Ironheart: Review

Marvel's latest TV series feels like a smaller, more intimate fare but one that follows the impacts of trauma explored in the recent Thunderbolts* movie.

Dominique Thorne returns as Riri Williams, who's convinced she could be the greatest inventor of her generation. However, despite having a scholarship at MIT, she's expelled after yet another experiment goes awry. Stripped of her assets to build an Iron Man style suit, she steals the one she's been working on and heads home to Chicago with her tail between her legs and penniless, but determined to find funding somehow to achieve her dreams.

It's on the way home that she gets noticed by seemingly small-time criminal Parker Robbins (a magnetic Anthony Ramos) and enticed to become a part of his gang for the promise of money. But she soon finds herself deeper than she'd wanted to be and haunted by her past...

Ironheart is a solid series that has a pep in its step initially before it calms down to something a little deeper about relationships, family and ambition as well as the self-imposed pressure to meet your own expectations.

Central to this is Thorne as Riri, who manages to channel bluster, self-doubt and sadness with aplomb. It sounds trite to say she's the backbone of this and while the series initially threatens to be a heist of the week show early on, it wisely changes direction three episodes into its six-episode run, gifting the show its more personal and intimate edges.

It's great to see an inner city figuring largely as a show character too. From burger bars to overground trains, Chicago is a locale that feels rarely seen in this world of the MCU - and is all the better for it.

It may have implications for the wider universe in its conclusion and much of what should be discussed falls too much into spoiler-filled territory, but Ironheart is a compact serial that plays to the scope of its ambition and wisely knows to stay in its lane for maximum impact

Ironheart debuts on Disney+ on Wednesday June 25. 6 of 6 episodes were viewed for the purpose of this review.