There were a lot of Marvel projects among those that Disney announced during their investor's day meeting last year. Among those was the announcement of the Ironheart series. They even surprised everyone with the official casting of Dominique Thorne in the lead role.
The character of Ironheart was created in 2016 when Riri Williams decided to carry on Tony Stark's legacy following the events of Civil War 2. Having been shown to have super genius-level intelligence at the age of five, Riri was raised by her mother and stepfather in Chicago, Illinois. She went on to go to M.I.T., where she got hold of the technology needed to make her own Iron Man suit—which she did, taking on the mantle of Ironheart.
The series has no official release date, and not much is known besides the show's existence and who is playing the lead role. Finally, that has changed, as Variety has exclusively learned who will be the head writer bringing Riri Williams to life.
IRONHEART IS A GO
According to Variety, the Ironheart series has tapped Chinaka Hodge to serve as head writer for the show. Some of Hodge's past work includes Apple TV's recent Amazing Stories and the TNT adaptation of Snowpiercer.
IRONHEART, THE NEXT IRON MAN
With all the MCU's mainstay's slowly being replaced and transitioning out of their roles, Riri Williams will be next in the line to take over Iron Man's mantle. Thankfully, where the MCU stands now, is a similar status quo to where the comics were when Riri first debuted. With Tony Stark having died, it's the first time for the technical genius of Ironheart to shine.
Something that makes this show unique right out of the gate, is that the lead actress Dominique Thorne never actually auditioned for the role—something that surprised even her. It's certainly a strange and bold move by Marvel, but one can only assume they know what they are doing at this point. Something similar happened with Iman Vellani, as before being hired to portray Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel, she had no acting credits to her name.
Marvel clearly must have faith in these two, as they aren't just going to be one-and-done heroes. They are likely to end up being mainstay heroes for potentially even the next decade—or more. In fact, the two will likely merge for the rumored Young Avengers project.
