Marvel's 'Ironheart' Series Debuts on Disney+: A Fresh Take on the Iron Man Legacy

Ironheart believes the children are the future

Charles Pulliam-Moore is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. Before the multiverse, magic, or any of Marvel's streaming series were important parts of the studio's cinematic universe, there was Iron Man. After years of so-so movies, Iron Man reminded everyone that Marvel's big-screen adaptations could be amazing with the right creative teams and stars attached. Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark was the MCU's centerpiece and a prime example of how the House of Ideas could make box office record-breaking icons out of its lower-profile characters. A couple of the Iron Man films were terrible, sure, but they each played a role in shaping the larger story. And by spending so much time building up Iron Man's presence, Marvel ensured that audiences would be emotionally invested when the franchise ultimately killed him off. A desire to recapture that old Iron Man magic seemed to be part of the reasoning behind Marvel's baffling decision to bring Downey back as Doctor Doom for its upcoming Avengers features. On its face, the move felt like a sign that the studio was scrambling to win viewers back by playing the hits in a slightly different key. And while Iron Man being a Doctor Doom variant might wind up appealing to diehard fans who've followed along from the jump, that kind of twist is exactly the sort of thing that makes the MCU feel like it's stuck in the past and unable to wow us with something new. That doesn't have to be the case, though -- especially given how Marvel comics have already figured out how to keep Iron Man's legacy alive by telling stories of other characters inspired by his heroics. And Disney Plus' new Ironheart miniseries feels like a strong indicator that the studio knows it needs to switch things up if it wants to keep the MCU exciting. Set after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart follows Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a Chicago-born genius with a preternatural ability to engineer things that don't seem possible. As a Tony Stark Fellowship recipient attending MIT, Riri knows that she's destined for some kind of greatness. But as someone who tends to balk at authority figures, she has a hard time being the kind of student her teachers want her to be. Riri's knack for building Iron Man-inspired armored suits that fly with the help of chirpy AI assistants is undeniable, and everyone can see that she could be the next Tony Stark. But when she gets caught selling completed homework assignments to her somewhat less-talented classmates, her dean (Jim Rash, reprising his role from Captain America: Civil War) has no choice but to expel her. Technically speaking, Riri isn't breaking any rules when she takes the armor that she's been building with her grant money on a bittersweet joyride, which ends in an embarrassing crash in the middle of the street. Seeing her suit all busted up doesn't really bother Riri because she knows she can just build it back better with enough time. But what does make her sweat is how furious her mother, Ronnie (Anji White), is when she shows up unannounced while toting her wrecked suit in a small wagon. The way Ironheart almost immediately leans into high-flying action in its first three (of six) episodes belies how much of a relatively grounded drama the show actually is. Rather than exploring how the larger world has changed after the Avengers' dissolution, Ironheart focuses on the anxieties that Riri still lives with years after the murders of her stepfather Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins) and best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross). Though many of the show's narrative beats mirror Marvel's comics, showrunner Chinaka Hodge does an excellent job of presenting Riri's backstory as a remix of Stark's that's meant to highlight how wealth and privilege are their own kinds of superpowers that few people are lucky enough to be born with. Riri's panic attacks and impulse to build literal shields around the people she loves most are some of Ironheart's many nods to the Iron Man films. But it's always clear that Riri's similarities to Stark are wholly coincidental and tied to the fact that they both have traumatic pasts. Like Stark, Riri wants to be known as an icon, which is much easier to achieve when one has unlimited resources. Riri isn't exactly flush with cash, however, which is how she winds up in the orbits of amateur weapons dealer Joe McGillicuddy (Alden Ehrenreich) and shady magic user Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos). Ironheart's more fantastical elements -- Robbins leads a gang of Robin Hood-like misfits and has a cursed hood that whispers dark things to him -- aren't as compelling as the show's more down-to-earth plot points. Thorne is at her most magnetic when the show is zoomed in on Riri's grief and complicated feelings about what it means to build an actual (very science fictional) artificial intelligence based on a real person. Ironheart isn't Thorne's MCU debut, but it feels like she's coming into her own -- much like Iman Vellani did with Ms. Marvel. It's refreshing to see a younger actor given a chance to take up space within a long-running franchises, and Ironheart puts Riri in an excellent position to become a larger part of the MCU going forward. These feel like the kinds of smart moves that Marvel needs to be making right now, especially as the studio prepares to establish a new status quo with another pair of big tentpoles that will bring characters from different universes together. No one's really excited to see Marvel falling back into established patterns with the old guard, and Ironheart seems to indicate that Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, knows that -- which makes it even more of a mystery why Marvel has been so quiet ahead of Ironheart's premiere. Ironheart also stars Regan Aliyah, Cree Summer, Matthew Elam, Shakira Barrera, Zoe Terakes, Shea Couleé, Eric Andre, Paul Calderón, Sonia Denis, and Sacha Baron Cohen. The series' first three episodes are now streaming on Disney Plus, and the next three are out on July 1st.

