Is There a Common Marvel Device That Can Destroy Captain America’s Shield?

Comic Book Questions Answered is a feature where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com). Today, we look into whether Captain America’s shield would be affected by a molecular rearranger.

As I have noted before, well before he worked as a brilliant comic book professional editor and writer, Mark Gruenwald was already one of the most thoughtful and observant writers in the world of comic book fanzines. Gruenwald edited, designed and did much of the writing for his own fanzine, Omniverse, which was dedicated to the exploration of continuity in comic books.

Gruenwald also wrote a series of articles for DC’s in-house magazine, The Amazing World of DC Comics. As you can see from the Omnivese introduction, Gruenwald was not just a thoughtful, interesting guy, but he was a thoughtful, interesting guy who had pretty hard and fast opinions about things and how things should be done.

Sometimes, Gruenwald would end up regretting some of his hard and fast opinions. For instance, Gruenwald felt that the Marvel Universe had too many supervillains in it, as writers would constantly introduce NEW ones, but wouldn’t use the OLD ones, so Gruenwald felt that there was a glut that didn’t make sense in-universe. So he invented the Scourge of the Underworld, a villain who killed other villains, with Gruenwald eliminating the “unwanted” supervillains of the Marvel Universe. He later regretted the idea, noting:

Well…occasionally for dramatic necessity or long-term character development I still have to – ahem – write out certain characters, but I’m no longer the advocate of wholesale housecleaning. I believe that every character, no matter how humble his origins, may be of use to some writer or another, so I have no right to retire that character from the character pool we all share!

I thought about the concept of there being too much of something in the Marvel Universe when I was reading The Hunt for Wolverine (by Charles Soule, David Marquez and Rachelle Rosenberg), where Cylla of the Reavers had a molecular rearranger built into her body, that she was planning to use to access the Adamantium that covered Wolverine’s dead body…

If molecular rearrangers are so common that a minor X-Men villain just has one in her body, then there are probably too many of them out there, especially when there is a very famous hero whose whole skeleton is coated in Adamantium. In any event, this leads to the question of the day, sent in by regular reader Hunter S., if molecular rearrangers ARE common enough in the Marvel Universe, could one of them be used to effectively destroy Captain America’s shield?

What IS a molecular rearranger in the Marvel Universe?

When Adamantium was first introduced in Avengers #66 (by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Syd Shores), it was invented by Myron MacLain. We would eventually learn that MacLain was both the scientist who inadvertently created Captain America’s shield, but also that his “creation” of Adamantium was based on an earlier scientist’s creation (as once we established people having adamantium in the past, like Wolverine, then suddenly it couldn’t have been invented for the first time in Avengers #66).

MacLain could only mold Adamantium with a device called a Molecular Rearranger…

The problem, of course, came when Ultron forced the Vision to steal the molecular rearranger AND the supply of Adamantium, and Ultron used it to create a body for himself made out of Adamantium. The Avengers defeated Ultron, but going forward, that was just how Adamantium was manufactured in the Marvel Universe. You would use a molecular rearranger to mold it.

I assumed that they were pretty well protected, but I guess not, since, as noted, Cylla has one in her body (and, again, wouldn’t that just come up everytime Wolverine faces the Reavers?). However, if they can rearrange molecules, then can they be used on Captain America’s shield, as well?

Could a molecular rearranger be used on Captain America’s shield?

My first instinct was that yes, a molecular rearranger would work on Captain America’s shield, as we have seen that the Molecule Man famously HAS been able to destroy Captain America’s shield before, as shown in Avengers #215 (by Jim Shooter, Alan Weiss and Dan Green)…

However, upon thinking about it further, I tend to think that the answer is no. As I noted in a recent Comic Book Questions Answered, although Captain America’s shield contains Vibranium in it, I ultimately concluded that Captain America’s shield does NOT have the “will explode if is absorbs too much kinetic energy” problem that Vibranium has, and the main reason tied to something that Mark Waid said to me when I asked him about it, there is just something special about how this shield is designed at an atomic level that it doesn’t have the same problems as Vibranium.

Similarly, the shield is NOT Adamantium, and so I think it makes sense that a molecular rearranger designed for molding Adamantium would not work on the shield. Essentially, the concept for Captain America’s shield has to be that there is just SOMEthing special about it that can’t be explained. If MacLain could develop a molecular rearranger for Captain America’s shield, presumably he would have done so years ago when he inadvertently created it, right? If he can’t explain HOW the shield was created, then surely the guy can’t figure out a way to take it apart.

So I’m going with a molecular rearranger NOT having the ability to affect Captain America’s shield.

Thanks for the question, Hunter! If anyone else has a comic book question they’d like to see answered, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!