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.
Image: Disney Plus / Marvel
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.
