Last year, we told you that there were rumblings that Disney and Marvel Studios were thinking of replacing Tony Stark/Iron Man with young newcomer Riri Williams/Ironheart.
If you’re not familiar with the character, she’s a relatively new hero in the pages of Marvel Comics and is a genius MIT student who reverse engineers Tony’s armor and begins to fight crime with it. Recognizing her skills, intelligence and even seeing a bit of himself in her, Stark agrees to be her mentor and programs an AI version of himself to help the youngster in her battles.
With Iron Man now gone after having died in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU obviously needs someone to take his place and it seems like the studio is looking to Riri to fill that role. When exactly she’ll make her debut is still unclear, but Jeremy Conrad of MCU Cosmic is reporting today that a Disney Plus limited series for the character is now in early development, with plans to transition her into the films afterwards. He notes that a movie is still possible, but it’s more likely she’ll show up on the small screen first.
Of course, this isn’t too surprising to hear as like we said above, evidence has been mounting for a while now that Williams is headed to the MCU. We Got This Covered’s own sources also told us several months ago that Ironheart was Marvel’s top choice for how to replace Iron Man (though back then, the plan was to introduce her in a movie first, not a show). Not to mention that an African-American young woman would certainly gel with Kevin Feige’s plans to make the franchise more inclusive and diverse.
But perhaps the most interesting part about all this is that Robert Downey Jr. may actually return as Tony Stark. Sources close to WGTC – the same ones who gave us the original Ironheart scoop back in the summer – claim that Marvel is “100% interested” in getting the actor back to reprise his role via AI and/or hologram and act as a mentor of sorts to Riri. Though whether he’ll agree is another question entirely.
In any case, it looks like the wheels are finally turning on the Ironheart project and as soon as we learn more, we’ll be sure to let you know.