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Tony Stark is going to be replaced by a Black Woman named Riri Williams.

Any thoughts?

Source

I can hear /pol/ raging!

Oh boy, here we go…

So why not call her Iron Woman?

I like her design tbh.

@Armesi

Iron Maiden would have been sick.

Yay! More money grubbing gimmicks disguised as diversity diversity! Because everyone only read those comics for the suit, who cares about Tony Stark? Because it's much easier to just replace an iconic hero with a random nobody than it is to actually come up with a new hero.

I heard she was going to be the new War Machine and she would be replaced again after a short while…

Seems like yet another case where Marvel believes they will struggle to get new diverse characters off the ground, so they fall back on heavily rewriting an established brand of a character for "shocking swerve" points.

Its actual quality will be impossible to tell until a few months down the line where people can judge if the story is any good or not.

The fact that a "need for diversity" was even a selling point for making the character in the first place tells me it's gonna flop. Characters should be designed based on personality and… you know, character, hence the name, not just how they look and the best way to stir up the media. I.E There is nothing notable that's been mentioned about this character outside of her being a black woman. No interesting backstory that I've heard, no unseen character traits, no connection to any of the existing characters besides now Iron Man. Nothing. Sure, it might be a little interesting for like, a week or so, but it looks too much like a PR stunt to me.

I've actually been reading this series (because I wanted to see what happens to Mary Jane Watson) and it's ehhhhh I could honestly pass on it if I wasn't a sucker for MJ.

Anyway here's some important things, it's written by Brian Michael Bendis, a guy known for a good Daredevil run, ALIAS (Jessica Jones) and Ultimate Spider-Man. He worked his way through Marvel's ranks and wrote the Avengers and some key events like Avengers Disassembled and House of M. He's always had a disregard for continuity but that's beside the point.

Bendis has just gotten terrible over the years, his stories aren't interesting, the dialogue went from pretty unique and influential to cringey and he's just lazy now. Him pulling this stunt doesn't surprise me.

As for the whole thing. Modern Marvel has a problem of pandering to people who aren't comic book fans. They pull stunts and try to be more progressive rather than progressing the genre through great writing like they have their entire run in the industry.

There are still good writers who don't do this shit, they tend to stick to smaller titles with characters you probably don't give a fuck about. And hell their diversity thing aint always bad. Sam Wilson (Falcon) as Captain America makes sense, it was even a possibility back when Cap died. He's also interesting and it had a good writer who's done some of Captain America's essential stories.

There's not much else to say or do about this. It just is what it is.

TL;DR: GOT BENDIS'D AGAIN

Will they have the balls to give her character flaws? Somehow I doubt it.

Meh. Comic publishers have always been hucksters. This is just a way to generate attention. Nothing new here. Give it a few years it will be back to the status quo.

I mean it might have gone over better if he didn't literally say the only reason they made a black girl with big hair and hoop earrings is because they're underrepresented in adventure books written for the 40 year old white guys who grew up with the original heroes.

Disregarding anything else, this character is bad because after reading the brief synopsis that was provided for her, she just screams "Mary Sue" to me.

As I've said in this past with similar cases a) why can't these supposedly imaginative people come up with an original black female superhero and b) unless her gender and ethnicity are reflected as part of her experience as a superhero, this is nothing but a pandering move devoid of any substance.

From Tony Stark to Ebony Dark: Iron Man Replacement Proves Controversial for Fans

Sigh… why does she look like she belongs in the 70s?

Why?
First, Captain America now this.

She looks pretty good, kinda reminds me a little of an certain Scooby-doo character (Cassidy Williams):

Hopefully, they will come with traits, flaws and a backstory that will make her a good and not flat character that will probably not end as bad as that one notorious Captain America moment…

Pandering

writing black people with flaws is racist, don't you know they perfect in every way ever? Especially if they're women?

Really though, she's totally a marysue… Knowing Tony's suits better than him because she can "look at it from another point of view"…

This isn't even fanfiction level bad, this is deviantart donut steel level bad

And let me guess, if you don't like her or find flaws in her character, you're racist, right?

Cause nothing can go wrong with an outdated stereotype looking black woman named fucking "Riri," right?

Seriously, replacing an established character with a "diverse" version again? I understand that there is risks involved with creating new characters but pulling this kind of stunt doesn't bring new fans. It only alienates your existing ones.

I have nothing against Diversity, but doing diversity for just the sake of diversity is dumb especially if you're replacing another character with them.

TBH it makes sense that Tony would pick an MIT prodigy who's also enough of a fan of him to make an Iron Man suit by herself to be his successor. It would be easier to make an Iron Man suit after one had already been made. I'm optimistic about Riri Williams as Iron (Wo)man 2.0, but I don't really read comics so what do I care?

Some anon on /co/ literally made a list about women who built their own ironman suit in the comics… (so far 12 person)

The only thing that really bothers me is the "unbearable artstyle and fanfic-tier story" combo. I not even joking when i say i have seen webcomics with better quality than the current Marvel works.

