Ironheart centers on Riri Williams, a brilliant young inventor striving to emulate Tony Stark’s legacy in suit engineering. She first appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, though her role there felt somewhat disjointed.

We seem to have more or less erased that introduction and started fresh, but the opening three episodes are, at the very least, peculiar—and not particularly engaging.

I should note upfront that I’m quite impressed with Dominique Thorne, who plays Riri. While she didn’t leave much of an impression in Wakanda Forever, here she shines far more brightly, delivering a charismatic and compelling performance as the lead. Her chemistry with Alden Ehrenreich is also a highlight. His presence in this minor MCU series feels unexpected after his high-profile roles in Oppenheimer and a Star Wars film, but he makes the most of his small part.

The plot, however, is all over the place. Riri’s driving motivation seems to be simply acquiring money to build a suit—for the sake of building a suit. Early on, she mutters something about wanting to use it to aid first responders, presumably because her stepfather and best friend were shot (and judging from flashbacks, both were likely dead on arrival). But beyond that, her drive is…she really wants a cool suit.

To fund her upgrades, she ends up taking on criminal jobs for cash (because apparently even a genius can’t find a better way to earn money), and the suit she’s working on is somehow worse than the one we already saw her build in Wakanda Forever. This new version does little more than fly and scan things. After three episodes, there’s barely any action in the show—only two fights, both involving unnamed security guards, and none featuring Riri and her suit. How do you make an Iron Man-style story without any suit-based battles and a suit that doesn’t even come equipped with weapons?

The group of criminals Riri joins is almost laughably mismatched within the context of the series. The team includes a hacker, an explosives expert, a knife specialist, two siblings who mostly just do karate, and a girl piloting a massive mech suit. It’s undeniably absurd.

The main antagonist is The Hood, a gang leader dressed like a failed stage magician—one of the worst costume choices in MCU history. He appears to have struck some sort of infernal bargain that gives him a cloak granting invisibility and bullet manipulation abilities. That said, the wobbling bullets used to depict his powers looked so unrealistic that regular gunfire would’ve had the same effect—and been funnier.

There's also a subplot where Riri unintentionally turns her deceased best friend into an AI. Presumably, this is meant to explore themes of grief, but Riri’s motivations—“get money, make suit”—are hardly gripping, and overall, this version of the character feels like a regression from her initial appearance.

Critics have suggested that the next three episodes improve upon these early installments, and while Thorne’s performance remains strong and the non-nanotech suit design is fairly cool, that’s not enough. At this point, I’m not sure what could possibly elevate the narrative enough to make it truly compelling.

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