Who is Riri Williams?
A brand new character is gearing up to don Marvel’s iconic red and yellow armor (in the comics).
Time exclusively revealed that Riri Williams will replace Tony Stark as Iron Man following the Civil War II comic storyline.
She will make her debut as Iron Man in the relaunched Invincible Iron Man series.
Like Stark, Riri is a science genius. At 15, she enrolls at MIT, and reverse-engineers an old set of Tony’s armor in her dorm, which immediately gets his attention. How exactly Riri becomes Iron Man remains a mystery, as the Civil War II storyline has yet to conclude.
Invincible Iron Man writer Brian Michael Bendis explained to Time how he came up with the character:
“One of the things that stuck with me when I was working in Chicago a couple of years ago on a TV show that didn’t end up airing was the amount of chaos and violence. And this story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life — just random street violence — and went off to college was very inspiring to me. I thought that was the most modern version of a superhero or superheroine story I had ever heard. And I sat with it for awhile until I had the right character and the right place.”
Bendis also addressed the impending controversy surrounding this change-up, as, obviously, Riri is a black woman, not a white male, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
“I think what’s most important is that the character is created in an organic setting. We never had a meeting saying, “We need to create this character.” It’s inspired by the world around me and not seeing that represented enough in popular culture.”
Concept art of Riri’s armor
This isn’t the first time Marvel Comics has introduced a new character of a different gender and/or race taking up the mantel of a pre-existing hero.
Miles Morales, a Black Hispanic teenager, was Spider-Man. Kamala Khan, a muslim of Pakistani descent, is Ms. Marvel. Jane Foster, a woman (duh), became Thor.
It’s easy to criticize the decision to introduce Riri Williams as a way to generate buzz and create controversy amongst fans who believe Iron Man is only Tony Stark. What’s hard is trying to understand that Marvel is challenging the very paradigm of the superhero genre. More so than many other forms of media, Marvel Comics is showing that identity is fluid, equality is representation, and above all, heroes aren’t always white dudes.
Invincible Iron Man #1 hits stores this October.
