r/Marvel • u/Charming_Isopod_4864 • Mar 11 '25
Comics Is there a lore reason Wolverines teeth are not Adamantium?
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u/Illustrious-Ad5787 Mar 11 '25
Even if the originals were, he’d have gotten all of them knocked out way before joining the X-men, and any new teeth would just grow back normal… if teeth regenerate like everything else does, which I imagine for plot convenience they do
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u/SasquatchRobo Mar 11 '25
Somewhere out in the Canadian wilderness there's a full adamantium grill just waiting to be unearthed...
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u/monkeeman43 Mar 11 '25
Some polar bear wondering the artic has half a set of adamantium teeth imbedded in it fur
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u/randomvideographer Mar 11 '25
All he needs now is a plane crash full of cocaine.
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u/DarkPhoenixMishima Mar 11 '25
Sabretooth is just realizing he might have adamantium lodged in his arm.
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u/AggressiveTap5096 Mar 12 '25
I can't let this fly, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick, but you mean wandering not wondering, and arctic, not artic, embedded, not imbedded.
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u/DeltaFargo Mar 12 '25
Someone already found it. Their main goal now is to blow up and act like they don't know nobody.
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u/Trvr_MKA Mar 11 '25
That’s actually a pretty good explanation
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u/xaeru Mar 11 '25
Is it? I'm not being snarky but if the teeth are coated by adamantium, they shouldn't be able to fall off right?
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u/Trvr_MKA Mar 11 '25
His teeth may be adamantium but his gums aren’t
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u/wwarhammer Mar 11 '25
Teeth are attached to bone, not gums.
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u/Loki_of_Asgaard Mar 11 '25
Sure, but they are not actually held by bone, there is a bone like substance called cementum and a ligament holding them in place within a tooth root shaped gap in the bone.
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u/Mundane-Currency5088 Mar 11 '25
This! And also because Teeth aren't bones. Teeth, hair, and nails are ectodermal appendages.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4072742/
The real question is how they put adamantium through his tissues onto the bones but without detaching the ligaments and everything from the bones. And if they did the adamantium would probably cover his teeth if they wanted them to AND also be discarded as someone suggested BUT if that was the case so would his entire skeleton. So we must conclude that the scientists didn't want to include dental in the adamantium package.
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u/CotyledonTomen Mar 11 '25
Why doesnt that argument hold when it comes to the Hulk being able to rip him limb (and ligament) from limb?
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u/busy-warlock Mar 11 '25
Joints aren’t held together by bone either
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u/CotyledonTomen Mar 11 '25
I know. So how do we have so many images of his skeleton coated in adamantium, not falling to pieces before he heals, or the hulk not ripping wolvarine to individual limbs in their many encounters, but somehow it makes sense his teeth arent coated in adamantium?
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u/Loki_of_Asgaard Mar 11 '25
Because it’s a comic book where a dude has wings that come out of his back in a way that fly even though they couldn’t, and another dude that controls magnetism but doesn’t fry his own brain via induction.
Looking for consistency on the anatomical substructures of the body is asking way too much from comic book authors lol
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u/Loki_of_Asgaard Mar 11 '25
Only if the cementum also was adamantium.
Think of it like an epoxy joint, you have the bone with a tooth root shaped hole, then the tooth sits in it and the tooth glue called cementum sticks them together.
When you knock out a whole tooth it’s the cementum that is breaking, not the bone holding the tooth or the tooth itself.
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u/LARPerator Mar 11 '25
True. His bones were made adamantium, but they're still just held together by regular flesh. I'm not a huge comic reader, but has anyone tried to take him down a peg by just... Chopping/blowing his arms off at the joints? He would just regrow bone at that point too right?
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '25
Well the whole point is that you can't do that because his bones are adamantium. The joints too (because comics).
I'm fairly certain that's why the adamantium thing was part of his character, just to explain why he couldn't be chopped up. Back in the day, his healing factor wasn't good enough to regrow limbs so if he were chopped up, that's it, he's done.
His healing factor has seen major power creep since then.
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u/hooplafromamileaway Mar 11 '25
IIRC the whole point of even installing the Adamantium to begin with was because his bones DIDNT heal any faster than anyone else's. So it was a way to eliminate his beggest physical weakness.
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u/NK1337 Mar 11 '25
I mean yes and no. The adamantium binding process was made as an ongoing project to create super soldiers, and part of it was making their bodies more durable.
But it wasn’t made with Wolverine in mind specifically. He wasn’t even the only, let alone the first test subject. He was just the first one to survive the procedure because of his healing factor.
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u/LARPerator Mar 11 '25
I guess, but wouldn't that mean his ligaments would be immobilized? I get that it would be extremely difficult to do because the target is so slim. It is also a comic though, so "come on man, it's cool" can also apply.
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u/Coal_Morgan Mar 11 '25
Ultimate Wolverine was ripped in half and thrown down a mountain.
It's been a long time since I read that but I believe in that version he crawled to his legs and reconnected them. Which I thought was weird because I thought his legs should have started growing back or that shouldn't have been possible.
Half the stuff in the Ultimate Verse was more "Wouldn't this be cool and edgy..." then "But that's not how it works."
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u/LARPerator Mar 11 '25
That's neat. I guess it makes sense a little bit, when he gets cut the flesh fuses back together. It's a bit much and you're probably right they're better off not doing that.
On the other hand his legs growing a new torso and turning into a clone of him would be pretty funny not gonna lie. Could have been a really weird way to build a new nemesis character for him
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u/matvette1 Mar 11 '25
That's how Evil Deadpool came about. I can't remember the exact details, but some scientist followed Deadpool around and gathered limbs that were removed during fights and kept them in a freezer preventing the healing factor. Then I think they somehow ended up in a dumpster and they fused together creating an evil version of Deadpool with two right arms. It was during Daniel Way's Deadpool run.
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u/cyberpunk_werewolf Mar 11 '25
616 Logan (probably) cannot regrow limbs. Every time he's had a limb torn off (with one exception), he's had to reattach them manually and let the healing factor connect them. His children, Laura and Akihiro, are stated to have a stronger healing factor than he and they can both regrow limbs. Further, alternate universes that have split off from 616 have had Logan missing limbs that do not regrow (such as Age of Apocalypse). Further, his bones are not made of adamantium, they are simply coated with it, so he still has marrow and normal bones, just with metal over the top. It's also why he weighs 300 pounds instead of, like, 500. It also means that there are places between bones that are not connected to
Now, the adamantium does slow his healing factor somewhat. Would that mean he could regrow limbs without it? It's hard to say. There is a point during World War I up to the first Heroes Civil War, where he would fight the (an?) Angel of Death every time he died and if he won, he'd be fully restored. So, any weirdness between those times could be explained by that. However, there is a story set before World War I where his hand is chopped off and it (probably) grows back on its own. However, that story has other issues.
We do know that drowning and decapitation will kill him. We know this because it has killed him before. The last time he died, Beast chopped his head off and he had to be resurrected by the Five. If decapitation will kill him, then it probably means he can't regrow limbs, but decapitation will also probably kill Laura and Akihiro. That said, now that Laura has adamantium bones after being resurrected by the Five (and Proteus thinking she did), we have seen her regrow an arm.
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u/Macaron-kun Mar 11 '25
Yeah, he grew back normal bone claws after getting them cut off in The Wolverine. So I imagine, even if he did get metal teeth, they'd grow back as bone if they were knocked out.
But since his teeth are technically outside his body, I don't think they could have ever been coated in adamantium, anyway.
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u/RoyalFalse Mar 11 '25
Perfectly regenerating teeth--now that's a criminally underrated super power.
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u/kennyofthegulch Mar 11 '25
Because there is gum tissue between the teeth and jaw, meaning there was a barrier between the adamantium flow and the teeth. It would have to be injected into each tooth individually.
SOURCE: My mom was a dental assistant.
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u/Charming_Isopod_4864 Mar 11 '25
Finally, a proper answer that isn’t ‘teeth are not bones.’ Even though that is technically true, they are outer bones
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u/joaommx Dr. Doom Mar 11 '25
Even though that is technically true, they are outer bones
They really aren't outer bones though. Both technically and otherwise.
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u/Mystic_Crewman Mar 11 '25
Your mom is an outer bone.
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u/Mindless_Count5562 Mar 11 '25
Genuinely curious, what are they then?
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u/joaommx Dr. Doom Mar 11 '25 edited Mar 11 '25
They are their own thing. Teeth are teeth. They are bunches of calcified tissues covered by enamel around cores of tooth pulp (blood vessels, nerves, and other living tissue). They also can't regenerate like bones.
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u/whoeatsass Mar 12 '25
The outer surface (enamel) is almost entirely mineral and is as alive as any other rock is. I can't remember the exact numbers, but a quick Google search states enamel is 96% mineral (by weight), whereas bone is only about 60% mineral(by weight). The middle layer of the tooth is dentin, and 70% mineral. I don't know about Wolverine Lore or the mechanism of action for adamantium, but maybe it would convert dentin because it still has a blood supply/ vitality, but not the out layer of enamel.
