In an effort to at least be relevant, I watched this show as quickly as my time would allow, so I could finish before it was spoiled for me. Unfortunately, it WAS, so I won't do that to you. But you come here, my tens of fans, to see what I think. I'll get right to it.
I loved this show. The episodes stuck with me long after they were over and that is a rarity with these shows. This was such a black show and that is probably why. There's unsaid things that we as a people just get when watching something like this. The fact that they got Disney money to do it makes it even sweeter. Per my new format, let me give you my bullet point notes:
- The Ironheart effects looked REALLY good. Most of these Marvel shows try to go above what their SFX budget allows (**cough** She-Hulk **cough** ), but that was not the case here. I was legitimately surprised.
- Riri was complicated and they delve as much as they can within six episodes. I don't feel like she made any moves that were inconsistent with her character. She is handling her grief throughout all of the episodes and you can see that manifest in ALL her choices.
- I loved the unique personalities of the Hood's crew. It was an "anti-woke" person's worst nightmare and I love it. I wish them a terrible day for eternity.
- At it's core in the comics, I think the Hood is a completely stupid character. They tried to ram him down our throats in the comics in the early 00's. He just doesn't work. Here, on a smaller scale he was alright. I liked him as the choice of villain because it sets up this magic versus tech confrontation.
- Picking up on the above point, I liked this magic versus tech throughline. Lord knows, I did not want to see two different people in iron man suits fighting each other again. Normally I'll bitch about a difference in power sets (re: Captain America: Brave New World), but here I was surprisingly okay with it. Maybe it had something to do with them fleshing out the characters enough to know that their contention was personal, not simply good versus evil.
- The character of Natalie is fantastic and credit to the actress. Her and Riri put in a lot of emotional work.
- I don't know Chicago at all, but I feel like they showed you the black side of Chicago in this show and dealt with it with respect. The city felt like it's own character.
- As is the way with these kind of stories, the heroes inadvertantly make villains out of friends. I'm not going to defend Riri, her ego set up one of her villains.
- LOVED seeing how they introduced Zora Stanton and I love seeing Cree Summer appearing in this even more.
- I'm glad the Marvel cinematic universe got over their whole ethos of trying to make things realistic and finally embracing the magic side. I know that WandaVision and Doctor Strange crawled so that Ironheart could walk. I didn't say Agatha because this show was technically filmed long before that, so it couldn't reference anything there.
- I do enjoy that we get a callback to the very first Iron Man by having another Stane in the show. What do I Mean? Watch to find out!
- I loved the fun way they showed the title card with each episode.
The final point I want to make and I wanted to break it out is the one negative thing about this show. It is not anything that is the show's fault. Everytime a show like Ironheart comes along (Black Female Lead, Black Female Directed, Black Female writers, hell, anyone not a straight white guy), the worst of the worst of the fandom come out to bash a show they didn't even watch. If you ever thought your fandom was free of racism, a show like this is the litmus test.
In case you missed it, this show was review bombed before it was even released. People that never watched the show were giving it a 1 out of ten across the board and talking about how "woke" it was. First of all, some of these are fake fans. Ironheart has been around for almost a decade now, so it's not like she manifested out of nothing.
Then there are the toxic-ass comic fans talking about how it's not accurate because she didn't have an A.I. of Tony in her suit, or Tony was able to build his armor in a cave as a way to dismiss what she accomplished. These type of people piss me off because they want their movies/tv shows to be EXACTLY like the comic book source material. I'm here to tell you, 75% of the time, that source material is shit and these shows are fixing some bad choices made back then because the showrunners have the benefit of perspective. I'll come out and say it, Riri is almost unlikeable in the comics. This show goes a long way to giving her some depth. Probably because they finally had a Black person writing for her. But I digress.
I said it before and I'll say it again, I think this show is legitimately good. It accomplishes what it needs to in a nice and tight six episode arc. It's layered, the characters are believable and are not perfect. The season ends on a cliffhanger and I pray to the old gods and the new, that she gets a follow up season. Strong recommendation to watch!
