Following Iron Man’s death in Avengers: Endgame, fans started campaigning for Riri Williams to be introduced into the MCU, much as the teen tech prodigy took over from Tony Stark when he ended up in a coma in the comics. Sure enough, an Ironheart TV series was announced to be on its way to Disney Plus last December, with Dominique Thorne in the title role. We don’t know much about the show beyond that, but it’s possible that Marvel could be making a change to the heroine in order to better diversify the franchise.
Tipster Daniel Richtman is reporting on his Patreon page that Riri will be portrayed as bisexual in the MCU. That would mark a change from the source material, where the character has yet to come out as LGBTQ+ (though more and more heroes are these days, just ask Star-Lord). If this is the case, it wouldn’t be the first time the studio has altered someone’s sexuality for the screen, as Eternals will feature Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), reimagined as a married gay man and father.
Marvel has frequently come under fire for their weak LGBTQ+ representation in the MCU to date, but to be fair, Kevin Feige and his team have made it clear that they’re dedicated to fixing this in Phase 4. We’ve yet to see if they’ll actually go ahead and make Carol Danvers queer in Captain Marvel 2, as has been much discussed, but if they don’t, then Ironheart could be the first entry in the franchise to have a queer female lead.
In the comics, Riri is a 15-year-old genius studying engineering at M.I.T. who constructs her own Iron Man armor. Initially, she has an A.I. version of Tony to guide her, as well as the support of Pepper Potts. Interestingly, one storyline saw Riri come to terms with fellow teen heroine Viv Vision’s crush on her. Though she didn’t reciprocate those feelings on the page, Ironheart being openly bi on screen could certainly be inspired by this arc.
