Marvel has been shaking things up for Iron Man in the Civil War II comic series. BBC News reports that a 15-year-old African American girl named Riri Williams has emerged to succeed Tony Stark as Iron Man. In the story, she catches Tony Stark’s attention by figuring out how to construct her own version of the Iron Man suit in her MIT dorm room.
According to USA Today, writer Brian Michael Bendis came up with the idea for this new protagonist. Artist Stefano Caselli developed the character design. Riri Williams was first introduced in the Invincible Iron Man #7 comic book which was released back in March 2016.
In an interview with Time, Bendis spoke about the inspiration behind this character: “One of the things that stuck with me when I was working in Chicago a couple of years ago on a TV show that didn’t end up airing was the amount of chaos and violence. And this story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life — just random street violence — and went off to college was very inspiring to me. I thought that was the most modern version of a superhero or superheroine story I had ever heard. And I sat with it for awhile until I had the right character and the right place.” (via The Wall Street Journal)