Ironheart, Vol. 2: Ten Rings (2020)

Another great volume. This story brings Riri into contact with plenty of other Marvel heroes, takes her to new places, and shakes up her world in a major way. Really liking it.

When a baddie starts a zombie invasion in Chicago, Riri starts to realize that this new villain on the scene has a lot in common with Midnight’s Fire, who she tangled with in the last volume. The common thread is the Ten Rings, and Riri’s quest to learn more about the mysterious organization takes her first across the country and then across the world. But even as she investigates and works to bring the bad guys to justice, what she really craves is to know why the Ten Rings take such an interest in her.

While I think the comic was initially a little clunky in how it portrayed the social isolation that goes hand in hand with Riri’s genius, it’s getting into a better groove with it. Much more so than seeing Riri work alone in her lab while her mom frets about her not spending time with friends, it’s more interesting to see Riri struggle to navigate social situations: not awkward or cold but on a different wavelength than most people, losing herself in her inventions and needing her friends to pull her back. And along with that comes this tug and pull with the Ten Rings, Riri’s conviction that the organization is up to no good and her fears that their interest in her means they recognize a darkness in her that she’s afraid to acknowledge. This portrayal has gotten deeper and more nuanced as the story has gone on, and I’m into it. Also, I won’t get into spoilers, but there are some major developments going on here, and the climactic showdown has huge implications for Riri.

While this arc features appearances from some of the Ironheart characters we’ve come to know, like Xavier, the volume is packed with great Marvel appearances. We’re introduced to a new friendship between Riri and Nadia van Dyne, which I’m assuming is probably something that started in Riri’s appearances with the Champions. I’m not familiar with the character, but I know her name, and as the apparent current legacy of the Wasp, I know her moniker and her abilities well. Doctor Strange shows up too (I feel like he’s the comic character who, to me, bears the closest resemblance to his MCU counterpart – I look at the images of him on the page, and all I see is Benedict Cumberbatch.)

But best of all, Riri’s hunt for the Ten Rings takes her to Wakanda! I love everything about it, from her reaction to the country, to Xavier’s excited/jealous questions, to her interactions with the Wakandan characters. There’s some really good stuff here, and the animation is gorgeous. And for real, why does the MCU not do this? Why do we not get to see Sam or Rhodey’s reaction to being in Wakanda in Infinity War? I would’ve loved that.

Between this volume and the last one, I have a bit of a primer now on what the Ten Rings are and why they’re such a big deal. I’m not sure how helpful that information will be when Shang-Chi finally comes around, but reading this story still gives me a fresh flutter of excitement at the thought of seeing Wenwu wielding the Rings’ power onscreen. Bring me Shang-Chi!

 

Ironheart, Vol. 1: Those with Courage (2019)

Yes, there were only two initial volumes of Ironheart before the count reset here, but I get it. No longer a subheading under the larger Invincible Iron Man title, Riri Williams is doing her own thing now. With a new suit, a new writer, and a reshuffled supporting cast, this is a brand-new Ironheart, and I am pumped for it.

Having lost her previous ties to Stark Industries, Riri is freelance-heroing while (badly) trying to make nice with the MIT folks who are funding her lab. She’s still the most at-ease when she’s on her own tinkering, but even if she’s not the greatest people person, any hero inevitably has compassion for those in need of help, and when Riri hears that an old acquaintance from her neighborhood has gone missing, she steps in. The cops aren’t looking, the disappearance is somehow tied to a strange rash of petty thefts, and there’s a mysterious stranger involved, one who clues Riri into the existence of an even more mysterious organization: the Ten Rings.

Ironheart’s original writer, Brian Michael Bendis, has been swapped out for Eve Ewing, and let’s just say this is not a Jughead situation where I bitterly mourned the exit of Chip Zdarsky. In Ewing’s hands, Ironheart sizzles. Riri and her life are immediately Blacker and more vibrant, and her characterization is explored in richer ways. She’s still the socially-impaired super-genius who lost her dad, stepdad, and best friend to gang violence, but her story is no longer painted as being from “the crime-ridden streets of Chicago.” There’s violence in her neighborhood, and crime, but it’s also her home, and most of the people in it are just folks doing their best to get by. Her background isn’t something to overcome, and Riri looks out for her neighbors when the police won’t.

Even though I enjoyed the dynamic of Riri interacting with the Iron Man characters and other major Marvel faces in the first two volumes, I really like seeing her own corner of the Marvel universe getting cemented here. Her mom gets more fleshed out, I appreciate the introduction of her neighbor Xavier and the ensuing will-they-won’t-they thing that gets started here, and while I won’t go into the specifics for the sake of spoilers, I love the new A.I. Riri gets for her suit now that Tony is no longer filling that role.

There are six issues in this volume, a four-part arc bookended with a less-connected story on either end. The first issue is just kind of an introduction to the new Ironheart ecosystem, issue 2 gives us Daija’s disappearance and kicks off the arc, and then issue 6 is a tie-in with something that’s been going on in Champions (a team-up comic that I really should check out one of these days, since I know its members include Kamala Khan, Amadeus Cho, Miles Morales, and Riri.) The villain of the main arc is compelling, and I like seeing the challenges he presents to Riri and how she deals with that. Also, not for nothing, the Ten Rings stuff clearly isn’t over, and so these comics are going to be a nice primer for me before the Shang Chi movie comes out.

If the first two volumes of Ironheart are about me wanting to love it more than I did, interested to read more but not a major priority, this one has me really excited about the title and eager to see what else is in store for Riri. Major level-up!

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.