Riri WilliamsIronheart

Inspired by Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, and determined to follow in his heroic footsteps, fifteen-year-old super-genius Riri Williams builds her own suit of advanced armor and leads a life of adventure, crime-fighting, and humanitarianism as the Super Hero known as Ironheart.

Girl Genius

Riri Williams grows up with her mother and stepfather in Chicago, Illinois after the death of her father, Demetrius, her namesake. At the age of five, a series of tests show that she possesses a super-genius level of intelligence. As Riri grows, she pursues her passion for technology obsessively, choosing to spend time alone inventing new and advanced machines rather than making friends, playing with toys, watching TV, or even eating regular meals.

As a little girl, Riri and her soon-to-be stepfather face an imminent threat during a Skrull invasion of Earth but are rescued by billionaire scientist, businessman, and Super Hero Iron Man.

At the age of ten, Riri meets Natalie Washington, who becomes her best friend. A short time later, Riri embarks on a college career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). During this time, she contacts NASA, hoping to apply for the astronaut’s training program. Her age and lack of a college degree disqualifies her for the time being, but Riri’s desire to follow in the footsteps of her personal hero, the first African-American woman astronaut, keeps her going. Several years later, for Riri’s thirteenth birthday, Natalie arranges for the astronaut to call Riri on the phone and chat with her. But later that year, at a picnic in a park in Chicago, tragedy strikes. A drive-by shooting takes the life of Natalie and Riri’s stepfather, who are both shot in the heart and killed, a life-changing event that affects Riri deeply.

Fascinated by Iron Man, Riri builds herself a suit of armor, reverse-engineering Stark’s Mark-41 design and putting her own spin on it. Riri uses materials that she steals from around campus, including the robotics lab—and when a security team arrives at her dorm room to confront her about it, Riri puts on the armor and flies off, deciding to quit school.

While testing her armor in a flight across the United States, Riri captures a pair of inmates escaping from the New Mexico State Penitentiary, damaging her armor in the process. Returning home to repair the suit and to explain to her mother that she left M.I.T., Riri finds Tony Stark himself in her home, who had learned of her activities. Stark expresses his support for Riri’s decision to become a Super Hero.

Using a repaired suit, Riri assists Stark against Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, during the second superhero Civil War, an event that leaves Stark in a comatose state. Riri takes up Iron Man’s mantel in his stead as Ironheart—a name suggested by the A.I. version of Tony Stark— inspired by Natalie and her stepfather’s deaths as well as the improved armor she builds around herself ever since, both literally and figuratively.

Well Suited

Riri is a normal human being without any super-powers, though her incredible intelligence places her among the smartest people in the world.

Her initial suit of armor is big, crude, and somewhat clunky, though it gives her flight capability, superhuman strength, magnetic powers, and the ability to contain opponents inside an energy bubble. These abilities carry over to Riri’s upgraded suit, which is much more streamlined, enables her to fire energy blasts from the palms of her gloves, and is equipped with an interface to the computerized copy of Tony Stark’s mind, which functions as her main operating system. Riri eventually upgrades her suit to contain a new artificial intelligence for her armor, and names Neuro-Autonomous Technical Assistant & Laboratory Intelligence Entity (N.A.T.A.L.I.E.). in honor of the friend she lost.

Attracting Enemies

While still fairly new to the Super Hero scene, Ironheart faces off against a variety of super-powered adversaries. She battles Animax, a mutant criminal with the power to create large, rampaging monsters at will out of her own DNA structure. Riri also confronts Aleksei Sytsevich, AKA Rhino, Antonio Rodriguez, AKA Armadillo, and Carolyn Trainer, AKA Lady Octopus, all of whom she defeats. Riri also teams up with business executive and part-time Super Hero Pepper Potts, AKA Rescue, to fight the Inhuman crime lord Tomoe the Techno Golem and her minions, the Biohack Ninja.

Ironheart experiences her first defeat at the hands of Jackson Arvad, AKA Will-o’-the-Wisp. She is rendered unconscious during the fight, and the Tony Stark A.I. calls in the Avengers for help. She also takes on the mad Titan Thanos, a reckless choice that leaves her armor in ruins.

Perhaps Ironheart’s most significant enemy thus far is the criminal cyborg Lucia von Bardas, who sets herself up as the new leader of her home country, Latveria. After von Bardas launches a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Ironheart embarks on an officially unsanctioned mission to Latveria to confront her. After defeating the cyborg in battle, Riri declares herself the new ruler of the country—at least until free elections were held a short time later.

Riri also fends off mutant David Bond, AKA Hijack, and Melina Vostokoff, AKA Iron Maiden, both of whom are hired by the renegade board of directors of Stark Industries to confiscate the Ironheart armor as Stark property.

