Riri Williams as Ironheart: My thoughts

[happyninja42]

So I picked up the first edition of Ironman with Riri Williams as the titular character, and I enjoyed it.

Granted, it's only 1 issue, and it might take a huge nosedive into shitty writing like FemThor did, but so far, I'm enjoying it.

I like the personality she's got, especially in the flashbacks to her as a 10 year old. And I loved the banter she had with her mom. The conversation in the garage, when her mom is telling her to either go eat or go to the park, and Riri's frustration with the 2 different options, reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom close to that age, that had the same level of confusion. xD "Is it time for lunch or time to go to the park?!"

Overall, I'm liking it so far, though I am curious, for anyone who regularly reads Ironman, the cameo appearances of Riri, leading up to her taking over the title, are those good? 'Cause I kind of want to read how she first gets on Tony's radar, but I've been told her involvement is REALLY small. I bought her first official appearance, and it was like 1 page...so yeah, I'm hesitant to spend more money on a dozen or so issues, just to read like 1 page here and there about their interactions.

So, thoughts on the series to anyone who's been keeping up with this?

 

[burnout02urza]

I think the porn actress in the Iron Heart JAV was more attractive than Riri (Which, by the way, is slang for 'retard' - Look it up) and a lot more nuanced in behavior. She also had a better costume.

Doctor Doom makes for a better Iron Man. Now that Trump's president, I wonder if all the diversity toys are going to have to go back into their box: We've seen Ms. Marvel trying to get people to vote for Hillary (Oh boy, the fallout from that should be amazing) and the legendarily fat superheroine Faith actually met Hillary.

Still, since our next event is 'Captain America: Hydra War', will we be getting a new Captain America once Sam steps down? What will the Captain America of Donald Trump's America look like, after Hydra! Cap shows that all the 1940s values were meaningless?

Here's hoping the new Cap will be Chris Kyle with superpowers.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Read the #1. It's not that great. Not that bad, either. Just, kind of...there.

Standard teen super genius story with a "she's black!" spin. Her dad and best friend get killed in a gangster crossfire, it's quite painfully forced.

I think the porn actress in the Iron Heart JAV was more attractive than Riri (Which, by the way, is slang for 'retard' - Look it up) and a lot more nuanced in behavior. She also had a better costume.

Doctor Doom makes for a better Iron Man. Now that Trump's president, I wonder if all the diversity toys are going to have to go back into their box: We've seen Ms. Marvel trying to get people to vote for Hillary (Oh boy, the fallout from that should be amazing) and the legendarily fat superheroine Faith actually met Hillary.

Still, since our next event is 'Captain America: Hydra War', will we be getting a new Captain America once Sam steps down? What will the Captain America of Donald Trump's America look like, after Hydra! Cap shows that all the 1940s values were meaningless?

Here's hoping the new Cap will be Chris Kyle with superpowers.

What the hell are you even talking about, dude? Japanese porn?

I don't want to be a dick, but come on, man. Posting a barrage of incendiary non-sequiturs doesn't do you any favours.

[sub]Also, I'm pretty sure Riri is a Maori given name. I met a Riri in Kiwiland, or at least someone with a name that sounds a lot similar.[/sub]

 

[WolfThomas]

I don't want to be a dick, but come on, man. Posting a barrage of incendiary non-sequiturs doesn't do you any favours. [/sub]

Wait until you see his other thread then...

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Oh, one thing I forgot: When she's done foiling her first crime in her home-made Iron Man suit (a Mark-I style giant grey mecha), a trigger-happy cop shoots at her and she calls him out on it. It occurred to me that this might be a comment on police shootings, but if it is, it's a fucking dumb one, because they can't see her skin colour in the suit.

I don't know. Marvel has been doing this shit - Black-Latino Spiderman, Lady Thor, and now Iron Heart - for a few years now. It's never gotten any less ham-handed. I mean, maybe they get a good character and story out of some of these, but on the face of it it's just going "Hey, look how progressive and diverse we are! PLEASE LOVE US, TUMBLR. PLEASE."

The only minority legacy character I actually liked was Kamala Khan. She had a rad name. Oh, and the two new Green Lanterns over at DC. One of them had a cool character arc about struggling with agoraphobia, and the other got his Green Lantern ring and said "fuck it, I'm carrying a pistol as well just for all those times when the most powerful weapon in the universe runs out of juice." That's a mentality I can get behind. Plus, they're doing this buddy-cop thing right now in DC Rebirth, I think it's great.

Wait until you see his other thread then...

I read it, and yeah. But at least that's in its own thread. That post above was just off-topic, man.

I mean, if you're going to dump a pile of debatable opinions onto a forum thread, it ought to at least be relevant.

