Are Marvel Fans Ready for IronHeart as Tony Stark Replacement?
Tony Stark, portrayed by Robert Downey Junior, died in Avengers: Endgame (2019). Ever since, fans were on the fence about wanting the iconic superhero to be back, afraid that Iron Man's resurrection would diminish the sacrifice he'd made.
But when a new possible superhero replacement was announced back in 2020, the Ironheart TV series scheduled to premiere in late 2023, another question became even more pressing: are fans actually ready for the new superhero?
Ironheart is shiny and new to the Marvel universe: the character was introduced in the comics in 2016. Her name is Riri Williams, and she is a 15-year-old prodigy who got MIT scholarship at just 11. Being an Iron Man fan, Riri steals materials from the campus and builds her own version of Tony Stark's armor suit. Fans are yet to find out just how close the cinematic Ironheart will be following her comic book version's footsteps. The bigger question is, will she follow Iron Man's footsteps to fill in the void he left in MCU?
Marvel's fanbase, just like any other, is quick to organize to talk about any new piece of information, and it's the same with Ironheart. Many even go as far as creating their own first-look trailers for the upcoming TV series. A huge thread appeared on Reddit under a photo of the action figure box of Ironheart that offers "better look at the iron heart suit." So far people seem to be excited about the character, and perhaps, the cinematic interpretation might become more popular with the fans than the comic book one.
One of the comments under the post says, "this is actually a really cool design. I've got a feeling Ironheart/Riri will be a favorite amongst the fanbase." Some fans are already saying that MCU's version of Riri Williams is much better-looking in terms of the superhero suit than the comics' version of the character.
Riri's suit design drew quite a few hilarious comparisons, each one better than the previous one, that will surely crack you up. "Looks less like an Iron Man suit, and more like a Transformer," one of the Redditors mentioned, with others admitting that Ironheart's armor design looks like Bionicle, a Fortnite skin, a Power Ranger suit.
It is too soon to judge whether or not the suit on screen will look like the one on the action figure box, but it sure is keeping awaiting fans entertained.
All in all, MCU's fanbase seems to be ready and waiting for the new super genius engineer superhero in super armor to fill in for the beloved Tony Stark.