After all, who is Riri Williams?

Marvel’s new film, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever After”, not only returned to the lands of Wakanda, but also introduced a new character who is very important for the future of the MCU.

The young Riri Williams, better known as Heart of Iron, has already had her presence in the feature confirmed in the trailers. The actress responsible for playing the character is Dominique Thornewhich is in its third work in theaters.

But after all, who is Riri Williams?

The character was created by the screenwriter Brian Michael Bendis and by the Brazilian cartoonist Mike Deodato Jr., and is defined by many fans as “the next Tony Stark”. Mike even talked about the choice of Thorne for the role and about the adaptation of Coração Ferro for the big screen:

From what I saw in the trailers, everything is pretty faithful, and the initial armor was even cuter than I expected! [risos] As it was something from a garage, I created that whole thing hard, rough. I thought it was perfect. Some scenes are very similar to the comic, I’m looking forward to seeing it on screen. What I feel is very proud of a character who was born so recently to arrive in a movie and already with a series. Every now and then I text Brian Michael Bendis and he asks me, ‘Have you seen how our daughter has grown?!’”

Riri Williams first appeared in the 7th edition of “Invincible Iron Man” in March 2016. In an attack, the girl lost her mother, stepfather and best friend, but none of that stopped her, a child genius, from At the age of 13, she was already attending MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and built, by herself, her own version of the Iron Man armor, her biggest idol.

The girl’s creations ended up catching the attention of Tony Stark himself, who decided to be her mentor. Incidentally, it is he who suggests the nickname Heart of Iron, as a form of tribute to the Williams family.

In almost all of her appearances, Riri is a 15-year-old black teenager with an afro. Mike Deodato Jr. said in an interview with Nerdbunker that the heroine’s look was inspired by real figures as well as comics.

At the time, the biggest visual reference was Skai Jackson. [atriz norte-americana de filmes como Descendentes, da Disney]🇧🇷 I tried to do something very realistic, not only in the features, but in the armor, in her room… Everything was as realistic as possible. I was also inspired a lot by Misty Knight, from the Luke Cage comics”, reveals Mike.

How does Ironheart fit into the MCU?

Despite not being mentioned in other MCU projects so far, Riri Williams will be a major point of the story. It is possible to notice that, in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, the character’s armors are homemade, with a style very similar to Iron Man’s before nanotechnology. In the MCU, it’s possible that Shuri (Letitia Wright) take on the role of mentoring the girl, since Tony Stark died at the end of “Avengers: Endgame”.

Riri is introduced in Phase 4 of the MCU, which could serve as indications that the Young Avengers are getting closer. It is worth remembering that, so far, we have Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), American Chávez (Xochitl Gomez), Billy and Tommy Maximoff (Julian Hilliard and jett kline), Elijah Bradley (Elijah Richardson), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton🇧🇷

Series on Disney+

The character barely debuted in the MCU, but she will already have a series to call her own! The production, which will be exclusive to Disney +, has not yet had many details revealed, but it is already known that there will be 6 episodes in all, following the Marvel pattern. The series should have a style similar to “Ms. Marvel” and “Hawkeye”, which are also available on streaming. Production will be released in 2023 and will show Riri Williams’ daily life at MIT.

The cast of the series has already been announced, and has Alden Enrenreich🇧🇷 Lyric Ross🇧🇷 Anthony RamosBesides Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams. Ryan Cooglerwho directed both Black Panther films, will be producing the series, which indicates a possible direct connection between the stories.

And there’s more: another thing that got fans excited was the possibility of Mephisto’s presence in the series. After years of memes and theories on the internet, finally the demon can appear in a Marvel production, and should be interpreted by Sacha Baron Cohenaccording to rumors.