Ironheart, Disney+ review -- Marvel series follows a wannabe Tony Stark in Chicago's South Side

Before she became a TV screenwriter, Chinaka Hodge was a rapper-poet who was outspoken on the subject of gentrification. "Starbucks where the skate rink stood . . . kill a hipster save your hood," she sang on a 2013 track, tongue firmly in cheek. It might seem a little strange, then, that Hodge is helming the latest offering from Marvel -- a studio that has arguably had the same homogenising effect on the big screen as Starbucks has had on the high street. But Ironheart -- the new six-part series on Disney+ -- is a superhero origin story in which the ambitious young protagonist comes up against financial struggles and societal disparities in her bid to be the next Tony Stark (aka Iron Man). Inspired by her late idol, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) has developed a prototype for an all-new armoured suit. Unlike Stark, however, she is not a middle-aged trust-fund technocrat with infinite resources and contacts, but a cash-strapped (if richly talented) Black teenager from Chicago's South Side. Riri will already be familiar to Marvel Cinematic Universe completists, having appeared in 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But in contrast to other interconnected franchise outings, Ironheart tells a self-contained story that begins with Riri being expelled from MIT after trying to bankroll her extracurricular projects by selling essays to classmates. Back in the Windy City and desperate to keep her potentially revolutionary invention alive, Riri again finds a less-than-legitimate revenue stream -- this time helping a ragtag gang of thieves steal from CEOs who are disrupting local neighbourhoods and businesses. While the heist narrative introduces some welcome shades of grey to the back-story of a wannabe hero -- and at least one moment where she veers closer to anti-hero -- the show never really commits to fleshing out the robberies beyond a few cursory details and functional action scenes. By the second half, it all but gives way to some supernatural hokum involving the group's leader "The Hood" (Anthony Ramos) -- a shadowy shamanic figure harbouring dark secrets under his magical cloak. Ironheart fares better with the human element of the story. Though perhaps human isn't the right word, given that the series' most rewarding scenes revolve around Riri's slightly uncanny friendship with Natalie: a sentient, holographic AI version of her dead childhood friend (played by Lyric Ross). Despite the trauma that weighs on our protagonist (as it must in this kind of tale), this lively virtual recreation manages to break down Riri's emotional armour and balance out her self-seriousness. That the series lets the ethical and metaphysical quandaries raised by Natalie's existence get lost in an increasingly unwieldy plot is disappointing. So too is writing that saddles its likeable cast (which includes Alden Ehrenreich as a neurotic black-market tech dealer) with cumbersome exposition. But for all the show's flaws, the backlash and review-bombing that it has already been subjected to by a subset of online fans is at best disproportionate, at worst brazenly prejudiced.

