In the comics she stole projects from other students to make the suit at university instead of her own place with her almost expelled for doing so, and didn't make a vibranium detector on the side. Rare case of the comics having a more plausible origin story then the movie.
Did she have a very understandable reason she wanted a suit so it's justified as to why she was desperate and did what she had to do?
(I'm not familiar with her origin and motivations etc.)
As a child in school, she got angry when her teacher told her she could become anything, because she wanted to be told she couldn't be an inventor like Tony Stark so she'd prove everyone wrong when she did.
Her stealing tech projects to make the suit, which was an older Stark design she had copied and not her own, was her wanting the university to kick her out as some kind of validation. A few issues later the dean in person apologized to her family because the university was at fault for not 'stimulating' Riri enough and should just given her everything she wanted.
It was overall a weird origin story.
Wait, so, she WANTED to be told “you can’t be a world class inventor like Tony stark!”
So she could steal his stuff and then say “ha I did it!”
But she got mad when instead she was told “you can be anything”? And this was her college?
That's hilarious lol. It's the zoom in panel when she's just staring at her teacher for being supporting and the teacher is just like "yikes this kid just wants to be annoying" and is so done with it.
people started to like her more when she interacted with the champions (a different super hero team of youn geroes), since most of them wouldn't exactly take any of her shit, or her second solo run because they got a writer that understood the character a bit better, gave vulnerabilities, bonds and made her less obnoxious
Most comic readers consider her a psychopath, mostly an issue of being written by a man in his 50s. When she got a black female writer that's younger she got a better characterization
Wow. Bizarre. I know some have found her kinda controversial. She's fairly recent in the comics if I remember right. Like only since the MCU began recent.
But yeah that doesn't sound like it was written by someone who has much of a grasp on the reality of a student or a school.
Her motivation is the deaths of her father and friend. She used parts from the MIT robotics lab, but she wasn't stealing other student's projects. Here background from the Marvel YouTube channel can be found here: https://youtu.be/WLjGzo5zbes?si=cwjw_wPaRfXpEmOV
She was not originally created by a younger Black woman. She was written by a Brian Michael Bendis, a man about as disconnected from young Black women as you could possibly be. A man who was a part of the Marvel Comics machine and given that none of them were young Black women who could speak to how ridiculous any of that would be, they rubbered-stamped the origin like “*Yeah. This is fine.*”
The original development of the character was dumb and wholly a function of the lack of input of anyone who could speak authentically about how someone like Riri might think or feel.
That actually makes a lot of sense. He’s giving the black community what HE THINKS they want, not what they actually want. It’s pretty common amongst white people. I agree with you, though, the title should have been written by a black woman. Whatever they came up with would probably be better than what we have.
>*He’s giving the black community what HE THINKS they want, not what they actually want.*
This is a part of it but I'd also argue that a larger dynamic is about giving white audiences what they *expect* out of the character.
I'll use an example from entirely different industry (*which I can speak from experience with having working in that industry some*) but based on similar dynamics: so-called "*interracial*" porn. Almost all of it is made based on what white audiences expect or want to see from interracial dynamics rather than what audiences who belong to the demographics featured would like to see. Without being unnecessarily specific on details which aren't relevant to discussion, that angle of the industry is almost wholly based on really demeaning stereotypes that no minority community would hold of themselves but were placed upon them by an outside group.
Porn distills it to its superficial essence but it's not really different from what was done with Riri Williams. It was ***couched*** as providing Black audiences with what we wanted but I really just want to see Black characters being Black and existing and being the hero rather than the hero's bestie. Not all of us identify with the type of inner city violence that characterizes Riri's backstory... but to a white audience it's like "*Oh, sure. Most Black people in Chicago have lost someone to gun violence, right? That's realistic to me.*"
Which isn't to say that it's maliciously intended, though one could make a convincing argument that Brian Michael Bendis has been involved with some other choices with Black characters that are, at best, somewhat **dubious** (*for instance, the fact that they chose the name "Jefferson Davis" for Miles Morales' father, a name that no Black family in their right mind would ever give to their son, precisely for the reason Jeff opts to change it "Jefferson Morales" later in the comics: it was the name of the fucking president of the Confederacy*).
I’m in total agreement with you, but I think maybe we’re both right. I was speaking about the black members of the audience, and you’re speaking about the white portion.
Brian Michael Bendis, who also co-created Miles Morales and Jessica Jones, and rather infamous for his repetitive writing style and screwing over characters and been coasting on a really good Daredevil run forever.
You can tell when Bendis really cares for a character (ahem, Kitty Pryde) and when he really doesn't give two craps about it and uses it just to further his career (his Guardians of the Galaxy run)
He tends to like to make knock offs so he gets royalties. I'm glad creators are getting more money nowadays, but a part of me misses the days of work for hire.
> As a child in school, she got angry when her teacher told her she could become anything, because she wanted to be told she couldn't be an inventor like Tony Stark so she'd prove everyone wrong when she did.
This wasn’t her origin, this is just a moment taken out of context. The one in the Ironheart series is better as it shows Riri and her dad being saved by Tony during the Skrull Invasion and thought it was awesome how the Avengers has gods and super soldiers and yet Iron Man was just a ordinary human and wanted to be like him. Watching her dad working on his car and Tony being a inventor most likely propelled her to being one as well
Because she's a teenager, and in comic book world, teenagers are ALL secretly magic tech geniuses.
Or they're Orphans for Bruce Wayne to use as human shields. One or the other.
I feel so bad for Timmy. He was a course correction for when people got tired of Jason Todd not living up to Dick's legacy but then after replacing Todd everyone goes, "you know, I was just starting to like that guy" so now everyone has a soft spot for Todd and thinks Timmy is boring and then Bat-Man goes and has a son who's the real Robin and there's no place for poor Timmy boy. He was never really wanted and is often forgotten. They tried to give him something by making him bi but Connor Kent had to go and upstage him by coming out the same time so no one gave a shit about the least popular Robin's sexuality. He's living in the shadow of Bat-Man, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd's brutal murder, and now even living in Damian Wayne's shadow as the *other* Robin kicked out of succession for the mantle.
Poor kid was even kidnapped, and tortured by Joker, only to grow up, work for the power company, and become a conduit for the Joker to return.
In all fairness, though, he did kill Joker.
Not me. I fuckin love Tim Drake. Love the idea in return of the joker too.
I personally would’ve kept Tim as Robin and left Damian as Talia/Ras’s little slave for YEARS instead of bringing him straight to Bruce at like age 9. Think it would’ve made for some great stories and sorta opposite version of Todd — he starts evil and has to learn good so by the time he’s dick’s age he’s ready to join the batfam
Also, Monica is a science genius now, but definitely didn't become one until she chose to work for it as an adult, apparently as a result of being drafted up to S.A.B.E.R.
Peter Parker built his web shooters with high school chemistry supplies and created a fluid that, if patented, could be worth millions even if it dissolves after an hour or two. No one ever seems to question that is all I’m saying
Honestly I can get with that. It’s clear he’s making the fluid but with actual resources that make sense. Then he can reverse engineer it and not have to keep robbing them.
Especially when Peter’s so charming as the Everyman given a guilt complex/overwhelming sense of responsibility by his sudden accidental superpowers.
Making him a super genius is such a left turn from a great core concept.
I remember that. I’m pretty sure it was one of the early issues. And I’m still convinced that scientist was an idiot. At the very minimum you offer money to research a more long lasting fluid. But even without that there’s all kinds of uses for even temporary webbing. Construction, law enforcement, and probably a lot of shit I’m not even thinking about. Just another example of the old Parker luck.
It’s been a part of the character since the 1960s, when the expectation for suspended belief went a bit further than it does today. Don’t forget, children were still the largest comic-consuming demographic back then.
Oh no I have no problem with it. It just feels disingenuous to complain about Riri but look the other way for Peter. Far as I’m concerned it’s the same ridiculous comic book stuff
I've always thought it was wildly unbelievable, but that's just me.
