Drex Valen stared at the data in silence.
On paper, the idea looked impossible. The film's version of the element was a stable, non-radioactive transition element used as a catalyst. In reality, the periodic table had already been stretched to its limit. Human beings had managed to synthesize elements all the way up to 118, and anything beyond that was a collapsing star with a lab coat, unstable from the moment it existed. Even if some new heavy element could be forced into being, it would decay almost instantly. As for the claim that it was an isotope of the Space Stone, that was nonsense too. An isotope had the same number of protons and a different number of neutrons. It was not a new element. If Stark had merely altered palladium's neutron count, then he had not made a breakthrough at all, and the radiation problem would still be there.
In other words, the entire premise should have been a dead end.
And yet Drex had followed the original process once more, expecting it to fail.
It did not.
The synthesis succeeded.
That was the part that landed in the blind spot of even Drex Valen's own knowledge. He could not explain why it worked, only that it had. The result sat there on the screen, gleaming like a punchline the universe had not bothered to explain.
Drex exhaled slowly. Since the new element had been produced, he no longer needed to waste time on the question of why. Some things were meant to be understood later. Some things were meant to be owned first.
He named it the Drex Element.
If a new element existed, it needed a matching code, a framework to recognize it by. And the rules for that framework had to be set by the person who discovered it. Without Mendeleev, even the discovery of new elements would have been a pile of disconnected facts. A table gives the universe a language.
This element, however, did not belong to Mendeleev's table, nor did it fit the Kryptonian elemental system. Drex had no intention of publishing its molecular structure. That would have made him famous, sure, but fame was a cheap currency. He had time. More than enough time.
Still, he could already see what happened if Tony Stark got a sniff of this and tried to build his own version later.
So Drex did something very deliberate.
He publicly announced that he had created a new element.
Not the full structure. Not the full composition. But enough proof, enough data, enough smoke to make the fire undeniable.
The world reacted exactly as expected.
Scientific circles shook. The name Drex Valen, which had once only carried weight in advanced materials and military technology, now slammed directly into the field of theoretical physics and chemistry. The scholars who had previously shrugged at his secondary Kryptonite and the global arms race triggered by War Machine now had to confront something much bigger.
A new element.
That was not a minor invention. That was the kind of discovery that pushed human civilization forward by decades.
The cold fusion reactor followed soon after.
And because the new element was used in that reactor, the whole thing landed like a meteor.
Some researchers were furious that Drex had not published the molecular structure. They argued that a discovery like this should belong to humanity. Drex did not care. He respected selflessness. He simply had no interest in performing it. People who tried to moralize others into surrendering their work were not worth debating. Those arguments never ended anywhere useful.
Uld handled the patent registration using the data Drex provided. After that, Drex put the matter aside.
There were more important things than public approval.
Tony Stark, meanwhile, saw the news and went completely still.
A new element?
That was the sort of discovery that should have been world-shaking by itself. It was the kind of thing that could alter the course of human progress. Stark looked at the report and stared at it as if it had insulted him personally.
What the hell?
So the young now were this insane?
For a moment, even he felt the sting. But Stark was not a man who stayed down for long. If Drex Valen could do it, then Stark would do it too. He was still the genius, after all. The idea lit back up in him, sharp and hot.
Elsewhere, the international attitude toward Drex shifted almost overnight.
The old moves from the United States, the quiet little schemes and pressure tactics, all of it vanished.
A genius who could genuinely benefit all of humanity was not someone rational governments wanted to antagonize. That would have been idiotic.
"Sir, we have a target," Black Queen said while Drex was still working.
Drex did not look up. "What target?"
"Jessica Jones," Black Queen replied.
Drex's eyes narrowed slightly.
Jessica Jones, born Jessica Campbell, had once been a classmate of Peter Parker back in high school. On a trip to Disney, she had been riding in the back seat with her younger brother when they started arguing. Her father, distracted while driving, lost focus for a split second. Their car collided head-on with a military truck carrying a load of radioactive chemical agents. The entire family was exposed. They died from the radiation.
Jessica was the only survivor.
She was taken to the hospital and remained in a coma for months. When she woke, she discovered that she could fly, and that her strength far exceeded human limits. Later, the Jones family adopted her, and she took their surname.
Drex had wanted the cargo truck itself. If he could get his hands on a vehicle full of that chemical load, he might have been able to trace the source of the mutation. But even he knew that was unlikely. It was much smarter to start with Jessica Jones herself.
At the moment, Jessica was still lying in a hospital bed, unconscious.
She would not wake until the Fantastic Four and Galactus ended up in a standoff near the hospital where she was being kept. Right now, though, she was just an orphaned high school girl in a coma, which made her easy prey for Blade Technology Industries.
And since the Jones family had not adopted her yet, her current name was still Jessica Campbell.
"Black Queen, scan her physical condition," Drex said, "but do not disturb her."
His vision, sharpened by his own Kryptonian sight, passed through the hospital gown and the flesh beneath, catching the violent changes surging through Jessica Campbell's body. Whatever had happened to her was still active deep inside her cells.
"Understood, sir," Black Queen said at once.
She immediately began the scan and started building Jessica Campbell's profile.