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

Reader Daniel J. wrote in to ask:

So, I was watching the new "Logan" movie the other night, and something occurred to me. When they coated his skeleton in adamantium,he was a fully grown adult. When they covered Laura's, she was still a child. I'm imagining that a coating of metal would stop any skeletal growth, and she would be in constant pain because of it. Can she grow at all? Has this ever been brought up or dealt with in the MCU?

They haven't explained it yet in the films.

Similarly, in the comic books, Laura does not have an adamantium-covered skeleton, only her claws are covered with adamantium.

HOWEVER, there actually IS an explanation within the comics as to how an adamantium-covered skeleton could still grow. It just depends on whether the person has Wolverine's particular genetic (and obviously, Laura would count as having Wolverine's genetics).

In "Wolverine" #80 (by Larry Hama, Ian Churchill and Al Milgrom, who looks like he did some HEAVY inking on Churchill, as you can barely tell that this was drawn by Ian Churchill), when Wolverine was still dealing with the loss of his adamantium, Hama introduced the concept of Adamantium BETA.

Here, look at how it is explained...

By the way, how FREAKY is it that the sample of Wolverine's tissues that he has is specifically numbered 23! Talk about bizarre coincidences!!

Anyhow, so there you have it, Daniel, the explanation for how certain people (with Wolverine's specific genetics) could have their skeleton covered with adamantium and still grow, as it appears that certain genetics transform true adamantium into a unique form of adamantium beta and that allows bones to act like normal, even if they're covered by adamantium.

Thanks for the question, Daniel! If anyone else has a question, feel free to write in to brianc@cbr.com or, I guess tweet me at Brian_Cronin, as well.