Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” arrives next month with the film set to incorporate several high-profile introductions from someone new in the Black Panther outfit, to the arrival of Namor the Submariner.
Another key introduction is Dominique Thorne as teenage genius Riri Williams (aka Ironheart) who makes her MCU debut in the film ahead of her own Disney+ series next year.
In the comcis, Riri is a genius student engineer in Chicago who builds an armored suit and briefly takes over for Tony Stark’s Ironman. Talking about her character’s entry into the franchise, Thorne tells EW:
“I love the fact that she is just fully herself. She’s definitely not the typical or traditional superhero. She’s very much Riri Williams, the 19-year-old student first, and then there’s this whole Ironheart business that she has to figure out.”
‘Wakanda Forever’ helmer Ryan Coogler has plenty of love for the Riri character, saying:
“I remember when Riri was invented in publishing, and there was a level of excitement around her coming up. It was similar to when Miles Morales [who replaced Peter Park as Spider-Man in the Marvel comics] was invented. Having lived with these archetypical characters for so long, it’s always exciting seeing somebody come up and take on the moniker with a different background.”
In the film Riri spends much of her time with Letitia Wright’s Shuri, the brilliant younger sister of the late Chadwick Boseman‘s T’Challa. Whilst both are tech geniuses, both are also quite different – one a princess of a secret and advanced African nation, the other an inner city Chicago kid. Coogler says:
“[Riri] brings a different type of energy, but she also has some similarities to characters that we’ve seen in this universe before. The film deals with a lot of things, but one of them is foils — people who exist in contrast, but there’s a thread of similarity. In this film, we get to see Shuri meet someone who has some things in common with her but is also very, very different.”
In the film as Wakanda mourns T’Challa’s passing, the nation must protect itself from invading forces of the underwater empire of Talokan. Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Isaach de Bankole, Dorothy Steel, Florence Kasumba, and Danny Sapani reprise their roles from the earlier film and are joined by Tenoch Huera and Michaela Coel.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” hits theaters everywhere on November 11th.
