marvel - Does Wolverine have a hole in his forehead?

In X-Men Origins: Wolverine,

Wolverine is shot through the head with what appears to be a vibranium bullet by William Stryker. He remarks that the brain will grow back but the memories won't.

So the projectile penetrated the adamantium skull and damaged the brain. Adamantium is an inorganic substance. It will survive anything that would otherwise destroy the rest of Wolverine's body. But if anything (such as vibranium) manages to damage the adamantium, it is not covered by Wolverine's healing abilities.

Does this mean that Wolverine has an Achilles' heel on his forehead? If so, how did he take a bullet to the exact same spot in X-Men: United (at Ice Man's home)?

Answer

Wolverine's bone structure was molecularly infused with adamantium. Though this is a comic book, and thus subject to comic book realities, molecular infusion is a real process, albeit a very experimental one.*

The ORNL researchers validated the properties of this remarkable surface treatment that Deininger describes as "an implantation that anchors a nanofilm." Blue and others call it a "molecular infusion, or implantation, surface treatment," or MIST.

The surface treatment contains 3-nanometer crystallites that plug the thin oxide film into the grain boundaries of a bulk material's surface, making the material extremely resistant to wear so it lasts longer. ORNL researchers measured the dimensions of the crystallites that make the ultrathin film adhere extremely tightly to the surface. No other "coating" has particles this small that bind to a surface.

This is alternatively referred to as metal infusion surface treatment. Thus, this process does not supplant the bone, but rather adhere to it. In real life, this is only been a process applied to inorganic substances, but I'd imagine that the process would have similar properties, i.e. the bone would still be there, just not the adamantium.

Therefore, Wolverine has a hole in the plating, not his skull. And considering that the full properties are not known, it is possible that this is not even the case, i.e. is the infusion at a level that over time the plating would migrate over the hole with the bone structure? It's not clear.

*Ref: ORNL review

Comments

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog