Yeah, I know the new hotness is yet another Superman movie, but I got over that thrill in 1978. Or maybe when my wife was watching Smallville. I just don’t care.
Instead, I want to take a deeper look at the recent Disney Marvel atrocity known as Ironheart. As is tradition, I didn’t slog through the show alone – I had the help of my usual Youtube critics like Disparu and HeelvsBabyface, as well as The Critical Drinker’s panel discussions. I thought they did a great job in general, but as the series concluded, I was amazed to see that none of them understood what was really going on.
Hence this column. It goes without saying that there will be spoilers, so if you actually want to watch this nonsense without the benefit of my peerless analysis, stop here.
This Time I’m Not Kidding
Some of you may remember that time I re-interpreted Star Wars: The Acolyte as a subversive work of comedic genius. It actually worked for a while, but the concentrated evil of the characters and horrific plot ultimately rendered that position untenable.
The Acolyte crashed through Star Wars like a wrecking ball, destroying the integrity of the Jedi while introducing porno-style moments into what started out as a kid-friendly movie franchise. I mean, at this late date Disney is just trying to make the rubble bounce.
Ironheart is different. The goal isn’t to inflict further damage on a tarnished brand so much as to create a new morality.
When you walk into a modern comic shop with your John Nada sunglasses still onRaise Your Sunglasses!
It’s been a while, but it’s now time once again to bust out our They Live spiritual warfare sunglasses. Let’s start with some basic theology. Did you know that while it is an act of charity to pray for the souls of the dead, it is deeply sinful to pray for fallen angels or Satan? This is because their rebellion has made them irredeemable. They have decively, irrevocably separated themselves from God. They have already been judged and the fiery pit awaits.
The last thing anyone should do is praise demons, let alone offer justification for their actions, yet that is what modern Hollywood is bent on doing. We’ve seen this many times – shows like Maleficent and Cruella trying to turn villains into heroes. Hazbin Hotel was the logical conclusion to this – God is mean and the devil just wants to have fun.
Ironheart is part of this genre. That’s why the writers make the devil seem a decent fellow, one of the most helpful, intelligent and sympathetic characters in the show. Even the price of his aid is unspoken, with the clear implication that since these people are already on the road to hell, the least Mephisto can do is try to make them happy.
So no, this is not a case of the stupid writers being so stupid that they stupidly made Riri Williams more evil than the devil. If you hate Christianity and prefer to valorize evil, having Riri surpass Satan himself just shows how women are better at everything.
Will to Power vs Heroism
Look at the way Riri, Parker, and the degenerates the squad of criminals behave. The writers clearly feel that ripping people off and beating them up is fun. Everyone should give it a try! Similarly, Riri’s story arc which causes her to throw away a scholarship, undermine academic integrity and ultimately be expelled from M.I.T. is quite intentional. She’s not an ungrateful screw-up but a revolutionary who realizes that her path to power must come from outside of the system.
She explicitly says that she will not accept wealth at the price of social conformity. She wants an power suit – not to fight crime, or to help people, but just because it would make her iconic.
That choice of word is not accidental, and it is deliberately used multiple times. In everyday usage, an icon is just something culturally important, like Star Wars used to be. In a Christian context, however, it refers to religious-themed works of art that the faithful use to focus their thoughts while praying to God. Icons aren’t worshipped, but they are venerated – that is, treated with utmost respect.
This is what Riri desires and this runs throughout the series. She hungers for attention, thirsts for the adoration that she feels she deserves. She wants to be Galadriel with the One Ring: all will worship her and despair.
The Apotheosis of Ironheart
Spider-Man – an actual hero – famously learned that “with great power comes great responsibility,” but Riri seeks to avoid all that. She instead wants to be raised above her normal existence to the heavens, ascending like a self-made goddess, and whether the source of her power is secular or demonic, she doesn’t care.
To be sure, she’s also a girlboss. That element is essential. That’s why the men who also sought godhood were utterly humiliated. Parker was reduced to a miserable, powerless wretch while Ezekiel got an iron knee to the nuts. But Riri…she got the magic cape and a gift of love, the return of a dear friend. Oh, and the suit. In Ironheart, the wages of sin are excellent.
Presumably a second season would have seen her finally ready to take on new enemies, which we can assume would have been White Christian Nationalist Men. Maybe the Westboro Baptist Church will build a scripture-spewing army of kill bots, and Riri will save the world from their hate speech.
Anyway, it’s rare for my posse to get a miss this big, which is why I feel it necessary to point it out. Ironheart’s writers made many mistakes, but they knew exactly what they were doing in terms Riri and Satan.
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English (US) · 