Archive of Our Own

The Changes

Marvel has published a periodic table of the elements, in the Agents of SHIELD Season One Declassified coffee table/art book. It's an incoherent mess. It has a period 8 that's non-adjacent to period 7, and they've left off the last four elements of the associated rare earth metals. (Protip: rare earth metals have a lower atomic number than the transition metals in the same period.) Also, a traditional period 8, or what the above table of elements would call period 9, is part of the Extended Periodic Table. The extended table, in addition to having rare earth metals, is predicted to have 18 elements in a G-orbital.

Even if we cleaned up the geometry - adding a row has other issues: All of these elements are synthetic. Everything larger than californium (Cf) must be made in a lab, or decayed from something made in a lab. So anything here would be radioactive. And dense. For example: Aluminium (Al, Z=13) is 2,700 kg/m³, Steel (mainly Fe, Z=26) is 7,850 kg/m³, plutionium (Pu, Z=104) is 19,800 kg/m³. Vibranium is supposed to be "stronger than steel and weighs only one third as much," but if it came after plutonium it'd be three times as heavy unless you could get away with only using 1/10 the material (by volume).

So we know that we want to add columns. But where? A basic principle of the periodic table is that elements are similar to their nearest neighbors. Copper (Cu) and Zinc (Zn) have similar sizes and weights; they also combine easily to make bronze. Periods 3 and 4, of the Alkaline and Alkali Earth Metals: Sodium (Na), Magnesium (Mg), Potassium (K), and Calcium (Ca) are better known as 'Electrolytes'. Which makes you wonder: if we need to replenish our electrolytes, should we all take a bit of Lithium (Li)?

So what are the properties of Marvel-specific elements? The most common reason an element is introduced in the Marvel universe is that we need a new, fantastical, metal to advance the plot. The Marvel elements Omnium, Carbonadium, Adamantium, Vibranium, Scabrite, and Gravitonium fall into this category. Elements are also added as a new source of power or magic. Tony Stark's new element to power his arc reactor - identified here as Badassium - is one of these.

To make space for the metals near things "like them" this table adds two electron positions within existing d-shell atomic orbitals. This adds two columns, space for eight elements, to the transition metals. Becasue metals in the top row/period 3 are fairly common, the "mythic" element Orichalcum (mountain copper) has been added, with Mithril just beneath in period 4 to complete the table. From this we can think of items in the D₉ orbital - when used in alloys - as adding fantastical properties (such as incredible hardness) to the resulting metal, and item in the D₁₀ orbital as adding magical or mystical properties.

My own personal feeling is that Uru, forged by the dwarves, is an alloy using these elements rather than an element itself - It's super strong, and takes enchantment well, so I would expect Iron, Carbon, and a number of items in the D₉ and D₁₀ orbitals - Adamantium, Vibranium, and Gravitonium (it flies, for Thor's sake!) at a minimum.

Similarly, this table adds four election positions to the f-shell (rare earth elements) to accomodate power producing elements, and so that Badassium can be added to the Lanthanides as element 69.

This rendering of the Marvel Periodic Table of the Elements tries to make the elemental properties of fictional materials clear through improved geometry. This table is based on the Janet left-step periodic table with the following changes.

• For brevity, and to maintain/illustrate diagonal relationships periods 1 and 2 share a row.
• Group Names have changed from numbers, to electron orbitals. Combined with the left-step table, this clarifies which orbital will be filled next.
• Palladium and promethium have have been "swapped." (In the Marvel universe palladium produces energy and promethium is a strong metal; roughly the opposite of our universe.)

This is complete as written, but if I have the time I'll add some additional chapters. I'd like to discuss atomic orbitals (and get into while how a 12-electron D orbital could be a a geometrically identical along th x- y- and z- axes). Get into material properties by group and period, including the noble metals, and other things that relate to SCIENCE!