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Ironheart (TV Series) Episodes 1 - 3
Aka the series which was delayed for years, with the result that there is much preemptive sceptism. Having watched the first three episodes which got dropped a few days ago, I very much like what I'm seeing so far. The way the series provides a distinct feeling of a place and people reminds me of what the show Ms Marvel did with the Pakistani community in New Jersey - in this case, Riri Williams comes from the Chicago South Side, as does the director, google tells me, and that's where she returns to in the series' pilot.
Riri was one of the reasons why I liked the second Black Panther movie more than the first. I haven't read any of her comics, but I osmosed she's a legacy character there as well, and a deliberate parallel and direct contrast to Tony Stark at the same time. She, too, is a kid and then teenage genius ending up on MIT, but she's poor, and doesn't have the connections needed not to be kicked out, scholarship or no scholarship, when she breaks the rules, unlike him. (And that's leaving aside the black/white, female/male difference.)
BTW: I like that the rules Riri breaks aren't your standard bureaucratic nonsense ones designed to make the viewers disregard them, but reasonable ones - in order to get the cash needed for her out of school engineering, she's selling her skills to do the homework for lazy but rich fellow students, and plagiarism is deservedly forbidden. At the same time, it's easy to understand why Riri does it. The trajectory she's on in the first three episodes has her rationalizing more and more non-legal stuff despite her growing unease until the breakdown at the end of the third episode, and it's a far more deftly drawn development than "X does one wrong thing, immediately repents and makes up for it ever after" (And also more fitting in terms of whose legacy character she is. (If she shared only the enthusiasm for creating cool technology, but not the awareness she is responsible for some genuinely bad stuff, it wouldn fit.)
(One obvious nitpick would be that she could have asked Shuri for help earlier - I had assumed Shuri at least provided a phone number or email for emergencies, but apparantly not. On a Doylist level, it's because of the usual problem of having on the one hand a shared universe, but otoh crossovers only in some cases, but not all.)
"Are we Ocean's Eleven or are we the Sopranos?" Riri asks Parker when she starts to become unable to shut out her doubts anymore. Of course, Ocean's 11 and in general heist movies are great fun to watch - and the episodes do provide some of those tropes - but that kind of fantasy lives from the idea that the robbed people are "only" rich bastards and that no one gets seriously hurt. Parker sells his three schemes to his crew as punishment for their targets as well as providing them with cash, but note his goal isn't to stop the community hurting enterprises, it's to become a shareholder in them. At the same time, he at least mostly believes what he's saying, and villains who do are usually the more interesting ones. And the show has now given him an understandable reason to turn on Riri via the death of John.
Said death is incredibly murky, and I mean that as a compliment. Given he attacked her (and had the realistic advantage, since Riri is an engineering genius, not a martial artist, and has had no training in physical fights that we know of), it would have been easy to let him die in direct combat but via an accident, in a clear case of self defense that Disney usually loves to use to finish off their villains. But no. Natalie the AI via the suit saves Riri and leaves John to suffocate. Riri didn't order it and she wasn't exactly in a good condition at the time, but neither did she protest or try to stop it or say something like "we have to save him" - and by her reaction once she's out of the suit, she knows. It also shows that AI!Natalie isn't simply a lovable virtual copy of Riri's late best friend but, well, an Artificial Intelligence with different priorities. (Though I also assume she's still somewhat linked with Riri's mind; after all, she was created out of Riri's memories.)
Speaking of Natalie, the two young actresses have a great rapport and chemistry. I like all the actors so far, and am hoping Riri's mother will go the way of Kamala's Mum, Mrs. Khan (i.e. live) rather than that of all too many mothers of male superheroes. Everyone's reactions when "Joe" turned up were priceless. Which reminds me, I'm glad I was unspoiled for this show, because Ezekiel "Zeke" Stane is actually one of the comic characters I do kow - he was the main villain in the short lived Iron Man spin-off The Order where he subjected everyone to godawful things before moving on to menace Tony Stark in the main title before getting defeated. So far, personality wise, he struck me as very different from the series' version. Now "son/daughter of villain = villain" is actually a convention I dislike, which is why I hope Joe/Zeke won't go the obvious route, not least because the scenes between him and Riri (especially the one where they sing Alanis Morisette songs together) have had a delightful oddball quality so far, and it simply would be more interesting if he ended up as her tech support instead of her nemesis. Anyway, given that the first three episodes have provided Riri with not one but two possible enemies, I am hoping that means one of them will not be one (at least not permanently) as a twist.
In conclusion, I am eagerly awaiting the next episodes and am now curious whether Tony originally created Jarvis the AI as a result of his grief for Jarvis the James D'Arcy version as well.