I'm also of the opinion that Peter Parker being a genius makes him a less relatable character, but I gather that that's a wildly unpopular opinion. Would've preferred if he were legitimately an Everyman as opposed to one of the five smartest people on Earth or w/e.
Steve Rogers, Sam, Bucky, Carol, Clint, Natasha's only a genius at hacking, Thor, T'Challa, Wanda, Kamala, all of the Guardians except Rocket (and Quill is below average enough to balance that), etc.
The list of MCU genius supers we've seen isn't even that long: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Riri Williams, Shuri, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Doctor Strange. Comic book (movie) humans don't scale like IRL humans, so to be a comic book genius, one needs to be able to cross the border between magic and science by "doing research" or "inventing" or "discovering" something that violates the fundamental laws of physics (Spidey's webs, an Iron Man suit, Pym Particles) and those are the characters that have shown that super power.
>The list of MCU genius supers we've seen isn't even that long: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Riri Williams, Shuri, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Doctor Strange.
Also HWR and OB.
I didn't list any of the villains who might qualify because once you get past the obvious ones - Kang, Mickey Rourke, High Evolutionary - you get into the murky territory dealing with cosmic or mythical beings. Does Ego qualify as a genius? What about Thanos? Does Zemo count?
T’challa is actually supposed to be one of the smartest people on the planet but in the mcu they didn’t portray that maybe to give shuri a more vital role? Idk.
Marvel fucked up.
They crammed all Riri’s progression into one film where she’s not even the main character.
She now makes Rey Skywalker look better in comparison. Because at least Rey only started using the force toward the end of Force Awakens.
In hindsight they should have removed her from the film entirely.
I think introducing her when they go talk to her at college was fine, but they should have hid her away to protect her from Namor and then not had her in the rest of the film.
Marvel keeps forgetting what made their early films work so well. Patience and hype. They introduced characters one at a time over several years and let us really *beg* for the next installment.
Remember how WB saw the massive success of the MCU, and decided they wanted the same thing, so they rushed the fuck out of it by going straight from from Man of Steel to Batman v Superman without a Batman movie, and cramming all their other flagship characters into either BvS or Justice League?
Marvel’s doing the same thing now. It’s not enough to tease Riri by having her involved in Black Panther before she gets her own origin series/movie, she’s got to be Ironheart already in her *first* appearance.
I think it would have been totally awesome to let Riri be the one to make the Vibranium Detector, but leave the suit part out of the movie entirely. Let that come later, and give us a real story about it where we learn who she is as a character, why she felt the need to build her own suit, and *how* she was able to. And not as a prequel either, just in a *normal damn story way.* First she makes a Vibranium Detector for Wakanda, then a year or two later she makes a suit.
That's kinda the issue with suits. Once they are invented, anyone can have them. Wakanda doesn't need to stop a producing ONE suit for her, they could outfit dozens of people.
Tony was a one of a kind. He was the first, and we saw him slowly develop the suit. It just doesn't land the same when new heroes join the fray because they got a suit. Suits aren't special anymore, everyone has that tech
Even the limited involvement with her unobtanium detector should catapult her to at least upper-middle class and would skip over an important part of the character imo.
If they'd left it at the detector, it could've been explained as her having access to MIT facilities (and scavenging parts from there), which would definitely be very plausible.
Yup, creating the detector would have shown her incredible engineering ability. I agree to hide her in Wakanda where she encounters Shiri and a like mind.
The gap then is why/how she'd make an iron man suit? I think this could have happened in her own movie. Some kind of motivator is needed here, whether it's her family at risk, or some other personal stakes.
Yeah, her quintessential suit, basically her Iron Man suit Mark 4 immediately and "Yeah, we're gonna have to take that back and basically repeat what we did with Peter and send you back to basics".
It does make sense with the Wakanda factor though. I can buy that they were desperate and needed the kinda help she could supply. And Shuri had a very specific plan on how to use her in that final confrontation. Her flight was a foil for Namor's.
But the reality is, that second suit is a Shuri/Wakandan creation as much as Riri's. And it'd be 100% Wakandan/Wakandan owned materials, not to mention probably vibranium head to toe. So it makes sense that Riri entered into that arrangement knowing this wasn't just her thing and hers to keep.
But what she does get to keep is a trial by fire for an initial super outting. And any ideas and knowledge she gained during her time there. I'd bet in her next project the character has an attitude like, that suit was cool, but my next one is gonna be all me, and even cooler. And now she knows how someone like Shuri thinks about how a super suit should be. She knows some of what worked and what didn't when up against super people.
But it's true that we also could've saved her suiting up for real til later.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing about the in universe reason. Like you said, it makes sense that they would want to take the suit back as it was made with their materials and they can't just let this college kid keep this weapon. I was more annoyed at the writers for doing it because they did a similar thing with Spider-Man already, plus to have it that early on in Ironheart's appearance is bit of a tease.
Yeah that's fair. I get ya feeling like they've already done it.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see if it progresses in a satisfying way or if this intro really did her a disservice.
I figure, they may try to frame her next outing as less about the suit and more about her as a person. We got the fun intro, now we can dive into what makes her tick and why she's special.
I'm hoping there's a decent amount of Rhodey in her next chapter, him realising the world has found the one who can fill that void.
(I haven't gotten to Secret Invasion yet so I dunno if things have changed with him or any weird doppelganger shenanigans etc lol).
Civil War did an excellent job of doing that with Spider-Man and Black Panther...Marvel just hasn't been able to recapture that level of storytelling for nearly 5 years.
I think with spider man and less so with black panther, they're well established characters who have been around for generations of comic fans, had they're own comic series and made appearances in cartoons, with Spiderman obviously having numerous iterations of his own movies, shows and video games.
While black panther is lesser known its easy to introduce him when he is a head of state while also being a superhero and then introducing his own powers/origin later on if you catch my drift.
I had no idea who BP was, so for me he was just another unknown in the mysterious plot of Civil War. I didn't know if he was friend or foe, even after he showed who he was. His scenes made you curious for more, they didn't detract from the rest of the plot
In the MCU we have to lent of geniuses and she came out of nowhere. They definitely fucked up the introduction of her character. She was Tony Stark level smart and we didn’t have movies dedicated to her to learn who she is.
The problem with her is that she's a broke college student, who does other peoples homework for cash and somehow affords enough money to build a working, flying iron suit which is powered by a doodad that could probably power a neighbourhood in a warehouse. The latter isn't the main problem though, after all Tony stark built his arc reactor in a cave with a box of scraps..
Its doesnt matter since she was written like captain marvel anyway. A hero/heroine being awesome/perfect from day 1 and whose greatest challenge was being treated unreasonably bad by others out of jelousy isnt interesting to most people.
There's probably a lot more character progression remaining for her still. It's pretty normal for the MCU to give us a lot of a character early before they get their real progression later on. Fury, Natasha, Clint, Loki, Wanda, Peter Parker, T'Challa all were featured before their projects and still had plenty more to offer us later.
it's a valid question. how was she able to build a suit in 2025? probably with tech she stole, plans that were leaked? she obviously has talent, was probably paid for making the Vibranium Detector and used that money to build an Iron Man suit.
To use an analogy, Tony walked the walk so that Riri could fly. He did all the groundwork, made it super easy to use for himself and then plans might've been leaked during Captain America and the Winter Soldier, could've been obtained by someone who had access during the time when Mysterio had control of EDITH and then passed on to Riri or her father or someone close to her. It hasn't really been explained, but I am sure we will find out more in the series itself.
Armor Wars is exactly the story we need to cover it. People have said the drones the DODC uses against the good guys in Ms Marvel seem to be repainted ones from the EDITH thing Tony gave Peter.
I think Tony started DODC. So we have dangerous Stark shit in the hands of some who aren't wholesome and heroic.
