Marvel's Ironheart, Season 1, Episode 1: Take Me Home
Running six episodes after being delayed since forever, Marvel's Ironheart explores the character of Riri Williams, a super-genius who appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as a bit of a plot device character that the second Black Panther, Shuri, and the antagonistic Namor are fighting over. Unlike her comic counterpart, Riri doesn't actually have anything to do with Iron Man (and is unlikely to meet him, considering the character is deceased in-universe), which does make the idea of her being Tony Stark's successor a bit unnatural.
Throw in the massive delays that impacted this show, and general audience fatigue at giving (and announcing) spinoffs to characters seemingly over more popular characters gave Ironheart a bit of a steep climb to deal with. And casting the Hood -- a magical crook -- as the villain for this tech-y story feels like a really strange formula, especially for Ironheart's first big debut series.
The first episode also really rushes through her decisions, throwing a lot of characters and situations at us without really taking time to develop who Riri is. Wakanda Forever establishes her as being a genius, but she was also a bit over her head in that movie. In a very quick rapid-fire series of scenes, we establish that Riri doesn't have enough money to fund her big dreams of making an Iron Man suit. And while I do understand the fact that the educational and funds-granting system isn't always on the side of talented people, I felt like the show should've spent some time highlighting Riri being screwed by the system instead of handwaving it to the wayside. It also really glosses over the real objective of Riri's goals beyond a vague 'it's the way to get noticed' and some stuff about it being able to help people.
(The show also doesn't do a particularly good job at justifying why Riri, who was established in Wakanda Forever to be one of the only people able to create the Vibranium-detecting plot device, wasn't like immediately scouted by Stark Industries or Wakanda or like a dozen different acronym super-spy organizations).
Instead, the show seems to focus more on her breaking university policy to sell projects to every other student in the area; not delivering any of her project and causing a fire; showing attitude to her teachers; and steal the Ironheart suit and flies back to Chicago. I get that the idea was supposed to show that Riri is being oppressed by the big people in the university. But the show rushes through this so fast that until sitting down to do this review, I didn't realize that I was supposed to feel sorry for her instead of going 'okay, she's a bit of a reckless rulebreaker'.
Instead, the show spends a bit too much time showing Riri moping around dragging the broken parts of her suit back home, and getting harangued by her mother's friends. We get to see a bunch of the people living in Riri's neighbourhood, most notably with slow hints of Riri's old best friend Natalie who's implied to have passed away at some point. The bits with Riri dealing with Natalie -- whether listening to the mixtape made by Natalie's brother Xavier, or the eventual shock at seeing Riri's AI manifest in Natalie's image at the end of the episode -- gives actress Dominique Thorne perhaps the biggest scenes to really act, something that I really do appreciate since in these scenes, I felt like the show gives Riri chance to breathe and show us who she is.
Because for the rest of the episode, poor Riri is very reactive towards everything that happens to her, being generally irritated to everything going on. And what's going on is that a random gang made of obscure Marvel villains, led by the Hood, spies on Riri when she crash-lands in her Ironheart suit. One of the Hood's minions, John King, shows up when Riri tries to haggle for spare parts to fix her Ironheart suit, and Riri gets put through a 'trial-by-fire' deathtrap where she's supposed to disarm a gas bomb inside of an elevator. Riri finds a different way out of the test, reactivating the elevator instead of looking for a mask, but very understandably refuses to join the gang of clear criminals. However, the assurance that she won't be made to hurt anyone on a heist, and the promise of money makes Riri reconsider.
And again... I don't know. Riri does have the whole speech with Xavier earlier in the episode talking about how making the best Iron suit better than anyone would get her noticed and everything, but I really don't get the sense of urgency why Riri needs to make this now now now that made her break all the rules at MIT, and especially not to join this batch of hooligans. I don't really find her vague handwave of making response time faster, or that this is going to be her big ticket, particularly convincing. It all feels a bit too clunky, that this has to happen because we only have six episodes left, and we need certain other things to happen.
It doesn't help that the Hood and his goons (of which there are a bit too many) aren't particularly impressive. There are a couple of jokes like the guy who constantly wants to be called Rampage, but other than the manipulative side, and the ominous demonic sequences when he hangs up the Hood, they kind of just seem like... like thugs. Not crass or violent ones that make them instantly unlikable... but I really didn't vibe with them, you know? Maybe they'll be a bit better in the second episode?
The end of the episode has Riri patch up her broken-up suit, but then she gets a flashback to the night that Natalie died (it's not shown but basically confirmed that she and Riri's stepfather died during a tragic shooting). This happens right as Riri is about to do some sci-fi mind-sycnhronization thing, and she wakes up with the AI avatar taking the form of Natalie. That's the big cliffhanger to the episode.
And... I don't know. This really feels like a clunky start to the series, and while I do like the brief moments that our lead actress got to show her acting chops, I also felt like the movie jumps from one minor character to the next without really bothering to introduce them, which is unlike how other shows like Ms. Marvel or Moon Knight or Hawkeye or the Netflix-Marvel shows had handled their respective large cast introductions. But those shows, I feel, really 'got' their respective central characters, whereas Riri is just being pushed in all directions without showing the audience just who Riri is and why we should root for her. They're not trying to do an Iron Man legacy story, they're not trying to tie this to the Black Panther movie that introduced Riri, and they're trying to set up their own thing, which I respect... but they can't do that without properly telling us who our main character is. And I felt like they should've maybe spent more of the first episode doing that before dropping a whole lot of other side characters that Riri pinballs back and forth with.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- Riri Williams and her little sojourn in Wakanda happened during Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
- In the opening sequence, Riri name-drops Hank Pym and Tony Stark. Thor is also mentioned by Natalie.
- Riri uses a copy of Scott Lang/Ant-Man's book, 'Look Out For The Little Guy', seen in Quantumania, to smuggle USBs and money in the opening sequence.
- Wilkes, the male MIT faculty member, previously appeared in Civil War trying to get grant money from Tony Stark.
- One of the random people in the streets is yelling about Thanos.
- The Hood (Parker Robbins) is a supervillain that originated as a Daredevil enemy, but would menace various superheroes based in New York. Originally a petty criminal, the Hood managed to chance upon a demon summoned to the real world, killed him, and robbed him of his magical hood and boots, allowing him to gain an edge over other criminals in the New York underworld.
- The robber gang in the comics, most of whom don't have much in common with their live-action counterparts. Clown, Slug and one of the Blood Brothers are gender-flipped.
- Rampage (Stuart Clarke) is a minor supervillain who created an exo-skeleton suit, and upon reforming eventually became an ally of the Punisher.
- Clown (Eliot Franklin) is a member of the supervillain team called the Circus of Crime, normally associated with Hawkeye and the Avengers. Not to be confused with a different Hawkeye villain called Clown (Kazi Kazimierczak), who had appeared in the Hawkeye show.
- Slug (Ulysses Lugman) is a mutant whose ability allowed him to have immense weight more than a human body should physically handle. He works as a drug boss, and has faced various superheroes like Captain America and Spider-Man.
- The Blood Brothers are a pair of ape-like alien twins in the comics working for Thanos that menaced the Avengers. This incarnation turns them to a brother-sister duo, renaming them as the Blood Siblings.
- John King was the Hood's cousin and loyal lieutenant in the comics, having discovered the demon that Parker would kill to gain the Hood.
- In the comics, Riri had a friend called Natalie who passed away thanks to some drive-by shooting. Natalie would serve as the inspiration of Riri's suit AI, N.A.T.A.L.I.E.
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