Marvel’s New Iron Man Is Young, Black & Female

Los Angeles: Iron Man will soon be a young, black, female teen. 

At first glance, this announcement, first made by Time, is another step forward in Marvel Comics’ continued efforts to make its comic-book universe a better resemblance of the world it occupies. For so long that wasn’t the case. But we now have Miles Morales as a half African-American/half Puerto Rican Spider-Man. We’ve got Kamala Khan, the new Muslim Ms. Marvel. Thor is a woman. The Incredible Hulk is Asian. Nova has a Latina mother. The Marvel Comics universe is almost unrecognizable when you compare it to just a decade ago.

And now, we have Riri Williams, a beautiful, young black girl with a genius-level IQ who has a mind sophisticated enough to take over for Iron Man when the final events of Marvel’s Civil War II unfold, we assume. Even better, the person that is bringing us Riri, writer Brian Michael Bendis, is the same creator who gave us Miles Morales.

Riri was first introduced in to readers back in May’s Invisible Iron Man #9. In that story, she’d just reverse engineered her own Iron Man armor, though it wound up getting her kicked out of school. According to series writer and Civil War II architect Brian Michael Bendis, Tony Stark quickly discovers her and, in the midst of all the turmoil going on in his life, sets out to meet her in person.

“One of the things Tony does to distract himself from all the things going on in his life,” Bendis told Time, “is he goes to find this young woman who is flying around the middle of America in an armor that’s not completely made to try to find out what her deal is.”

It’s worth noting that Riri isn’t the first person of color or woman to take up the Iron Man mantle over the years. Characters like James “Rhodey” Rhodes and even Aunt May Parker (yes, we know it was a What If? story) have all suited up over the years. But Riri taking center stage makes her part of a generation of Marvel heroes featuring Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Sam Wilson, and Jane Foster, who've all stepped into classic superhero roles and made them their own while making the Marvel universe more diverse in the process. Even if Tony Stark is still around for the foreseeable future (and he probably will be in some capacity) it's good to see the House of Ideas embracing more change.