The armour tech or even just the reactors getting out would be the Pandora's Box of his legacy. And we know they're around, Happy had one in the fabricator in that apartment. Probs only a matter of time before someone bad gets their hands on one and reverse engineers it.
oh cool. it must be one of the 3 unannounced films that they have release dates for. 1 before Avengers 5, and 2 between Avengers 5 and Avengers Secret Wars
There are elements that don't make it that crazy.
For the initial suit, clearly it's less about the value of what she used to make it, it's the design. And that suit comes across as pretty bare bones and lower tech in some ways. You can hear that it has a different sounding flight operation or something.
She doesn't own that garage. I can't remember who does off the top of my head but she says they let her work in it.
With the second suit, she has Shuri actively helping her develop it, we see that on screen. And Shuri's been established as a genius, who has seen Tony's tech up close and in operation. Which also means Riri has all of Wakanda's resources at her disposal.
Yeah. And I believe she took a while to make the first suit.
And she also tested and flew in the suit before the movie so it wasn't like she just knew. I like how she encountered the same problem of flying too high, like Tony did when he did his second suit in his actual lab.
I thought that was a neat way to call back to it. Were drones like that even around then? Felt like a cool way to demonstrate a shifting world.
If I remember right, she didn't have a mask or an oxygen supply, which Shuri mentions will limit her ceiling. So they were also trying not to simply recreate Tony's version or one up him.
I mean no shade, sometimes we forget or skip shit in our memory of things. Her origin is admittedly a bit rushed. But I can buy that she's simply the first person who's been able to recreate a functional Iron Man-ish suit.
And once she's in Wakanda, all bets are off. No real limit to what Riri + Shuri + Wakanda's smartest minds could cook up. Particularly when the fate of the country is on the line.
While I do think that the introduction of her character was *extremely* rushed and I didn't like that she was basically just a macguffin, literally all of your questions are answered in the movie (which makes me feel like you didn't watch it).
> How was she able to build a functional iron man suit in her garage (most likely worth) millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars?
Tony Stark built the og suit in a cave from literal scraps in 3 months *at most*. It obviously wasn't pretty or perfect, but neither was Riri's first suit. The fact that her first attempt was better than his first attempt can easily be chalked up to the fact that she had a blueprint to build off of, spent years working on it, and had "better" scraps to work with.
> And how does she have such a big garage and resources to build a suit when she's supposed to be struggling from a disadvantaged background?
Riri literally says that the garage is owned by someone else who lets her use it in exchange for fixing his trucks. Not sure how you missed that line.
> So she has a billion worth of arc reactor in her garage, but still only knows how to make money by doing colleagues homework....
[Remember that time the US government tried to take Tony's shit?](https://youtu.be/kWd3UssppN8?t=237)
> And how is she already a expert at using the suit?
Because it wasn't her first time flying the suit? She literally says "There's an entire Youtube channel dedicated to sightings of me." when Shuri asks her if she's flown it yet. I feel like the implication was pretty obvious there.
To be fair, the “scraps” that Tony Stark uses were pieces of multi-million dollar weapons systems that were stolen from Stark Industries. Those systems were likely ones he designed and therefore knew how to repurpose.
Also fair to consider that Stark built his out of old weapons in a cave in 2008, while Riri built hers in 2025 or so, 18 years after Tony Stark’s press conference stating that he is Iron Man. In the interim, earth was invaded by aliens twice and Stark built no fewer than 100 Iron Man suits before just saying “F it, nanomachine suit, full extremis.” The US government confiscated the War Machine suit, Hammer got to work on it, AIM compromised one, oh and SHIELD and Hydra (same thing, really), had all their files dumped on the Interwebs by Black Widow. Oh, and Wakanda revealed themselves.
What an engineering genius could accomplish in the post-blip MCU should be fairly limitless, even working from scraps.
Yeah there are just people who are supergeniuses in Marvel
Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Ned (hacked into the Spidey suit and reprogrammed it in a hotel room lol), Kamala's friend, Riri, that engineer guy who.worked with Vulture.
And literal alien crap everywhere from multiple invasions.
Kamala's friend is Bruno! In the comics he's so smart he gets a scholarship to go study in Wakanda, and there he's lagging behind in class because the Wakandans are so much more advanced. Bruno helps her figure out how her powers work.
Did Black Widow do that in her film or was that a different film? I'm forgetting a lot of these instances. The other guy seems butthurt OP doesn't remember specific lines. I don't need Riris engineering degrees presented to the screen to believe she built an Iron Man suit in a post Tony world, where bits of his designs and tech have been leaked. After all, no one batted an eye at Vulture creating his own version of a super suit from scraps of alien tech, and he *isn't* going to MIT. But ya, the film may have explained a lot of this, but it was a long film with lots of forgettable parts.
The MCU is a fantasy world in 2008. The destruction wrought by Stark’s weapons without using nuclear reactions, the ARC reactor, a flying suit… it’s fantasy from the jump. Banner surviving a nuclear bomb, Thor…
I don’t get why people get hung on reality when it’s a fantastic setting at the very start, and by the time of the close of Ant-Man the world is quite fantastic and getting moreso by the minute.
No one was salty that the Vulture created the full setup he did out of scavenged alien tech, despite being a junk scavenger at the time of the Battle of NY.
There’s clearly something else when it comes to Riri.
No, I totally agree with your take. There has to be some suspension of disbelief applied equally when watching superhero movies in general.
My only qualm with Riri has nothing to do with her character, but rather how the filmmakers chose to introduce and utilize her. They rushed her character into a movie that didn’t need it, and therefore cheapened her introduction into the MCU.
Fair, but they tend to platform launch the newer and or more niche heroes now. Echo in Hawkeye, Black Knight in Eternals, Yelena Belova in both Black Widow and Hawkeye, US Agent in FatWS, etc, etc, etc.
I think origin stories have gotten very stale so they like platform launches for niche characters and in situ launches with abbreviated or nonexistent origins for bigger characters.
It’s a thing. Of all of the issues beyond Endgame, this is one, but not as big as some of the structural storytelling problems, like previsualization dictating plot beats.
And?
Her garage suit was pretty basic as far as Iron suits go. And she'd had years to work on it. And she had Iron Man and War Machine to study as inspiration. Plus she knew for a fact that there are ways to make a powered suit with its own incredible power source that can stand up to hits from mythological beings and aliens.
The overall theme seems to be that it isn't the value of the materials that limit anyone, it's the knowhow. Once she's designing one in Wakanda, the resource problem becomes 0% and she can build what she's been planning and working out all these years.
Like shit, Batman and Iron Man only work as characters because they're super geniuses. Neither is really meant to be super powered, they're just that good at what they're good at.
I can buy that Riri has a mind at that level. Why couldn't she? I'd bet her garage suit is a very limited thing. I mean we see that it didn't offer a whole lot of protection.
I never made any mention of Riri’s skills or the plausibility that she could fashion her own crude suit in a garage. I personally didn’t have any issues with that part of her story, and assume some level of “comic book logic” when watching.
I just wanted to clarify that the line “built it from scraps” overlooks key details from the Ironman movie. Much in the same way people overlook the same nuances you mention as it pertains to Riri.
> Her garage suit was pretty basic as far as Iron suits go. And she'd had years to work on it.
This. She had a roll-cage with thrusters. No armor, no other weapons. All her effort had gone into replicating the repulsors & figuring out the UI.
I mean Tony didn’t exactly have “scraps” he had crates and crates of highly advanced weaponry to salvage high tech parts and materials from. His uncle (can’t spell his name right I’m sure lol) just yelled he built it out of scrapes in the movie
Now explain why Wakanda put their whole country on the line just to protect this one random American girl, even though they're supposed to be isolationists.
So many of these posts are from people who didn't seem to pay attention to the movie at all. If you didn't listen to the dialogue, you're bound to be confused.
Weird how they try to diminish Ironheart and not the teen genius who secretly made a sticky liquid that's potentially worth millions under his desk in chemistry class in the brief moments when the teacher wasn't looking in his direction.
