Marvel's Ironheart, Season 1, Episode 1: Take Me Home
And this show itself was within Marvel/Disney's own mothballed storage box, being delayed since forever. Debuting in the MCU in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as a bit of a 'plot device character' that Shuri and Namor are hunting, Riri Williams didn't make the best impression as far as the audience goes. And she is framed -- just like her comics counterpart -- to being the Iron Man successor. The problem, of course, is how unnatural the connection between Iron Man and Ironheart all feels. (Not counting that Marvel's already positioned Spider-Man and to a lesser extent War Machine as Tony's successors). It's something that a lot of other critics and reviewers have used far stronger language towards, but it definitely rings true.
Throw in the massive delays this show received, and general audience fatigue at announcing and giving spinoffs to brand-new characters instead of those that are waiting for a show... and Ironheart really felt doomed before it began. Further bits of confusion were thrown in when the villain of the piece was announced to be the Hood, a magic-themed supervillain, against the technologically-inclined Ironheart... especially in her debut series.
And the first episode... it was competently shot, no doubt, but it doesn't do the lead character any favours. A lot of new characters and situations are thrown at us without really taking the time to tell us who Riri is. Even in the weaker MCU projects, at least they do a decent job at trying to make us emphatize and like the lead character.
Ironheart... starts off having Riri talk big about her plans to be better than geniuses like Tony Stark and Hank Pym. Fair enough, some superheroes and characters have a charmingly arrogant streak to them. Tony Stark being one of them. But then we get a very rushed introduction to Riri's situation, where since Wakanda Forever, she's employed in a scholarship program in the very prestigious university of MIT... and just bitches about how she doesn't have enough money to make a 'better' Iron Man armour. Instead, she spends most of this highly privileged situation going around helping other students cheat. This leads her into a very reasonable confrontation and expulsion by the teachers, to which Riri just acts entirely indignant towards.
Riri's solution to expulsion is to steal the Ironheart armour that technically and financially beonged to the institute due to the grant money being theirs; having said armour get deactivated because she stole it, and she returns to her neighbourhood.
And... I don't know. All this really feels jumpy and awkward as they don't go too far in either direction. If the idea of these scenes is to highlight 'the System takes away the accomplishments of underprivileged geniuses' (which would be a valid storyline), it certainly doesn't do a good job as all the school staff make very reasonable arguments and Riri ends up loking petulant in the show. Riri spends all her screentime saying that "I could make an Iron Man armour if I had money", and money drives all her decisions.
It's a bit of a problematic stance, because all this really does make Riri unlikeable. Superhero shows and origin stories has had a record of being able to make unfortunate situations seem reasonable and get us to root for the underdog. But the entitlement that Riri gives off really does run contrary to the entire origin story of Iron Man himself ("he built it in a cave with a box of scraps", as the memed scene often goes) and the fact that Riri never gives a proper reason other than wanting to be noticed... yeah. We've got a lot of heroes, even in the MCU, who aren't traditionally heroic and have a lot of ego and do crimes. But they usually are tempered by establishing very early on that beneath all the bluster is a good heart.
Coupled to that is that Riri's whole thing is that she's supposed to be a super-genius on the par of Tony Stark, Hank Pym and Shuri. This was demonstrated by her status as the only person able to create the vibranium detector in Wakanda Forever, and being able to create the Ironheart suit here... but also gets her suit hacked without any real intelligent response but to scream and curse. Later on in the episode, her 'big moment' of showing off her skills to the criminal gang is to... smash some glass and hotwire an elevator, which seems ineptly mundane for, again, a 'techy' smart character.
Anyway, after falling out of the sky, we spend a lot of time having Riri go 'woe is me' as she gets harnagued by her mother's friends. Perhaps the only interesting aspect of this is the hints of Riri's dead best friend Natalie, which kind of humanizes Riri a bit. Maybe if Riri's weird obsession with making an Iron suit was tied somehow to Natalie's death, it would've come off a bit better? Anyway, Riri scans her own brain to create an AI for her Ironheart suit and it somehow manifests in the image of Natalie, leading to some strange AI-ghost shenanigans in the upcoming episodes. That's the cliffhanger, though.
For the second half of the episode, we get introduced to a motley crew of obscure Marvel villains, all recasted beyond recognition even by the MCU's standards. The only one that remotely resembles his comic-book counterpart in looks and lore is The Hood, Parker Williams. The Hood is... all right. He's a competent enough 'gang leader' villain. They recruit Riri when they recognize her vulnerability, and put her through the aforementioned 'trial-by-fire' deathtrap interview.
Despite being clearly recruited by a gang of criminals who are clearly up to no good, Riri makes a token effort at resisting their recruitment -- and the show makes it feel more like she did it because of the deathtrap thing, less so for the criminal thing. The promises of money makes Riri agree to join the gang.
The show seems to want to position the Hood's gang as being something similar to like, the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man's heist team or something, but they are straight up, well, criminals. Ain't nothing wrong with that, but the episode seems to treat them as being super-cool becuase they... stick it to the man! Yeah! That justifies throwing people into deathtraps! They are like a much, much less interesting and less nuanced version of Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming.
And again, the lack of motive really hurts Riri's likability and credibility as a protagonist. There is maybe one line early on when she's defending the Iron suits to the MIT professors about using it to help firemen; and another line to her neighbourhood friend Xavier about how the suit wil get her 'noticed'... but comparing her to practically any other superhero from Marvel and DC, there really isn't anything here that is urgent for her to get the suit now now now NOW that justifies her both stealing the suit from MIT and later joining the gang of hooligans.
This really is a clunky start to the series. It's a bit unfortunate -- the protagonist just feels so reactive without having anything particularly likable or interesting about her. And other than the mind-synchronizing thing, Riri's supposed 'superpower' of intelligence doesn't really get displayed much, if at all, other than the lazy shortcuts of other people praising her.
The show is really just confusing all around as well, I'm not sure what they're trying to do here. They're not doing an Iron Man legacy story, they're not tying this to the Black Panther movie, they're doing a rather poor job at introducing Riri and her supporting cast... other MCU shows that have the burden of introducing a new character (Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, even She-Hulk) tend to do a decent to good job at introducing who their core character is in the first episode. This one... doesn't. Not really. And that's probably the biggest failing of one of the weakest shows to come out of the MCU.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment