Set after the events of Namor (Tenoch Huerta) – and in addition to all this, Wakanda will see the rise of a new Black Panther. Black Panther 2 will see the return of Shuri (Letitia Wright), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman), and will introduce Riri Williams, who has been briefly seen in the trailers ing forces with Shuri – but new details about her role show how different she already is from Iron Man.
How The MCU Has Already Changed Ironheart
In the comics, Riri Williams is a 15-year-old genius engineering student at MIT, where she designed a suit of armor like Iron Man’s, built with material she stole from campus. She caught the attention of the one and only Tony Stark when she wore the suit to prevent two inmates from escaping from a penitentiary, and Stark decided to endorse her decision to become a superhero. Because of this, Riri is being seen as the MCU’s Iron Man replacement, but even before her MCU debut, she has already proven how different she is from the late genius superhero, and her role in Black Panther 2 further confirms this.
In an interview with SFX, Captain America: Civil War, standing out against the conflict between Wakanda and Talokan as T’Challa did between Iron Man and Captain America. This gives Riri a neutral role in her first big conflict in the MCU, which is unlike what Iron Man would have done, as he was always one to take action (and was usually led by his emotions and ego) rather than remain neutral. The MCU's Ironheart was already different from her comic book version as she doesn’t have Tony Stark as her mentor, which in this particular case will actually be a good thing.
Why It's Good Ironheart Is More Than Just A New Iron Man
Ironheart can take Iron Man’s place in the MCU without having to be like him. Ironheart has a couple of similarities with Iron Man, such as both being geniuses and building their own suits of armor, but Riri isn’t a billionaire like Tony, and her transformation into a superhero comes from a genuine interest in doing good rather than from a traumatic experience, as was the case of Tony. Being able to be a neutral player in a massive conflict as will be Riri’s case in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a key difference as it shows that Riri has more emotional intelligence than Tony, thus making her a mature hero and a potential leader of a team, even though she’s still quite young and getting started in her superhero journey.