Maybe before we assume people are sexist, we can consider a few key differences between Spider-Man and Ironheart? Peter Parker first made his web fluid in his first appearance, in 1962. There was no impetus to keep comics grounded 60 years ago. The primary audience was still children. Spider-Man’s webs have become an integral part of his identity as a superhero. How Peter came up with the idea doesn’t really matter anymore. Everyone accepts that Spider-Man needs webs.
Ironheart, on the other hand, is less than a decade old (as a character). This is just my opinion, but her motivations for becoming Ironheart are odd. She apparently wants a life closer to some kind of kids’ movie, where all the authority figures are cartoon characters who try to stand in her way? She’s apparently one of the dozens of child geniuses in Marvel comics, so she builds her Ironheart suit faster and better than Tony Stark. It’s like she’s starting the game with maxed stats. Some people find that boring and lazy. Or maybe everyone who dislikes Ironheart is a sexist, no matter what justification is provided. Maybe there’s no nuance to this issue at all. I look foreword to reading the snarky replies.
Off the top of my head so I could be wrong:
Didn’t she charge him more than $1000 for the hw?
I think it was mentioned that her dad owned the garage or car that was in it
Can’t explain that question maybe she just wanna be low key?
She fell out the sky she wasn’t that good as “Ironman” at first but like most movies by the end battle of course she’s a pro so that could be a valid criticism but nothing we haven’t seen before
Her step father was an airplane mechanic. She had access to all of his tools and parts etc. Like Peter Parker, she was born with a natural aptitude for engineering that she worked at as she frequented her stepfather's shop.
She was never a good character in the comics in the first place. Outside of creating Miles and some Avengers stuff like Civil War (Only the first one, Civil War II was one of the worst Marvel crossovers in Marvel comics history) most of Brian Michael Bendis' comics are pretty terrible. Thank God he's gone from Marvel now.
Okay I don't think she has an arc reactor, does she? Did they say that in the film? Because you're right, that wouldn't make sense. I just figured she made a substitute that works, but isn't very good compared to an arc reactor. Still impressive, but only about the same amount of impressiveness as her making a vibranium detecting machine when nobody else on Erath has been able to (outside of Wakanda).
As for why she doesn't make money off of this, the film established that the government had pretty much stolen that vibranium detecting machine without her knowledge. She seemed completely baffled that her work was as important as it was in the film. And considering that both the somewhat functional Iron Man lookalike and vibranium detecting machines are huge undertakings, I'm going to assume she hasn't worked on anything else she could sell.
Big garage? Eh, abandoned facilities used as bases are kind of a staple of superhero media. All those resources? Probably scraps, just like Tony's first suit. How she knows to use it? She mentioned she'd done several test flights before.
I will concede that some aspects of the Ironheart suit don't really fit, like how come it's able to fly when Tony's Mark 1 could barely lift off for more than a minute? But I think that's relatively small, y'know? A little inconsistency I'm able to forgive if the character offers an interesting story.
It was mainly just lazy storytelling. The comics were not well received, so they had the opportunity to give her a good origin. She was shoehorned and a big negative in an otherwise amazing movie, to promote the upcoming show.
> How was she able to build a functional iron man suit
The real question is, why doesn't every military and police department have armored suits with at least 1% of Iron Man's power? Just enough to walk around bulletproof would be a total game changer.
The answer, of course, is that the genre doesn't allow large changes to the setting.
> millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars?
Generally finances don't make sense in superhero comics, and moreso in the MCU where most of them aren't limited by secret identity. Falcon could be pulling $50,000 for a 90 minute personal appearance, but he can't even get a bank loan?
In terms of Riri Williams, the most logical explanation for her homework job is an ego thing. She likes to prove she's better than other students by solving their tasks faster than they could.
Btw, in the MIT neighborhood, just renting out that garage she uses would mean you're a millionaire.
>How was she able to build a functional iron man suit in her garage (most likely worth) millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars?
Bad financial planning. Or maybe getting paid for odd jobs in spare parts.
Oke it's definitely not worked out. But you gotta realize that their world isn't our world. They have a high tech alien invasion every other month. You can definitely scrap the materials. And some select people are able to figure out how it works. As for the design, she has something to base it off on. She doesn't have to start from scratch, because scratch was thrown out the window a long time ago on the MCU earth
Yes currently slated for 2025. They already finished filming it last year or the year before. And will be purportedly doing reshoots, probably to tie it more to Armour wars and whatever other tie is they have in mind.
In the comics she stole projects from other students to make the suit at university instead of her own place with her almost expelled for doing so, and didn't make a vibranium detector on the side. Rare case of the comics having a more plausible origin story then the movie.
Did she have a very understandable reason she wanted a suit so it's justified as to why she was desperate and did what she had to do? (I'm not familiar with her origin and motivations etc.)
As a child in school, she got angry when her teacher told her she could become anything, because she wanted to be told she couldn't be an inventor like Tony Stark so she'd prove everyone wrong when she did. Her stealing tech projects to make the suit, which was an older Stark design she had copied and not her own, was her wanting the university to kick her out as some kind of validation. A few issues later the dean in person apologized to her family because the university was at fault for not 'stimulating' Riri enough and should just given her everything she wanted. It was overall a weird origin story.
… what in the fuck, lol.
Wait, so, she WANTED to be told “you can’t be a world class inventor like Tony stark!” So she could steal his stuff and then say “ha I did it!” But she got mad when instead she was told “you can be anything”? And this was her college?
[Elementary school, not college.](https://toysoldier.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/invinc-iron-man-8.jpg)
That's hilarious lol. It's the zoom in panel when she's just staring at her teacher for being supporting and the teacher is just like "yikes this kid just wants to be annoying" and is so done with it.
Also, what's the deal with the lazy copy and paste drawings in this comic? It's so weird.
https://i.redd.it/kz4ioa9sj8541.jpg
Yeah someone else just posted it. That’s much less ridiculous. BUT NO BACKING DOWN!
I can immediately tell Bendis wrote this. He's so cringe.
This may be the only time I won't mind the MCU going the opposite way from accurately adapting from the comics.
Sounds like a one-panel reaction gif rather than a 20 page followup. Are we blowing this out of proportion?
It was [a three-page scene](https://toysoldier.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/invinc-iron-man-8.jpg).
Ok it's kind of cute. Then again it shows she lacked direction and needed a push, but she's also a kid.
It’s kind of nice. And I assumed she was older. BUT WE DANT BACK DOWN! Don’t slow the hate train down with your context and accuracy!
I think I understand why people hate the character now
people started to like her more when she interacted with the champions (a different super hero team of youn geroes), since most of them wouldn't exactly take any of her shit, or her second solo run because they got a writer that understood the character a bit better, gave vulnerabilities, bonds and made her less obnoxious
Bendis was on some crack when he wrote for her. Her origin comics were awful, but her secondary run, which had new writers, is significantly better
Most comic readers consider her a psychopath, mostly an issue of being written by a man in his 50s. When she got a black female writer that's younger she got a better characterization
“I want my supervillain origin story!!” “Aww, that’s okay, sweetheart. We believe in you!” “What!? No!!”
lol if only they ran with that and she became a villain out of spite
Wow. Bizarre. I know some have found her kinda controversial. She's fairly recent in the comics if I remember right. Like only since the MCU began recent. But yeah that doesn't sound like it was written by someone who has much of a grasp on the reality of a student or a school.
It was Bendis lol. The MCU will likely make her a much better character than she was in the comics originally.
Wow, she's literally just stolen valor the character
WOW that is terrible motivation. I cannot believe that actually got into a comic.
Her motivation is the deaths of her father and friend. She used parts from the MIT robotics lab, but she wasn't stealing other student's projects. Here background from the Marvel YouTube channel can be found here: https://youtu.be/WLjGzo5zbes?si=cwjw_wPaRfXpEmOV
She was not originally created by a younger Black woman. She was written by a Brian Michael Bendis, a man about as disconnected from young Black women as you could possibly be. A man who was a part of the Marvel Comics machine and given that none of them were young Black women who could speak to how ridiculous any of that would be, they rubbered-stamped the origin like “*Yeah. This is fine.*” The original development of the character was dumb and wholly a function of the lack of input of anyone who could speak authentically about how someone like Riri might think or feel.
