Welcome to Marvel’s latest rollercoaster where trauma gets coded into AI, suits fly off the curb like Uber rides, and witches just pop up like they misplaced their brooms on the way to WandaVision.
Set after the events of Wakanda Forever, Ironheart follows Riri Williams, a brilliant young MIT student who’s grappling with the loss of her best friend. But because this is Marvel, the mourning period includes her dead BFF returning as a literal AI companion. While processing grief (and occasionally glitching software), Riri stumbles into a world of tech-enhanced thieves, magic spells, and an underworld villain named The Hood who seems like he read one too many Doctor Strange comics and decided to try chaos for himself.
Dominique Thorne returns as Riri Williams with charm, sass, and enough emotional depth to make even Tony Stark shed a holographic tear. She juggles grief, genius, and full-blown panic attacks with admirable nuance—and somehow still delivers sharp one-liners in between. Sacha Baron Cohen as Mephisto? Inspired. He’s creepy, charismatic, and definitely the type to monologue while setting a building on fire. The rest of the cast, especially the ragtag crew of heist misfits, feel like the Marvel version of Ocean’s Eleven—if everyone had student loans and reality-warping trauma.
The visual style swings between slick Iron Man legacy shots and wait, did someone render this on a 2012 graphics card? CGI moments. When it hits, it hits—especially the final few episodes—but a few effects definitely needed a firmware update. The music slaps, though. From gritty urban beats to eerie magical undertones, the soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting when the plot starts wobbling. The camera work makes the action feel grounded, and some of the quieter moments are genuinely well-framed (which helps when the plot starts casting spells at itself).
Ironheart is messy—but it’s Marvel’s kind of messy. Its release format didnt help. You’ve got magic versus tech, father-son villain arcs, underground heists, AI dead besties, and enough exposition to fill Stark Tower. The pacing is as chaotic as a tech convention with open bar. Some plotlines feel like they wandered in from another show entirely (looking at you, midseason witchcraft arc), but there’s something weirdly charming about it all.
Riri’s journey is genuinely compelling. Her anxiety and grief aren’t just background noise—they shape her decisions, her suit designs, and even her interactions with the AI of her late friend. It’s heartfelt, even when surrounded by exploding drones and teleporting sorcerers.
Now, let’s not pretend this is perfect. The initial suit looks dead, she gets a later one which is better but we still await the more slender design—and the fact that it can fly up to Riri on the street with zero reactions from pedestrians? Hilarious. The CGI stumbles occasionally, and some of the dialogue will make your eyebrows levitate out of sheer cringe. But Ironheart knows what it is: a wild mashup of grief, genius, and genre chaos with a soul.
Now let’s address the pre-release review bombing. Yeah, that happened. And honestly? That kind of backlash before episode one even dropped tells you this show had people shook—not because it was bad, but because it dared to try something different with a young Black heroine at its core.
Ironheart is not the cleanest, tightest Marvel entry, but it’s bold, emotional, chaotic, and different. And sometimes, different is exactly what we need. I had fun with it.
