Not to be a prisoner of the moment, but Ironheart’s exceptional series finale did what it needed to do at a high level. The six-episode miniseries concluded last night by introducing one of the scariest entities in the history of Marvel Comics and avoided one of the MCU’s biggest pitfalls.
Ironheart often oscillated between cheesy comfort TV and complex coming-of-age drama. Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) went from an overly ambitious student expelled from MIT who flew back home in an iron suit to a worthy herald of the Iron Man legacy. In the finale alone, she had to kick a cyborg in the nuts to reset it and take down Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) and his magical hood with an ingenious hologram trick Tony Stark would approve of. Then, the show went from a cool side-quest to a pivotal moment for the MCU’s future when she came face-to-face with the demonic entity that imbued The Hood with its powers—Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen).
Ever since Wanda Maximoff was messing around with dark magic in WandaVision, Marvel fans have been calling for the MCU arrival of the Lord of Lies from the comics. Mephisto is basically the devil who rules over tormented souls in his own hellish realm, which makes him practically immortal, in a sense. He gave Parker the powers to fulfill his wish of being disgustingly rich in exchange for the young man’s soul. Black veins spread across Parker’s body over time, as if Mephisto was slowly sucking the soul out of him throughout the season. After Riri seemed to have accepted Mephisto’s help by bringing her deceased friend back from the dead, it seems that one of Marvel’s scariest villains is here to stay.
Riri will almost definitely be in Avengers: Doomsday. After those same black veins that covered Parker’s body started covering Riri’s arm, it’s clear that the Prince of Darkness will also be joining. And that’s bad news for Doctor Doom. In the comics, Mephisto has played sick mind games on Doom, trapping his mother’s soul in hell and making him watch her be tortured. The MCU took liberties with comic book continuity (see: Zeke Stane and Ironheart fight); but the mere inclusion of a character that has caused that many problems for their next major villain almost guarantees they’ll cross paths.
That’s part of what made Ironheart’s finale so good compared to previous Marvel TV shows. At no point did the show feel like a bridge to the next run of movies like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It truly felt like a new chapter in the MCU. But, by the end of the season, it’s clear that the son of one of the first Iron Man villains is now an antihero. Iron Man’s heir apparent stuck the landing and then some, and now one of the most destructive comic book villains is officially in the MCU. Instead of churning out filler episodes to tide Marvel fans over until the next Avengers film, Ironheart successfully fleshed out its own unique world while also adding exciting changes to the future of the MCU.