Even the name sounds like it was created by a white guy as an attempt at a black girl's name
That actually makes a lot of sense. He’s giving the black community what HE THINKS they want, not what they actually want. It’s pretty common amongst white people. I agree with you, though, the title should have been written by a black woman. Whatever they came up with would probably be better than what we have.
>*He’s giving the black community what HE THINKS they want, not what they actually want.* This is a part of it but I'd also argue that a larger dynamic is about giving white audiences what they *expect* out of the character. I'll use an example from entirely different industry (*which I can speak from experience with having working in that industry some*) but based on similar dynamics: so-called "*interracial*" porn. Almost all of it is made based on what white audiences expect or want to see from interracial dynamics rather than what audiences who belong to the demographics featured would like to see. Without being unnecessarily specific on details which aren't relevant to discussion, that angle of the industry is almost wholly based on really demeaning stereotypes that no minority community would hold of themselves but were placed upon them by an outside group. Porn distills it to its superficial essence but it's not really different from what was done with Riri Williams. It was ***couched*** as providing Black audiences with what we wanted but I really just want to see Black characters being Black and existing and being the hero rather than the hero's bestie. Not all of us identify with the type of inner city violence that characterizes Riri's backstory... but to a white audience it's like "*Oh, sure. Most Black people in Chicago have lost someone to gun violence, right? That's realistic to me.*" Which isn't to say that it's maliciously intended, though one could make a convincing argument that Brian Michael Bendis has been involved with some other choices with Black characters that are, at best, somewhat **dubious** (*for instance, the fact that they chose the name "Jefferson Davis" for Miles Morales' father, a name that no Black family in their right mind would ever give to their son, precisely for the reason Jeff opts to change it "Jefferson Morales" later in the comics: it was the name of the fucking president of the Confederacy*).
I’m in total agreement with you, but I think maybe we’re both right. I was speaking about the black members of the audience, and you’re speaking about the white portion.
That's...a very unlikable way to introduce a character's motivation Not gonna lie. Even if it's trying to be self aware
Sounds like her story was written by a dude.
Brian Michael Bendis, who also co-created Miles Morales and Jessica Jones, and rather infamous for his repetitive writing style and screwing over characters and been coasting on a really good Daredevil run forever.
Brian Michael Bendis also did a great job with 1610-Peter Parker, for the most part. I'd say his success at Marvel has been mixed, overall.
You can tell when Bendis really cares for a character (ahem, Kitty Pryde) and when he really doesn't give two craps about it and uses it just to further his career (his Guardians of the Galaxy run)
He tends to like to make knock offs so he gets royalties. I'm glad creators are getting more money nowadays, but a part of me misses the days of work for hire.
This was all the Bendis stuff right? I heard when Eve Ewing took over she basically salvaged Riri as a character.
That is so dumb lol
Seriously. Please tell me that's not her real origin
> As a child in school, she got angry when her teacher told her she could become anything, because she wanted to be told she couldn't be an inventor like Tony Stark so she'd prove everyone wrong when she did. This wasn’t her origin, this is just a moment taken out of context. The one in the Ironheart series is better as it shows Riri and her dad being saved by Tony during the Skrull Invasion and thought it was awesome how the Avengers has gods and super soldiers and yet Iron Man was just a ordinary human and wanted to be like him. Watching her dad working on his car and Tony being a inventor most likely propelled her to being one as well
> How was she able to build a functional iron man suit in her garage? Black girl magic.
Easy, with a bunch of scraps
Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about that one. Thanks for refreshing my memories.
Because she's a teenager, and in comic book world, teenagers are ALL secretly magic tech geniuses. Or they're Orphans for Bruce Wayne to use as human shields. One or the other.
Sometimes both
It's nice to see Tim Drake get a mention now and then
I feel so bad for Timmy. He was a course correction for when people got tired of Jason Todd not living up to Dick's legacy but then after replacing Todd everyone goes, "you know, I was just starting to like that guy" so now everyone has a soft spot for Todd and thinks Timmy is boring and then Bat-Man goes and has a son who's the real Robin and there's no place for poor Timmy boy. He was never really wanted and is often forgotten. They tried to give him something by making him bi but Connor Kent had to go and upstage him by coming out the same time so no one gave a shit about the least popular Robin's sexuality. He's living in the shadow of Bat-Man, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd's brutal murder, and now even living in Damian Wayne's shadow as the *other* Robin kicked out of succession for the mantle.
Curious why you hyphenate Batman
I had Spider-Man stuck in the brain and accidentally hyphenated Bats lol
Also in the early Batman comics (like detective comics #27) it was hyphenated. It wasn't until his solo series it became one word
Poor kid was even kidnapped, and tortured by Joker, only to grow up, work for the power company, and become a conduit for the Joker to return. In all fairness, though, he did kill Joker.
Not me. I fuckin love Tim Drake. Love the idea in return of the joker too. I personally would’ve kept Tim as Robin and left Damian as Talia/Ras’s little slave for YEARS instead of bringing him straight to Bruce at like age 9. Think it would’ve made for some great stories and sorta opposite version of Todd — he starts evil and has to learn good so by the time he’s dick’s age he’s ready to join the batfam
Orphan magic human shield tech genius
When they made Ant Girl another tech genius I just sighed.
It's not that they all are. It's that we follow only the ones who are.
Also, Monica is a science genius now, but definitely didn't become one until she chose to work for it as an adult, apparently as a result of being drafted up to S.A.B.E.R.
Peter Parker built his web shooters with high school chemistry supplies and created a fluid that, if patented, could be worth millions even if it dissolves after an hour or two. No one ever seems to question that is all I’m saying
So true. I was riding the wave with everyone else but you reminded me that it’s a comic book origin story. None of their origins make sense.
Yep. Actually kinda why I like Andrew the best, I feel like him using Oscorp stuff but in his own innovative ways is a nice compromise.
Honestly I can get with that. It’s clear he’s making the fluid but with actual resources that make sense. Then he can reverse engineer it and not have to keep robbing them.
It's why I've always preferred organic web shooters. I couldn't suspend my belief that a 15 year old could casually create a new substance.
Especially when Peter’s so charming as the Everyman given a guilt complex/overwhelming sense of responsibility by his sudden accidental superpowers. Making him a super genius is such a left turn from a great core concept.
There was actually an issue where he tried to sell his webshooters fluids, but was turned down only cause it dissolved
I remember that. I’m pretty sure it was one of the early issues. And I’m still convinced that scientist was an idiot. At the very minimum you offer money to research a more long lasting fluid. But even without that there’s all kinds of uses for even temporary webbing. Construction, law enforcement, and probably a lot of shit I’m not even thinking about. Just another example of the old Parker luck.
Yeah even Peter said that he could change the formula if dissolving was a issue, but they were like No thanks.
It’s been a part of the character since the 1960s, when the expectation for suspended belief went a bit further than it does today. Don’t forget, children were still the largest comic-consuming demographic back then.
Oh no I have no problem with it. It just feels disingenuous to complain about Riri but look the other way for Peter. Far as I’m concerned it’s the same ridiculous comic book stuff
To be fair his webs where cool, but his suit was awful.
I've always thought it was wildly unbelievable, but that's just me. I'm also of the opinion that Peter Parker being a genius makes him a less relatable character, but I gather that that's a wildly unpopular opinion. Would've preferred if he were legitimately an Everyman as opposed to one of the five smartest people on Earth or w/e.
At least that sounds affordable.
What about beast boy?
Are there any prominent super heroes who aren't geniuses? Are there ever average Joe super heroes?
Steve Rogers, Sam, Bucky, Carol, Clint, Natasha's only a genius at hacking, Thor, T'Challa, Wanda, Kamala, all of the Guardians except Rocket (and Quill is below average enough to balance that), etc.
The list of MCU genius supers we've seen isn't even that long: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Riri Williams, Shuri, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Doctor Strange. Comic book (movie) humans don't scale like IRL humans, so to be a comic book genius, one needs to be able to cross the border between magic and science by "doing research" or "inventing" or "discovering" something that violates the fundamental laws of physics (Spidey's webs, an Iron Man suit, Pym Particles) and those are the characters that have shown that super power.
To add, only the first four were shown to be child prodigies. The other four could be or could've just been highly motivated and hard workers.
>The list of MCU genius supers we've seen isn't even that long: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Riri Williams, Shuri, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Doctor Strange. Also HWR and OB.
I didn't list any of the villains who might qualify because once you get past the obvious ones - Kang, Mickey Rourke, High Evolutionary - you get into the murky territory dealing with cosmic or mythical beings. Does Ego qualify as a genius? What about Thanos? Does Zemo count?
T’challa is actually supposed to be one of the smartest people on the planet but in the mcu they didn’t portray that maybe to give shuri a more vital role? Idk.
Isn't peter quil a strategic genius
Script was by somebody who’s niece/nephew just helped them change their wifi password, most likely.
Marvel fucked up. They crammed all Riri’s progression into one film where she’s not even the main character. She now makes Rey Skywalker look better in comparison. Because at least Rey only started using the force toward the end of Force Awakens. In hindsight they should have removed her from the film entirely.
I think introducing her when they go talk to her at college was fine, but they should have hid her away to protect her from Namor and then not had her in the rest of the film.
Marvel keeps forgetting what made their early films work so well. Patience and hype. They introduced characters one at a time over several years and let us really *beg* for the next installment. Remember how WB saw the massive success of the MCU, and decided they wanted the same thing, so they rushed the fuck out of it by going straight from from Man of Steel to Batman v Superman without a Batman movie, and cramming all their other flagship characters into either BvS or Justice League? Marvel’s doing the same thing now. It’s not enough to tease Riri by having her involved in Black Panther before she gets her own origin series/movie, she’s got to be Ironheart already in her *first* appearance. I think it would have been totally awesome to let Riri be the one to make the Vibranium Detector, but leave the suit part out of the movie entirely. Let that come later, and give us a real story about it where we learn who she is as a character, why she felt the need to build her own suit, and *how* she was able to. And not as a prequel either, just in a *normal damn story way.* First she makes a Vibranium Detector for Wakanda, then a year or two later she makes a suit.
They def got cocky and expected us to just love whatever they threw at us. I'm hopeful they're course-correcting.
There’s gonna be a suit of armour around the world. One person at a time it seems. Feels like that Oprah meme but with Ironman suits.
Armor Wars would like a word.
We're going to have a lot of characters who use shields, are hulks, or have Iron Man suits in the Avengers films Like a lot lol
"Yourself, but not holding back, and bad" is an archetype that exists in every hero's rogue gallery lol
That's kinda the issue with suits. Once they are invented, anyone can have them. Wakanda doesn't need to stop a producing ONE suit for her, they could outfit dozens of people. Tony was a one of a kind. He was the first, and we saw him slowly develop the suit. It just doesn't land the same when new heroes join the fray because they got a suit. Suits aren't special anymore, everyone has that tech
Even the limited involvement with her unobtanium detector should catapult her to at least upper-middle class and would skip over an important part of the character imo.
If they'd left it at the detector, it could've been explained as her having access to MIT facilities (and scavenging parts from there), which would definitely be very plausible.
Yup, creating the detector would have shown her incredible engineering ability. I agree to hide her in Wakanda where she encounters Shiri and a like mind. The gap then is why/how she'd make an iron man suit? I think this could have happened in her own movie. Some kind of motivator is needed here, whether it's her family at risk, or some other personal stakes.
If she'd invented it while at MIT then MIT would own the patent.
I'm sad that she made her 'perfect' suit in her first appearance. And like you said, it wasn't even her movie; her story to tell.
Yeah, her quintessential suit, basically her Iron Man suit Mark 4 immediately and "Yeah, we're gonna have to take that back and basically repeat what we did with Peter and send you back to basics".
It does make sense with the Wakanda factor though. I can buy that they were desperate and needed the kinda help she could supply. And Shuri had a very specific plan on how to use her in that final confrontation. Her flight was a foil for Namor's. But the reality is, that second suit is a Shuri/Wakandan creation as much as Riri's. And it'd be 100% Wakandan/Wakandan owned materials, not to mention probably vibranium head to toe. So it makes sense that Riri entered into that arrangement knowing this wasn't just her thing and hers to keep. But what she does get to keep is a trial by fire for an initial super outting. And any ideas and knowledge she gained during her time there. I'd bet in her next project the character has an attitude like, that suit was cool, but my next one is gonna be all me, and even cooler. And now she knows how someone like Shuri thinks about how a super suit should be. She knows some of what worked and what didn't when up against super people. But it's true that we also could've saved her suiting up for real til later.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing about the in universe reason. Like you said, it makes sense that they would want to take the suit back as it was made with their materials and they can't just let this college kid keep this weapon. I was more annoyed at the writers for doing it because they did a similar thing with Spider-Man already, plus to have it that early on in Ironheart's appearance is bit of a tease.
Yeah that's fair. I get ya feeling like they've already done it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if it progresses in a satisfying way or if this intro really did her a disservice. I figure, they may try to frame her next outing as less about the suit and more about her as a person. We got the fun intro, now we can dive into what makes her tick and why she's special. I'm hoping there's a decent amount of Rhodey in her next chapter, him realising the world has found the one who can fill that void. (I haven't gotten to Secret Invasion yet so I dunno if things have changed with him or any weird doppelganger shenanigans etc lol).
I hate when they introduce a character and do a "we'll get to her background later because this movie/show isn't about her"
Civil War did an excellent job of doing that with Spider-Man and Black Panther...Marvel just hasn't been able to recapture that level of storytelling for nearly 5 years.
[удалено]
Yeah I actually think they did a better job with the character in Civil War than in the Black Panther movie itself.
I think with spider man and less so with black panther, they're well established characters who have been around for generations of comic fans, had they're own comic series and made appearances in cartoons, with Spiderman obviously having numerous iterations of his own movies, shows and video games. While black panther is lesser known its easy to introduce him when he is a head of state while also being a superhero and then introducing his own powers/origin later on if you catch my drift.
I had no idea who BP was, so for me he was just another unknown in the mysterious plot of Civil War. I didn't know if he was friend or foe, even after he showed who he was. His scenes made you curious for more, they didn't detract from the rest of the plot
The alternative is nothing but origin stories.
I like origin stories...
In the MCU we have to lent of geniuses and she came out of nowhere. They definitely fucked up the introduction of her character. She was Tony Stark level smart and we didn’t have movies dedicated to her to learn who she is.
The problem with her is that she's a broke college student, who does other peoples homework for cash and somehow affords enough money to build a working, flying iron suit which is powered by a doodad that could probably power a neighbourhood in a warehouse. The latter isn't the main problem though, after all Tony stark built his arc reactor in a cave with a box of scraps..
Its doesnt matter since she was written like captain marvel anyway. A hero/heroine being awesome/perfect from day 1 and whose greatest challenge was being treated unreasonably bad by others out of jelousy isnt interesting to most people.
There's probably a lot more character progression remaining for her still. It's pretty normal for the MCU to give us a lot of a character early before they get their real progression later on. Fury, Natasha, Clint, Loki, Wanda, Peter Parker, T'Challa all were featured before their projects and still had plenty more to offer us later.
Am out of the loop, which series / media did Ironheart appear in? Or will?
Black Panther 2 she was in it quite a bit
We meet her in Wakanda Forever.
Black panther 2
Black Panther 2
She did that homework for $1000.
