Marvel Series VisionQuest Resolves Major MCU Canon Issues

Adamantium is finally appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Someone is using it now, even if the application is less than noble, which took an extremely long time to happen.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for episode 2 of VisionQuest.

In the second episode of VisionQuest, which debuted Oct. 13 on Disney Plus alongside episode 1, the assassin Paladin, played by Todd Stashwick, uses adamantium bullets to inflict real damage on Vision, or White Vision. This marks the first time anyone has utilized adamantium within the main timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite Disney acquiring Fox and the rights to use adamantium in storylines back in 2019.

The history of adamantium in the comics

Adamantium is commonly associated with the X-Men because it coats Wolverine’s skeleton. Wolverine’s claws made their debut in his first appearance while fighting the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk issue 181 from 1974. In that comic issue, Wolverine’s claws originated from his gloves rather than his actual body, but he stated that they were made from diamond-hard adamantium.

Wolverine transitioned from a one-off Hulk villain to a member of the new X-Men lineup in 1975. At that point, stories established that his skeleton was coated in adamantium and that his retractable claws resided in his forearms, piercing through his skin when deployed. Because of this metal’s deep association with Wolverine, adamantium remained off-limits to Marvel Studios and its films while tied up with Fox until 2019.

However, adamantium dates back even earlier than Wolverine’s first appearance. The metal was first mentioned in Avengers issue number 66 from July 1969 as the substance comprising Ultron’s outer shell. Roy Thomas wrote that comic, and Barry Windsor-Smith and Syd Shores drew it, making them the creators of adamantium. Given that origin, the semi-debut of adamantium in VisionQuest feels fitting, seeing as Vision was originally meant to be the final form of Ultron in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Both Vision and Ultron are made from vibranium instead within the MCU continuity.

This appearance is only a semi-debut because VisionQuest is not the actual first time adamantium received a mention in the MCU. The metal appears throughout Deadpool & Wolverine as the material coating Wolverine’s claws, but very little of that film takes place within the sacred timeline of Universe 616, and only Deadpool ventures there rather than Wolverine.

Adamantium in the MCU

Adamantium first appeared in the main timeline in Captain America: Brave New World. In that movie, President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford, explains that adamantium is a new metal discovered on Celestial Island.

Celestial Island is actually a corpse. The 2021 film Eternals revealed that Earth holds the seed for a giant godlike alien known as a Celestial, specifically Tiamut the Communicator. When Tiamut emerged from the Earth in that movie, an Eternal named Sersi, played by Gemma Chan, killed him by turning him into stone to save the planet. Tiamut became a permanent island formation in the Indian Ocean as a result.

As Ross explains in Brave New World, competing nations rushed to the island for resources after its emergence. They discovered adamantium inside the island, which Ross describes as the discovery of the millennium for its potential applications in technology, medicine, and defense. He also notes that it is even more indestructible than vibranium.

SERPENT, a criminal organization led by Sidewinder and played by Giancarlo Esposito, stole the first and then-only refined sample of adamantium from a Japanese mining site on the island. Sam Wilson, or Captain America, played by Anthony Mackie, recovers that sample early in the movie. While some speculate that the metal may have played a larger role in an earlier version of the heavily altered film, that single recovery is essentially the extent of its plot relevance.

Debate persists across online spaces regarding whether SERPENT, and specifically the member Copperhead played by Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, actually used adamantium in that movie. The Marvel Wiki states that SERPENT enhanced weapons with adamantium and that Copperhead’s blades were made of the metal, but the film never states this. Bullets from SERPENT’s guns simply bounce off Captain America’s shield without leaving a scratch, and the same occurs with Copperhead’s blades. It remains difficult to understand how a terrorist organization like SERPENT could refine such a complicated element, leaving no support for the idea that their weapons contain adamantium.

Paladin’s bullets in VisionQuest are definitively made from adamantium. The narrative explicitly states they are forged from the metal, and they inflict severe damage on Vision that regular bullets cannot cause to his vibranium form. Seven years after Disney bought Fox, a character in the MCU is finally putting adamantium to use, courtesy of a third-rate villain like Paladin.

Source: Polygon