(Mini Series) Ironheart - A Surprisingly Heavier than Expected Marvel Series

This mini series was first released mid of last week and I thought it would continue for next few weeks till its completion. But then I read all episodes were already available on 1st of July. Apparently Disney+ decided to release 3 episodes twice which was pretty unusual. Since I do not like to watch ongoing series, I was quite pleased that I could start watching this so soon. Without further ado, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

After the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne - Freaky Tales etc) decided to return to her hometown in Chicago, bringing back the ironsuit she created in MIT. Though surprised, Riri's mother Ronnie (Anji White - season 4 Fargo TV series etc) still welcomed her with open arms. With her desire to enhance the iron suit, Riri had no choice but to join a group of criminals led by Parker Robbins aka The Hood (Anthony Ramos - Twisters, A Star is Born etc) to acquire some much needed cash. After their first job, Riri felt uneasy and started to doubt if working for Parker was a good decision. However she was worried of his power and tried to find out more on it, which was obviously a dangerous thing.

To get the materials for her suit, Riri approached a socially awkward black market dealer Joe (Alden Elrenreich - Solo: A Star Wars Story, Cocaine Bear etc) and they became pretty good friends. Meanwhile Riri also had to deal with the loss of her best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross - This is Us TV series etc) some time back which traumatized her and Natalie's brother Xavier (Matthew Elam). 

So what would happen to Riri and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

When I began watching this series, I do not know why but it did not exactly scream excitement. I remembered when I first saw Riri character appeared in that 2022 film, she looked like an interesting, light hearted character that surprised us with her ability to create the iron suit. However in this series, Riri was shown as emotionally fragile and frankly a bit selfish for me. I think the writers decided to make her as a person who had deeper background, trying to solve everything by herself but ended up making things worse. It might seem like a good move for people looking for character development, but not really for me.

To make it worse, the additional characters were really not that interesting. The Hood's crew felt like a bunch of annoying petty criminals who just happened to have some powers. I was actually shocked when I found out that they were villains in some of Marvel comic books cause I thought they were just there for the sake of convincing us the gang was legit. The only person who I admired here was the character portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen (Disclaimer mini series, Ali G Indahouse etc) even though I was completely unaware of his existence as I am not a  major reader of Marvel comics. His presence was awesome and proved that he had quite the charisma.

The series only had 6 episodes with duration between 42-60 minutes. The first two episodes were unimpressive, but the third one was surprisingly good and pretty dark which made me intrigued. Unfortunately the subsequent episodes were just so so and then there was introduction to additional character (like we were not swamped already by many of them in previous episodes). Though it seemed like an important revelation and intended for developing Riri's power, I just felt it weird.

Apart from the cast I mentioned above, there were also Manny Montana (Good Girls TV series etc) as Parker's cousin John, Eric Andre (Sing 2 etc), drag queen Shea Coulee, Sonia Davis, Zoe Terakes (Nine Perfect Strangers TV series etc) & Shakira Barrera (It's Bruno! TV series etc) as The Hood's crew of Stuart, Slub, Clown, Jeri Blood & Roz Blood respectively. In addition, other persons that have significance were Zelma Stanton (Regan Aliyah) and her mother/Ronnie's friend Madeline (Cree Summer - Abbot Elementary TV series etc). I noticed during closing credits the name of Ryan Coogler as one of the Executive Producers which should not come as surprise considering he was the director of Black Panther movies. Talking about the ending, there was a mid end credit scene in the final episode which was strange for me considering there are no plans of additional seasons. I guess it would be shown more in future films.

Overall this was a mini series that understandably well received by critics who are usually captivated by heavy story with characters development and dealing with trauma or non linear villains. But as someone who already followed (and seen) all Marvel Cinematic Universe films & series, this one felt a bit out of touch. In fact I think this was better served as a stand alone series like the older Marvel original series in Netflix as they would be able to explore many things teased here without worrying of connecting to MCU. Though I quite enjoy the action sequence in the third episode, but the finale did not feel satisfying for me (a bit anticlimactic). So if you are hoping for a light superhero series, then you have to ready yourself for a different kind of story. But if you are just in it for the sake of having understanding on the continuity of future movies set in MCU, then by all means you can give this a go.