Disney Plus’ Ironheart is an underwhelming series for many reasons. It’s tonally inconsistent, zipping between whimsical singalongs and somber sequences tracking the long-term impact of gun violence. Like so many MCU shows, it’s more concerned with setting up the next part of the franchise than telling a satisfying standalone story. Its biggest fight scene takes place in a White Castle, reducing the impact with egregious product placement. But in the finale, it introduces an entirely new set of problems, demonstrating that the whole series has been riding on a twist that fails to land.
[Ed. note: Major spoilers ahead for the ending of Ironheart.]
Image: Marvel Studios
In many ways, Ironheart follows the classic trajectory for a Marvel Cinematic Universe origin story. Mechanical genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) hits a low point when she realizes she was wrong to trust charismatic thief Parker Robbins, aka The Hood (Anthony Ramos), whose allies nearly kill her, and destroy the Iron Man-style suit she worked so hard to build. Yet she’s lifted back up by the love of her friends and family, who help her rebuild and defeat The Hood in a fight that uses too much mediocre CGI.
But instead of being invited to join the Young Avengers, Riri gets a different sort of proposal. The Hood’s patron, Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen), offers Riri the chance to resurrect her best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross), who was killed in a drive-by shooting, accidentally resurrected as an AI, then unintentionally deleted when Riri powered her newest suit with magic. Even after seeing how poorly Parker’s deal with the devil turned out, Riri accepts Mephisto’s help, a decision that sets her up to be an agent of one of the most powerful forces of evil in the MCU.
The twist feels like it’s meant to be shocking, but it doesn’t have much impact because of how poorly Riri, The Hood, and Mephisto are developed before Ironheart’s finale. Riri was introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as a reckless genius whose technology nearly starts a war. That’s meant to build parallels between Riri and Tony Stark/Iron Man, whose recklessness led to Ultron nearly wiping out humanity. But while Iron Man repeatedly saved the Earth, Riri never actually saves anyone. She’s never a hero and barely an anti-hero, despite executive producer Sev Ohanian comparing her to Walter White and Tony Soprano.
Throughout the series, Riri is repeatedly asked why she’s so obsessed with building high-tech armor, and she smugly responds “Because I could.” But the real reason is because she’s traumatized by witnessing the deaths of her best friend and stepfather, and she doesn’t want to be a helpless bystander again. She sees the suit as a way to protect the people she loves. It’s a reasonable motivation, not dissimilar from the obsessions that drive Batman or Iron Man, even though the execution is questionable.
Image: Marvel Studios
Riri has the same motivation in the Ironheart comics, where she flies around protecting both government summits and small businesses, but frets that she’s ruled by fear and that she isn’t helping enough people. Her friends and family worry that she’s taking unnecessary risks because of her grief, and she grows by learning to ask for help, and going with her mom to a support group for people traumatized by gun violence.
But the show’s version of Riri never uses the suit to do anything except assist in armed robberies and fight her former allies. She starts the season by selling her tech to other students to submit as their own homework, then complaining about being kicked out of MIT. She has a serious entitlement issue, getting resources by working with criminals and blackmailing Zeke Stane (Alden Ehrenreich) and stealing his black-market equipment. When her sloppiness with tech she and Zeke worked on together ruins his life, she expects forgiveness without doing anything to make things right.
If Ironheart is meant to be a story of a hero falling to pain and temptation, it would have felt more meaningful if Riri had tried and failed to save people, instead of just spending the entire season pursuing wealth and power. Losing Natalie again right before her big battle with The Hood clearly retraumatizes her and leaves her vulnerable to Mephisto. But she could have sought emotional support from her friends and family, who just proved their love and loyalty by helping her prepare her for the fight. Instead, she throws away the lesson she seemingly just learned about asking for help, backsliding on the one piece of growth she showed during the season.
Riri’s motivations might have been better set up by establishing parallels between her and Parker, whose bargain with Mephisto came at a low point after Parker tried and failed to rob his rich, negligent father. Keeping Mephisto a secret until the finale tantalized fans who have been anticipating the character’s introduction anticipating the character’s MCU introduction since 2021, but it makes Parker a villain who coasts by on mysterious vibes, then ceases to be relevant as soon as his boss is revealed. Is Mephisto a mediocre judge of talent, given that The Hood doesn’t amount to much? Does he just make lots of deals in hopes some of them will pan out? Or was signing Parker part of a long-term scheme to get someone with Riri’s potential? The show doesn’t provide an answer.
Image: Marvel Studios
There was a point during the season where I was convinced that Parker’s loyal lieutenant and cousin John (Manny Montana) had died during that house robbery, and that Mephisto had resurrected him in exchange for having Parker force the rich and powerful to sign diabolical contracts. But the deal just gave Parker a magic cape he could use to get tech moguls to sign over parts of their company at gunpoint, which feels like a particularly convoluted and not remotely legally enforceable way to get rich.
WandaVision fundamentally gets to the same place as Ironheart, with a comic book hero turning to dark magic to try to regain someone she’s loved and lost. But Wanda Maximoff had plenty of time in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Infinity War to demonstrate both her dark and heroic aspects. Even then, she wound up in a fundamentally unsatisfying place as the villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Riri will presumably get a similar role in some upcoming project, maybe with the chance to redeem herself by doing something heroic that will bring her in line with the comic book character.
Until then, Ironheart is just the latest iteration of the questionable morality of the MCU, which brands anyone seeking power as a villain while lifting up those who are born with special abilities, or receive them through some kind of random accident. Iron Man was born rich and developed his suit to fix problems he and his family business were responsible for, and he became the MCU’s greatest hero. Riri rises up from nothing, but she’s painted throughout the show as careless and selfish, making it questionable whether her desire to protect people from senseless violence is even sincere. Riri’s story could have been uplifting or tragic, but Ironheart never even gave her a chance to be either.
