THE PREMISE:

"Genius teenage inventor Riri Williams creates the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man."

OUR REVIEW:

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s post-Endgame sprawl – where gods cry, timelines collapse, and Nick Fury takes a nap in space – a Chicago teen crashing in a janky Iron Man suit feels like a welcome return to earth. 

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Ironheart, the latest Disney+ entry and spiritual heir to Tony Stark’s legacy, is messy, scrappy, and smarter than it looks – just like its lead.

Introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) was “the greatest inventor of her generation,” starting at MIT at 15 with ambitions to change the world. 

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Ironheart picks up where the movie left off. In the series’ winking cold open, Riri is expelled from school, flies off campus with her half-finished suit, and crashlands in Chicago. The crash carves the words “Iron Heart” into the pavement as a bystander deadpans, “You need, like … a band-aid?”

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That’s the tone of Ironheart at its best: self-aware without slipping into parody, heartfelt without being corny, and willing to wink at the absurdity of superhero logic without dunking on it entirely.

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Created and helmed by poet and screenwriter Chinaka Hodge, with the first three episodes directed by Sam Bailey (Brown Girls), the series sets Riri back in her Chicago hometown caught between magic and machine, past and present. She’s grieving the violent deaths of her stepdad and her best friend, Natalie (Lyric Ross), and living with her mother (Anji White). 

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When she’s recruited by a Robin Hood-adjacent high-tech gang, she ends up crossing paths with The Hood, aka Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), a cloak-wearing mystery man who doles out cryptic threats with the same energy he might order a black coffee.

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Riri needs money to finish her suit. The Hood has it. The deal’s clear: help the crew pull off a few jobs targeting corrupt tech moguls and developers – “rich assholes,” as the gang lovingly puts it – and get the resources she needs. 

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But the closer Riri gets, the more it’s clear that The Hood isn’t just a gangster. His powers, centered around a supernatural cloak that makes bullets bend and himself vanish into thin air, are something else entirely. Magic? Hellspawn? Could it be … Mephisto? 

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It’s a smart choice to position The Hood as something other than a carbon-copy evil twin of the hero. Where Riri is logic, tech, and trauma, he’s mysticism, mystery, and menace. Ramos delivers a convincing villain that’s a little charming, a lot creepy, and very unpredictable.

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Thorne carries the show, as she should. Her Riri is brilliant, vulnerable, quick with a comeback but never one-note. Whether she’s hashing out AI code with Joe (Alden Ehrenreich, who slides into the comic relief role with a smirk and some well-timed weirdness) or arguing with the AI ghost of her best friend, she brings heart to every beat. 

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And yes – that AI bit is goofy, even by Marvel standards, but it becomes a clever lens for exploring Riri’s grief and guilt.

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The supporting crew brings flair. Ross’s Natalie is equal parts conscience and sugary chaos. Shea Couleé’s hacker-turned-hero Slug makes a memorable debut as the MCU’s first trans character. And Ehrenreich gets more to do in the third episode, linking his backstory to an early MCU villain in a way that mostly feels earned.

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Visually, the show looks fine, though it rarely swings for the fences. Some effects shots lean more “streaming series” than blockbuster spectacle. But the new suit looks more handmade, more “in a cave from scraps” Tony than Wakandan nanotech, which feels right for Riri’s ethos.

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There’s a lot going on here – maybe a little too much. The show tries to juggle trauma, class war, magical realism, techno-thriller hijinks, and teenage angst. And while it doesn’t always stick the landing, it does manage to stay airborne. What it lacks in polish, it makes up for in tone and voice.

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And that voice matters. This is the MCU seen through the eyes of a Black teenage girl from Chicago – not a billionaire in Malibu, not a god from Asgard. That’s no small thing. 

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Riri’s story is about grief, genius, and growing up in a world that doesn’t quite know what to do with you. It’s about finding power on your own terms. And about calling out corrupt systems while still stealing a laugh.

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Ironheart doesn’t hit the weird, genre-breaking highs of WandaVision or Loki, but it easily clears the low bar left by Secret Invasion and Echo. At its best, it’s earnest, engaging, and full of potential. At its worst, it’s still fun enough.

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The first three episodes end on a cliffhanger that promises deeper darkness and bigger stakes. If the back half sticks the landing, Ironheart could be a breakout hit. If not? Well, it’s still better than Iron Man 2.