 

[Saelune]

Oh, one thing I forgot: When she's done foiling her first crime in her home-made Iron Man suit (a Mark-I style giant grey mecha), a trigger-happy cop shoots at her and she calls him out on it. It occurred to me that this might be a comment on police shootings, but if it is, it's a fucking dumb one, because they can't see her skin colour in the suit.

I don't know. Marvel has been doing this shit - Black-Latino Spiderman, Lady Thor, and now Iron Heart - for a few years now. It's never gotten any less ham-handed. I mean, maybe they get a good character and story out of some of these, but on the face of it it's just going "Hey, look how progressive and diverse we are! PLEASE LOVE US, TUMBLR. PLEASE."

The only minority legacy character I actually liked was Kamala Khan. She had a rad name. Oh, and the two new Green Lanterns over at DC. One of them had a cool character arc about struggling with agoraphobia, and the other got his Green Lantern ring and said "fuck it, I'm carrying a pistol as well just for all those times when the most powerful weapon in the universe runs out of juice." That's a mentality I can get behind. Plus, they're doing this buddy-cop thing right now in DC Rebirth, I think it's great.

Marvel has been super progressive for a long time (Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, X-Men) they just used to be good at it.

The more I think about it, its just a matter of shitty writing now.

I also think its funny that Ms Marvel is called -Ms- to appeal to feminists since it doesnt denote marital status like Miss or Mrs, and yet her film is being called Captain Marvel...likely to appeal to feminists.

The main difference was back then they just made new characters instead of giving established identities to "diverse" newbies.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Marvel has been super progressive for a long time (Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, X-Men) they just used to be good at it.

The more I think about it, its just a matter of shitty writing now.

Oh, definitely. There's this bluntness in their most recent ventures - like, "Thor's a girl now, deal with it" - that almost feels like they're tilting at their own fanbase to try and make them get mad.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Most Bendis comics start out decently, then as they go on they become shitty.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Oh, one thing I forgot: When she's done foiling her first crime in her home-made Iron Man suit (a Mark-I style giant grey mecha), a trigger-happy cop shoots at her and she calls him out on it. It occurred to me that this might be a comment on police shootings, but if it is, it's a fucking dumb one, because they can't see her skin colour in the suit.

I don't know. Marvel has been doing this shit - Black-Latino Spiderman, Lady Thor, and now Iron Heart - for a few years now. It's never gotten any less ham-handed. I mean, maybe they get a good character and story out of some of these, but on the face of it it's just going "Hey, look how progressive and diverse we are! PLEASE LOVE US, TUMBLR. PLEASE."

The only minority legacy character I actually liked was Kamala Khan. She had a rad name. Oh, and the two new Green Lanterns over at DC. One of them had a cool character arc about struggling with agoraphobia, and the other got his Green Lantern ring and said "fuck it, I'm carrying a pistol as well just for all those times when the most powerful weapon in the universe runs out of juice." That's a mentality I can get behind. Plus, they're doing this buddy-cop thing right now in DC Rebirth, I think it's great.

Wait until you see his other thread then...

I read it, and yeah. But at least that's in its own thread. That post above was just off-topic, man.

I mean, if you're going to dump a pile of debatable opinions onto a forum thread, it ought to at least be relevant.

Also that pistol took down Sinestro. Baz is a badass.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

This is going to sound awful, but couldn't they have been a bit more creative with her race? I know that it sounds terrible, but seeing as how blatant they are with pushing all this racial stuff, it would have been interesting to see someone from another part of the world.

And yeah, I didn't think it would be possible, but right now DC is doing diversity better than Marvel. Except that one time that Hillary showed up in the latest issue of Green Arrow, and man was that cringy.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Also that pistol took down Sinestro. Baz is a badass.

More like Bazass, amirite? nyuk nyuk nyuk

This is going to sound awful, but couldn't they have been a bit more creative with her race? I know that it sounds terrible, but seeing as how blatant they are with pushing all this racial stuff, it would have been interesting to see someone from another part of the world.

I'd like to see more foreign superheroes who actually operate overseas, like the Great Ten [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ten]. DC Rebirth has this New Super-Man [http://www.dccomics.com/comics/new-super-man-2016/new-super-man-1] thing going which looks interesting, but I haven't read it yet.

One of the things I like about Overwatch's backstory is that it's basically a superhero universe, but the superheroes are from all over the world instead of mostly America. Then again, one of the things I don't like about Overwatch's backstory is that the two representatives of my country are...a bomb-happy psycho with a peg-leg and a massively overweight guy in a pig mask.

I mean, really, Blizzard? Mad Max wasn't a goddamn documentary. We're not all post-apocalyptic BDSM murderers.

