Ironheart is the newest series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and the latest to face “review-bombing” by disgruntled groups online. The series had a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes‘ Popcornmeter before it even premiered on Tuesday, meaning those leaving negative reviews had likely not seen it for themselves. It’s a concerning trend in the MCU and in geek culture in general, especially since at least some participants lash out specifically at productions with diverse casts and creators. Thankfully, Ironheart scores seem to be bouncing back quickly since the show premiered on Tuesday night, but in the meantime, anyone on the fence about giving the show a try would have encountered a dismal review online.
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Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter takes an average from user-submitted reviews that anyone can add to the site. At the time of this writing, Ironheart has a 68% positive score on the Popcornmeter, with an average rating of 3.6 out of 10. However, the score was at 32% on Tuesday before the premiere, likely due to intentional review-bombing. The only way to have seen the show before its premiere would have been at the red carpet premiere on Monday, and even then, many of the attendees were critics whose reviews would have been counted on the Tomatometer instead.
That’s not to say that an honest review of Ironheart can’t be negative — in fact, critics seem to be lukewarm on the series in general. It currently has a 70% positive rating on the Tomatometer, with many critics finding the first three episodes interesting, if a little awkward. Fans are entitled to their feelings on this show once they’ve seen it, but review-bombing refers to those who flood the internet with negative scores without even seeing a piece of media out of spite for the way it was made or released.
The MCU has unfortunately become very familiar with review-bombing. The franchise was hit hard in 2019 with Captain Marvel, prompting Rotten Tomatoes to change the way users submitted their own reviews. Star Wars has also seen a fair amount of this activity, and just this year there was talk of review-bombing around the live-action Snow White remake. In many of these cases, there was also speculation about the use of bots to log multiple negative reviews all at once, but that is often hard to track or verify.
Ironheart premiered on Tuesday with three episodes, and many fans are enjoying the show. It concludes on Tuesday, July 1st with three more episodes dropping on Disney+.
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