Weekend Superhero: Ironheart is Finally Taking Off
Seemingly years in the making, Marvel’s new Ironman-inspired superhero, Ironheart, is getting her five minutes in the spotlight and possibly a shot at the big-time if fans of the MCU turn out and watch her Disney+ series. It’s been a rough few years for the MCU, with stinkers like The Marvels (2023) and oddities like Eternals (2021) filling the dockets since the operatic, climactic Avengers: Endgame (2019) and the similarly thrilling and emotionally fulfilling conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home, so seeing a risky project like Ironheart resurface is puzzling, to say the least.
Ironheart, whose real name is Riri Williams, isn’t too beloved by the comic book-reading crowd, to say the least. Legacy characters like her, filling roles vacated by older, previously established characters, have an uphill battle in the minds of fanboys. For every Miles Morales, taking over where the original Ultimate Spider-Man left off, dying in battle with the Green Goblin, there’s an Ironheart, picking up the pieces of Iron Man’s legacy. A teen girl who is a prodigy that is possibly even smarter than the brilliant Tony Stark, Riri Williams was universally hated when she was introduced, and if not for her new show and Marvel looking to boost her profile a bit, would probably be relegated to the same corners of their brand identity reserved for such winners as Thor Girl or the Whizzer.
Despite my naysaying, this version of Riri did debut in Ryan Coogler‘s surprisingly insightful follow-up to his mega-smash hit, Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where her smack-talking, youthful exuberance was a high point of that movie, mirroring Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man entrance in Captain America: Civil War (2016). Chinaka Hodge is credited as the creator of the show, and her writing credits include Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Club (2022) Netflix series and Snowpiercer (2020), so there’s hope that it’s in good hands. Still, one wishes Ryan Coogler had found the time or energy to take this project on, but considering the genius of his masterpiece horror movie, Sinners, he clearly had better things to do.
All that is to say that Ironheart is here, whether we want it or not. Perhaps it’s the last gasp of whatever was going on in the Marvel offices during that awkward era that spanned the end of Endgame into Captain America: Brave New World, or just another Disney subsidiary winking at the younger generation for relevance. That, or it’s your new favorite superhero.
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