Spoiler alert! The following story discusses important plot points and the ending of the Marvel series “Ironheart” (streaming now on Disney+), so beware if you haven’t seen it.
The devil’s in the details of “Ironheart.”
From posters of Faust to life-changing deals between characters, there’s a demonic presence throughout the latest Marvel superhero series. And it all leads to a major reveal in the season finale: the debut of Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen), the manipulative master of hell, into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“He’s one of the big, big, big bads in the comics that has a lot of tethers to characters that we’ve been working with for years, and also characters that we hopefully will work with in the future,” says Brad Winderbaum, executive producer and head of Marvel Television.
“Ironheart” centers on young genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who’s back in Chicago with her high-tech armored suit but no cash flow to make more advancements. She’s recruited by Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), a crook with a mysterious magical hood, to join his crew but soon learns that “The Hood” is way more evil than she expected. To combat his powers, Riri adds some supernatural mojo to her armor, but it’s not without a cost: Her onboard AI, a digital representation of Riri’s dead best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross), is deleted in the process.
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The season finale shows Parker’s backstory and his deal with Mephisto. “I am going to make you the greatest human of your generation,” Mephisto tells Parker, who says he wants to be “stupid, disgusting, greasy rich.” Mephisto speaks in a nondescript accent when trying to make the bargain, but Cohen uses his own British accent when Mephisto’s at his most villainous.
“Ironheart” creator Chinaka Hodge had “this idea that he code-switches to ingratiate himself more to whoever he is talking to,” Winderbaum says. It became this fun detail that just made you feel like you could never quite trust that you were on solid footing whenever you were talking to him.”
And when Parker’s defeated by Riri, Mephisto moves on to her as his new mark, offering his services – for a price.
“Come on, Riri, make my millennia,” Mephisto says to her as they shake hands on their deal at the end of the episode: Natalie returns, not as an AI but as a woman back from the dead, and when they embrace, dark red striations crawl up Riri’s arms showing that Mephisto has her in in his clutches.
“Mephisto’s not a character that’s shooting fiery, blast-y things from his hands. He’s kind of threading his way into her mind and her future,” Winderbaum says.
In the Marvel mythology, Mephisto is “up there with Thanos and Loki,” Winderbaum says. After first appearing in a 1968 issue of “Silver Surfer,” Mephisto’s been a frequent nuisance for Spider-Man and has tussled with Doctor Strange, Doctor Doom, Scarlet Witch and many others.
The Marvel brain trust has wanted to use Mephisto since the MCU’s earliest days. “I don’t know if he’s ever made it to the screenplay page on particular projects, but certainly he was on the whiteboard for particular projects,” Winderbaum says.
There’s been rampant fan speculation for years about when Mephisto might show up. Many were convinced he was the major villain of 2021’s Disney+ “WandaVision” series, “which certainly piqued our interest,” Winderbaum says. “It felt like there was a confluence of things based on the stories we want to tell in the future and also fan enthusiasm that made ‘Ironheart’ just that perfect place to introduce him.”
And having Mephisto in the MCU opens up a whole new realm of metaphysical storytelling, Winderbaum adds. “Not just demonology and hell and theology in a Marvel-y way, but also morality and the ethics of that and the questions that those stories historically have brought to the forefront.”
When it came to casting Mephisto, I think Sacha was on all our minds,” Winderbaum adds. And now that he’s here, the devilish fiend is staying for a while – and maybe even hitting the big screen sooner rather than later.
“Because we have a big player on the field right now, that doesn’t just evaporate. That resonates and is going to grow into very interesting territory into the future,” Winderbaum says. “He’s extremely unbound by the medium. Without going into too much detail, the types of projects he will be in are not dependent on television.”
