I’m
still not wholly sold on Ironheart,
but this volume does have some interesting things going on to recommend it. I
liked it better than volume 1 and am interested to see what follows.
After
the events of the last volume, Riri found herself making quite the splash. All
of the sudden, she’s being variously courted by Stark Industries, the Champions
(essentially, teenage Avengers,) M.I.T., and S.H.I.E.L.D., all while she’s
still getting the hang of her own suit and trying to figure out what kind of
hero she’s going to be. When S.H.I.E.L.D. discovers a crisis in Latveria that can’t
be handled through official channels, Riri is nudged in that direction, but her
approach to the situation isn’t what anyone bargained for.
One
of my favorite things about this volume is that it shows the difficulties of
Riri’s successes. I feel like, early
on, all superhero stories have those moments where the hero realizes just how
deep they’ve gotten (and that seems to go double with the teen superheroes,)
but those themes often come about when we see them fail: going up against a baddie they’re not prepared for and
narrowly escaping with their life, almost getting a bunch of civilians killed
through their mistakes. We see them pick themselves up and learn to keep going.
In Riri’s case, though, it’s her very success that overwhelms her. It’s in the
way we see her struggling to even deal with all the incredible offers coming
her way, let alone choose between them, and we see it too in how the situation
in Latveria gets away from her, even as she’s winning.
The
volume also features some interesting developments with the Tony Stark A.I. –
specifically, the way that he (a digital preservation of a human consciousness)
is different from F.R.I.D.A.Y. (a genuine artificial intelligence.) It’s an
intriguing distinction, and as the characters begin to understand just how
crucial that distinction is, it’s clearly paving the way for more to come.
On
the whole, though, I do think there’s a little too much Tony here (both the
Tony A.I. and reminiscences about the real Tony.) I get that, at this point,
the comic still has Iron Man in the
title, but he does overwhelm the focus at times, taking away from Riri to an
extent. Here, we have several sequences featuring profound insights into Tony,
but we still haven’t dug that far into who Riri is. Plus, constantly having the
A.I. in her ear while she’s fighting feels a little diminishing too, similar to
Peter’s Stark suit in Spider-Man:
Homecoming. While it maybe makes sense for Tony to go overboard in getting
involved with these young heroes’ exploits, it also forces them to share a portion
of their victories with him. There’s a slight sense that, they succeed with him
but they fall on their own. I do enjoy the Tony A.I., but I hope we also start
to see more of Riri as a hero apart from him.
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