Wild At Heart

Stephen Jewell finds out about the new hero inside the invincible iron armour.

Ever since the introduction of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man in the early 1960's, Marvel Comics has always tried to reflect the society we live in. Now, following Jane Foster’s Thor and Amadeus Cho’s Totally Awesome Hulk, there’s a new Armoured Avenger. After first appearing in May 2016 in the previous run of Invincible Iron Man, African-American teenager Riri Williams has taken on the mantle of Iron Man.

“One of my goals with Iron Man was to give him more of a supporting cast,” says Brian Michael Bendis, who has written for the character since October 2015. “For his stature in comics, Tony has a surprisingly tight-knit group of characters around him, especially if you compare him or Batman or Spider-Man. I wanted to add some new flavours and ideas and people into his life, so the idea of a super genius blowing right past him was something I really wanted to try.

“I started thinking about what kind of person could blow past Tony,” continues Bendis, who previously researched gifted children and genius behaviour for his creator-owned Icon title Brilliant. “I won’t say that I had always planned for her to take over the book, because I did not. It just happened organically due to the events in Civil War II and other places...”