Adamantine is the "Commander in Absentia" for Les Heroes de Paris, the French superhero team that briefly took in the Thing when he left America during the Superhuman Civil War. He disguised himself as street vendor who recommended the cafe le Rose et la Plume, to The Thing. When Thing sat down a mechanism lowered him into their secret base. Adamantine explained that he was the vendor and the team needed his help in battling L'Empereur du Monde Souterrain, who had assembled an army of rock monsters. He was preparing to order them to tunnel directly under Paris, destroying the city. The Thing, moved by memories of "the good old days when you knew who the heroes were and all they had to do was go beat the tar out of a bad guy," agreed to help.