Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in February 2023 and ended a few weeks ago with the Disney+ series, Ironheart. Between the major movies released in theaters and the TV shows that premiered on Disney+, there were a total of 14 projects in phase 5. Technically 13 since they released seasons 2 and 3 of What If…? in phase 5. But that’s a lot of projects in just under 2 1/2 years. That’s more than twice as many as phase 1 when Iron Man first premiered in 2008.
There were plenty of hits and misses with phase 5 of the MCU. For me, I enjoyed the majority of phase 5, but overall, they were some of the weakest films released so far. However, they also debuted some new heroes that I think will breathe new life into the MCU and Ironheart was certainly among them.
Definitely spoilers ahead if you haven’t watched Ironheart.
Riri Williams, played by Dominque Thorne, was first introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Since the events of that film, Riri has returned to MIT determined to build a new iron suit. In order to help pay for the parts needed to construct a new suit, she begins selling her work to other students and ultimately gets caught. Soon after, she is expelled from MIT and takes her suit back home to Chicago to continue to build a better one. Eventually, she meets Parker Robbins/The Hood (Anthony Ramos), who offers her a job to work with his crew. Basically, The Hood’s crew targets big tech companies and extorts them into putting them on their payroll. Riri, of course, is skeptical about doing something illegal in order to build a better suit, but as she points out throughout the series, she doesn’t have the same resources Tony Stark had when he built his iron suits. On top of all of that, Parker’s mysterious hood gives him supernatural powers that Riri can’t seem to grasp. When it becomes evident that the hood is slowly changing Parker into something sinister, Riri has to put everything she knows about technology aside in order to understand and ultimately defeat Parker before he can do more harm.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this show is that Riri isn’t exactly a superhero. She isn’t a villain either, but she makes questionable decisions all for the sake of her ego. The main reason she’s building an iron suit is to protect her family and those she loves when several years ago, her step-dad and best friend were gunned down. Riri has lived with the guilt of failing to protect them and is determined to build the best iron suit possible so nothing like that ever happens again. That’s her motivation throughout the series.
Since this show follows another character with an iron suit, there are obviously a lot of references to the Iron Man films and Tony Stark’s legacy. One such connection is Obadiah Stane (Jeff Brdiges), the villain in the very first Iron Man movie. In Ironheart, Riri meets his son, Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich), who, like his father, is a genius tech innovator. At first, he openly admits that he wants to be nothing like his father, but as the series rolls on, he has a change of heart when he feels like Riri betrayed him. And although they are two very different characters, Riri Williams and Tony Stark do share a lot of the same personality traits, the biggest being their egos. Hers might not be as large as Tony’s, but it’s evident throughout the series when her ego gets in the way and puts her in easily avoidable situations.
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the show was the introduction of Mephisto: basically the Marvel Universe version of the devil. It seems odd he would be introduced in a show centered around technology, but with the mysterious magical powers of the hood, it’s actually a perfect opportunity to finally introduce him. At its core, the show is very much about technology vs. magic, and Riri understands absolutely nothing about the latter. Played by Sacha Baron Cohen, Mephisto only appears in the final episode, but the few minutes he was onscreen, his performance was captivating. Probably one of the best casting choices Marvel has made in a long time. I’m excited to see where this character goes and I hope they didn’t just introduce him only to ignore him in future projects.
There are a lot of things I loved about this show. For one thing, it’s one of the few MCU TV shows that has consistent runtimes. Out of the 6 episodes, I believe 5 of them were between 50-60 minutes. The season finale clocked in at about 40 minutes, which follows the same Marvel trend for a lot of their finales. I’m not asking for a supersized finale as other shows have done in the past, but the finale episode should be at least as long as the rest of the series.
As silly as it seemed, bringing her dead best friend, Natalie, back to life as an AI assistant was a great way for Riri to deal with the trauma of losing her. Like I said, at times it was a little silly and cheesy, but it worked for the development of Riri’s character and allowed her to grow in some way. However, the finale had her making a deal with Mephisto and the show ends with Natalie coming back to life. I truly hope they renew this show for another season, so we can see the consequences of her actions.
For the most part, I thought the writing was good. The acting was good and the characters were all very different and interesting. Honestly, my biggest complaint about the show is another unfortunate Marvel trend with their TV shows. In addition to shorter runtimes, the episode count is always around 6. Some of the other shows had more, but a lot of the new characters they introduced in these shows were always 6 episodes, making it feel more like a miniseries than a TV show. And I get it, movies and TV shows cost a fortune these days. In my opinion, especially when WandaVision first premiered, they should have marketed these shows as miniseries rather than a multi-season TV show. I also wished they had released the episodes weekly instead of half one week and the other half the following week. There are still a lot of people, myself included, that enjoys the week-to-week episodes. In my opinion, when a show is being discussed weekly online or in the real world, it has that much more of a chance to be seen by a lot more people if everyone is talking about it.
The last thing I found interesting in the show is that it didn’t end with Riri becoming “Ironheart” like every other superhero. I don’t think they even said the words “Ironheart” throughout the entire season. I could be wrong, though. But I found that interesting because she doesn’t end the season as a hero. Again, another reason why they need another season.
I’m excited to see what they do with her character in the future. But for now, all episodes of Ironheart is streaming on Disney+.
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