Riri was one of the reasons why I liked the second Black Panther movie more than the first. I haven't read any of her comics, but I osmosed she's a legacy character there as well, and a deliberate parallel and direct contrast to Tony Stark at the same time. She, too, is a kid and then teenage genius ending up on MIT, but she's poor, and doesn't have the connections needed not to be kicked out, scholarship or no scholarship, when she breaks the rules, unlike him. (And that's leaving aside the black/white, female/male difference.)
BTW: I like that the rules Riri breaks aren't your standard bureaucratic nonsense ones designed to make the viewers disregard them, but reasonable ones - in order to get the cash needed for her out of school engineering, she's selling her skills to do the homework for lazy but rich fellow students, and plagiarism is deservedly forbidden. At the same time, it's easy to understand why Riri does it. The trajectory she's on in the first three episodes has her rationalizing more and more non-legal stuff despite her growing unease until the breakdown at the end of the third episode, and it's a far more deftly drawn development than "X does one wrong thing, immediately repents and makes up for it ever after" (And also more fitting in terms of whose legacy character she is. (If she shared only the enthusiasm for creating cool technology, but not the awareness she is responsible for some genuinely bad stuff, it wouldn fit.)
(One obvious nitpick would be that she could have asked Shuri for help earlier - I had assumed Shuri at least provided a phone number or email for emergencies, but apparantly not. On a Doylist level, it's because of the usual problem of having on the one hand a shared universe, but otoh crossovers only in some cases, but not all.)
"Are we Ocean's Eleven or are we the Sopranos?" Riri asks Parker when she starts to become unable to shut out her doubts anymore. Of course, Ocean's 11 and in general heist movies are great fun to watch - and the episodes do provide some of those tropes - but that kind of fantasy lives from the idea that the robbed people are "only" rich bastards and that no one gets seriously hurt. Parker sells his three schemes to his crew as punishment for their targets as well as providing them with cash, but note his goal isn't to stop the community hurting enterprises, it's to become a shareholder in them. At the same time, he at least mostly believes what he's saying, and villains who do are usually the more interesting ones. And the show has now given him an understandable reason to turn on Riri via the death of John.
Said death is incredibly murky, and I mean that as a compliment. Given he attacked her (and had the realistic advantage, since Riri is an engineering genius, not a martial artist, and has had no training in physical fights that we know of), it would have been easy to let him die in direct combat but via an accident, in a clear case of self defense that Disney usually loves to use to finish off their villains. But no. Natalie the AI via the suit saves Riri and leaves John to suffocate. Riri didn't order it and she wasn't exactly in a good condition at the time, but neither did she protest or try to stop it or say something like "we have to save him" - and by her reaction once she's out of the suit, she knows. It also shows that AI!Natalie isn't simply a lovable virtual copy of Riri's late best friend but, well, an Artificial Intelligence with different priorities. (Though I also assume she's still somewhat linked with Riri's mind; after all, she was created out of Riri's memories.)
Speaking of Natalie, the two young actresses have a great rapport and chemistry. I like all the actors so far, and am hoping Riri's mother will go the way of Kamala's Mum, Mrs. Khan (i.e. live) rather than that of all too many mothers of male superheroes. Everyone's reactions when "Joe" turned up were priceless. Which reminds me, I'm glad I was unspoiled for this show, because Ezekiel "Zeke" Stane is actually one of the comic characters I do kow - he was the main villain in the short lived Iron Man spin-off The Order where he subjected everyone to godawful things before moving on to menace Tony Stark in the main title before getting defeated. So far, personality wise, he struck me as very different from the series' version. Now "son/daughter of villain = villain" is actually a convention I dislike, which is why I hope Joe/Zeke won't go the obvious route, not least because the scenes between him and Riri (especially the one where they sing Alanis Morisette songs together) have had a delightful oddball quality so far, and it simply would be more interesting if he ended up as her tech support instead of her nemesis. Anyway, given that the first three episodes have provided Riri with not one but two possible enemies, I am hoping that means one of them will not be one (at least not permanently) as a twist.
In conclusion, I am eagerly awaiting the next episodes and am now curious whether Tony originally created Jarvis the AI as a result of his grief for Jarvis the James D'Arcy version as well.
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Riri could come unsympathetic but her interactions with Natalie, 'Joe' and her clear reservations keep her sympathetic to me.
I'm hoping the second half will emphasis her mental issues, the panic attack and she was clearly hiding at MIT as a safe space for her - her armour is clearly already the best out there if only from lack of competition.
And thank you for talking about the ambiguity of that death! I've not seen anyone else discuss it in those terms.
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