Ironheart tells more about Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a character we met in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Just to clear up something right away, it is not about Riri Williams trying to make herself into another Iron Man or replace Tony Stark. There is an iron suit involved, but nobody is displacing Tony Stark in the Marvel lexicon.

Ironheart, I’m sorry to report, is not one of the better Marvel efforts. The plot was rushed and herky jerky, there were too many stories going on in only six episodes.

I don’t watch all the Marvel material, only the ones with women in big roles. This production seemed to be trying to introduce The Hood/Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen), and Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich) along with telling a story about Riri, her best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross), and her mom (Anji White). It was a bit much. If those characters were introduced in some other film or series, I don’t know what they were.

Let’s talk about Natalie first, because Riri made a deal with Mephisto to save her. For most the of the series Natalie was dead. She was a hologram/AI created for Riri’s iron suit. Per Riri’s deal, Mephisto brought her back to life.

Yes, Riri made a deal with the devil, but she did it out of love. Her desire to build an iron suit was also motivated by love, because she wanted to protect her family and friends. The question remaining at the end is will her deal with Mephisto (and her ventures into magic) turn her into a villain in future stories?

Parker Robbins, on the other hand, made a deal with Mephisto for the hood out of hatred, envy, and greed. He was definitely a villain. Parker had a gang of sorts, characters played by Shakira Barrera, Sonia Denis, Jaren Merrell, and Zoe Terakes. (The Diversity-R-Us gang Marvel style.)

Parker intended to kill Riri, and used his gang and Ezekiel Stane to do it for him. None of them turned out to be effective at the job. By the end Parker was all alone.

There were fights and explosions and flying in iron suits – all the usual Marvel goodies. If you are into the Marvel world you’ll have to watch this just for the continuity of characters in that world. It was directed by Samantha Bailey and Angela Barnes, who did their best with the script they had. It’s streaming on Disney+.

One last thing. In that photo up top where Riri is writing magic symbols on a white board, people are saying her iron suit in the background is wearing the hood. Do you see it that way and what would that mean in future stories?

What did you think of Ironheart?