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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


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