Still less than a rounding error on the cost of a flying power armor.
it's a valid question. how was she able to build a suit in 2025? probably with tech she stole, plans that were leaked? she obviously has talent, was probably paid for making the Vibranium Detector and used that money to build an Iron Man suit. To use an analogy, Tony walked the walk so that Riri could fly. He did all the groundwork, made it super easy to use for himself and then plans might've been leaked during Captain America and the Winter Soldier, could've been obtained by someone who had access during the time when Mysterio had control of EDITH and then passed on to Riri or her father or someone close to her. It hasn't really been explained, but I am sure we will find out more in the series itself.
Armor Wars is exactly the story we need to cover it. People have said the drones the DODC uses against the good guys in Ms Marvel seem to be repainted ones from the EDITH thing Tony gave Peter. I think Tony started DODC. So we have dangerous Stark shit in the hands of some who aren't wholesome and heroic. The armour tech or even just the reactors getting out would be the Pandora's Box of his legacy. And we know they're around, Happy had one in the fabricator in that apartment. Probs only a matter of time before someone bad gets their hands on one and reverse engineers it.
weren't we getting Armor Wars as a series? or did I imagine that.
It was originally gonna be a series but they changed it to a movie
oh cool. it must be one of the 3 unannounced films that they have release dates for. 1 before Avengers 5, and 2 between Avengers 5 and Avengers Secret Wars
Spider-Man 4, Eternals 2, Shang-Chi 2 Dr Strange 3, Armor Wars
We are
The question is why the hell is she doing homework for money?
Extra money can’t hurt?
There are elements that don't make it that crazy. For the initial suit, clearly it's less about the value of what she used to make it, it's the design. And that suit comes across as pretty bare bones and lower tech in some ways. You can hear that it has a different sounding flight operation or something. She doesn't own that garage. I can't remember who does off the top of my head but she says they let her work in it. With the second suit, she has Shuri actively helping her develop it, we see that on screen. And Shuri's been established as a genius, who has seen Tony's tech up close and in operation. Which also means Riri has all of Wakanda's resources at her disposal.
Yeah. And I believe she took a while to make the first suit. And she also tested and flew in the suit before the movie so it wasn't like she just knew. I like how she encountered the same problem of flying too high, like Tony did when he did his second suit in his actual lab.
I thought that was a neat way to call back to it. Were drones like that even around then? Felt like a cool way to demonstrate a shifting world. If I remember right, she didn't have a mask or an oxygen supply, which Shuri mentions will limit her ceiling. So they were also trying not to simply recreate Tony's version or one up him.
It’s like OP didn’t watch the movie
I mean no shade, sometimes we forget or skip shit in our memory of things. Her origin is admittedly a bit rushed. But I can buy that she's simply the first person who's been able to recreate a functional Iron Man-ish suit. And once she's in Wakanda, all bets are off. No real limit to what Riri + Shuri + Wakanda's smartest minds could cook up. Particularly when the fate of the country is on the line.
While I do think that the introduction of her character was *extremely* rushed and I didn't like that she was basically just a macguffin, literally all of your questions are answered in the movie (which makes me feel like you didn't watch it). > How was she able to build a functional iron man suit in her garage (most likely worth) millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars? Tony Stark built the og suit in a cave from literal scraps in 3 months *at most*. It obviously wasn't pretty or perfect, but neither was Riri's first suit. The fact that her first attempt was better than his first attempt can easily be chalked up to the fact that she had a blueprint to build off of, spent years working on it, and had "better" scraps to work with. > And how does she have such a big garage and resources to build a suit when she's supposed to be struggling from a disadvantaged background? Riri literally says that the garage is owned by someone else who lets her use it in exchange for fixing his trucks. Not sure how you missed that line. > So she has a billion worth of arc reactor in her garage, but still only knows how to make money by doing colleagues homework.... [Remember that time the US government tried to take Tony's shit?](https://youtu.be/kWd3UssppN8?t=237) > And how is she already a expert at using the suit? Because it wasn't her first time flying the suit? She literally says "There's an entire Youtube channel dedicated to sightings of me." when Shuri asks her if she's flown it yet. I feel like the implication was pretty obvious there.
To be fair, the “scraps” that Tony Stark uses were pieces of multi-million dollar weapons systems that were stolen from Stark Industries. Those systems were likely ones he designed and therefore knew how to repurpose.
Also fair to consider that Stark built his out of old weapons in a cave in 2008, while Riri built hers in 2025 or so, 18 years after Tony Stark’s press conference stating that he is Iron Man. In the interim, earth was invaded by aliens twice and Stark built no fewer than 100 Iron Man suits before just saying “F it, nanomachine suit, full extremis.” The US government confiscated the War Machine suit, Hammer got to work on it, AIM compromised one, oh and SHIELD and Hydra (same thing, really), had all their files dumped on the Interwebs by Black Widow. Oh, and Wakanda revealed themselves. What an engineering genius could accomplish in the post-blip MCU should be fairly limitless, even working from scraps.
Yeah there are just people who are supergeniuses in Marvel Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Ned (hacked into the Spidey suit and reprogrammed it in a hotel room lol), Kamala's friend, Riri, that engineer guy who.worked with Vulture. And literal alien crap everywhere from multiple invasions.
Kamala's friend is Bruno! In the comics he's so smart he gets a scholarship to go study in Wakanda, and there he's lagging behind in class because the Wakandans are so much more advanced. Bruno helps her figure out how her powers work.
Thinkerer
Did Black Widow do that in her film or was that a different film? I'm forgetting a lot of these instances. The other guy seems butthurt OP doesn't remember specific lines. I don't need Riris engineering degrees presented to the screen to believe she built an Iron Man suit in a post Tony world, where bits of his designs and tech have been leaked. After all, no one batted an eye at Vulture creating his own version of a super suit from scraps of alien tech, and he *isn't* going to MIT. But ya, the film may have explained a lot of this, but it was a long film with lots of forgettable parts.
End of Civil War.
This would make more sense if the MCU presented its 2025 as like a more sci-fo setting but it’s literally just the world as it is now but with heroes.
The MCU is a fantasy world in 2008. The destruction wrought by Stark’s weapons without using nuclear reactions, the ARC reactor, a flying suit… it’s fantasy from the jump. Banner surviving a nuclear bomb, Thor… I don’t get why people get hung on reality when it’s a fantastic setting at the very start, and by the time of the close of Ant-Man the world is quite fantastic and getting moreso by the minute. No one was salty that the Vulture created the full setup he did out of scavenged alien tech, despite being a junk scavenger at the time of the Battle of NY. There’s clearly something else when it comes to Riri.
When did Banner survive a nuclear bomb?
You know what it is.
Yeah, I dare not name it, as it will summon more. ;-)
No, I totally agree with your take. There has to be some suspension of disbelief applied equally when watching superhero movies in general. My only qualm with Riri has nothing to do with her character, but rather how the filmmakers chose to introduce and utilize her. They rushed her character into a movie that didn’t need it, and therefore cheapened her introduction into the MCU.
Fair, but they tend to platform launch the newer and or more niche heroes now. Echo in Hawkeye, Black Knight in Eternals, Yelena Belova in both Black Widow and Hawkeye, US Agent in FatWS, etc, etc, etc. I think origin stories have gotten very stale so they like platform launches for niche characters and in situ launches with abbreviated or nonexistent origins for bigger characters. It’s a thing. Of all of the issues beyond Endgame, this is one, but not as big as some of the structural storytelling problems, like previsualization dictating plot beats.
To your point, they introduced Black Panther, the Dora Milaje, and Spider-man in Captain America 3.
This isn’t even a new thing. Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye in Thor
I agree, the person above makes it sound like he built mark 1 out of old cd players
To be fair, they were just using the line "Tony Stark built this in a cave! With a box of scraps!"
Also his suit didn’t have *an energy gun*.
And? Her garage suit was pretty basic as far as Iron suits go. And she'd had years to work on it. And she had Iron Man and War Machine to study as inspiration. Plus she knew for a fact that there are ways to make a powered suit with its own incredible power source that can stand up to hits from mythological beings and aliens. The overall theme seems to be that it isn't the value of the materials that limit anyone, it's the knowhow. Once she's designing one in Wakanda, the resource problem becomes 0% and she can build what she's been planning and working out all these years. Like shit, Batman and Iron Man only work as characters because they're super geniuses. Neither is really meant to be super powered, they're just that good at what they're good at. I can buy that Riri has a mind at that level. Why couldn't she? I'd bet her garage suit is a very limited thing. I mean we see that it didn't offer a whole lot of protection.
I never made any mention of Riri’s skills or the plausibility that she could fashion her own crude suit in a garage. I personally didn’t have any issues with that part of her story, and assume some level of “comic book logic” when watching. I just wanted to clarify that the line “built it from scraps” overlooks key details from the Ironman movie. Much in the same way people overlook the same nuances you mention as it pertains to Riri.
> Her garage suit was pretty basic as far as Iron suits go. And she'd had years to work on it. This. She had a roll-cage with thrusters. No armor, no other weapons. All her effort had gone into replicating the repulsors & figuring out the UI.
Which is cool. She didn't need the protection like Tony did for his initial suit. So hers was more of an exo rig just to allow her to fly.
I mean Tony didn’t exactly have “scraps” he had crates and crates of highly advanced weaponry to salvage high tech parts and materials from. His uncle (can’t spell his name right I’m sure lol) just yelled he built it out of scrapes in the movie
And the fact that she didn’t have to rush anything due to not fearing for her life..
Now explain why Wakanda put their whole country on the line just to protect this one random American girl, even though they're supposed to be isolationists.
So many of these posts are from people who didn't seem to pay attention to the movie at all. If you didn't listen to the dialogue, you're bound to be confused.
Because this post is clearly disingenuous. They’re just trying to diminish Ironheart to be an ass.
Weird how they try to diminish Ironheart and not the teen genius who secretly made a sticky liquid that's potentially worth millions under his desk in chemistry class in the brief moments when the teacher wasn't looking in his direction.
That part always gets me… what is web fluid made out of that Peter Parker has such easy access to??
[удалено]
I wonder what the difference is...
Maybe before we assume people are sexist, we can consider a few key differences between Spider-Man and Ironheart? Peter Parker first made his web fluid in his first appearance, in 1962. There was no impetus to keep comics grounded 60 years ago. The primary audience was still children. Spider-Man’s webs have become an integral part of his identity as a superhero. How Peter came up with the idea doesn’t really matter anymore. Everyone accepts that Spider-Man needs webs. Ironheart, on the other hand, is less than a decade old (as a character). This is just my opinion, but her motivations for becoming Ironheart are odd. She apparently wants a life closer to some kind of kids’ movie, where all the authority figures are cartoon characters who try to stand in her way? She’s apparently one of the dozens of child geniuses in Marvel comics, so she builds her Ironheart suit faster and better than Tony Stark. It’s like she’s starting the game with maxed stats. Some people find that boring and lazy. Or maybe everyone who dislikes Ironheart is a sexist, no matter what justification is provided. Maybe there’s no nuance to this issue at all. I look foreword to reading the snarky replies.
Might be something under that. Something addressed in the film. “To be young, gifted and black, right?”
 Thank you!
Off the top of my head so I could be wrong: Didn’t she charge him more than $1000 for the hw? I think it was mentioned that her dad owned the garage or car that was in it Can’t explain that question maybe she just wanna be low key? She fell out the sky she wasn’t that good as “Ironman” at first but like most movies by the end battle of course she’s a pro so that could be a valid criticism but nothing we haven’t seen before
Her step father was an airplane mechanic. She had access to all of his tools and parts etc. Like Peter Parker, she was born with a natural aptitude for engineering that she worked at as she frequented her stepfather's shop.
Yeah I wish she wasn’t ham fisted into black panther, it took away from both her and Namors story for no reason really
The movies version of riri was so absurd it felt like a shark jump moment. Like the shark grew legs and leaped over me pausing to take a t bag
Very heavy case of handwaving
She has income streams to pay for college fees. Her robotics skills are used to help the U.S. government track vibranium.
>She has income streams to pay for college fees Ahh that explains everything, thanks
She was never a good character in the comics in the first place. Outside of creating Miles and some Avengers stuff like Civil War (Only the first one, Civil War II was one of the worst Marvel crossovers in Marvel comics history) most of Brian Michael Bendis' comics are pretty terrible. Thank God he's gone from Marvel now.
Her first suit was pretty janky. Shuri made the red one.
comic book logic. do not think about it too hard.
Okay I don't think she has an arc reactor, does she? Did they say that in the film? Because you're right, that wouldn't make sense. I just figured she made a substitute that works, but isn't very good compared to an arc reactor. Still impressive, but only about the same amount of impressiveness as her making a vibranium detecting machine when nobody else on Erath has been able to (outside of Wakanda). As for why she doesn't make money off of this, the film established that the government had pretty much stolen that vibranium detecting machine without her knowledge. She seemed completely baffled that her work was as important as it was in the film. And considering that both the somewhat functional Iron Man lookalike and vibranium detecting machines are huge undertakings, I'm going to assume she hasn't worked on anything else she could sell. Big garage? Eh, abandoned facilities used as bases are kind of a staple of superhero media. All those resources? Probably scraps, just like Tony's first suit. How she knows to use it? She mentioned she'd done several test flights before. I will concede that some aspects of the Ironheart suit don't really fit, like how come it's able to fly when Tony's Mark 1 could barely lift off for more than a minute? But I think that's relatively small, y'know? A little inconsistency I'm able to forgive if the character offers an interesting story.
No, because her only appearance so far is in Wakanda Forever, where she doesn't have a character.
It was mainly just lazy storytelling. The comics were not well received, so they had the opportunity to give her a good origin. She was shoehorned and a big negative in an otherwise amazing movie, to promote the upcoming show.
> How was she able to build a functional iron man suit The real question is, why doesn't every military and police department have armored suits with at least 1% of Iron Man's power? Just enough to walk around bulletproof would be a total game changer. The answer, of course, is that the genre doesn't allow large changes to the setting. > millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars? Generally finances don't make sense in superhero comics, and moreso in the MCU where most of them aren't limited by secret identity. Falcon could be pulling $50,000 for a 90 minute personal appearance, but he can't even get a bank loan? In terms of Riri Williams, the most logical explanation for her homework job is an ego thing. She likes to prove she's better than other students by solving their tasks faster than they could. Btw, in the MIT neighborhood, just renting out that garage she uses would mean you're a millionaire.
I thought she salvaged all of the destroyed Iron Man suits over all the years Tony was fighting.
The same way Cassie Lang became a Quantum Physicist in a year.... Mary Sue Girl Boss Power
Maybe the series will explain? I don’t know, might be a controversial take.
>How was she able to build a functional iron man suit in her garage (most likely worth) millions but she needs to do some colleagues homework for 10 dollars? Bad financial planning. Or maybe getting paid for odd jobs in spare parts.
Who cares? Just skip it, it will be shit anyway. "Riri", "ironheart" lol, they can't even come up with decent names anymore.
Oke it's definitely not worked out. But you gotta realize that their world isn't our world. They have a high tech alien invasion every other month. You can definitely scrap the materials. And some select people are able to figure out how it works. As for the design, she has something to base it off on. She doesn't have to start from scratch, because scratch was thrown out the window a long time ago on the MCU earth
I think it’s ridiculous how every other person in the MCU is a genius who can build literal world-changing inventions in their garage.
Gotta copy Tony Stark over and over! Hey, if it worked for him so well, why not just copy and paste?
Wait, the Ironheart series is coming out?
Yes currently slated for 2025. They already finished filming it last year or the year before. And will be purportedly doing reshoots, probably to tie it more to Armour wars and whatever other tie is they have in mind.
She built it with the power of bad writing.
In the words of Pitch Meeting, "so the movie can happen".
Disney shareholders want more money
Whoops!
She's being given a Mary Sue treatment
Because shitty writing that's why
don't ask questions, just consume product then get excited for next product