MCU quietly makes controversial change to Wolverine in Cap 4

Captain America: Brave New World is out now, and it’s released to middling reviews.

It secured a critical score of just 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s lowest-rated films.

Fans have been much kinder though, with the popcornmeter score currently sitting at 80% as of the time of writing.

The film, of course, marks Anthony Mackie’s first silver screen outing as Captain America following Sam Wilson’s adopting of the mantle in Disney Plus series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

While I’m going to attempt to keep spoilers to a minimum, I will be addressing one in the remainder of this article so if you’re yet to see this film, take this as your final spoiler warning.

One criticism aimed at Brave New World actually concerns a rather surprising character, Wolverine.

Wolverine is known for his adamantium claws, but Brave New World has quietly rewritten adamantium’s origin story, slightly altering our understanding of events.

Take a look at the trailer for Captain America: Brave New World below.

In Marvel Comics, adamantium is a man-made alloy.

However, Brave New World establishes it to be an ore mined from the Celestial Island first introduced in Eternals in the MCU.

Eternals isn’t exactly a beloved film, but a memorable image is that of Tiamut left partly-emerged in the Indian Ocean after the Eternals prevented a cataclysmic event from destroying Earth.

Ever since that film was released, plenty of us have been asking what’ll become of the island as a giant god-like head sticking out of the ocean isn’t exactly discrete.

Well, now we know that Japanese scientists have been using the island to mine adamantium.

This information is relayed by Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross who explains that adamantium could even be stronger than vibranium.

Personally, I’m not against the change. I have a sneaky feeling we’re not going to be seeing much more of the celestials following Eternals’ reception, so I quite like that Marvel has found a way to give the film’s events lasting relevance.

We might also see adamantium play into the plot of Black Panther 3 now that Wakanda’s technological advancements, thanks to vibranium, could potentially be outshone with adamantium replicas.

It opens some interesting doorways but, of course, it’s a departure from tradition - and if Wolverine is further drafted into the MCU outside of Deadpool & Wolverine, I’m curious to see how they deal with this slight origin change.

Captain America: Brave New World is out now.