Ironheart: Why Marvel’s Latest Heroine Deserves Your Attention

Television has featured smart women in technology for years.

Criminal Minds’ Tech analyst, Penelope Garcia, helped to hack into hidden transactions and live feeds to locate suspects. Arrow’s Felicity Smoak was the eyes and ears during Team Arrow’s missions. Both characters are brilliant, but initially, their narratives were secondary to their male counterparts. Even as their screen time increased, critics would argue that the storylines didn’t fully explore their personal growth.

Marvel’s Ironheart flips the script. Not only is Riri Williams (Dominque Thorne) the protagonist, but her story represents a powerful shift in the MCU.

A new tech heroine

Out of the thirty-six MCU films, only a handful have featured a solo female lead or included a woman as a central character beyond being just a love interest.

Even fewer have put a woman in STEM at the forefront. While MCU TV shows have a better gender balance, having a young, Black female scientist as the main focus is significant. Riri isn’t a supporting character; she drives the narrative. For many viewers, she’s a more relatable tech hero than the typical rich genius archetype we’ve seen on screen before. Rather than relying on a lab team for help or endless resources, she’s trying to do it all by herself, which makes her inventions even more impressive. 

We first meet Riri in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The enthusiastic MIT tech genius’s vibranium detector design was stolen by the CIA and is used to search for the precious element in the ocean. Despite being fictional, it’s a moment that doesn’t feel far-fetched, as the tech industry has long reported issues of ideas being copied and taken. The Talokan people, who live underwater, feel threatened, and war breaks out between the two territories. The Talokan want Riri dead, while the Wakandans see a benefit in helping to develop her designs. She later builds a suit to aid the African nation in their fight against the underwater kingdom. 

Ironheart takes place after this. Riri is back at university on a Tony Stark scholarship. She couldn’t bring home the Wakandan-built suit or technology, so she’s had to start from scratch. However, her drive to create advanced tech means she’s cutting corners. She gets caught doing other students’ work, which is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come. Every dollar she earns goes towards her inventions, but when MIT catch wind of her shady work, they aren’t pleased.

Riri carves out her own lane

When defending herself to her professors, Riri shares that she wants to be “bigger than Jobs, bigger than Gates, bigger than Pym and bigger than Stark.” It’s a powerful statement, one that acknowledges her ambition, but also the barriers in place. Without access to MIT’s labs, funding, and networks, her potential would be wasted. Despite her brilliance, she’s fighting for scraps.

Her comments reflect some real-world truths. Young inventors, especially those from marginalised backgrounds, can have groundbreaking ideas – but without the resources or backing, they can’t be brought to life. 

Her impassioned speech doesn’t make a difference. She is kicked out effective immediately and returns to Chicago. Through flashbacks, we learn about Riri’s traumatic past. While the young inventor escaped unscathed, she’s been left mentally scarred, and the bad memories start to come flooding back.

Not the next Iron Man

Though some fans frame Riri as Iron Man’s successor, Ironheart makes it clear that she’s not here to copy Tony Stark. She admires those who came before her but wants to forge her own path and create her own technology. As a young tech heroine in an arena where representation is still scarce, this feels especially poignant both in STEM and the superhero genre. 

Thorne’s headstrong portrayal of Riri is refreshing. She makes tricky decisions, and some result in dire consequences. Her moral compass is questionable, especially when she becomes entangled in crime and even blackmail when she meets Parker Robbins/The Hood (Anthony Ramos). After all, she’s a young woman grappling with the consequences of her power and intelligence – she doesn’t always pick the right path (hold onto your hats for episodes 3 and 6).

Of course, the MCU has featured other brilliant women prior to Riri. Wanda Maximoff was a key figure in Phase Four of the MCU. Though her powers are magical rather than technological, both she and Riri share similarities, including how they have memorialised their loved ones. 

While mourning, Wanda constructed a new reality for her late husband, Vision. In Ironheart, Riri channels her grief through AI by accidentally creating a companion inspired by another lost loved one. Unlike Tony Stark’s JARVIS, this virtual companion isn’t a tool, but a memorial. However, Riri does question the ethics around the AI’s creation, something that feels particularly on the nose in today’s day and age.

Ironheart isn’t without its flaws. As the show progresses, it deals with some big topics, and six episodes don’t feel like enough to cover the material. Plus, a longer season may have helped us bond more with the ensemble cast. While trolls unfairly review-bombed the show before it was released, Riri is without a doubt the most compelling aspect of the series.

In a world where technology evolves rapidly, Riri Williams arrives right on time. Ironheart serves as a reminder that innovation doesn’t just belong to the elite, but to all of us. She’s not a sidekick, she’s the heroine we’ve been waiting for.

Episodes 1-3 of Ironheart are available to watch on Disney+ now, while episodes 4-6 will be released on 1 July 2025 at 9pm ET/6pm PT in the US, and on 2 July 2025 at 2am BST in the UK.

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