Ironheart Turns 10
Back in 2016, introducing another teenage genius in powered armor seemed like a risky idea. On paper, Riri Williams sounded like someone readers were going to dismiss immediately. A 15-year-old MIT student builds her own Iron Man suit? Strip away the Marvel logo and it almost sounds like fan fiction. Plenty of people assumed Marvel was simply looking for someone to fill Tony Stark’s boots. Ten years later, that prediction looks pretty wide of the mark. Ironheart has been around long enough to move past those early comparisons. Whether you’ve loved every comic she’s appeared in or not, Riri Williams isn’t viewed as “the new Iron Man” anymore. She’s simply Ironheart, and that’s where the character has really found her footing. There are obvious similarities. Riri is an engineering prodigy who built a suit of powered armor, just as Tony Stark did. But that’s where the comparison starts to lose