Instant Allies

Ironheart is quickly welcomed into the Super Hero community. Tony Stark is the first person to endorse her, and he provides her with technology and ongoing advice and guidance via the A.I. program based on his own personality.

Through her connection to Stark, Riri joins forces with some of his closest associates, including Pepper Potts, his mother, Amanda Armstrong, his executive assistant, Mary Jane Watson, and his A.I. holographic assistant, Friday.

Riri also works with S.H.I.E.L.D. commander Sharon Carter, though in an unofficial capacity.

As Ironheart, Riri is invited to join the Champions. She officially signs on to the Super Hero team after working closely with some of its members, along with Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, as part of an underground resistance force during the period when a Hydra-controlled version of Captain America takes over the United States.

Riri’s most devoted supporter and defender is her mother, Ronnie, who, having been widowed twice, initially opposes the idea of her daughter taking on such a dangerous occupation.

A Hero’s Destiny

Riri soon became famous as Ironheart for her successful defeats of the Techno Golem and Biohack Ninja while she was working with Pepper Potts in her Rescue armor. Tony’s mother Amanda Armstrong then offered Riri Tony’s old lab and soon afterward, Riri was invited by both M.I.T. to return to the school and the Champions to join their team of teenage heroes.

When the fascist Captain America, created by the Cosmic Cube named Kobik, usurped the American government with Hydra, Riri, equipped with the Tony Stark A.I., joined the Underground, a group of heroes to fight back. During this time, she worked under Black Widow and got to know the Champions a bit more. Separately, Riri soon faced Lucia von Bardas, a Latverian dictator terrorist who attacked American soil. S.H.I.E.L.D. encouraged Riri to go after her and things got out of hand. Meanwhile, a plan formed to take out the evil Captain America, but Black Widow lost her life to the villain. Ironheart and the Champions were arrested but later freed by the Underground when they defeated evil Cap and Hyrda.

When Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, returned, Kobik transported some of the heroes across time, with Ironheart landing in the future. While there, she met the Sorcerer Supreme version of Tony Stark, who, like the Stark from her time, inspired her.

Riri then took part in the search for Tony Stark, whose comatose body had gone missing. Later, when she crash-landed back home, her neighbor from across the street took notice and approached her, it was Xavier King—a teenage boy that the Stark A.I. found referenced in Riri’s diary. She invited Xavier inside since people in the neighborhood were staring, and when she opened her garage, she found her mother yelling at representatives from Stark International, who were confiscating all of her lab equipment, claiming it was their property. Among them was mercenary Melina Vostokoff, AKA Iron Maiden, who accused Riri of reverse engineering proprietary property, Riri spat back that they were trespassing. Riri realized what would happen to the neighborhood if she fought Vostokoff for her suit and decided it wasn’t worth it and handed over her armor. She then received an unexpected visit from Eric Brooks, AKA Blade, the vampire hunter, and followed his advice to accept M.I.T.’s invitation, as a way to both find Stark and to be in position for a major, potentially world-affecting development in which she and Stark will be needed. Without her armor, she began attending M.I.T. once again and the Dean of the school welcomed her personally. He explained that because she had made her armor on campus and it had notable modifications that differed from Stark’s armor, that it belonged to the university. He offered to sign the armor over to her and it was subsequently returned.

Getting her armor back, she soon joined a think tank led by time traveler Leonardo da Vinci, who sought to rebuild what S.H.I.E.L.D. originally stood for. Stark was soon recovered and awoke from his coma, and with the hero back in business, Riri officially joined the Champions. While fighting alongside the Champions, Riri helped rescue Amka Aliyak and adventured into outer space to the Chitauri from the mad Titan Thanos. Although, her encounter with Thanos left her armor in ruins since she had recklessly chosen to take him on. Her teammate Viv Vision encouraged her to recreate her armor but with improvements.

Riri took Viv’s advice and created a new suit. With the team, Riri traveled to Africa to investigate a contaminated water source, but instead found Ted Sallis, AKA Man-Thing. The bog beast attacked them and sent Riri’s teammates Sam Alexander, AKA Nova, and Nadia Van Dyne, AKA Wasp, to parts unknown. While the Champions searched for their missing teammates, Riri was with them when fellow teammate Miles Morales, AKA Spider-Man, got an alert notifying him of a shooting at his school. Joining him at the school, he rejected their help since there was nothing any of them could do as the shooting had already occurred. Later that night, Amadeus Cho, AKA Brawn, asked Riri what they should do and she replied that there was nothing they could do to change people and it was partly the reason she created the suit in the first place. With the help of Amka, they discovered their missing teammates in the Siege Parallel where they all lost their memories and became Dungeons and Dragons avatars of themselves, except Riri who had to overcome these memory challenges to reunite the team, which she did successfully, and they all returned home. Upon their return, Viv unexpectedly kissed Riri, but Riri was taken by surprise and not in a good way. She pushed Viv away and Viv apologized, realizing her mistake. As a result, Riri felt uncomfortable on the team and avoided joining them on missions. She was then influenced by Blackheart, the Hell-lord Mephisto’s son, which led to a face-off with the Champions. Viv again apologized to Riri which helped her come out of the influence and they defeated Blackheart together. Riri and Viv resolved their issues, with Riri informing Viv that she couldn’t return Viv’s romantic feelings, but that she wanted to remain friends.