[sub]Just Adelaide, really.[/sub]

 

[Zhukov]

Then again, one of the things I don't like about Overwatch's backstory is that the two representatives of my country are...a bomb-happy psycho with a peg-leg and a massively overweight guy in a pig mask.

I mean, really, Blizzard? Mad Max wasn't a goddamn documentary. We're not all post-apocalyptic BDSM murderers.

[sub]Just Adelaide, really.[/sub]

To be fair, Overwatch seems to take the Street Fighter approach to nationality. All cliche all the time.

The Japanese characters are a ninja and a guy who won't shut up about honor, the Americans are a soldier and a cowboy, the Swiss lady is a (mostly) pacifist medic, the Russian is a huge muscular woman and so on.

I's say we were lucky we didn't get fucking Crocodile Dundee as the Australian character.

 

[Azure23]

I think the porn actress in the Iron Heart JAV was more attractive than Riri (Which, by the way, is slang for 'retard' - Look it up) and a lot more nuanced in behavior. She also had a better costume.

Doctor Doom makes for a better Iron Man. Now that Trump's president, I wonder if all the diversity toys are going to have to go back into their box: We've seen Ms. Marvel trying to get people to vote for Hillary (Oh boy, the fallout from that should be amazing) and the legendarily fat superheroine Faith actually met Hillary.

Still, since our next event is 'Captain America: Hydra War', will we be getting a new Captain America once Sam steps down? What will the Captain America of Donald Trump's America look like, after Hydra! Cap shows that all the 1940s values were meaningless?

Here's hoping the new Cap will be Chris Kyle with superpowers.

What the fuck did I just read? Oh I get it, you're doing some kind of performance art piece about obnoxious people.

 

[Breakdown]

Isn't the title Iron Heart a bit of a progressive own goal? It kind of reinforces the stereotype of a female superhero that has to be caring and compassionate.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'd like to see more foreign superheroes who actually operate overseas, like the Great Ten [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ten]. DC Rebirth has this New Super-Man [http://www.dccomics.com/comics/new-super-man-2016/new-super-man-1] thing going which looks interesting, but I haven't read it yet.

One of the things I like about Overwatch's backstory is that it's basically a superhero universe, but the superheroes are from all over the world instead of mostly America. Then again, one of the things I don't like about Overwatch's backstory is that the two representatives of my country are...a bomb-happy psycho with a peg-leg and a massively overweight guy in a pig mask.

I mean, really, Blizzard? Mad Max wasn't a goddamn documentary. We're not all post-apocalyptic BDSM murderers.

[sub]Just Adelaide, really.[/sub]

Yeah, I suppose DC has Suicide Squad ... but I can't imagine any 'world treatment' in Comic circles to be that good if they can legitimately claim in the movie adaptations that a guy managed to rob every bank in Australia. Australia has a ratio of banks and financial institutions to other retail businesses of somewhere close to 9,873 to 1 (I'm kidding of course, but I'm really not ... we are quite overbloated with banks). I get that DC's SS universe is basically the World of Darkness style variant where only evil can now adequately defend against evil's intent, but suggesting that means Australia has less banks and less financial institution security measures doesn't seem like a solid message of a worse world to me.

I think there's more nuance of world culture in card games. Android: Netrunner has a 13 year old Shaper identity, a Filipino looking wunderkind who has two dads (who it turns out are a motivator for her digital escapades in recent card art, given the megacorps are responsible for a household fiscal crisis). A person who uses a portable PC terminal shaped like a cutesy T-Rex named 'Dinosaurus' to perform high-risk digital hacking forays into megacorporate interests to simply see if she can do it, learning computer programming and hacking from studying under an online persona known as 'g00ru'.

Spoiler

When I'm finding it easier to believe a storyline and characters within a card game based on card art alone, with a multi-ethnic, LGBTQ friendly cast of Runner IDs and Megacorp Operations card art (in a world set many decades after our own), than I do the world treatmnent in comic books, games and movies made predominantly in the 'near-now' esque format with an actual attempt of cohesive narrative story-telling ... I have to wonder where the writer talent pool actually is being hired from.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I also think its funny that Ms Marvel is called -Ms- to appeal to feminists since it doesnt denote marital status like Miss or Mrs, and yet her film is being called Captain Marvel...likely to appeal to feminists.

Unless they're making a Kamela Khan movie, which they absolutely should, Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel.

It wouldn't be the first time they skipped a generation, look at the Scott Lang Ant-man.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

I also think its funny that Ms Marvel is called -Ms- to appeal to feminists since it doesnt denote marital status like Miss or Mrs, and yet her film is being called Captain Marvel...likely to appeal to feminists.

Unless they're making a Kamela Khan movie, which they absolutely should, Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel.

It wouldn't be the first time they skipped a generation, look at the Scott Lang Ant-man.

It's already been confirmed it's Carol Danvers.