Atleast Gwenpool looks still interesting…

Edit: Typo as usual

Any reason why James Rhodes niece can't be the new Iron patriot/War machine?

also if they want a strong independent black woman why can't they bring Shuri (black panther sister) back?

Let's see what Marvel has done for the past 2 years:
rule63 Thor, black Spiderman, Captain America turned evil, patriottic red skull, Galactus the CREATOR of worlds, black AND female Iron man…
What's next, trans hulk? Ant-man played by a midget? asian Dr strange? Female Wolverine?

It's like that one time in "the freak brothers" where a fan broke into the redaction, hacked their "comic computer" and mangled the main characters.

God that description reads like a bad tumblr OC. "muh marvel OC is Iron Gurl. Shez so smart she goes to MIT at fifteen and is black and sooooo much cooler than tony stark and did I mention Thor is hopelessly in love with her but she's too good for him"

Marvel losing all credibility, news at HYDRA.

I'd be more concerned that her looks are directly ripped off Misty Knight.

Also the iron man helmet is going to tear her poor hair out if she doesn't cut it.

(Props to her Iron Man suit looking like Optimus Prime though)

>genius 15 year old MIT graduate
>is the main character of the story
>has a pre-existing main character swooning
>more intelligent than the pre-existing main character
Nice to see Disney's hiring fanfic writers.

Seriously, though. Comic books need to stop with the gimmicks. They already have a horrible reputation for doing stuff that doesn't matter in the long run as everything will just get rebooted or doombotted. This isn't helping their case.

"black Spiderman"

To be completely fair here, Miles Morales is a different character in an alternate continuity, and he took up the mantle of Spider-Man because Peter Parker died in said alternate continuity. Also there is an issue of said comic where Miles and a friend are watching a video of some vlogger being all like "OMG SPIDERMAN IS TOTALLY BLACK YOU GAIZ!" and Miles' reaction is "so? I don't get how the color of my skin is a big deal here."

Now at least one thing worth mentioning that did go over pretty well actually was the mantle of Ms Marvel being taken over by a teenage Muslim girl. The original Ms Marvel, Carol Danvers, is now the current Captain Marvel, and the current Ms Marvel, Kamala Khan, took up the mantle because Carol is a huge inspiration to her. In Kamala's case she's actually been very well received as she's actually a very likable character with good writing, and her taking up the Ms Marvel name worked well since the original Ms Marvel now goes under a new superhero identity. If Marvel had just handled things like the Fem!Thor situation and now this Iron Man thing better then they could have had another Kamala Khan on their hands, but nope it looks to be the opposite reaction.

Riri is a stupid name. I really don't like the super puffy afro look, but whatever. Being a 15 year old super genius is as generic a story as you can get. Having tony stark macking on this 15 year old enough to let her have free reign over this stuff is dumb and creepy. She's gonna fight a racist and sexist person and that's gonna be all she's defined as. Rather then tell a cool or interesting story, Marvel just wants to make their entire lineup PSA quality rags, cause super left social crusaders will buy them and fight harder then any rabid fanboys about how much better it is.

I can't even care cause there's no point in talking. You'll either get ignored or labled a racist no matter what you type, so what's even the point?

"I really don’t like the super puffy afro look"

Honestly that is one thing I like about her design. I always wondered why big afros seemed to go out of style after the 1970s. I know she's not black, but Trisha from Catherine's one of my favorite characters just on design alone because look at that fuckin' 'fro combined with everything else:

[I haven't even played Catherine outside of a demo either]

Mixed raced Spider-Man has existed for 4 years, part of the Ultimate Universe, was introduced into the main one but hasn't replaced Peter Parker. Also you missed the memo because Amadeus Cho, the 7th smartest person on Earth is Asian and the Hulk. Red Skull isn't patriotic, he's clearly Ultra-Nationalist, since his inception really, being a Nazi, and just tries to rally people with "patriotic" speeches. Galactus isn't evil, so creating stuff isn't something uncharacteristic.

See what annoys me is when people complain about X-23 Wolverine and FalCap. They are natural progressions, these are people that were sidekicks or ones in all but name. They are close friends, and make for natural mantle passes. See a lot of stuff is usual comic stuff, characters changing for a bit and its fine. Rarely permanent, if it is, its usually because its better than the previous incarnation.

The problem with this, it's not a natural mantle pass, they are literally just made up on the spot. Especially when you have previously existing characters that actually could make taking up the mantle interesting. If they even made them a separate character that is similar or something its better, because they have their own thing, but in cases like this its just terrible writing.

It's also why I hate (spoilers) Jane Foster Thor, because it could have worked but the whole thing was handled terribly. WE STILL HAVEN'T EVEN FOUND OUT WHAT NICK FURY SAID TO MAKE THOR UNWORTHY!

Anyway. I hate posts like the one I quoted, for the exact same reason I hate people who try force diversity. It's because you guys don't know shit about comics. You see some pages or news articles about changes and complain. You don't know what you're fucking talking about.