You know when there’s a Wolverine on the cover of a comic, and then he ends up being in like one page in the comic? This collection does that, but with a 300 page comic.
Ironheart: The Saga of Riri Williams is a collection featuring the debut of Riri Williams, and is also the start of Bendis’ run on Iron Man, which he very quickly treated like it was a franchise, which is really pretty impressive all things considered. This book has Tony get a new girlfriend, hang out with Doctors Doom and Strange, fight some ninjas, get sad. He meets Riri a little past halfway through the book. Civil War II takes place alongside the closing issues, making this an even more unfortunate experience, as why would anyone want to be reminded of Civil War II?
And that’s the thing: if this was a good Iron Man comic named Ironheart I’d be annoyed, but at least I would have read a good comic. This is bad in like, three other ways that have nothing to do with Riri Williams (because she’s barely in this book at all).
Marvel Comics
Among the main sins this book commits, a more minor one is Deodato’s artwork here. While this isn’t nearly the worst thing he’s drawn, it’s still an affront to taste and logic to put him on a book about anything fast-moving (check out his new series The Flash coming next month!). It also serves as another reminder of Civil War II because Marquez was too busy drawing that terrible comic to keep drawing this mediocre one.
So a lot of the problems with this book have to do with Civil War II, which anyone who’s read it would agree was abysmal enough to drag down anything associated with it. But the last nit I have to pick is about one of the greatest characters in the Marvel universe, a character I was, at one time, excited to read about in this run, as I knew she factored into this as part of the ensemble. Unfortunately, Bendis failed to really use Mary Jane Watson in any kind of meaningful way.
Marvel Comics
Seeing MJ outside of Amazing Spider-Man is almost always cause for celebration, especially when she and Peter aren’t dating. Without a title that creates an excuse for her to be around, one of Marvel’s greatest characters has nowhere to be. So, her managing to be a core character in a different title—particularly under Bendis, who writes her well—is something I was excited about. So, why might I have a problem with that? Primarily, it’s that she is relegated to being another secretary executive assistant.
Now, I understand the reasoning that went into this. No, I’m not asking for her to be in an Iron Man suit, or a Stark Unlimited model, and I’m not gonna sit here and come up with a better idea for MJ. Nor am I arguing that this is an affront to women everywhere, a setback to feminism, or anything like that. What I am saying is that it’s dumb as all hell, and Marvel, Bendis, Brevoort, whoever should have put like three more seconds of thought into it and probably come up with a better job for her. Either way, this fell way below my expectations, which is really on me. This is Civil War II era Bendis we’re talking about.
So, disappointment is what I come away with on this one. Which isn’t to say that this is devoid of joy, just that it flubs in ways both major (not having Riri Williams as the main character in the book titled Ironheart: the Saga of Riri Williams) and minor (I’ll never forgive Bendis for “cool facial hair bros”). It serves too many masters, and doesn’t even come off as a complete story, as it’s really only used to set up three other stories of vastly different quality (Civil War II, Ironheart, and Infamous Iron Man). Just a weird book that wouldn’t matter or be remembered if different, better, or more important stories weren’t attached to it.
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