Two-and-a-half years after she was introduced, underwhelmingly, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams finally gets the front-and-center treatment with Ironheart, a Disney+ series about a brilliant MIT student who’s created her very own Iron Man suit.
As with so many of its small-screen Marvel Cinematic Universe compatriots, Chinaka Hodge’s six-episode show, premiering June 24, feels small and inconsequential, focusing on characters who, in the grand MCU scheme of things, are little more than two-bit nobodies. Only coming alive in its final episode, which should have been its starting point rather than its cliffhanger-y conclusion, it’s further evidence that the once-mighty comic-book brand has watered itself down with second-rate heroes and adventures.
Back at MIT after her sojourn to Wakanda, Riri is so desperate to build her inventions that she’s raising cash through illicit means—a strategy that leads to her expulsion. Stunned that the school doesn’t want her genius around anymore, she hops in her iron suit and flies home to Chicago, barely making the trip because her Tony Stark-inspired tech is a bit faulty, especially when it comes to its AI.
To fix this, Riri scans her brain to create a better operating system. When she awakens from the process, she discovers that her new artificial intelligence is an exact replica of Natalie (Lyric Ross), the best friend who five years earlier was gunned down, along with Riri’s beloved stepfather Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins), in a drive-by shooting.
Riri is stunned that Natalie has been digitally reborn, whereas audiences will likely be scratching their heads about the fact that this N.A.T.A.L.I.E. facsimile—created solely from Riri’s memories—somehow seems to be a 100 percent sentient replica of the actual girl. Internal logic is not Ironheart’s forte, and neither, unfortunately, are interesting characters.
Riri is touted as a historic intellectual prodigy, but Thorne doesn’t radiate frustrated brilliance so much as petulant attitude; her performance is one-note and unconvincing. Not helping matters, showrunner Hodge develops her protagonist’s lingering trauma (over Natalie and Gary’s demises) and present circumstances via jagged storytelling that kills momentum and coherence. The same goes for Riri’s quasi-romantic relationship with Xavier (Matthew Elam), whose role in this saga—he’s Natalie’s brother—is unclear for much of the early going.
Riri’s return to Chicago attracts the attention of Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), a criminal gang leader who’s known as The Hood because of the magical cape which grants him power. The Hood sends his cousin John (Manny Montana) to recruit Riri to join their underworld enterprise, which involves blackmailing wealthy people into signing over parts of their empires.
The Hood’s bidding is carried out by a collection of colorful baddies with particular skills—Slug (Shea Couleé) is the drag queen techie, Clown (Sonia Denis) is the aggressive firestarter, and Jeri (Zoe Terakes) and Roz (Shakira Barrera) are the sibling bruisers—and zero charisma, especially once Eric André’s Rampage is unceremoniously ditched after a couple of throwaway scenes. Together, they’re a cartoonish lot, and so unimposing that it’s impossible to believe anyone would fear them or that they’d be capable of doing significant damage to grown-ups, much less industry titans.
Riri joins The Hood because she needs cash for her personal projects, and Ironheart doesn’t bother grappling with the immorality of this decision; rather, it skirts the issue by vaguely positioning The Hood as some sort of faux-Robin Hood fighting against the exploitative rich and powerful.
To get more gear, she additionally connects with Joe (Alden Ehrenreich), a suburban dealer in black-market goods whose base of operations in a silo looks an awful lot like Tony Stark’s Iron Man workshop. Joe has a secret connection to the lead Avenger that’s not revealed until the series’ midway point, and it’s an underwhelming one that turns the proceedings into Iron Man Babies. Ehrenreich is more charismatic than most of his co-stars, but he’s hamstrung by a character that’s pulled this way and that to fulfill various ho-hum plot dictates.
Ironheart never convincingly explains why someone as gifted as Riri is slumming around Chicago with a bunch of low-level crooks instead of hooking up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and it features no notable iron suit-centric action set pieces.
Its prime focus is Riri’s struggle to accept N.A.T.A.L.I.E.—who ultimately winds up telling Riri that she “loves” her, as if she were a real person—and growing distrust of The Hood, who soon suspects her of having murdered one of his crew. Ramos’ thief is a clunkily drawn baddie and the mystery about his body’s spreading tattoo-like scars (created by his cape) is never captivating. Neither are his heists, given that their planning, execution, and goals are consistently hazy.
In its back half, Ironheart goes in a Dr. Strange direction, with Riri and company—including her supportive mom Ronnie (Anji White)—seeking help from sorceresses who try to determine the origins and strengths of The Hood’s signature garb. The series’ marriage of magic and tech is unwieldy, especially when Riri tries to literally unite the two, but it at least results in the maiden appearance of a true Big Bad whose presence almost elevates this story above MCU footnote status.
The identity of that unholy scoundrel, and the actor who plays him, has long been speculated about online and won’t be spoiled here. Suffice it to say, though, that he’s more interesting than everyone else involved in this disposable affair, and should have been the focal point from the beginning versus a surprise cameo designed to set up a second season.
A follow-up, however, seems more like wishful thinking than a realistic possibility, thereby suggesting that Marvel has squandered the introduction of a promising villain on a show that’s anything like a vital cog in the extended franchise machine.
At this stage in the MCU’s life, it’s difficult to see such Disney+ efforts as anything more than detriments, stretching the fictional universe so thin that it comes across as insubstantial and empty. As with so many of her superpowered streaming brethren, Riri Williams has no future as a big-screen icon, and her tale will have minimal impact on the larger narratives to come—making this latest stab at brand extension another Marvel act of unintentional self-sabotage.
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