In their latest reader-submitted question, CSBG reveals whether Captain America's mighty shield can be broken by Hercules' adamantine mace.

Today, we try to figure out whether Hercules' Adamantine mace can break Captain America's shield.

In Comic Book Questions Answered, I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Longtime reader Hunter S. always has some interesting (and often adamantium or vibranium-related) questions, so let's see what Hunter's wondering about this time:

As you can probably tell by now [I can! And I love it! - BC], I'm a massive Captain America fan. I know that his shield has withstood quite a lot from wolverine's adamantium claws to Thor's Uru hammer to even the human torch's nova flame. What I would like to know is could the Proto-Adamantium disc withstand the Adamantine Golden Mace of Hercules?

Fascinating stuff, Hunter. This one, though, I think I can answer RELATIVELY simply, based just on older Comic Book Questions Revealed that I've done on similar topics, but let's see!

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Roy Thomas was specifically thinking of Hercules when he introduced adamantium in 1969's Avengers #66 (by Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Syd Shores). The history of unbreakable metals having "Adamant" in their name is a very long one, as other science fiction writers have often followed the same influence as Thomas. You see, in early Greek myths, the myths described Hercules as wielding an adamantine club. It was with this in mind that Thomas came up with the newest unbreakable metal in comics, adamantium, and yes, the creator of the metal specifically cited Hercules as an influence later on in the comics.

Hercules is not exactly a slacker in the Marvel Universe (and recently made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut at the end of Thor: Love and Thunder), but he's also obviously not the most prominent character, either, so while Captain America has had many opportunities to have his shield tested (same with Thor's mighty hammer, Mjolnir), Hercules' adamantine mace has NOT had the same opportunities but as a result, as far as we know, it is, in fact, unbreakable.

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So here's what we really know, based on what we have seen in the actual comic books. Thor's hammer was, in fact, able to dent adamantium in Avengers #66.

And that was obviously "primary" adamantium (a later retcon introduced by Kurt Busiek to explain why some writers over the years had depicted adamantium as being less powerful than normal, with Blastaar, of all people, ripping through adamantium like it was aluminum), so we know that Thor's hammer can at least theoretically break adamantium given enough time and force behind it.

The "force" issue is a fascinating one, and it came up when I was asked whether Wolverine's claws could pierce Silver Surfer's metallic hide, which is just because something theoretically COULD cut through something else, you would need to be able to make enough force for the first object to break the other thing. In that Wolverine versus Silver Surfer example, does Wolverine have enough strength to plunge his claws into something really strong? The answer probably should be "no," as while Wolverine certainly does have super strength (just being able to lug all that adamantium metal around is a feat), it's a low level super strength. So even if, say, Thor would be able to plunge an adamantium blade past someone like the Silver Surfer, Wolverine might not be able to. However, that does not appear to be the case in the actual comics, as Wolverine routinely plunges his claws into things you wouldn't think he was strong enough to get through.

That's not really at issue here, though, as Hercules IS quite super strong, but it's an issue you have to take into account with the idea of "Could object X break object Y?" The force has to matter. One time force definitely mattered was when Thor hit Cap's shield with the full force of Odin (Thor was the All-Father at this time, so he had the same power as Odin)...

This was enough to send Cap flying and even dent the shield. The important part of that interaction is that Thor's hammer DID dent Captain America's shield. We also know, then, that Thor's hammer and Hercules' Golden adamantine mace are on par with each other, as we saw in Thor #126 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Vince Colletta), where Thor and Hercules hit each other's weapons as hard as they can and nothing happened to either...

By that point, we already knew that Thor's hammer wasn't unbreakable, either, as in Journey Into Mystery #118 (by Kirby, Lee and Colletta), the Destroyer cut Thor's hammer in half.

We have seen Thor's hammer break a few other times since then, including in battle against his own ancestor, Bor, in Thor #600 (by J. Michael Straczysnki, Olivier Coipel, Marko Djurdjevic, Laura Martin and Paul Mounts).

So yes, it is clear that Hercules is benefiting from the fact that his Golden Mace has not been used as much in the comics, so there are less chances to show it breaking, but at the same time, it's not like it's NEVER been used, and the fact of the matter is that when it has been used it has never been broken, including What If...? comics, while Thor's hammer is powerful enough to break adamantium, and dent Captain America's shield. I think it is fair enough to say that, as far as we know, Hercules' Golden Mace is stronger than Captain America's shield, even if that sounds horribly wrong, and it could obviously be overruled by a story showing Hercules being UNABLE to do so whenever someone feels like writing it (plus, Hercules would have to hit the shield for a LONG TIME to eventually break it, I'm not at ALL saying that he could do it, in, like, one swing).

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

CBR Senior Writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over fifteen years now at CBR (primarily with his “Comics Should Be Good” series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House – Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!

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