Ironheart

Ironheart is a tedious show with Cohen's minor appearance as Mephisto being the sole highlight. Every other character is a varying degree of unappealing, from the ghetto criminals who marked the diversity checkbox on their criminal employment contracts to Riri Williams herself. The show tries to blend Iron Man with Doctor Strange but rather than creating anything remotely interesting just acts as the bridge between what came before and what's coming next.

It's Marvel. It's really, really bad Marvel. Featuring stereotypes. Black lead starts series by stealing and then joining a gang. Good on you, Marvel.

Dragged on too much, could have been a 1h30 movie. The techno-magic parts were rough. Riri as a character was rough. It's not all bad though, enjoyable series to watch if you can put yourself through the grind, and the end is a good change from the disneyification of Marvel protagonists and story arcs. Didn't care too much for this series, but it got me wondering what's next for those characters, so that's good enough.

1x; Love Sci-fi, but story was bad, it didn’t make any sense with the super high-tech and magic in an otherwise normal environment.

Wakanda Forever didn’t exactly get me interested in this, but the low expectations set by everyone saying this is the worst show of all time (mostly review bombing) resulted in me being pleasantly surprised. It’s far from the best MCU show, but it’s not exactly the worst either. The pacing is brisk, it has fun action scenes, and there’s some decent character moments throughout. It’s not a must watch, but I had fun with it for the most part.

The relationships with Riri were not fleshed out nearly enough. Her mom, Natalie, Xavier, and her stepdad are all supposed to be important to her, but throughout the show, Riri seems like she could care less about them. Mephisto, Ezekiel Stane, and The Hood actually create a decent trio of villains, but the show fails to focus on any of them. Riri has moments where the audience should care about her, but oddly, she isn't someone you can root for all the time.

[through season 1]

I like the characters in this, and I think it sets up some cool ideas for the future of Marvel (if they're ever paid off). However, I don't feel like the core story is all that great.

A shallow show. I liked the main villain reveal, but it is wasted in a show where you don’t care about any of the characters.

Not perfect, but surprising. After so many MCU projects that feel mechanical, Ironheart offers something different. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t try to be another epic story about saving the world, but instead a portrait of a young genius who still doesn’t fully know who she wants to be. Riri Williams doesn’t fall into the usual “misunderstood genius” cliché. She has charisma, flaws, contradictions — and that’s refreshing. Dominique Thorne carries the series with a mix of youthful energy and b