Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), the prodigy of university age sciences known in comics under the name of Ironheart, was presented in the Marvel cinematographic universe with a clumsy fanfare which quickly took place. The character appeared for the first time in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, a heavy sequel to the best MCU film – which looked like a respectful funeral staged in a frantic company meeting on the best way to maximize income on a series of popular properties but in danger.
His small role in the film was intended to serve as an aperitif for his own spin-off series on Disney + to present himself shortly after the film. But while the series itself was already running as a “Wakanda Forever” filled with theaters, it only goes to the streaming service – in a pair of lots of three episodes which suggest that society has hastily lost in the character.
Why was this particular series chosen as a scapegoat for various MCU misfortunes is a mystery, although few possible solutions paint a flattering portrait of the parent company and their hypotheses on what their audience wants to see. “Ironheart” can still prove to be a lightning rod (also in short) with the Indignant Manosphere Factory, since the iconography of the series positions Riri – a black woman – as a new generation iron man, despite her particular lack of veneration of Tony Stark. (It was true in comics too, but in films, the precious hero of the Nerds is dead.) According to her own insistence, she tries to create her own version of Stark’s high technology costume as an “emblematic” call card – simply because she knows that she can.
This kind of ambition costs money, however, and the spectacle opens it with the ejection of MIT for a cheating scandal. (She collects funds by completing the projects of other cash students.) She returns home to Chicago to live with her mother Ronnie (Anji White) and work on her project. The return to her old district barely reopens injuries to healing when she cries the loss of her best friend Natalie (Lyric Washington) as well as her beloved stepfather, killed during a shooting before the events of “Wakanda Forever”.
Always desperate for money, Riri falls with a gang of smooth criminals led by Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), who carry out complex robberies, mainly in order to redistribute wealth and undermine developers who threaten various communities of Chicago. Parker’s motivations are not so pure, and Riri quickly notes that he seems to be drawing a sort of strange powers from the coat of strange appearance that he carries all the time.
As the six episodes series continues, “Ironheart” spends a lot of time exploring the boundaries between technology (which Riri understands) and magic (which she does not do), and how these characters try to manipulate the two to respond to their wishes. The most potentially controversial element is the accidental creation by Riri of a sophisticated AI assistant for his costume – his version of Jarvis, the British cordial voice often intended to help Stark in the first two films “Iron Man”. This iteration goes further: it seems that Riri interacts with Natalie, revived by a computer with all his ways, the memories and the considerable charm of Washington intact.
Although it is clearly an extension of the ideas of “Iron Man”, this element of the series nevertheless threatens to ensure that “Ironheart” feels badly informed even with the delay of two years. Here, in the midst of a corporate push to treat AI as a necessary necessary resource than real humans, is a complete character, undoubtedly the sympathetic person in the series, who plays a bit like IA propaganda: does he not have one of these virtual assistants as good as a best friend of flesh and blood?
But at the end of the series, the show’s relationship with this technology was appropriately complicated, even that has become threatening in a way that is satisfactory without using the Buissier of bad dress.
It happens it requires standard overcrowding of the MCU and a loyalty switching too abused among the different shades of gray and the outdoor-bad guys. There are also a few bits which may have been mocked while waiting for the shelf. Perhaps when it was written for the first time, showing that the main character having a physical panic attack was still a new subversion of superhero expectations. At this stage, however, these scenes have become clichés. Overall, the show is more fun as the week’s breakage vehicle with a difficult alliance between a disgrace star student and an eclectic group of talented criminals than a rise in power to a compulsory battle for powers, in particular because Riri seems barely interested in superheroes. However, “Ironheart” is neither as cluttered nor as rhythm irregularly as so many of his MCU brothers and sisters – and at a purely technical level, he looks much better.
The hot and varied palette of colors of the show recalls these first films “Iron Man”, where there was a minimum of real weight and earthing to action, and the dialogue is a little more loose and less preserved than the cocktails of punching of the sarcasm and the sour bubble which often passes for these things in these things. (There is a devious order of generational references when Riri and Natalie repeatedly compare their high -tech robberies with “Spy Kids” films).
Whatever reason, “Ironheart” rarely resembles a distended low budget film. His closest parent is probably “Mrs. Marvel”, who also had a younger character living in a world populated by recognizable people and fantastic wonders who stand out from a larger universe. The discreet mixture and the matching elements of this series, “Iron Man”, “Doctor Strange” and “Agatha All Lest”, among others, feels in fact that its creators have fun with the Marvel toolbox, rather than adhering to a list of universal requirements. When the show arrives at a late turn which will make some fans buzz, there is enough work of character posed to excite less dedicated viewers (although a second season is far from insured).
“Ironheart” did not immerse himself at the last minute to save the MCU on television; In all likelihood, it is a rest of a Marvel television model that is about to be replaced. But as the possible combination of Riri, it is a fairly decent iteration from the outside of the established order.
“Ironheart” will be presented on Tuesday June 24 on Disney +.
