Invincible Iron Man: Ironheart, Vol. 2: Choices (2018)

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.

I understand that, with the next volume, writing duties were handed over to Eve Ewing, a Black female writer, and that a number of critiques of Riri’s characterization were smoothed out after that. So even though my reaction has been mixed so far, I do looking forward to reading more Ironheart.

Invincible Iron Man: Ironheart, Vol. 1: Riri Williams (2018)

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while and finally got around to checking out the first volume on Riri Williams a.k.a. Ironheart. So far, I’m not quite sold – I wanted to like it more than I did (premise spoilers.)

15-year-old Riri Williams is a genius. After building her own Iron Man-style armor in the garage of her Chicago home, she’s sent an unexpected surprise: an A.I. constructed from the consciousness of the late Tony Stark. With the Tony A.I. interface in her suit, Riri trains, further developing both her technology and her skills at using it, as she tries to figure out what kind of hero she wants to be.

I’ll jump around a little in this review. First of all, I like a lot of the stuff on the more traditional Iron Man side of things. There are some neat things going on at Stark Industries, including Mary Jane Watson having a prominent role in the company (I think I’m finally starting to get used to all the character crossovers I find in comic books) and the F.R.I.D.A.Y. A.I. having a holographic form, and there are some nice scenes for Pepper/Rescue. The Tony A.I. and the reaction to it is also pretty good – I love the line, “Tony thinks creating an A.I. that is exactly like him with no mute button is a gift.”

I also like the sequences here involving the main baddie. Although Iron Man has made appearances in some of the other Marvel comics I read, mostly around the Civil War II timeframe, the majority of the stuff I read involves heroes with powers, and so their villains often present obstacles that require a superpowered response (with the occasional tech-heavy assist.) Here, though, it’s not just about Riri punching, flying, or repulsor-blasting her foes away. Technology is integral to the problem at hand, and combating it requires Riri to learn how to use her suit effectively and adapt to her opponent’s own tech on the fly, figuring out how it works and how she can stop it.

Unfortunately, so far, the part that doesn’t fully work for me is Riri herself. I really like the concept of her – who doesn’t love the idea of a supergenius teenage gearhead building flying armor in her garage? – but the execution seems wobbly so far. She doesn’t quite gel for me as a real person. It feels like the (white male) writer who created her is leaning into a “Girl Power” narrative but forgetting the “Black Girl Magic” part. Other than a somewhat-overwritten “Chicago gang violence” tragedy in her past, we don’t see much evidence of Riri’s race playing any part in her characterization. Not that I think writers are inherently incapable of writing protagonists whose identities are very different than their own, but it feels to me like, here, the work wasn’t done to ensure that Riri felt true. (I do love her hairstyle, though – the artwork is on point!)

I’ve heard that there are some course-corrections on this front later on, so I have no immediate plans to write off the title. I’d like to read a little more and see how the character settles in.

Warnings

Violence (both of the comic-book and more grounded varieties) and thematic elements.