Riri Williams is forging her own legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever introduced the 19-year-old engineer (played by Dominique Thorne) as the inventor of a vibranium detector — and her own “Iron Man suit” of armor. But unlike her comic book counterpart, who built her first suit of armor as a 15-year-old MIT student in 2016’s Invincible Iron Man #7, Riri isn’t Tony Stark’s protégé in the Disney+ series Ironheart.
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In the comics, Riri reverse-engineered Stark’s Mark-41 suit of Iron Man armor and put her own spin on Stark’s tech. The armored Avenger mentored Riri despite his apparent death during Civil War II, downloading his consciousness into an advanced artificial intelligence construct to train Riri.
With Stark as her suit’s A.I., Riri officially took the name Ironheart — a moniker coined by Stark — in honor of her childhood friend Natalie Washington, a victim of gun violence who died after being shot in the heart. Considering Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark died saving the world in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, Riri isn’t the heir to the Iron Man armory in Marvel Television’s Ironheart series.
“Riri is a contemporary of Tony Stark’s. She definitely believes in him and loves the legacy he left for her,” series creator and showrunner Chinaka Hodge tells ComicBook. “But Riri is intent on making her own iconic legacy. She’s not interested in being the heir to Iron Man. She’s interested in being her very own Ironheart.”
“If she were going to be Iron Man, she has a framework and a blueprint,” she adds. “But she was trying to create her own suit, narrative, and trajectory in the MCU. So I feel very, very blessed to help create an iconic character in her own right.”
While Riri herself may not have much connection to Tony Stark besides her Iron Man-inspired armor, Hodge teases that Ironheart has a connection to the original Iron Man, which launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008.
“That’s one of the fun things that happens when you’re in a Marvel [writers’] room. They have a very long institutional memory,” Hodge says, adding that creative executives Zoie Nagelhout (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Kelsey Lew (Daredevil: Born Again) had ideas to tie Ironheart to Iron Man in an unexpected way. “They were like, ‘Here’s some fun things you can play with. Don’t forget this story. ‘What about this storyline?’”
Hodge, who has worked on the Steven Spielberg-produced Amazing Stories and the Mike Flanagan co-created The Midnight Club, is also a “huge fan” of the first Iron Man movie. “Iron Man, Iron Man 2, I saw those movies so many times in theaters,” Hodge says of the two installments helmed by Jon Favreau. “So it was so fun to be able to pull some of what I watched in Marvel and pull it into this show.”
During a recent video message appearance on GMA, former Iron Man actor Downey told Thorne he “couldn’t be happier than to be seeing you bring Riri Williams to life.” Downey, who will next appear as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, added that “Iron Man loves Ironheart.”
Ironheart, starring Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Anthony Ramos (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) as Parker Robbins/the Hood, Sonia Denis (Birdgirl) as Clown, Zoe Terakes (Talk to Me) and Shakira Barrera (GLOW) as the Blood Siblings, Manny Montana (Good Girls) as John, Shea Couleé (RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars) as Slug, Eric Andrè (The Eric Andre Show) as Stuart Clarke/Rampage, and Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) as Joe McGillicuddy, arrives with a three-episode premiere June 24 on Disney+. A second batch of the season’s final three episodes premieres a week later on July 1.
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(Photo by Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)
