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Warning: this article contains spoilers for the Marvel Television's Ironheart season 1 episodes 1-3 on Disney+.

I don't think I need to tell you this, but the world is a very different place than it was in May of 2008 when the MCU began with Jon Favreau's Iron Man movie. George W. Bush was still president, Instagram hadn't even been created yet, most people didn't know who Lady Gaga was yet, and teenagers were walking around saying, "it's over 9000!" With that in mind, I think it's fair to say that our opinions about billionaire tech moguls have changed since the general public was first introduced to Tony Stark. Hell, Elon Musk had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in 2010's Iron Man 2. 

Considering the role that billionaire tech moguls have had in eroding our democracy in recent times (The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are both owned by billionaires), it's a good thing that Tony Stark was killed off in the MCU in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. I can't imagine how uncomfortable it would be to watch a California tech billionaire walk around the MCU today without at least some level of recognition for the world that we're stuck living in. Unlike Musk and his compatriots, Tony Stark was at least smart and possessed a sense of responsibility and altruism. But the MCU has been long overdue for a closer look at how billionaires are a scourge on society. 

Enter, Ironheart. Just like her comic book counterpart, Riri Williams is carrying on the Iron Man mantle, not in name, but in spirit. Her MCU introduction in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever included shots that homaged the now iconic sequence from the original Iron Man, where Tony builds his suit in a cave. But unlike Tony Stark, who benefited from being the son of a famed inventor and entrepreneur, Riri is scrappy. She's brilliant, but she's got no financial safety net. As the Ironheart series shows, Riri will take any opportunity to use her tech wizardry to make a living, including teaming up with some shady folks. 

From the second episode, we see Riri team up with The Hood and his group to target various wealthy people in tech. One of those people is the creator of TNNL, a "private highway" for cars built within Chicago's freight tunnels - a concept that's remarkably similar to Elon Musk's idea with The Boring Company for Teslas to be used to ferry passengers at high speeds in underground tunnels. This is instead of, you know, taking the subway like any civilized human being would. The idiocy of these tech billionaires is on full display in Ironheart, much like it is in real life as well. 

Ironheart is doing a better job at exploring the shadow that Tony Stark has left over the MCU than the Spider-Man movies

Moving away from garbage oligarchs, Ironheart has been compelling because it offers a different look at Tony Stark altogether, without even needing to show Robert Downey Jr. Unlike Peter Parker, Riri Williams has never met Tony Stark. She isn't walking around saying things like, "Everywhere I go I see his face," because she only knows Tony as a public figure: the billionaire playboy turned Avenger. That said, knowing Riri, she probably knows a thing or two about Tony's collection of vintage cars from her stepdad, Gary, but that's beside the point. 

Through Riri, core elements of Tony Stark's character come into focus like never before. Like Riri, he was once a brilliant young person whose adolescence was brutally interrupted by the violent murders of those he loved most: his parents. And like Ironheart herself, he used his intellect to process his grief, through B.A.R.F. (Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing). In the MCU, we've only known Tony Stark as an adult and as a father, and seeing Riri struggle with the deaths of her best friend Natalie and her stepdad as a young person makes us wonder what Tony went through at the same age. 

Ironheart is also exploring the consequences the consequences of Tony Stark's actions, through the reveal that Riri's reluctant new buddy, Joe McGillicuddy, is actually Ezekiel Stane, the son of Obadiah Stane from the first Iron Man. Obadiah was killed by Tony, after the former tried to kill him on several occasions to usurp control of Stark Industries. While Zeke doesn't blame Tony for doing what he did to his father, it's clear that he has to live with his father's absence in some way. And that's something that Zeke isn't particularly good at yet, because he keeps his dad's ashes in a ziplock bag on his kitchen counter, for goodness' sake. With both Tony Stark and Obadiah now gone, Riri and Zeke have to find a way to move forward, just like the rest of the MCU in the wake of Avengers: Endgame. 

Through becoming Iron Man, Tony Stark had an enormous effect on the rest of the world in the MCU, one that Ironheart is beginning to explore now. Since Tony was taken off the table in Endgame, projects like Ironheart can have more freedom to expand upon the MCU we already know. Not all of the heroes in the MCU are going to have met Tony Stark, for good reason. Riri Williams is a young woman from Chicago, thousands of miles away from where the Avengers were based. The MCU would be incredibly boring if it just had Gen X characters from the tri-state area. 

Rest in peace, Tony Stark, and long live Riri Williams. 

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters