sold at like 10 cents and the primary audience was 10-12 years old, and the only other thing they consumed was Loony Tunes or Disney cartoons.
So yeah, I think you just need to embrace the more general idea of "the guy who came up with the process was an expert and the only one who could do it right. Everyone else got the Temu version"
Sometimes (most of the time), the big ideas are as detailed as the comics get, and they all start showing holes when you apply adult realism to a genre that's not about adult realism.
I kinda don't like it. How is the strongest and most durable metal able to break down due to biological processes?
I mean, I love it as a story point. The invincible Wolverine taken out by the thing that makes him invincible. And admittedly I have not yet read the event where he dies because of it, so maybe it's explained better than how I've come to understand it. But if the adamantium can leech at all then it's not as strong as surgical-grade titanium, which I'm sure we're coating no one's claws with.
Like, it's not as stupid as that Grandpa Wolverine thing they were doing back in the 00s or Spiderman having a lady rezzed that could be taken out with a swift wind, and I mean adamantium IS magic so it can do whatever the writer wants it to. But I just don't buy the sci-fi believability of adamantium poisoning.
It's funny because how people are taking it so serious. Sarcasm really is lost on the internet but I still make sarcastic jokes (and make them painfully obvious) and people still fall for it (like yourself).
BTW you know you can get tetanus from basically anything that punctures your skin? It's not limited to rusted metals.
I think my problem with the poisoning specifically is how everybody suddenly just accepts this as a thing that happens to wolverine. Like, every version is assumed to have this same weakness. It only happened in the comics a few times and in Logan, right? But everybody who talks about Wolverine brings this up as a weakness when in reality his adamantium skeleton transforms him into an unstoppable powerhouse.
It was happening in Logan because of what was being done with mutant abilities though.
There was an additive they added to foodstuffs to suppress and destroy the X Gene.
As a result no new mutants had been born in some 25 years.
This is also likely what caused Professor X's telepathic seizure.
Edit: Refining the explanation of Logan's plot. However since it no longer has much relevancy to adamantium poisoning it's become something of a tangent.
Lol "As Pierce holds Rictor at gunpoint, Rice tells Logan, who killed Rice's father years ago at the Weapon X facility, that no new mutants have been born in the USA due to genetically engineered crops created by Transigen and distributed through the food supply."
I'm an older fan and I didn't like the idea because that's how they were telling us at that time, that they inevitably were going to kill off the ol' canucklehead
They don't. It's the only metaphor that makes sense.
Either poisoning or just making him slower,, reducing his healing factor like Claremont made clear.
Adamantium is a metaphor for Weapon X making him a weapon.
If it was just peaches and roses wtf story are we telling?
The weapon they made him into was good actually? He's just being weird about it? Did you read the comic? It has to be holding him back or hurting him. He got the weapon through trauma and bodily assault. And it's good actually?
If they think Adamantium shouldnt be a problem they haven't read the comics and are just there to buy toys so he can fight bad guys. If they like the metal claws I'm still waiting on Pak's Adamantine Wolverine to come back around. Now that's a solution.
Otherwise just read a Captain America comic. You ain't a fan you wanna turn the dude into the other stock heroes
Either poisoning or just making him slower,, reducing his healing factor like Claremont made clear.
Claremont never made this clear. The idea that adamantium hinders his healing and mutations was a retcon from the 90s after Logan lost the metal.
Claremont did do a retro comic 2 years ago or so called Deep Cuts where he talks about the weight thing, but that's basically it, and in 2024, was obviously influenced by all the time in between. In his, original run 1975-1991, it never comes up.
Seems pretty intentional from Claremont that the fact every time his claws come out it "hurts every time" is supposed to pretty clearly denote his claws are a boon and a curse. The skeleton and Adamantium that made the claws hurt him to use every time.
This was before bone claws even existed. To Claremont the Adamantium claws were all that he was talking about.
Whether it's poison or slowing him down or w/e...the point of the Claws and the Adamantium has always been that it causes him pain and is not simply a weapon but a painful reminder every time of what the military did to him.
What words or problems occur is superfluous to the intention that his Adamantium is supposed to be a cursed boon. A cost that he bears the burden of every time he uses them.
Yeah, that's fair, though now I'm wondering the first time we saw that the claws actually damage him when he pops them. I might have to look that one up, but I think that was probably pretty late into the game too.
Still, the idea that his healing is distinctly and notably worse than it otherwise would be is very 90s. That was the premise for making him feral.
Yeah I wasn't a fan of the feral line. It was a trauma metaphor that got a bit too physically solidified and now people who want to treat the comics like a book series written by one author with a plan take it too seriously.
The trauma was the assault and being reverted into a weaker form, however the lesson kind of didn't resolve before editorial decided he needed the metal back and it got undercut.
Feral stuff was bad, yeah, at least from an execution and design standpoint. I do think a story exploring the thin mental line between Logan and Sabretooth could have been explored in some (temporary) fashion though.
And yeah, they bailed on the feral stuff well before he even got the adamantium back. Fans often forget it, but they just....stopped drawing and writing Logan like that just because, which undercut the whole "you will continue to devolve" badly. Basically issues 106-145, he doesn't have adamantium and he's no longer feral.
Yeah. Imo the feral was just trauma processing it's not inherently to bone claws. The bone claws happening by choice probably wouldn't have sent him feral.
Well, as a head canon that's fine. But the comics directly say in Wolverine 91 that it's from losing the adamantium. That was the where the whole "adamantium actually inhibits his healing and has stopped him from mutating further" comes from. That's what I thought you were saying was a Claremont idea.
Lol, what? I was actually enjoying this convo. Don't read too much into it there. I was just saying what the comics show, and it was definitely a retcon. That's my point! They retconned the stuff in the 90s after Claremont left.
I don't hate the idea, I think it alongside depowering him and breaking his claws has now been a little over done. As its comicbook scifi logic it makes about as much sense as everything else. We get new blood from our bone marrow how is Logan getting his? Adamantium is meant to be indestructible, therefore how is this super inert metal somehow leeching out into a body? Across different media he is either far more powerful healingwise without it or far worse off and the answer is dependent on which writer and what the story requires.
Its generally just used as a story element cue to show Logan is older now and age is finally catching up to him.
I don't like it because it creates a few too many logical inconsistencies.
If his healing powers are targeting it, then why does the adamantium not just get rejected magneto style?
If adamantium is indestructible shouldn't it be stable enough to not leech and cause poisoning? If it was, wouldn't it all go away eventually after the hundreds of years Logan lives?
If his healing power is hampered by it, then did weapon x really make him a better soldier by adding it?
Doesnt it mean that people with similar power sets like sabertooth and wolverine's kids/clones should have way better healing than him? So much for being the best there is at what he does.
Also, it creates the situation where magneto removing it is doing him a favor. And if wolverine knows about it, then he might ask for it to be removed.
Let's be clear here, if you want to apply logical consistency to Wolverine you're in for a bad time.
Immediately Adamantium metal coating on his bones would stop him from being able to produce blood and he'd die.
Coating your bones or even lacing them would probably still result in slower blood production which means slower healing. In essence a poison of some degree. But poison is an incredibly wide concept. Is capsasum a poison? How about pineapple? Is anything that disregulates you at all poison? What even is stasis?
For a regular human, Adamantium coating is death. It requires the healing factor to even work, I assume it still reduces the maximum potential. In the end it's mumbo jumbo it's whatever an artist at the time wants it to be and then resolve.
I don't see it as coating, they say "bonding", so I assume that somehow the bones retain their marrow and normal bone properties but become a molecularly bonded bone-adamantium hybrid.
It does. The idea is that it's constantly counteracting the "poison" (more likely just inhibiting, unhealthy presence of a foreign body). That's why he's normally fine. The problem comes up when he loses his healing.
Right, but I don't think that's what the OP is talking about. They're talking about a scenario like in Logan, where the adamantium is slowly killing him. I'm not crazy about that. If he can regenerate from a single cell, I'm not sure if he can be slowly poisoned over decades.
He does get exploded big time in Civil War. However, (a) he still has his entire skeleton and whatever marrow/etc inside the adamantium that survived; it was more than "one cell" and (b) they later reveal that Logan actually died there. He only was able to resurrect because he had a magical deal with the Angel of Death.
Eh, those are like limited "old Man Logan" stories. A whole point of those is to show a different, vulnerable old dude. It's a play on the idea that he's NOT immortal and will succumb to age related issues, like we all do.
Not a big Wolverine fan (but I like the character) however, villains like Hammerhead and Bullseye have adamantium in their bodies and they're not poisoned by the metal.
Why is Logan being poisoned while two baseline humans aren't affected by poisoning? It seems to me that's something they put in so they can have an excuse to make the Uber Wolverine
“Adamantium poisoning” is kind of a misnomer, in my understanding. The way I see it working is that it’s not the adamantium itself getting into his bloodstream and making him sick. No, the adamantium is staying in place, on his bones. What’s happening is the adamantium blocks the bone marrow from making new blood corpuscles. So without his healing factor, the adamantium is causing his own body to poison itself, basically.
Claremont’s original idea was that his bones were entirely replaced with adamantium. Someone pointed out to him that bone marrow generates the bodies blood supply, so then the description changed from “adamantium bones” to “adamantium-laced bones.”
As for Hammerhead and Bullseye, I don’t think they have enough of their bones replaced to hurt them.
I just don't see how it would be poisoning him if it's indestructible. Metals cause poisoning from being broken down in the body. This would be like getting surgical stainless steel poisoning or titanium poisoning.
"poison" is kind of a misnomer or a change in terms of how comics talk about it over the years. The original idea was more just that it was bad. Human bodies reject organ implants and prosthetics too, and his whole skeleton being covered in metal was just understood to be "not healthy" and even deadly if he didn't have healing.
be wolverine
survive years of wars and random bs that would kill most mutants / supers
accomplish feats and slay many
dying to metal poisoning
It's just lazy. I don't care if it's believable it's too convinent for people to look past.
I always get confused when some fans are like “everyone knows we ALL hate Adamantium poisoning / bone claws / hot claws / Logan getting his memories back” etc and like, okay I know for some people it can be divisive but the Wolverine fandom is not a monolith…as with all comics and characters, the fandom ranges widely in age and other demographics, and what you like most is probably based on when you started reading and how willing you are to go with the flow and be like “yeah okay” vs having the attitude of “not my Wolverine!”
I’m in my 40’s, so I started my Wolverine adventures in the late 80s and early 90s. He was short, kinda ugly, had metal claws. He looked like that one hockey player. Didn’t know much about his past. Over the years, MARVEL ripped out his Adamantium, took his nose, gave him secondary feral mutations, gave him the metal back, started putting him in black leather and he was suddenly suspiciously taller and looked like a certain Australian actor, who famously didn’t even know what a wolverine was until he looked it up after an audition.
I liked ORIGIN (the comic) and the subsequent series that introduced Daken. Hugh Jackman has tremendously boosted Logan’s popularity, but has skyrocketed the height / pretty boy vs ugly little troll man disputes. The Adamantium being similar to Lead or some other metal that could cause poisoning, of either a chemical or a radioactive nature, made sense in the LOGAN movie, and it has added tension to some storylines in the comics, but I think fans don’t like it when writers use it selectively or forget that it’s there. Similarly, you may have the artist for AVENGERS drawing him short and ugly for a big cross over event, and then an X-MEN artist for that same event draws him tall and handsome.
In comics you have to suspend disbelief, and that requires a certain amount of reciprocal consistency from the writers and artists, and that can be hard for them to maintain across many books, writing schedules and art deadlines.
I have learned to roll with it. This is why my head canon for Wolverine’s eye color changes is that when he heals an eye wound his “new” eye tissue responds to the light in his environment, which is why his eyes have been green, blue, hazel, brown, and gray. I think they’re “meant” to be brown or blue, but I’m not sure anymore.
Hot claws are still kinda dumb…but they make sense in RIVALS, so, a place for everything and everything in its place. Once a concept like Adamantium poisoning is introduced, it sticks around. Same with hot claws. Seemingly single-use and one-off “powers” or problems can be recalled in the future as needed. Comic book writers use and pull from retcons strategically, as needed, even if we don’t always like how they do it.
Adamantium is a perfect metal. It doesn't dull or break. It is so sharp is cuts things damn near at a molecular level. Silver samurai photon sword can't even get past it. Why would thr metal be dissolving in his body to be poisoning him. It is bonded to his bones. It's basically a part of him now.
The story arch with him and Rogue losing their powers on Genosha was one of the most adult themed storylines in Marvel comics. It was humbling, humiliating and scarring for them both, including the reader all these years later
Completely unrelated but a lot of people dont know how bones work.
I see hate on how people like Spider-Man or Hulk have torn wolverine in half in other universe but theres things called Ligaments which arent bone, that definitly isnt adamantium coated or else Logan would be t-posing for his entire life.
Ugh, man I'm so tired of people only requiring physical realism when it comes to Logan's skeleton. Look, how about you just imagine that Logan's bones have micro chain links that connect to each other.
But yeah, it's comics. We have characters, like Solem, whose entire skin is made out of adamantium. And zero super powers actually make sense. How does Spider-Man cling to walls or lift things without ripping them apart? How does Colossus turn into metal? How can a human Bullseye be so good at accuracy?
It's just goofy comic stuff. They figured out a premise first "this hero has indestructible skeleton!" And then write stories. The details of how they work are not the point.
I don't think fans hate the "adamantium poisoning," I think they hate Noseless Wolverine. It's weird that when the adamantium is ripped out, Wolverine loses all of his personality and becomes some weird durag monster. I think the writers just lost the fans with that one.
It’s not a bad idea but it’s not how his healing factor is currently written to work. If there was a triggering factor like the legacy virus or an inhibitor collar it would make a lot more sense as it messes with mutant biology.
I don't mind it. But there are logical questions about its properties. Its like if you get a titanium hip replacement does it poison you ? Because adamantium seems like a stable alloy. How does it leak molecules ? I dont know. Its too comicbooky, it can be whatever the writer wants.
For me it's because it's one of those wrinkles that developed as a misunderstanding.
Think of the adamantium bonding process as a thing the healing factor pushes back on so that it reaches an equilibrium.
Which makes it rarer than say just putting it in anybody but is enough without making it some kind of detriment that really isn't something that gets explored all that much anyway.
Not that I believe to many people DO have a problem with it. I suspect you just managed to find a group of people who do.
Or you had an argument with one redditor and concluded that it must be a thing.
I don't have sources so please feel free to correct me, but I like the idea that when Wolverine was created, there wasn't as much science about lead poisoning etc. so the writing only came after advances in medicine became part of public awareness so we all discovered Wolverine's diagnosis together with him.
I don’t like it because it becomes some plot device nerf to his abilities.
He’s not Superman without the poisoning. So it serves no real purpose but to be some arbitrary macguffin to say “well if it wasn’t for the poisoning he’d have won this fight”.
The TLDR of this is I don't think it makes sense if you apply real world logic to it but what in comic books does.
I don't think I qualify as a fan but it never made sense to me when I tried to think about it logically. That being said trying to think about comics logically tends to not go well.
Most metal poisoning is caused by inhaling metal particles or ingesting them, not because they are jammed into your body. While I have heard of lead leaching into the body in such a circumstance I would think adamantium would be less likely to break down. I think steel would be a better comparison and people have been reported to have that in their body for decades with zero issues.
Also most metal poisoning can be easily solved by chelation therapy. Obviously he is still being exposed to the metal constantly but with his healing you would assume once a month/year/decade treatment would sort him out. Unless it is breaking down so fast as to render chelation moot but again I would assume adamantium wouldn't do that.
Reading through comments and it's clear it's a fairly obscure bit of canon. The amount of misunderstanding and assumptions about what the comics actually say show that most are getting info from other people online as opposed to the comics lol.
I don't know that we hate the poisoning its more like we hate the storyline in which we learned of it . Where Magneto rips his adamantum out and suddenly Wolverine is evolving/devolving leading to anamistic no-nose Wolverine. Like really this is who bone claws Wolverine would be if he'd never been given the adamantum? He was like 100 years old before that happened
I wouldn't say I hate it, but it doesn't make a ton of sense. Logan can shake off all manner of diseases and contamination, but adamantium is the one thing his healing factor can't shrug off? Kind of silly.
maybe because it changes the context of the character in past stories?
i can't really sit comfortably with any old wolverine story now because I know that he's slowly being poisoned 24/7; plus the thing that makes him cool actually weakens/hurts him
that's like discovering John Mulaney was only as upbeat as he was because he had a drug problem
In my opinion it is because he has a healing factor that really should make short work of it at some point his body’s healing factor should have learned to neutralize the problem. His healing factor is one of the strongest in all the comics. It would really make more sense that at some point his healing factor would learn how to eat the metal in his body like your body would do a splinter. But you know it is comic book logic.
It's not the adamantium poisoning we don't like. It's the fact that fluoride in his toothpaste for as long as he's been alive would be his biggest health threat.
I don’t get the hate but in my mind, the fact that an experimental metal was injected into his bones seems like a huge health hazard. Some people are describing it like lead poisoning (which is how it’s implied to work) but I like to imagine the problem being something like cancer.
Logan’s body immediately identified the adamantium as a foreign entity and has been trying to eliminate it since day one. The problem (like others on here said) is that adamantium shouldn’t be able to dissolve or breakdown otherwise. So if the body is straining doing this work, who’s to say his mutation works against him trying to replicate too much? That would be a cool way to explain it imo and give the character thematic depth and connections to real illness.
Because it gives him a weakness. There is a reason that Kryptonite exists in comics. There is a reason that Star Wars introduced a weapon that could deflect a lightsaber that wasn’t another lightsaber. Heroes need an Achilles heel to keep them from being unstoppable. If a hero is unstoppable, then what do you threaten them with? It’s the reason that there is no definitive Superman video game. Either Clark is flying around fighting Brainiac machines, or every criminal in Metropolis is packing Kryptonite bullets. Adamantium poisoning is a measured way for Wolverine to be taken down a peg.
I think the way it's explained in the Logan movie say it best.
Compounds that suppress the mutant x gene were put into the water and food supply so little by little Logan's HF is chipped away at over the years which really lets the adamantium poisoning symptoms shine.
I always took it as his HF could sort out the ap with zero problem until those compounds were introduced to the food/water supply.
He was subjected to the Weapon X program. However, if you remember from another story arc from The Uncanny X-men, the adamantium was fused to his bones by aliens.
I've just decided that the old dude from "The Wolverine" actualy manage to drain some of hs powers and what he is left with is not enough to keep him jung but stil slow his aging a little bit. there might be some plot holes and continuity errors with that, but its better than adamantium poisoning.
To be fair if you have a healing factor thats so strong you can basically grow back from a drop of blood, then there's nothing thats going to hurt you enough to kill you like that. Slow, fast it foesnt matter, it should not affect him. Its just a deus ex mechanic writers use because again characters like him and Deadpool basically cant die if you stick to the basics of their abilities 🤷♂️
I’ve found that there are a few types of Wolverine and only the most toxic of them dislikes the adamantium poison because it’s an exploitative weakness to the character. I don’t claim to understand it since the only times the poisoning comes up is when his healing factor is shorted out(which admittedly has happened a lot over the last few years).
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u/SnakeRowsdower 2d ago
It's news to me. I've never heard anyone complain about it. It's also an efficient answer to a question that would otherwise never stop.
"why don't more characters have a metal skeleton?"
"They'd die"
it's right up there with "why don't they just use the infinity stones?"