“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” hits theaters in November to close out Phase 4 of the MCU. But the 30th film in the MCU also sets up the franchise’s future, with Dominique Thorne and her teenage heroine Riri Williams, aka Ironheart, ready to make her debut in the upcoming film. Thorne will lead her own Disney+ series “Ironheart” next year. However, before that, Ironheart helps Wakanda take on Tenoch Huerta‘s Namor in Ryan Coogler‘s sequel to his 2018 film.
EW sat down with Thorne, Coogler, and Letitia Wright to discuss the character’s entry into the MCU canon. First introduced in the Marvel comics in 2016, Riri Williams is a genius student engineer in Chicago who builds an armored suit, briefly taking over for Tony Stark’s Ironman. However, she couldn’t be more different than Stark’s billionaire play philanthropist; she’s a grounded inner-city kid with pluck, and a heroic arc of her own. “I love the fact that she is just fully herself,” Thorne said about the character. “She’s definitely not the typical or traditional superhero. She’s very much Riri Williams, the 19-year-old student first, and then there’s this whole Ironheart business that she has to figure out.”
Coogler’s love for Riri in the comics prompted him to involve the character in “Wakanda Forever.” “I remember when Riri was invented in publishing, and there was a level of excitement around her coming up,” Coogler told EW, who produces “Ironheart.” “It was similar to when Miles Morales [who replaced Peter Park as Spider-Man in the Marvel comics] was invented. Having lived with these archetypical characters for so long, it’s always exciting seeing somebody come up and take on the moniker with a different background.”
So, how does Riri get involved with Namor’s conflict with Wakanda in Coogler’s new film? She teams up with another genius teenage girl: Letitia Wright’s Shuri, the brilliant younger sister of the late Chadwick Boseman‘s T’Challa. Wright told EW that she loves how Shura and Riri team up together in “Wakanda Forever.” It’s like that’s being done again in a fresh, beautiful way,” said Wright. “I think it’s just beautiful to see that there’s more room being made for those characters to shine.” But while the two characters are both super smart, they come from distinctly different backgrounds. Shuri is still the princess of a secret, technologically advanced African nation, while Riri grew up in the heart of Chicago.
Coogler wanted Shuri and Riri to be one of the many foils he brings to characterization in “Wakanda Forever.” “[Riri] brings a different type of energy, but she also has some similarities to characters that we’ve seen in this universe before,” Coogler explained to EW. “The film deals with a lot of things, but one of them is foils — people who exist in contrast, but there’s a thread of similarity. In this film, we get to see Shuri meet someone who has some things in common with her but is also very, very different.”
In “Wakanda Forever,” as Wakanda mourns T’Challa’s passing, the nation must protect itself from invading forces from Talokan, an underwater empire led by Huerta’s Namor. Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, and Angela Bassett return to reprise their roles in Coogler’s 2018 film. Also returning are Martin Freeman, Isaach de Bankolé, Dorothy Steel, and Danny Sapani. Newcomers aside from Huerta include Florence Kasumba, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena, and Alex Livinalli.
So, how will Dominique Thorne’s introduction as Ironheart go in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”? While the film closes out Phase 4, expect Riri Williams and her alter-ego to be a big name in Phase 5; “Ironheart” may be one of several upcoming shows that charts Marvel’s future. As for “Wakanda Forever,” it hits theaters everywhere on November 11. Before then, Target is teasing an expanded ad for the movie featuring Thorne on October 16. Watch a teaser for that ad below.
