Ironheart review – the small screen can barely contain the energy of this Black Panther spinoff

This rapid-fire new Marvel Cinematic Universe show for a younger audience is packed with cartoonish violence and flashy effects. Dominique Thorne’s reprisal of her Wakanda Forever role is stunningly charismatic

Amid the usual welter of pre-emptive criticisms, hopes, dreams, doubts and hostilities that suffuse the internet whenever a new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – or any other alternative world beloved of a fandom – is announced, Ironheart (the 14th TV series in the MCU and following on from the events in 2022’s film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) has at last arrived.

In the film, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne, reprising the role on the small screen, which can barely contain her charisma or energy) was the genius MIT student who invented the vibranium detector that rather kicked off the whole vibranium power struggle, then the metal exoskeletal suit that aided the Wakandans in their face-off with Talokan. At the end, she returned to MIT and that is where we find her at the beginning of Ironheart, on a Tony Stark fellowship, and trying to wangle an extra year of grant money to refine the suit that could potentially transform emergency services provision. “Help would never be too late!”