Last month we learned that Tony Stark would be stepping down as Iron Man, and bequeathing his role to Riri Williams, a young science prodigy who had fashioned her own version of Starks’s Iron Man suit. Now, in a WIRED exclusive, Marvel has revealed that when Williams officially steps into the role this November, she’ll be known as Ironheart.
Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stefano Caselli have teamed up to create Ironheart’s beginning in this fall’s Invincible Iron Man #1. While Williams and Stark have recently met in the current run of Invincible Iron Man, the new volume will serve as the official transition into Riri’s Stark-sanctioned heroism.
The new character name, Bendis says, came out of a group discussion with editors.“Iron Woman seemed old fashioned to some,” he says. “Iron Maiden looked like a legal nightmare. And Ironheart, coined by Joe Quesada, after I told him my planned story for Riri, speaks not only to the soul of the character but to the Iron Man franchise as a whole. Tony first put on the armor to save his heart. Riri puts it on for different reasons altogether but still heart-related. When people see her story, you’ll be amazed at how simple and brilliant Joe’s suggestion was.”
Williams, who enrolled at MIT at 15, reverse-engineered a suit of power armor in her dorm room–but that doesn’t mean Stark won’t be part of the Iron Man ethos: Riri’s in-armor A.I. will based on Tony’s own personality. “Regardless of where he might be physically,” says Tom Breevort, who’s editing the series, “he’ll be soaring along with her spiritually.”
Ironheart is yet another signal–along with Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales as Spider-Man, Jane Foster as the new Thor, and Amadeus Cho as the Hulk–that Marvel is moving toward a more inclusive universe. And as with so many of those mantle-passings, the original announcement that an African-American woman would replace Tony Stark led to a backlash from the Internet’s comment sectioneers, as well as a separate conversation about the importance of who’s actually telling the stories. But for most, Williams taking the suit has been a celebration. As Bendis told Time earlier this year, “We never had a meeting saying, ‘We need to create this character.’ It’s inspired by the world around me and not seeing that represented enough in popular culture.”
Either way, the cover art of Williams in her suit–along with its variant cover above, depicting Williams admiring her own handiwork–looks great. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if Bendis can tell an Ironheart story as great as the ones he’s given Tony Stark over the years.
I think destroy might be too harsh a term, but come on.. Why cant they just invent new characters?? All the current characters were invented and new and fresh at some point. Is there just no way to make a new hero that is fun to read and seams like a legitimate addition to the universe as a whole? I can just hear the marvel execs in a room brainstorming.. “ok a black spider man, a female venom, oh i got it a trans gender captain america!!, oh that one is great!! *claps hands pounds desk* ok, ok a gay korean midget transgender super man!! *silence* to far?? no no its just the name superman is to male centric *long pause* ok ok Super Midget Transgender Korean Human Person (that like animals too). *rips off shirt jumps on desk beating chest*” ok so maybe its not quite like that but.. this is just getting nearly as dumb as that..
I think a female Asian midget to play Michael Jordan in a new Michael Jordan Graphic Novel!!
🙂
I think a female Asian midget to play Michael Jordan in a new Michael Jordan Graphic Novel
I like that!! Marvel: Cosplay Universe
“There is nothing “inclusive” about this. It is simply the sexist
insistence that women cannot enjoy super heroes that aren’t women.”
Of course, of course. That’s why you don’t find women reading and watching movies and books about male super heroes!
“Now before the preschoolers say that I’m doing the same thing, it is not
the fact that they are women that is my concern here. It is the
insistence that they NEED to be.”
You always make comments in the same negative tone. So much butthurt, indeed. Once again.
Yes, we NEED female heroes. They are a part of our population in this little planted called Earth and they NEED to be ACCURATELY represented. Madame Curie died, just one of our real life heroes, in the name of science. She had a big heart for the sake of Humanity.
Educate yourself and develop some empathy. Then again, closeted misogynists are a thing and I am afraid there isn’t a cure.
You’ve obviously haven’t been reading Iron Man comics in their entirety. James Rhodes was Iron Man for a long time and Iron Man did well, even while he was Iron Man during the first Secret Wars! The suite can take anybody. It’s the personality of the character that matters and as long as she’s interesting, Iron Heart will do well! If you don’t like the idea without even reading the first issue, which hasn’t even come out, then go reread old comics and leave the new Marvel Universe to the younger generation!
I don’t care what anybody says, it sounds like an interesting idea and the girl, well, I just love that hair! 🙂
Idk. The male super heroes are the best in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong I love wonder woman but leave the characters alone.
What is amusing is that they’re making all these changes to appeal to people who will never read comics on a regular basis. So, the “market share increase” that Marvel may see initially because of the change will eventually be lost because the prior market stops buying the comic and the new market never picks it up in the first place.
While I admire your sentiment that nobody should care, you are completely wrong with the statement “nobody cares” about race or gender of who’s in the suit. If you believe that you either haven’t been on the internet long or you ignore comment sections. Trust me many people care plenty about this issue. I wish you were right. But to see just how wrong you are just read the comments here.
My point flew way over your head.
No problem. A teenager with raging hormones, no emotional control, no experience in combat tactics, no training, and no field testing is going to jump right in and be Iron Man. Rhodey was a military pilot before ever putting on the suit. Jane Foster was a trauma doctor and joined Cap’s resistance in the first Civil War before ever picking up the hammer. The kid thing actually works in the Spider Man storyline because that’s what Spider Man started out as.
They might as well change the name of the company to the CosPlay Universe.
I’d actually be surprised if he read at all and quite honestly I suspect that IQ of his is right about 75 as well.
I never thought I’d say this (being all anti PC the way I am) but damn you’re right.
The two idiots above make having any kind of conversation about Marvels current tactic to up readership ridiculously impossible.
Let me be clear here.
I love new characters, I even love the idea of legacy characters passing the mantle on to someone new. I’d kind of like to see my hero’s age with me seeing as how they were older than me when I started reading comics in the 60’s and they are now “younger” than me. Unless you’re Thor, Wolverine or Captain America (or Superman, Shazam and Wonder Woman if you love DC as well) I’d kind of like you to get older with me.
This is why the IronHeart idea is kind of cool. Tony has been absent and a smart kid with a ton of talent and drive makes her own armor to stand in for him till he reappears. He shows up and hands the crown to her.
That is perfect legacy hand-off and the character feels accurate to the series.
The Thor change up is fine by me as well I just wish it had been Sif rather than Jane as it seems using Jane is just pandering to the movie audience rather than the faithful comic readers.
Some of the other just seem… forced to me. We can have that conversation but mostly it just feels like the comic industry has been stuck in a rut of comic fans becoming writers and artists who end up working for a huge conglomerate run by a psycho (Ike Perlmutter) and forced to write only about the same legacy characters rather than developing a whole new stable of characters to be the answer for a new age of comic fans. Instead we get retreads, reboots and replacement of the legacy character but not his/her super identity. The world is a huge place full of wonderful people of all race, size and gender why is it we can’t come up with some new ideas for what hero’s are?
Nope, the FF movie franchise license is owned by Fox and Marvel has zero control over it. It’s been that way since the first FF movie. The same thing happened with Spider-man, which is why Marvel and Sony had to negotiate so Marvel could get the rights back.
Between that goofy name and “Riri” sounding like a noise a really drunk person makes it seems like they just gave up.
I don’t see the correlation. This isn’t a movie it is a comic book. Not made in Hollywood but drawn/written in NY.
I am unsure how anyone confused this announcement with a movie announcement but there are multiple people complaining about this as if it is a movie announcement.
Bah… LTR
Huh? This isn’t a movie it’s just a comic book still. Give it a year at best and it will go back to being Tony full time. History has shown that Marvel ALWAYS reverts to the legacy character in the end.
The Frankfurt School marches on.
The people who upvote my post do.
As do the others who walk.
Good luck paying the bills & keeping the lights on without the old fans.
Put her in Phase 4 of the MCU.
No she just thought the Uni-beam looked like the Carebear Stare.
How is it destroying the character in this particular case? Tony takes time off from being Iron Man every 10 to 15 years or so. My issue is they are calling her the “New Iron man” when obviously she isn’t. So they are trying to score PC points without actually taking a risk. IMO, The way they should do it is have Tony retire as Iron Man again and point to some big burly guy and say taking over for me will be him, I have every confidence that he will make a great Iron Man. While in reality his new “intern” and resent MIT Graduate(at age 15) is the one in the suit. This would give Riri an extra layer of anonymity and allow for more story telling opportunities. Plus when Tony comes back out of retirement he can hold a press conference and reveal who Iron man truly was and her new Armor she developed herself using all the resources of Stark Industries.
Lastly, I think her hero name really sucks…it sounds like it belongs to a Carebear to me.
Agreed
How about Ironhead? Dumbass movie execs getting overly PC over a superhero.