Accepting a lab from M.I.T., Riri used her new resources to create an A.I. for her armor. During this time, she confronted the villainous Clash, a criminal affiliated with the Ten Rings, who was impressed by her and gave her a token form the diabolical group. Her A.I. then came to life thanks to scanning her own brainwaves and resulted in a version of her former and since passed best friend Natalie. Turning her former friend’s name into an acronym, Riri dubbed the new A.I. Neuro-Autonomous Technical Assistant & Laboratory Intelligence Entity (N.A.T.A.L.I.E.). Though Riri and her new A.I. soon discovered that her friend Daija Hamilton went missing, and along with that, a string of crimes tied to the terrorist organization the Ten Rings led her to move back to Chicago. Her investigation brought her into a fight with Ten Rings member Midnight’s Fire, who sought the Wellspring of Power—a mystical portal that is the source of superhuman powers—and tried to recruit Riri into the organization but failed. She ended up finding Daija and several other kidnapped children in a warehouse held hostage by the corrupt candidate for Illinois Governor, Thomas Birch who was using them to make him look good for his campaign. Riri won an award for turning over Birch and used it to build a her own lab in Chicago.

She later helped the Champions locate their missing teammate, Miles, and encountered the magical villain Eclipse who had unleashed zombies on her home city. Eclipse sported the Ten Rings insignia, which led Riri to seek out Dr. Steven Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, who helped her understand the magic she faced. When she mentioned the Wellspring of Power, Strange pointed her to Wakanda where an undiscovered gateway to it was located. To thwart the Ten Rings, Riri teamed up with Wakanda’s Princess Shuri after shadow creatures attacked Wakanda’s capital city, Birnin Zana. Before searching for the Wellspring, they were interrupted by former New Warrior Janelle Chord, AKA Silhouette, who sought her brother, Midnight’s Fire. They worked together with help from the Dora Milaje to find the Wellspring, but the Ten Rings were already there with a man that bore a resemblance to her birth father, Demetrius Williams, a man she thought dead. Midnight’s Fire was also present and gave the Stone of Hala to Demetrius, known as Dune, and the Ten Rings members attacked Riri and her allies before she could grapple with the man she saw before her. She quickly revealed her connection to Dune which halted the fight but only for a moment. In the subsequent foray, Riri stole the stone, though it revealed the truth about her father, that he was a victim that became a villain. When combined with the Wellspring, Riri gained foresight and became unstoppable, leading the Ten Rings and Riri’s father to retreat. Riri spent a few days recovering from the surge in power she received but before she left for home, Shuri assured her that she would always have a home in Wakanda. She soon returned to help with Wakanda’s space program and helped fight N’Jadaka’s Symbiote.

When Tony Stark was revealed to be dead, a new law banning underage Super Heroes, and an A.I. revolution hot on Riri’s heels, Riri was lost without her mentor. She ceased being a Super Hero for fear of being arrested. Meanwhile, Arno Stark, Tony’s adoptive brother took control of Stark Unlimited. Though her friend Xavier was a welcome distraction until hacked self-driving intellicars interrupted them. Riri and her A.I. N.A.T.A.L.I.E. traced the hack to André Sims, a Stark Unlimited employee. Though Riri and N.A.T.A.L.I.E. clashed over what to do with the information and the A.I. became aggressive due to a glitch with interacting with Sims’ software. The glitch led the A.I. to take the Ironheart armor and confront André alone. When Riri caught up with N.A.T.A.L.I.E., the A.I. reminded her that they needed to help people and stop the villains and they reconciled.

After the underage Super Hero ban was signed into law, known as Kamala’s Law, the government-sponsored task force C.R.A.D.L.E. enforced the ban by arresting defiant young heroes and sending them off to reeducation camps. The Champions became fugitives and sought Riri’s aid to help them. Though Riri was reluctant to break the law, she ultimately joined them against C.R.A.D.L.E. when they arrived at her home. Luckily, Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, rescued the team, and they took refuge with the Marauders. Riri and the Champions soon regrouped and returned home to fight for their beliefs.