'Ironheart' review: Grief and AI collide in Ryan Coogler's Marvel series

In a surprising turn of events, Marvel's Ironheart series has just as much in common with Black Mirror's devastating "Be Right Back" episode as it does with any Iron Man film. On the Iron Man front, we've got an explosive story of an inventor crafting a high-tech armored suit. In Ironheart's case, that inventor is none other than genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), first introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Wakanda Forever and Sinners director Ryan Coogler also executive produces Ironheart.) Now back in her hometown of Chicago following expulsion from MIT, Riri turns to a life of crime in order to get the money and resources she needs to keep working on her suit. It's as Riri's building her new suit that Ironheart takes a turn for the Black Mirror. In her attempts to create a new AI assistant for her armor, Riri accidentally ends up creating one who looks and acts exactly like her late best friend, Natalie Washington (Lyric Ross). The conceit recalls that of Black Mirror's "Be Right Back," in which a grieving widow (Hayley Atwell) communicates with an AI simulacrum of her late husband (Domhnall Gleeson). But where "Be Right Back" is an absolutely shattering hour of TV, Ironheart is a bit more hopeful in its portrayal of processing grief with the help of technology. And while it lacks much of "Be Right Back"s tight focus and emotional heft -- two things that tend to get lost in a six-episode scramble to establish new major MCU players -- Ironheart still finds ways to craft a heartfelt, complicated relationship between Riri and the best friend she thought she'd lost. Ironheart's first sequence isn't one of Riri building her suit, or fighting off bad guys. It's of her and Natalie hanging out together, talking about what they want from life. For Riri, that's becoming "bigger than Jobs. Bigger than Gates. Bigger than Pym. Bigger than Stark." For Natalie, all she wants is to be happy. (And maybe to meet Thor.) The scene is a sweet snippet of Riri and Natalie's dynamic, and in positioning it at the start of the premiere, Ironheart showrunner Chinaka Hodge emphasizes that this friendship will be at the heart of the series. Later in the episode, though, we learn that Natalie, along with Riri's stepdad, Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins), died in a drive-by shooting. Riri witnessed their deaths and was powerless to save them. Their loss spurred her to make her suit, something that could provide fast-acting security to people in danger. So yes, the armor is proof of Riri's brains and the "iconic" legacy she hopes to leave behind, but Ironheart suggests that it's also a coping mechanism, a way to prevent the trauma of Natalie and Gary's loss from ever happening again. The arrival of AI N.A.T.A.L.I.E.(or Neuro-Autonomous Technical Assistant and Laboratory Intelligence Entity) further complicates the tangled web between Riri's grief and her inventions. The AI has all of Natalie's mannerisms and memories. She's as close to Natalie as possible, but is she really Natalie? That's the question Riri wrestles with throughout the season, especially as she finds herself connecting with N.A.T.A.L.I.E., laughing and bickering with her like no time has passed. For her part, N.A.T.A.L.I.E. doesn't act like an AI who was just programmed to follow orders. She teases Riri, pushes back on her when she hates her plans, and even gets hurt when Riri questions her existence. Ross is especially heartbreaking in these latter scenes, but her joy and energy in more playful moments with Riri is downright infectious. With this playfulness, Ironheart seems more prepared to simply accept N.A.T.A.L.I.E. as an extension of her deceased self. Compare that to Black Mirror's "Be Right Back," which is all about the limits of using AI to recreate a lost loved one. But the AI in "Be Right Back" is drawn from a limited number of social media posts, whereas N.A.T.A.L.I.E. was pulled straight from Riri's memories. It's the MCU: Gods are real, half the universe's population disappeared and came back, and AI can be completely perfect. On top of the Black Mirror comparison, Ironheart also echoes our current reality. Thanks to AI advancements, people are trying to use chatbots to connect with their deceased loved ones, as explored in the 2024 documentary Eternal You. Is this kind of technology a helpful tool to confront grief, or just ghoulish imitation? Ironheart carries out its examination of the ethics behind N.A.T.A.L.I.E. with a feather-light touch, mostly focusing on the joy, pain, and confusion that comes from reconnecting with someone you'd lost. Thorne and Ross are electric together, taking on the heavy stakes behind this relationship with care. Elsewhere, reactions of people close to Riri, like her mother, Ronnie (Anji White), help flesh out the N.A.T.A.L.I.E. dilemma even further. For Ronnie, it's a chance to heal an open wound and begin to knit together a missing piece of their community. It's not a coincidence that the more people who come in contact with N.A.T.A.L.I.E., the more people Riri can count on to help her out in a dark time. However, N.A.T.A.L.I.E. isn't the only person Riri spends much of her time with in Ironheart. Criminal Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) -- nicknamed "Hood" for the mysterious red hooded cape he always wears -- recruits Riri to bring some extra high-tech flair to his crew. Played by Manny Montana, RuPaul's Drag Race superstar Shea Coulée, Talk to Me's Zoe Terakes, Shakira Barrera, and Sonia Denis, Parker's crew are wise-crackers and badasses, just as Riri has proven herself to be in both Wakanda Forever and her solo outing. The sass and levity they share brings the sense of a casual, fun hangout to each of their heists, even as they battle security guards or hack through firewalls. Overseeing it all is Ramos' Hood, a charismatic leader who somehow manages to make a red cape not look totally goofy. (It helps that said cape imbues him with magical powers.) Menacing and charming in equal measures, Hood has all the potential to be a standout new MCU villain. Unfortunately, Ironheart's six episodes don't give his backstory or motivations enough development to truly hit. The same goes for the motivations behind each heist. Hood's crew discusses how the rich people they're going after are harming Chicago communities, but Ironheart doesn't take the time to develop these communities or the problems they face. These are big ideas, and certainly ones worthy of exploration. They just need more time to breathe, and that's not time Ironheart can give with only six episodes. The same goes for Riri and N.A.T.A.L.I.E.'s relationship, which sometimes falls to the wayside as Ironheart gears up for its big set pieces or villain reveals. However, the amount of work Hodge, Thorne, and Ross have put in to keep that friendship as the bedrock of Ironheart is clear, and the results mostly pay off. The series certainly boasts its fair share of armored suit fights and magical mayhem, but it's these carefully built relationships, and the grief that impacts them, that really stick.

I watched all six episodes of Ironheart on Disney+, and Marvel and Ryan Coogler have conjured up a magical show that falls just short of being iconic

