Black Superhero: Ironheart

Riri Williams is new on the scene and despite what you may have heard she did not murder Tony Stark so she could take his place and push white genocide. Instead she's here to bring some more freshness to the hero scene. I've got one complaint and that's the fact her dad's name is Riri Sr.

Riri Sr. died shortly before the birth oh his daughter. This left Riri's mother to raise Riri and her sister Sharon alone in Chicago. Eventually her mother went ahead and got married to another man. They thought this was the cause of Riri's behavior issues when she was five. However, she was also having problems in school for the first time, acting out there as well.

This caused them to have some tests done to see if Riri had ADHD or any similar disorders. In reality it turned out that Riri was a super genius and one of the smartest people in the world at a young age. Because of this she became introverted and often wouldn't even converse with people outside of her own family.

One person that wouldn't allow that was her next door neighbor Natalie. Riri saw Natalie working in the garage while riding her block and invited herself in. Natalie thought Riri was weird in a good way and the two quickly became friends. She helped Riri come out of her shell more and her parents were glad to see Riri had a friend.

But, good things don't seem to last in Riri's life. At a local picnic a drive by shooting took place, putting the whole neighborhood in danger. During the shootout Riri's stepfather was shot and killed pushing Riri out of the way so she wouldn't be shot. When Riri got up after the shots had stopped she saw that both her stepfather and Natalie were shot and dead.

Two years later at the age of 15 she's attending MIT on a full ride scholarship. Finding herself bored with classes, Riri found a new way to entertain herself. After finding the plans to Iron Man Model 41, the space suit, she decided to reverse engineer it. After that she decided she would just build her own suit. Despite being at MIT on a full ride scholarship, Riri does not come from money and couldn't afford all of the parts needed. So she stole things from various labs around campus to complete her suit. While working on the suit she called Sharon and asked her what Iron Man would call himself if he was a woman. Sharon came up with the name Ironheart and that's what Riri would use from then on.

Eventually security learned she was behind the thefts and went to her room to arrest her. Riri put on her suit and said goodbye to college. She spent a while just flying around the country, enjoying the suit and trying to get the hang of it. While in New Mexico she notices a group of prisoners escaping in a truck. She tackles the truck and tips it over leading to the prisoners being caught but her suit being destroyed.

Knowing she couldn't go back to MIT she returned to Chicago. While there she began to repair her suit deciding she wanted to be a hero. Her mother wasn't a fan of the idea at all. During this time Tony Stark paid her a visit and praised her for her accomplishments and promising some help with that funding.

During Civil War II Riri joined Tony in fighting against Captain Marvel and her group. During the fighting Tony ended up in a coma and Riri helped herself to his lab. There she found an AI clone of Tony that she used as her assistant. Together the two of them built the Ironheart 2 suit which provided her with all the same features as Tony Stark.

We're still not done with Riri's first major story arc so now is probably a good time to hop in and check out her story before she gets super famous and you seem like a trend rider.

Abilities and Equipment

• Ironheart Suit
• Based on Iron Man Model #51 with improvements by Riri
• Flight
• Super strength
• Repulse
• Cloaking
• Fast enough to break sound barrier
• Linked to brain
• Durable enough to take super strength hits
• Shields to protect from magic and energy blasts
• A bunch of other stuff
• Genius level intellect
• Enough to be praised by Tony Stark and Moon Girl (currently smartest person in Marvel according to editors but unknown to most because she's a kid)

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim
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