Hello. I'm Tyler. This is the Imaginary Axis
And this week, I cut myself
With a knife.
It's already started healing so it might be difficult to see but a few days ago, I did find a stainless steel blade slicing the palm of my hand, at least momentarily.
Our bodies are vulnerable.
We don't have super-dense molecular structures
Or magic force fields like wizards or gods.
Despite how we act on occasion, Man is fragile.
And as such, we've developed things like shields, armor, vehicles, shelters to keep us safe
Usually made out of something significantly less fragile than we are.
But
What's the least fragile thing in the universe?
Well, since we haven't even traveled 300,000 miles outside of our pale, blue dot,
It's a little hard to say.
But here on Earth, we have graphene.
It's hundreds of times stronger and lighter than steel but it's also only one atom thick.
Which is a shame. You see, graphene is made out of carbon just like we are
But what makes it the strongest thing on Earth is the way its atoms are bonded to one another
And if you tried to change that, by say making it thicker than a single atom, it doesn't really work.
A one-inch thick sheet of graphene might be virtually indestructible,
But it's also impossible. It is
Which you might recognize from James Cameron's 'Avatar,' but that's not where it came from.
In reality, engineers have used the term for decades to refer to impossible metals. And there's a lot of them.
Plenty that would make graphene look like toilet paper.
So what's the strongest unobtanium? Now there's a question.
One of my personal favorites is mythril, a metal you can find in Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dungeons and Dragons, Runescape, Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft
And, well, many others.
But it actually first appeared in Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings universe.
The word comes from J.R.R. Tolkien's custom language, Sindarin,
Or as you might better know it,
'Mith' means Grey and 'Ril' means Glitter
Which works because it's described as:
"A metal, light yet harder than tempered steel."
"Its beauty was like that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim."
So next time you're swing around a mythril sword in Final Fantasy, remember you're technically using grey glitter.
And, you just spoke Elvish.
But, elves aside, mithril is really just a classic unobtanium.
If you're familiar with a few fantasy stories, you probably know it's not the end-all be-all of fictional metals.
Mithril can still be broken, melted or pierced and that's usually without modern technology.
No. We need something explosion-proof. To provide the best armor, you would want a metal powerful enough to block missiles.
And phrik gives us that opportunity.
Phrik is native to the Star Wars universe. And like mithril, it's mostly used in light-durable battle armor.
It's one of the few substances completely resistant to lightsaber strikes
And in one particularly impressive instance, a container made of the metal was able to stay intact on the surface of Alderaan, even during its annihilation by the Death Star.
Sound impressive?
Well, that would explain why Emperor Palpatine's lightsaber was made out of phrik
Along with the standard dark trooper armor.
Theoretically, a human covered in phrik would be completely resistant to any weapon we have on our planet today.
The only downside is that this unobtanium is still naturally occurring
So at some point, it has to be smelted into the appropriate shape to fit your body.
The 8D Series smelter droids are responsible for extracting, cutting and manipulating the metal, which proves it still isn't quite invincible.
And you know what?
Smelting is a serious problem here.
If we're going to find the strongest metal on the Imaginary Axis,
We need something that can't be smelted.
Or is at least really hard to smelt.
Supermanium was discovered in the heart of a mighty star and named by...
Well
Superman.
He's used the supermetal to create nearly-indestructible things like
The Door to his Fortress of Solitude,
A prison to hold Brainiac
And even the Supermobile, a highly-advanced tactical vehicle allowing him to operate under a red sun.
Some say Supermanium is almost as durable as Superman himself.
And for ages, the only one capable of smelting it was
Superman
Everything else that tried would shatter.
Even cutting it on an atomic level proved impossible at first.
But it still was smelted, so I guess it can't be the strongest metal in all of fiction.
But I'll find out what is.
I am adamant about this-
It comes from the Greek word:
Meaning, 'untameable,'
But it's used in the word
In John Milton's classic poem 'Paradise Lost,'
Satan is cast from Heaven to dwell in adamantine chains behind an adamantine gate.
A metal of the gods.
Designed to withstand forces beyond human comprehension.
You might think it doesn't have an equal, but that's not entirely true.
In the Marvel universe, Hercules' mace is made out of Adamantine. And every time, it matches blow for blow
With Thor's hammer.
Which is made of Uru.
Now I should specify that not all Uru can stand up against Adamantine.
Uru is extremely hard to forge. In fact, Thor's hammer was made in the core of a star
And might've killed off the dinosaurs
But it only becomes truly unbreakable after being enchanted.
This unobtanium absorbs magic like a sponge and depending on the strength of the magic,
The Uru itself can be stronger or weaker.
But switching back to Adamantine, a man named Dr. Myron MacLain was actually inspired by the story of Hercules' indestructible mace in the early 1940s.
He sought to recreate the metal of the gods and found the perfect ore to help him:
Vibranium.
It was an extremely rare and interesting metal, but not invincible.
And Dr. MacLain set out to fix that.
After countless hours of trying to combine iron, steel, vibranium and other alloys
The scientist eventually succeeded and the substance was perfect.
The most indestructible thing man had ever laid eyes on.
He called it
Unfortunately, the doctor fell asleep during the final process
So he never knew what bonded the materials and his work could never be duplicated.
But that one sample was worked into a disc and became one of the strongest unobtaniums ever created,
(Ultron: And they used it to make a frisbee)
Renamed
Mainly to differentiate from the next best thing,
Primary Adamantium
Which was developed in an attempt to recreate to original formula.
Proto-Adamantium is nearly impossible to break.
It stood up against enchanted Uru,
Wolverine's claws,
The Hulk
And nearly everything that's ever been thrown at it.
Even Superman has been impressed by how invincible it is.
In fact, Proto-Adamantium has only been broken four times in the history of its existence.
Two of those involved beings with nigh-omnipotent power,
One involved a god rivaling Odin
And the other involved Molecule Man, a villain with full control over all matter.
But with all that said, there is still one metal even stronger than Proto-Adamantium.
And there's a least a decent chance you haven't heard of it until now.
But you've almost definitely seen it.
Because the only sample in the universe
Is around Wonder Woman's wrists.
Pure Amazonium. Forged from Aegis, the indestructible shield of Zeus,
I could not find a single example of this substance breaking in the Pre-52 universe. And trust me, that's not from lack of trying.
Wonder Woman's bracelets have held up against lasers, gods,
Superman,
Darkseid,
A machine capable of annihilating star systems,
The full force of the entire Greek Pantheon
And even attacks from the Spectre
Who is literally the physical embodiment of God's vengeance.
And if the bracelets really are invincible, they have to be the strongest thing in all of existence.
Or in this case, non-existence. I guess what I'm trying to say is
Amazonium is strong. Humans are not.
But, I'm glad you were here to watch this. So cover yourself with some Amazonium and stay safe until next time.
I'll see you then.