Out today, Invincible Iron Man #1 by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stefano Caselli features teenage genius Riri Williams in the leading role, showing her journey to become the new Iron Man. The issue shows Riri’s early life in a series of flashbacks that shed light on her motivation for becoming a hero, including a tragic incident involving gun violence. We hopped on the phone with Bendis to discuss the issue.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Invincible Iron Man #1!
Invincible Iron Man #1 cover by Stefano Caselli. (Marvel Comics)
To recap, a flashback shows Riri at Marquette Park in Chicago with her best friend Natalie along with Riri’s mother and stepfather. Tragedy strikes when bullets from a nearby shooting go past their targets and hit Natalie and Riri’s stepfather, killing them both.
Riri Williams origin art by Stefano Caselli. (Marvel Comics)
This happens two years before Riri becomes Iron Man (or Ironheart, as we know she’ll eventually be called), so this incident isn’t what propels her into being a superhero, like Spider-Man deciding to be a hero after his Uncle Ben was shot by a mugger. Instead, this trauma is an element of the character’s life and is just one of several key moments from her past that Bendis chose to highlight, the others being when a doctor informs Riri’s parents that she’s a super genius and when Riri first meets Nat while tooling around with an invention in the garage.
While talking with Bendis on the phone, he brought up how that shooting scene was inspired by real-world headlines he would read about overwhelming gun violence in Chicago. A quick Google search shows precisely what he’s referring to, like this one reporting how August 2016 was the most violent month in Chicago in nearly 20 years.
“This stuff in Chicago has been going on for a while. It's kind of horrifying. If you really read the stories, some people are just walking down the street and they don't even know where the bullet came from. Just a mother and a son walking down the street and all of a sudden she gets tagged in the leg and she has no idea where it came from. That's insane,” Bendis said.
Bendis talked about how these types of reports are so frequent that even though he wrote this issue months ago, he’s still seeing more reports of innocent bystanders being shot in Chicago.
“I think about [Chicago] and about the classic Marvel heroes and where they're origins came from and what horrible thing created the violence that created Spider-Man or the violence that created Captain America. This is the modern version of that to me. Once that idea is in your head it's hard not to want to express that. This is the world we live in and this is the world [Riri Williams] came out of,” Bendis said.
The idea to set Riri’s story in Chicago against a background of gun violence came from a note he jotted down in his notebook years ago while filming the first, unaired pilot for the Powers TV show.
“There was a lot of chaos going on that spring and summer, and I wrote down in my notebook something about it being like the modern version [of a superhero origin]. Whoever rises above this and becomes that special thing that people look at as inspiration you know is exciting. Who knows who that will be? I literally wrote, right now there’s an 8-year-old kid surrounded by this nonsense and they're going to pull themselves out of this and make something special out of it. What's more heroic than that?” Bendis said. “It just seemed to me like a classic Marvel origin in a completely modern original setting. No one can argue that this doesn't happen because it happens. And wouldn't it be nice if something cool came out of all of this. That's where RiRi comes from.”
The origin stories for popular heroes like Spider-Man and Batman also see family lost to gun violence, and other Bendis-co-created character Miles Morales saw two important figures in his life die before his eyes, but even though Bendis is again going back to that familiar well for Riri’s origin, he says that all superhero origins don’t need tragedy to work, although a tragedy does help create a more relatable situation for readers.
“As we explore it further, there's more to it than what we showed in the first issue. How aware of herself she is in all of this becomes a big part of it. I do think that tragedy certainly connects the audience to certain characters. I don't know what it's like to go to a magic school and have an owl, but I know what losing your parents feels like. That's why I can follow Harry Potter anywhere. I get it. I get not liking where I'm living. There's those things. Tragedy seems to be a great uniter, I hate to say. If there's any positive out of tragedy is is that it brings people together and it does seem to bring the best out of people as well,” Bendis said.
Speaking of tragedy, we’re fairly certain that something really, really bad happens to Tony Stark at the end of Civil War II that creates a need for Riri to step up and become the new Armored Avenger. (The cover for the Civil War II finale certainly doesn't look good for Tony.) Strangely enough, Invincible Iron Man #1 takes place after the end of Civil War II, but Civil War II has only shipped six of its eight issues, so we don’t know what happens to Tony yet. From reading the various post-Civil War II Marvel NOW! comics that have already come out, we know that Tony has been taken off the board in a big way after his battle with Captain Marvel, but we don’t know if he’s dead, imprisoned, trapped in a computer, or what.
“We're trying to have our cake and eat it too. We didn't plan for [Civil War II] being delayed but a baby came into this world and that's more important,” Bendis explained, referring to Civil War II artist David Marquez and his wife having a baby in the midst of the event, causing a shipping delay. “We're back on track and 7 is already at the printer and that's cool. There's people who think the whole thing's been spoiled and I'm like no it hasn't. You know something happened, but you're not sure what. You'll find out in just a couple weeks.
“There's also, may I say, about 10 endings to Civil War,” Bendis continued. “There's a bunch of stuff that happens, not just Tony's fate. Tony's fate is a big one, grant you, and very important to all my books but there's a lot to say yet.”
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire