At this point, a new release from the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not news: it is, almost, just another routine, like going to buy bread or going for a run in the afternoons. The problem is that, where there used to be excitement and hope, now there is a sense of doing homework: this is the case, for most of the old Marvel fans, with Ironheart, a character that was born in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and about whom we haven’t heard for three years, with the series in a constant state of editing, reshoots, and attempts to save the disaster.
Moreover, Disney has not been able to prevent many from seeing the new superheroine as a mere imitation of Iron Man, a desperate attempt to replace Tony Stark, facing an unfair animosity that is as -like it or not- logical. But where did Riri Williams come from, and how long has she been in the comics? Is there more to her story or is she a secondary character? Well, indeed, the former.
A dead Iron Man, Iron Man put
In the mid-2010s, Marvel tried to replace many of the “legacy” heroes with younger, racially diverse, and modern versions of them. For example, Miles Morales was born as a possible replacement for Peter Parker, Amadeus Cho became Hulk, Ms. Marvel was a sort of young version of Captain Marvel, Viv Vision may have surpassed her father, Vision, Nova became a teenager, and even the original X-Men traveled to the present to bring youth to the comics.
And in this rebirth -much criticized, but very fresh- Riri Williams was born in the pages of issue 7 of volume 3 of Invincible Iron Man, back in May 2016. When we met her, Riri, considered a super-genius, was a student at MIT who, in her spare time, stole parts from the campus to build her Iron Man-style armor. In fact, she ends up meeting Tony Stark and becoming something like his sidekick under the name of Rescue.
But, if you’re a Marvel fan, you already know what happened in 2017: at the end of Civil War II, Captain Marvel mortally wounded Tony Stark, leaving his position vacant. It was then that Riri Williams demonstrated her knowledge of the technological world left by the magnate and, along with Pepper Potts, Mary Jane Watson (yes, don’t ask), and an AI with Stark’s face and voice, which he had prepared just in case, she began to fight crime under the name Ironheart. Oh, yes, don’t worry: in the end, Tony was resurrected.
He was not dead, no, no
Well, not exactly: it was cloned using its own corpse and downloading its memories into the brain, without knowing if it really has a soul. Anyway, Marvel things. Meanwhile, Riri joined a Marvel team (because, after all, what kind of superhero are you if you’re not part of a group?) called The Champions, a kind of teenage Avengers who, instead of worrying about cosmic and space issues, were more focused on saving the Earth from everyday villains.
During these years, Viv Vision fell in love with her (and Riri rejected her for her internal homophobia), Mephisto’s son controlled her body to use it against the rest of the Champions and she was forbidden to be a superheroine, like all teenagers, after Ms. Marvel ended up in a coma. As you might have guessed, she didn’t care at all and continued with her own thing, creating another AI (N.A.T.A.L.I.E, based on an old friend of hers, for which I will give spoilers, as she appears in the series) that helped her fight, along with Shuri and Okoye, in Wakanda.
Ah, yes! And he has had time to find, put on, and master the ten rings of power that you could see in the movie Shang-Chi. Come on, the character hasn’t even been around for ten years yet and has already done more than many in their entire life. Do you still think he doesn’t deserve his own series? Really?
