Riri Williams/Ironheart burst onto screens in the 2022 blockbuster, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a touching cinematic tribute to the late, great Chadwick Boseman. The film was a complete success, not just in its box office earnings or in its tribute to Boseman, but in carving a path forward through Ironheart, as brought to the screen by relative newcomer, Dominique Thorne.
Thorne was tasked with not only ingratiating herself into a grieving cast, but with shouldering the legacy of the MCU’s founding father, Robert Downey Jr, and bringing a character to screen that never quite became a sensation in the comics. Yet with all that pressure, Thorne and Riri Williams triumphed. Riri Williams was the comic relief in an otherwise emotionally hefty film, and as such became a fan favorite and an exciting anchor into the future of the MCU. Her wittiness, immense intelligence yet vulnerability and grief offered a different shade to the current crop of MCU geniuses and pushed her to the forefront of the new characters introduced in Marvel’s post-Endgame era.
Yet after a Phase 5 riddled with production problems, sub-par entries and a 2-year-long delay, Ironheart came crashing down onto Disney+ in two, three-episode premiere dates (as opposed to the weekly release afforded to other Marvel shows). All of the excitement built from Coogler’s Black Panther sequel and by Thorne’s debut performance had been eroded by Marvel’s rocky Phase 5. A cinematic marketplace flooded with sub-par entries and the famed Marvel cohesion being basically non-existent, left both casual fans and the most die-hards struggling to find excitement in Marvel’s future, and as the face of that future, Ironheart.
Thorne, Coogler, and showrunner Chinaka Hodge succeeded in continuing the iron-clad legacy of Downey Jr and continuing to build the future of the MCU but it simply wasn’t enough in the current landscape. The series debuted to excellent critic and audience scores, and general fanfare as the best of the recent crop of small-screen MCU content. Most of the reviews praised Thorne’s performance, the re-introduced connectivity of the MCU with both science and magic references, as well as fresh and innovative direction from a duo of fresh female filmmakers.
So why is it that the series isn’t overcoming its production problems within the fanbase to be recognized as the future of the MCU and Williams’ role as the newest Young Avenger?
Well, it’s in the very title itself, ‘Young Avenger.’ The Avengers title used to mean something powerful and important within the sprawling landscape of the Marvel Universe. Casual fans may not know Kamar-Taj, The Dark Dimension, Tao Lo, or Niffelheim, but everyone could recognize the Avengers theme, or each member when they showed up. The brand was powerful, potent, and globally recognizable. When audiences sat down and heard the opening chimes of Silvestri’s score over the Marvel Logo, fans knew they were in for a good time and going to be greeted by their favorite heroes.
After the events of Avengers: Endgame, that titular team disbanded, whether that be through death or retirement, but the team no longer existed… thus causing a significant problem within the MCU. There is no longer a recognizable team, a banner group of heroes that are recognizable to the general audience. To go into an Avengers movie today, most audiences would be confused as to who they would be seeing as that opening fanfare played.
Sure, we can surmise who could be drafted to the MCU’s A-list team, but without clear direction or signposting from either Kevin Feige himself or in-universe confirmation, every new release is plagued by questions of its importance or the relevance of its characters. Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Shang-Chi, Shuri, Ant-Man, Wonder Man, Vision… the list goes on of recent heroes who should feel Avengers-level but have yet to be crowned as that significant within the universe.
This ties back into Ironheart, in that Marvel has slowly been building towards a Young Avengers team. Dating back as early as the first Ant-Man in 2015 with Cassie Lang, seeds have been sown for a group of young heroes to debut in the MCU alongside the titular Avengers. Then, with the introduction of Disney+, we have seen significant leaps in the introduction of these characters: Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness, Patriot in Falcon and Winter Soldier, and now Ironheart in her new series. In a phase that has felt so disconnected and unfocused, the introduction of these young heroes has been a constant.
For a main complaint of audiences being Marvel’s recent inconsistencies, you would think that these Young Avengers would inspire some hope for fans. Yet there has been so little excitement among fans for the debut of this group…
The problem isn’t entirely the characters themselves, nor the actors chosen to bring them to life, but rather the dilution of the Avengers brand and the feeling of substitution. Most audiences would not take kindly to the substitution of a main Avengers team for a mix of teen and barely adult heroes who are all under-trained within the universe. Even worsening the situation is that there is no clear idea of who is currently on the Avengers team that these Young Avengers would be the protégés of.
This is a problem that also affected the box office of Marvel’s most recent theatrical release, Thunderbolts* in that a large part of their marketing was that this team of anti-heroes were being marketed as a dark-Avengers team. Yet there was no proper Avengers team for this group of anti-heroes to be measured against.
The box office failure of that movie can be attributed to the fact that the Avengers name is now becoming so diluted that its name is losing poignancy with general audiences. A similar fate, I feel, awaits the Young Avengers, and that malaise has already affected Ironheart, in that audiences are checking out even before the formation of the team.
Therefore, it isn’t just the production delays or legacy shouldering of the Iron Man name that is affecting Ironheart’s popularity, but that her character is building towards a future in the Young Avengers that very few are actually craving. Audiences simply want to see a core team of titular Avengers back in the MCU, and both the New Avengers and the Young Avengers feel like sub-par substitutes rather than enjoyable additions.
It is a shame that Ironheart is being ignored by fans, because Thorne’s work in the series is excellent and the mythology that is expanded upon from Downey Jr’s original trilogy and from Doctor Strange is very intriguing. Yet the oversaturation of the Avengers title through both the Young Avengers and the New Avengers has left audiences feeling dissatisfied with any projects that aren’t directly linked to the formation of the true Avengers team that should be in charge of the MCU as Downey’s team once was.
Ironheart is available to stream now on Disney+.
— Darragh Evans