Femme, Gifted, and Black: ‘Ironheart’ Review

Let Me Be Great With no other fanfare, Marvel Studios’ Ironheart is good. Argue with your local incel, because there ain’t no debates here. Creator and showrunner Chinaka Hodge Took. Us. Back. The gritty science fiction moving in lockstep with the fantasy of magic reminded us of why we believed in comic book media in the first place. Will the cultural and critical success of Ironheart be enough to drown out the rising tide of xenophobia? Will Marvel let this IP be great? Let’s get into it. The Exaggerated Swagger of a Black Genius Dominique Thorne is Riri Williams. There’s no way to come back from it; the genie’s out of the lamp. Thorne is lightning in a bottle in Ironheart—ferocity and passion in equal parts, brilliance, and the ego to flex it on full display. We’ve had almost twenty years of the MCU to dissect the complexity of Tony Stark’s personality. So, what we got from Riri in Wakanda Forever felt like an afterthought, as if she were shoehorned into the film after a slew of decisions were made (respectfully, after Chadwick Boseman’s passing shifted the film’s direction). That is NOT what we get viewing Ironheart. Homegirl is so fully fleshed out and well-conceived. Every detail. From production design and costuming, down to the microexpressions Thorne uses to convey to viewers what Riri doesn’t say aloud. 

NATALIE (Lyric Ross) and Riri (Dominique Thorne), trying to figure it out. © 2025 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

Shoutout to Brooklyn, New York City! Dominique …