Despite man-of-the-moment Ryan Coogler's involvement, the final TV show of the Marvel Phase 5 era was mostly written off well ahead of release; few other live-action Marvel TV projects have faced an uphill battle to convince Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) devotees and casual fans alike to watch it. Write off Coogler, the comic giant, and the series' titular hero at your peril, though, because Ironheart is an impressive Disney+ TV Original that largely hits its marks. Yes, it falls into the perennial traps that other small-screen MCU projects have, but after watching all six episodes I was pleasantly surprised by its style, energy, and emotionally impactful story that explores themes around family and flawed heroes. Set days after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, i.e., the MCU movie in which Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) made her live-action debut in, Ironheart opens with the eponymous character returning to her hometown of Chicago. The reason? She's kicked out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for selling completed assignments to other students to fund development of her Iron Man-inspired super-suit. Financially broke and suit-less - after the self-made prototype suit, which she steals from MIT, malfunctions on the flight home - Riri soon crosses paths with Parker Robbins/The Hood (Anthony Ramos). The mysterious, magical cloak-wearing leader of a street gang, Robbins preys on Riri's ambition to build a new, souped-up suit by saying he'll fund her creation in exchange for helping his crew conduct heists. Central to Ironheart's story is the internal struggle Riri continually wrestles with. At her core, she's a good person - indeed, due to a deeply traumatic event that occurred years prior, Riri wants to "revolutionize safety" by creating a suit that can be used by first responders and other emergency services personnel. It's that philanthropic nature, among other things, that draws parallels with a certain Tony Stark, whose ghost looms large over yet another MCU project. However, given their comic book ties - Stark is a long-time mentor of Riri's in Marvel literature - Stark's posthumous influence is more valid here than in prior MCU productions, even if the namedropping is occasionally incessant. That said, while Riri wants to build on Stark's legacy and make something "iconic", her unwavering ambition and Stark-sized ego occasionally paints her as an anti-hero in the vein of Breaking Bad's Walter White or, in more familiar MCU terms, Frank Castle/The Punisher and Loki. Riri's a more complicated and naïve hero than we're used to seeing, and that make the decisions she makes, and the consequences spawned by her actions, all the more fascinating. The dichotomy at the heart of Riri's story is further heightened by the moral complexities and grief born out of the loss of her stepdad Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins) and best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross) in a random act of gun violence. This excruciatingly painful event is not just a driving force behind Riri's ambition to make the world a safer place, but also a moment she refuses to confront. Such a deep-seated mental and emotional scar is a breeding ground for PTSD and panic attacks, which here are handled with greater precision, creative flair, and sensitivity than Stark's post-Avengers mental health problems were in Iron Man 3. In Thorne, Ironheart has a talented lead with the swagger, emotional nuance, and comedic timing - despite its melodrama, occasional toe dips into horror, and suspense-filled Ant-Man-like heisting, Ironheart is a surprisingly funny show - to bring all aspects of its protagonist to life, too. She's not the sole bright spot among Ironheart's cast of characters. The scene-stealing Ross, who plays Natalie in flashbacks and also portrays N.A.T.A.L.I.E - an AI construct like Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S. and F.R.I.D.A.Y, and Black Panther's Griot, who Riri inadvertently creates - helps to bring a playful and squabbling relatability to the dynamic Riri shares with both characters. The pair's natural rapport is evident from the outset and, while the way in which N.A.T.A.L.I.E helps to strip away Riri's metaphorical armor to allow the latter to process her grief is a little on the nose thematically, it's a 'bestie' dynamic that's full of real heart. Ross, Riri's concerned and warm-hearted mom Ronnie Williams (Anji White) and Natalie's brother Xavier (Matthew Elam) notwithstanding, Thorne shares the most screentime with Ramos' The Hood, whose introduction is not only novel in its execution, but also happens very early on. Some Marvel TV shows are guilty of prolonging their narrative setup, but Ironheart gets to the crux of its primary plot within the first 30 minutes of its premiere. That might seem quick, but I can fully get behind a story that tackles its meatier content sooner rather than later - and which still maintains an air of mystery despite its fast-paced nature. This doesn't mean Ironheart's narrative structure is consistent in its quality. Some episodes feel hurried and, by proxy, don't spend enough time reflecting on character choices or fleshing out certain plot threads. It also follows in most MCU TV series' footsteps by rushing through its finale that, spoilers notwithstanding, sets up a possible sequel season and teases wider implications for the MCU via the arrival of a character MCU fans have waited years for. Ironheart has a semi-regular issue with its villains, too. Fans were full of praise for Ramos' take on The Hood when the show's first full clip was released online, but he feels a little underdeveloped in Ironheart's first half. It's not until the series' second three-episode batch that he's fully realized as a menacing antagonist through his powerset, and positioned as a sympathetic villain via his backstory. In certain lighting, his magic-infused cloak is a tad garish, too, but I suspect that's intentional. Joe McGillicuddy (Alden Ehrenreich) falls into a similar category. A fascinating mix of bumbling and unhinged with his own tragic past, Joe bonds with Riri over their shared technical expertise and grief until their budding camaraderie is shattered by events midway through Ironheart's six-episode run. The fallout creates another conflicted antagonist for Riri to deal with but, while Ehrenreich does a fantastic job of capturing Joe's betrayal of trust and emotional turbulence, his evolution from timid ally to complicated foe happens too quickly for my liking. Still, Joe's transformation, along with Riri's magic-based suit upgrade and other references to the MCU's mystical elements (there are as many ties to Doctor Strange as there are to Iron Man here), satisfyingly blur the lines between the magic-versus-technology storyline we've been sold. Yes, Ironheart pits these diametrically opposed forces against each other, but also acts as a collision point where they can come together and create something wholly unique for the MCU. What's more common is the at-times clunky and stifled dialog, which some fans pointed out in Ironheart's first trailer and isn't aided by hard cuts between specific scenes, particularly in early episodes. It's also another Marvel production that refuses to explain certain things with enough intent. Sure, the MCU is a franchise where superpowered beings run riot and parallel universes exist among other things, but I don't think I'm asking for much by wanting a bit more story exposition, especially for viewers who haven't seen Black Panther 2. I guess my Wakanda Forever ending explainer will have to do! Ironheart exceeded my expectations with its smaller-scale, family-oriented, street-level-style narrative that reminded me of Hawkeye, Ms Marvel, and Daredevil: Born Again, all of which I similarly enjoyed. I feared the worst when Marvel confirmed Ironheart's unusual release schedule, but its two-part release format lends itself well to the story it tells. It isn't the best Marvel TV Original, but I suspect Ironheart will prove a lot of people wrong. It'll be a tough ask to win round anyone who's already dismissed it but, if it does so through mine and other critics' reviews, plus positive word of mouth, then Coogler, showrunner Chinaka Hodge, and the rest of its chief creative team might have built something iconic for Riri Williams after all.

Ryan Coogler on why 'Ironheart' is the next superhero we need: Everything to know about the new series

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler is out with a new series and it's exploring a character from his blockbuster hit, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever." Today, the first three episodes of the new series, "Ironheart," launches on Disney+ and focuses on Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), "a young, genius inventor determined to make her mark on the world" and whose iron suits "rival the best" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, according to a press release. Coogler, who is an executive producer on the project, spoke with "Good Morning America" at the "Ironheart" fan event in Hollywood on Monday and shared why Riri is the next superhero fans need in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU "She's a true Gen Z MCU hero," Coogler said. "I think she's dealing with the world at a point where it's very similar to our own. It's a lot of anxiety around AI, around ethics of advanced technology and its usage and, also, she's dealing with relationships and her own mental health." He added, "I'm so excited, it's the perfect time for this show." Along with Thorne, the cast includes Lyric Ross, Alden Ehenreich, Regan Aliyah, Manny Montana, Matthew Elam and Anji White. The cast also includes Zoe Terakes, Zhaleh, Shakira Barrera, Cree Summer, Tanya Christiansen, Sonia Denis, LaRoyce Hawkins and Shea Couleé. Additionally, Anthony Ramos portrays Parker Robbins/"The Hood." "Ironheart" is set after the events of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," according to a press release. In the film, Riri is introduced as a brilliant 19-year-old MIT student who has reverse-engineered Tony Stark's Iron Man tech to build her own suit. She becomes a target after she created a vibranium-detecting machine used by the U.S. government. The machine leads to the discovery of vibranium in the ocean, which threatens Talokan, the hidden underwater kingdom led by Namor. Riri is brought to Wakanda for protection against Namor, who wants her killed to prevent exposure of vibranium. While in Wakanda, Riri builds a new Ironheart suit. Separately, Coogler says that in the "Ironheart" comic book, Riri and Tony Stark (Ironman), had a friendship. "He was kind of advising her," Coogler said in a video shared by Marvel. "And eventually, she got her own identity as Ironheart. It was really exciting for me bringing that character into the MCU in 'Wakanda Forever.'" Director Chinaka Hodge said in a video for Marvel, "In our series, we're telling the story of what happens the days after Wakanda, in the formative years of the superhero." At the fan event, Thorne said it's been "so cool" to get Robert Downey Jr.'s support for "Ironheart." She said that Downey Jr., who portrayed Ironman/Tony Stark in the Marvel films, FaceTimed her. "I'm such a Marvel fan," Thorne said. "I'm thinking about Robert Downey Jr. FaceTiming to say how insane it is that here we are, 17 years since that first 'Iron Man' series, only continuing to make incredible stories and take people on an epic ride." She added, "To go from being a fan of the MCU to being here now on this carpet, welcoming this show into the world with the rest of this gorgeous cast and my family is just so unreal." The new series is set in Chicago, and stars from the show shared what sets "Ironheart" apart from other shows and films in the MCU. Ramos shared how the new series explores Chicago's predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Humboldt Park. "Chicago is a big player in the show," Ramos said. "And there's Humboldt Park, Logan Square -- that's a Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was interesting. We got to use the culture that he (Parker Robbins) grew up in as well as a backstory about his family to really help you get into the mind[set] of why Parker is the way he is and why he's doing what he's doing." Terakes shared how the series reflects a diverse cast and said how "surreal" it was to be a part of the show. "We were so fortunate to be a part of this team that is almost exclusively Black, brown, queer, trans," Terakes said. "It's just not the kind of superhero stuff that I grew up with as a kid. I was looking at a lot of white boys, white cis boys fighting and jumping off buildings, and that was amazing, but I wanted to be one of those people." Summer echoed Terakes and shared how "Ironheart" is a "delight to finally see a reflection of myself." "For my daughters to see this young inventor and genius and to have someone like that to look up to that we get to be superheroes -- it's very important," she said. "Ironheart" is on Disney+ now with the first three episodes.

Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"

Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger offered up a rare mea culpa - one that would have far-reaching ramifications for Marvel Studios. "We all admitted to ourselves that we lost a little focus by making too much," Iger told Wall Street analysts in May. The big picture readily became apparent: Marvel Studios would course correct, only dishing out home runs and big hitters instead of flooding the streaming landscape with quantity over quality. Perhaps unfairly, Ironheart is one of the poster children of that approach, an unlikely spin-off greenlit at a time when Marvel Studios probably felt they couldn't fail. Dropping with relatively little fanfare across two weeks on Disney Plus, Ironheart arrives in the long shadow of that Disney mandate. Worse still, it has to contend with the spectre of what any hero with 'Iron' in their name - I Love You 3000 and all the rest of it - conjures up in the MCU. While it never quite escapes the clutches of those comparisons, Ironheart initially propels itself into fun-and-familiar territory, before running out of juice by the time its puzzlingly-placed final act rolls around. Welcome back, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne). Awkwardly shuffled onto the MCU chessboard next to the kings and queens of Talokan and Wakanda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we find her at the onset of Ironheart busily showcasing a prowess for all things robotics as part of her Tony Stark Fellowship at MIT - complete with a high-powered Iron Suit that wouldn't look out of place in the bowels of her forebear's cliffside Malibu mansion. After being busted for a cheating operation (there's no ChatGPT for students to 'rely' on in the MCU, apparently), Riri is soon kicked out of the prestigious institution and makes tracks for her hometown of Chicago. With relentless ambition and a desire to do good and be "bigger than Stark", Riri wants to spread her wings - and burn her thrusters - a little further afield than Navy Pier, but soon falls in with the wrong crowd in the hopes of quick cash to fund her suit repairs. After passing a death trap with flying colors, Riri is recruited by Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), AKA The Hood, a mysterious figure with scales on his body and an ominous hood that was rumored to have been "wrestled off a demon." There, Riri is tasked with joining in the fun as they act as Chicago's answer to Robin Hood, stealing from ultra-rich CEOs and taking the spoils for themselves. Joined by a motley crew consisting of Slug (Shea Couleé), a hacker from Madripoor, Blood Siblings and "down on their luck athletes" Roz (Shakira Barrera) and Jeri (Zoe Terakes), Clown (Sonia Denis), a pyrotechnic specialist, and The Hood's cousin John (Manny Montana), it's at this point where Ironheart fails at its first narrative crossroads. Would Tony Stark have been as successful if he didn't possess as much money, privilege, and power to go alongside his intellect? It's a question Ironheart poses but never quite dares to answer. After all, Riri must make her own way in the world without so much as a rocket boost to help smash the glass ceiling. It's a bitter disappointment, then, that Ironheart never threatens to fully explore the skewed power dynamics of the haves and have-nots - its competent action scenes only ever window dressing for light character work and even lighter punchy drama. Where Ironheart finds greater success is in its emotional, beating heart. Much like how Tony Stark's Arc Reactor powers his suit, Riri's traumatic past, where she had to watch her best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross) and stepdad Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins) gunned down, tempers much of Ironheart's strongest moments. Riri deals with that trauma in her own inimitable way, creating AI companion N.A.T.A.L.I.E. (Neuro Autonomous Technical Assistant and Laboratory Intelligence Entity, in case you were wondering) as part-sounding board, part-memento mori. Even when Ironheart trudges through its by-the-numbers plot, Riri and N.A.T.A.L.I.E.'s fun, authentic dynamic is warm and heartfelt. It's to creator Chinaka Hodge and producer Ryan Coogler's credit that, alongside such a well-realized, gritty Chicago, Riri feels even more of a magnetic, easy-to-root-for figure in an MCU now packed with a swelling roster of younger heroes such as Echo, Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye's Kate Bishop. Thorne, too, proves as capable in scenes fraught with drama as she does delivering an Avengers-esque mid-battle quip or two. As an actor, she's a steady, Swiss Army Knife of a presence, but perhaps one, sadly, that won't be deployed anytime soon in Marvel's near future. Unfortunately, some of the supporting players land with more of an echoing thud, with characterisation clunkier than Tony Stark's early handiwork in an Afghan cave. Parker's Hood antics quickly wear thin, culminating in a predictable, uninspired vendetta after a handful of episodes spent glowering and barking out orders. Marvel's band of conspiracy theorists and roving Redditors, though, might be intrigued enough on the basis that the origins of his hood leads somewhere - and to someone - that has long been theorized about. Riri, though, quickly brushes off suspicions about Parker because, as she rightly points out, the MCU has seen its fair share of aliens and wizards on a regular basis. Therein lies the problem: when multiverses come calling, nothing feels novel anymore - for either the characters or its audience. It's this lack of inspiration that courses through the well-meaning veins of Ironheart's (admittedly breezy) six-episode run. That extends to the woefully underutilised Alden Ehrenreich as Joe McGillicuddy, a sad sack tech ethicist who makes up for what he lacks in backbone with a knack for tinkering in the black market and a "wholesome bunker" filled with live, laugh, love accoutrements. His extra dimension, much like Parker, comes from harboring a dark secret that proves to be one of Ironheart's more meaningful ties to the MCU-at-large. Again, Ironheart doesn't dare do anything with it. Whether there was a hesitance to tread on any past entries, or because the writers didn't have the stomach to forge ahead with something that would properly feed into Iron Man's story, characters such as Joe are good pitches on paper who never quite bear fruit in execution. Yet, some magic does creep in from time to time. Sometimes quite literally. In Ironheart's second half, talk of sorcerers and darker forces comes into play, though any thematic tension between Riri's scientific mind crashing into a world of hand-waving tricksters is quickly downplayed. Then, out of nowhere, the screw turns and Ironheart tiptoes into some seriously compelling territory. Frustratingly, this darker detour (we're bewitched by the powers of spoiler embargoes, so can't say more) ends before it gets going. All we're left with is setup for a brilliant second season that makes you wish they had just told that story first instead. Despite its best intentions, Ironheart is a relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era that has punctuated Disney Plus in the past few years. Too often safe and frequently bland, the Riri Williams-fronted series shows plenty of potential but falls into familiar MCU traps and - perhaps its biggest cardinal sin - saves its best story for a second season that will probably be consigned to the scrapheap. The first three episodes of Ironheart are out now on Disney Plus. For more, check out our guide to the Marvel movies in order or all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

'Ironheart' Review: Marvel's 'Black Panther' Spinoff Finds Its Voice Between a Clumsy Pilot and a Frustrating Finale

With Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler faced a nearly impossible task: simultaneously living in the past by paying tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman and his indelible work as T'Challa, telling a compelling story in the present, and introducing elements to build out the Black Panther universe in the future. For my money, Coogler performed the first task fairly well, honoring Boseman and giving his co-stars -- especially Angela Bassett -- and the audience room to grieve. But when it came to telling a standalone story and expanding on the Black Panther universe, Wakanda Forever was pretty dismal -- lacking the time and focus to develop new characters, give them anything to do in the moment, or turn their lives into enticing offshoots for further exploration. This is the primary problem facing Disney+'s new six-part series Ironheart, which features Coogler among its executive producers. In turning its attention to Dominique Thorne's Riri Williams, Ironheart is centralizing a character whose initial appearance came under -- at best -- distracted circumstances in a movie released nearly three years ago. Whatever Ironheart has going for it does not include "built-in narrative necessity." The result is an odd sandwich of a TV show. Created by Chinaka Hodge, Ironheart has no choice but to start with 40+ minutes of clunky exposition and re-establishing, only to end with a frustratingly inert finale dominated by a distracting big-name guest star. In between those stale pieces of streaming bread, though, are four episodes that I frequently enjoyed. Boasting some likable performances and amusing flights (not referring to the show's airborne power suit) of fancy, Ironheart peaks in its fifth episode with an extended action scene/product placement that I thought was a goofy blast. If you barely remember anything about Riri Williams, Ironheart spends a while getting you back up to speed. A brilliant MIT student with a gift for mechanical engineering, Riri is more interested in building her own version of Tony Stark's Iron Man suit than any academic pursuits. She gets kicked out of school for reasons that don't much matter, and she returns home to Chicago (or "Chicago" as played by second unit photography and Atlanta.) Being home gives Riri the chance to reconnect with her mother, Ronnie (Anji White), and with Xavier (Matthew Elam), the brother of Riri's best friend, Natalie (Lyric Ross), who was killed in a random shooting that also claimed the life of Riri's beloved stepfather. For Riri, Chicago means confronting trauma while also facing the limitations of trying to achieve Tony Stark levels of innovative greatness without any resources at all. Riri is not the only Chicagoan with dreams of achievement and legacy, stuck on an economically disadvantaged hamster wheel. She's very quickly recruited to be part of a criminal enterprise fronted by Anthony Ramos' Parker "The Hood" Robbins, a charismatically played if generally underdeveloped figure whose authority comes from a mysterious, magical cloak that grants him certain powers but comes at a spiritual cost. Anyway, it's a fun team featuring former drag queen and current hacker Slug (Shea Couleé), munitions genius Clown (Sonia Denis) and knife-loving John (Manny Montana), all working to target a string of tech entrepreneurs with questionable ethics. Mostly, though, Riri is into getting her suit right, including an AI system with a distinct and familiar personality, which requires the help of a black market gear enthusiast by the unlikely name of Joe McGillicuddy (Alden Ehrenreich). Ironheart represents yet another example of the unevenness that has plagued recent Marvel/Disney+ shows from Daredevil: Born Again to Echo to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Of course, the current phase of Marvel films has been decidedly uneven as well, while the best version of the MCU evoked an incredible long-form television series -- basically 20+ episodes building to a killer finale in Endgame. So maybe the folks on the TV side at Marvel have just forgotten what a TV show looks like? As it stands, Ironheart simply doesn't build right, starting flat and ending flat, and although there's some escalation to the heists and the moral conundrum that Riri faces, I couldn't tell you why this is a six-episode series and not nine like Agatha All Along or Daredevil or five like Echo. The momentum and overall structure are faulty, while elements like Riri's antihero status -- I saw one interview in which a producer compared her to Walter White or Tony Soprano, something that does not come through in the slightest -- and the evolution of the season's villains feel abrupt. When Marvel is able to spackle over storytelling flaws with spectacle, those flaws are easier to ignore, but like Echo, Ironheart is marred by what appears to be a markedly lower budget than its peers. What sets Ironheart apart and makes the middle of the season so enjoyable are the character-based relationships. Alone, Thorne conveys dogged determination, but many of Riri's foils and the show's supporting performances really bring out the best in its star. Because of the trauma in Riri's backstory -- a refreshing detail in which the tragedy stems from inexplicable urban violence and not from "The Snap" or anything repetitively MCU-based -- there's sadness in most of those relationships. But there's also humor in her interactions with Ross' Natalie (dead, but not gone) and sweetness in her attempts to reconnect or avoid reconnecting with White's Ronnie. Ehrenreich's Joe doesn't appear until the second episode, but the banter between Joe and Riri, accompanied by a key Alanis Morissette needle-drop, is funny and well-written. Only the relationship with Elam's Xavier is unconvincing. The Hood's motivations are flimsy and his powers poorly illustrated, but Ramos plays Parker as an exposed nerve of unrealized aspirations, letting Montana provide more menace and Denis offer a more humorous, dangerous edge. Because of both the limited budget and some strange editing choices, none of the action set pieces become anything exciting until the first 15 minutes of the fifth episode, when a White Castle becomes engulfed in playful mayhem, with somewhat innovative use of available props and a punchline I found cartoonishly hilarious. There's none of the expert fight choreography that adrenalized the best moments in Daredevil or the stunt work that elevated the best parts of Hawkeye or the dimension-bending conception leaps that added juice to Loki. But I enjoyed this ground-level version of Marvel adventure. Then the key scenes in the finale are the inert guest star eating pizza -- pizza that's cut like Chicago tavern-style pizza, but obviously isn't Chicago tavern-style pizza. Questionable culinary accuracy aside, it's just a lackluster ending to a show that had given indications of really finding its voice in the lead-up. Thematically, one can easily see the elements of Ironheart that attracted the writers, and one can just as easily see how rushed they are. Whether it's expanding on the conflict between science and magic that has been part of the MCU particularly since the first Doctor Strange movie or critiquing the elevation of billionaire vigilantes to hero status, this is a series with things on its mind but not necessarily the structure or platform to properly say those things. Still, despite the clumsy pilot and distracted finale, the warmth I felt for the four-episode filling of this televisual sandwich was real.

Ironheart Review - IGN

The first three episodes of Ironheart are now streaming on Disney+. The remaining three episodes premiere Tuesday, July 1. Across centuries and cultures, innumerable stories have followed the same basic structure: Answering the call of adventure, a character breaks out of their everyday existence, venturing into the unknown to face untold trials and great peril, triumphing over adversity and returning to where it all began a changed person. This so-called "hero's journey" has shaped much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and others have embarked on high-octane escapades where they must save the world while confronting a variety of identity crises. Ironheart, the MCU's 14th live-action Disney + series, certainly begins with similar intentions. But the magical powers intruding on Riri "Ironheart" Williams' (Dominique Thorne) six-episode scientific crusade fail to transform her in any meaningful way. By the finale, we're left with a disappointing hero who seemingly hasn't learned any lessons. Though Riri was previously introduced as the tech prodigy whose vibranium detector kicks off the plot of 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart is her origin story. It starts well enough: A genius MIT student with dreams of being bigger than "Gates, Jobs, Pym, and Stark combined," she's continuing her efforts to create an advanced Iron Man-like armored suit - until she's sent packing for helping her peers cheat on their assignments and causing too much destruction in the school labs. With Thorne establishing her character's confident, often arrogant, and quite selfish nature in quick order, Riri steals the prototype suit and flies home to Chicago, where the story proper begins. That's a rich place to start any hero's journey - and one that mimics Tony Stark's in Iron Man. It's refreshing to see a female character act as reckless and self-determined as Tony, but there's a key difference in how far that recklessness and self-determination can take them: the endless resources of a rich white man like Tony aren't available to a poor black woman like Riri. Enter Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood, played with cool charisma by Anthony Ramos. He offers Riri the first of Ironheart's many Faustian bargains: She can get all the money she needs to complete her suit in exchange for joining his gang of criminal misfits. As Parker's pseudonym and band of merry accomplices imply, he's a Robin Hood figure - but unlike the British legend, The Hood's gang of hackers, knife throwers, pyromaniacs, and bare-knuckle fighters steal from the rich to give to themselves. Armed with a magical cape that gives him the ability to become invisible and bend bullets Matrix-style, Parker supplies one of Ironheart's central tensions: An existential tug-of-war between magic and science that recalls WandaVision. This exploration of energy, human consciousness, and mysticism is aided by some fun new witches who teach Riri that she can't defeat The Hood's dark powers with calculations and machines alone. So maybe she learns one lesson; sadly, she doesn't heed the witch's warning that magic comes with a cost. By episode three, Riri is forced to reckon with the compromises she's making in pursuit of genius when the jobs get increasingly violent and the cape's devilish influence emboldens Parker's darkest ambitions. Their heists, which include shutting down an underground transport system and breaking into a Fort Knox-like greenhouse facility, hark back to the gritty, quippy early '00s capers of Gone in 60 Seconds and the first few Fast and Furious films. Unfortunately, the fight sequences where Riri suits up aren't as flashy. They're low-stakes, and don't have quite the ambition or scale of previous armored battles in the MCU. Parker and his gang have each been marginalized by society in some way, but it's hard to root for their revenge mission against that society - with what little backstory Ironheart gives them, we have no reason to sympathize with their selfishness. Are they really any better than the people they steal from? Series creator Chinaka Hodge's answer seems to be a cynical one that sees Riri not just turn to crime to solve her problems, but to trigger malevolence in others. Specifically, Joe McGillicuddy (Alden Ehrenreich), a self-effacing and fearful black-market inventor striving not to follow in the footsteps of his crooked dad. Initially, this has all the makings of an intriguing, subversive sins-of-the-father storyline with Ehrenreich perfectly selling Joe's earnest pursuits. Instead, it reverts to convention by having him turn to the dark side (Palpatine-esque lightning powers included) when Riri lands him in trouble and biological upgrades turn him into a weapon of mass destruction. There are a lot of daddy issues flying around Ironheart, but Riri's are the only ones with a loving foundation. Through flashbacks, we see the drive-by shooting that killed her mechanic stepfather, Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins), as well as her best friend, Natalie (Lyric Ross). Like many MCU heroes, Riri finds poignant, grief-stricken motivation in her loved ones' deaths. She wants to protect the people closest to her, but never in Ironheart do we really see her do so. She just uses the suit to commit crimes and fix problems of her own making. To Ironheart's credit, it does offer a stirring relationship dynamic between Riri and Natalie. It just requires the resurrection of the latter in the form of Neuroautonomous Technical Assistant and Laboratory Intelligence Entity - N.A.T.A.L.I.E. for short. An artificial intelligence created by a glitch in Riri's brain-mapping-assisted suit programming, N.A.T.A.L.I.E. has all the same mannerisms, memories, and personality traits as her namesake. This causes initial friction as Riri contends with this personification of her dead best friend. It's yet another Iron Man parallel: The transformation of Tony's digital assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. into Vision is something everyone in the MCU accepts but few can explain; it's only when Riri accepts the uncertainty of how N.A.T.A.L.I.E. came to be that they can emotionally connect (and Thorne and Ross can resume infusing that connection with humour and heart). Alas, by the series' end, Riri is back to her selfish and reckless ways. In an anticlimactic final scene, she's propositioned by "another magical asshole," and makes an infuriatingly bad decision, one that undoes her entire journey. It's a defeatist ending that makes a cynical argument: No matter what soul-wrenching odyssey they've been on, any hero, villain, or average Joe would make a deal with the devil to get what they truly desire.