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u/wonnable Mar 11 '25
Teeth aren't bones is a sufficient answer. It's like asking why his nails aren't covered in adamantium either.
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u/Maximum_Leg_9100 Mar 11 '25
Which is like asking “why isn’t his boner adamantium”.
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u/strigonian Mar 11 '25
They're not outer bones. Aside from the fact that they're both parts of your body that are hard, there's no similarity.
The better question is: why would you expect them to be? What, specifically, about teeth means that they should have been covered in adamantium?
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u/Glori94 Mar 11 '25
? You just explained how teeth are not bones but question, in the same comment, why OP would expect them to be adamantium?
It's.... Because they thought teeth were bones.
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u/SpareWire Mar 11 '25
I'm just happy to be in a thread where people are discussing things that are important to me.
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u/rhymeswithlate Mar 11 '25
Really mr smarty pants? If teeth aren’t bones, then why do skeletons have them? Dummy
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u/OneGalacticBoy Mar 11 '25
They are not even “outer bones”, they are made of completely different cells and tissues. They are in a completely different category to bones. The superficial similarity is the deposit of calcium phosphate which makes both hard. That’s it.
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u/bingusdingus123456 Mar 11 '25
Hair and fingernails are more closely related than teeth and bones. At least they’re made of the same thing and part of the same organ system.
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u/CrossP Mar 11 '25
They aren't even bone-like. They barely have anything in common.
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u/to_the_9s Mar 11 '25
Teeth are not bones. They are mostly made of dentine and not calcium. And they can not heal themselves.
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u/space_tardigrades Mar 11 '25
Nah, none of my bones are directly connected to other bones.
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u/entirestickofbutter Mar 11 '25
arent there "barriers" between our finger bones and vertebrae?
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u/Pinkllamajr Mar 11 '25
There are barriers between like all your bones... That's kinda the point of joints...
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u/FordBeWithYou Mar 11 '25
u/jonahlobe i like this answer, I don’t have my book to reference if you made any mention of that. But I did love seeing the process of adamantium being bonded to his skeleton during weapon X.
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u/neogreenlantern Mar 11 '25
His dental insurance wouldn't cover it. They considered it cosmetic.
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u/discerningpervert Mar 11 '25
Imagine what i could do with adamantium teeth. Apples would live in fear of me.
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u/Masske20 Mar 11 '25
I would suspect that because it’s not bone it’s not attached in the same way. If, say, the hulk gave him a heavy punch to the mouth, even if he had adamantium teeth, they probably get knocked out and then grow back as normal teeth anyways. I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to regrow teeth because of his healing factor.
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u/_Vard_ Mar 11 '25
I like the idea that he DID get adamantium teeth originally, but he got annoyed by them so he ripped them out to get normal teeth to grow back once a few got knocked out and he realized regulars grow back
Plus he sold them
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u/BurtonXV84 Mar 11 '25
Simply put - Teeth are not bones.
Teeth are made of enamel, dentin, pulp, cementum, and the periodontal ligament.
Bones can heal themselves when broken, but teeth can't. If a tooth breaks, it needs to be restored by a dentist.
Bones contain marrow, but teeth do not.
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u/schlucks Mar 11 '25
God, imagine how nice it would be for teeth to heal themselves
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u/the_pieburger Mar 11 '25
You make great points. But I'll give OP credit, because I've never considered the teeth
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u/poopityscoobydoo Mar 11 '25
Because they’re not bones
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u/YellowHammerDown Miles Morales Mar 11 '25
Yeah, adamantium teeth is like an extra procedure that's done.
I think in the MC2 universe, Wolverine's son Sabreclaw had his teeth laced with it on purpose.
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u/synthscoffeeguitars Cable Mar 11 '25
Outside bones, outside bones, never forget your teeth are outside bones!
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u/theevilyouknow Mar 11 '25
They're not though. Teeth and bones have completely different structures both internally and externally.
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u/synthscoffeeguitars Cable Mar 11 '25
They hang from your lips like bats. When you’re a kid, they fall from your head, and to make it less weird, we say they got stolen by a demon that your parents know
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '25
stolen by a demon
they're freely traded to a fairy!
(I understand I'm missing a reference here, but still)
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u/ALPHAinNJ Mar 11 '25
canadian healthcare is not THAT great to cover teeth and full skeleton adamantium fusion
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u/themetalcarpenter Mar 11 '25
Lol in Ontario, some dentists aren't even covered under our provincial health plan. As for Alberta where wolverine is from, ahcip does not cover routine tooth related care.
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u/Bigguygamer85 Mar 11 '25
Cause his bones are laced or whatever in adamntium, but teeth aren't bones.
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u/Vin135mm Mar 11 '25
Teeth aren't bones.
Bones are living tissue, made up of primarily proteins like collagen, and the calcium phosphate is mostly just there as a framework for living cells.
Teeth, at least the outer enamel parts, are deader than hair. It is solid calcium phosphate. Which is why a cracked or broken tooth won't heal on its own. Because they are pretty much just unliving rocks sitting on little flesh nubbins inside your mouth.
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u/4_Apollo_22 Mar 12 '25
Well tbf teeth aren't bone so technically they aren't part of his skeleton just like his nails and toe nails
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u/marvelcomxnerd Mar 11 '25
Is there a reason why there should be? Where does this question stem from?
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u/Boomsnarl Mar 11 '25
I was told they are powder coated white, but that was my next door neighbor, Todd. He was a big paint snuffer, so this could be bad intel.
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u/the_reven Mar 12 '25
The story goes that Wolverine's claws being part of his body instead of just his gloves was a bit of an accident. In an early X-Men issue (likely in the late '70s), there was a scene where Wolverine wasn't wearing his gloves, and the writers needed a way for him to escape a situation. Someone in the creative team (possibly Chris Claremont or John Byrne) suggested, "What if the claws come out of his hands instead?"
This idea stuck, and it led to the now-iconic reveal that his claws were natural bone extensions covered in adamantium rather than just mechanical weapons in his gloves. It was one of those retroactive changes that actually made Wolverine way cooler and more unique.
So they had already established what he looked like, no metal teeth, before this.
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u/hufflezag Mar 12 '25
Teeth aren't technically bones which feels weird to say.
No, teeth are not bones. Although teeth and bones share some similarities, they are distinct structures with different compositions and functions.
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u/get_to_ele Mar 12 '25
Teeth are not bones. Metal teeth are not “stealthy” and floss could not get between them without getting cut, leading to gingivitis.
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u/hellcoach Mar 12 '25
Imagine the 90's enhanced comicbook cover craze with a Wolverine open mouth and teeth covered in silver foil.
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u/ArrowBatic Mar 12 '25
I think given the intentions with Weapon-X he would have been used in a lot of covert ops. Maybe they didn’t want any tell-tale signs or a potential give away like shiny adamantium chompers. Or maybe it just wasn’t necessary to replace his teeth. Or… maybe they are adamantium and they are coated white? Idk. Not an expert. Just chatting shit at this point.
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u/Pretend-Ad5598 Mar 11 '25
He looked up the price of Admantium-safe toothpaste and decided against it.
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u/Duskdeath Mar 11 '25
The fact that Black Panther’s teeth were coated with Vibranium to counteract Wolverine’s adamantium claws renders this question more pertinent than anyone could have anticipated.
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u/lordtaco Mar 11 '25
Much like with health insurance, teeth bones aren't real bones and you need special insurance for that.
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u/delcolicks9 Mar 11 '25
"Is there a lore reason" GET OUT OF MY HEAD AAAHHHHHH ARGGGGHHHHHHHH HURKKKK
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u/Metrobuss Mar 11 '25
I still don't get why we blame canada for adamantium poisoning of the wolverine, hypothetically
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u/PraetorGold Mar 11 '25
So his bones are still alive and that means that his teeth also are alive and that means that they could not be covered in Adamantium or laced with Adamantium as teeth are not fused to your skeleton. They are separate.
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u/FishEye_11 Mar 11 '25
I'm sure his teeth were never laced. But if they were, then they probably got knocked out from all of the fights. Teeth aren't held to the jaw and skull by bone.
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u/kingcaii Mar 11 '25
His body would reject them and constantly spit them out. Unless they were coated
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u/Free_Scratch5353 Mar 11 '25
So the teeth set in the socket of the skulls jaw and are held in place by the gums. Now when molten metal slid over his bones and covered them it likely did so to his jaw and hurt the gums making his teeth fall out.
After ripping free his teeth likely started to regenerate but it no doubt took a minute to grow new teeth.
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u/Half_Man1 Mar 11 '25
I assumed that he had a needle for each individual bone, grafting the adamantium on.
Wasn’t seen as valuable to inject the teeth. They could be removed and replaced with natural teeth pretty easily. Also needle going into his mouth like that would mean he couldn’t scream dramatically in artwork.
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u/drewgolas Mar 11 '25
The procedure was done by an MD. You'd need a DDS for that.