Ironheart, Vol. 1: Those With Courage
Eve L. Ewing
I read these as single issues. I’m so glad Eve Ewing is writing this series! She’s an excellent writer (see my reviews of “Electric Arches” and “Ghosts in the Schoolyard”), and it’s so awesome that she is writing Riri as well as being a poet and academic. These issues do a great job of balancing between telling “superhero stories” and telling Riri’s personal, friendship, and family stories. I like that Ewing doesn’t focus very much on the specifics of Ironheart’s powers/technology (I got pretty tired of Bendis' focus on Miles Morales’s venom blast, super venom blast, etc.). It suffices that she is a genius inventor that has cool technology as needed. This series does start to have a fair number of crossovers in later issues (can’t remember if it is within this volume or after), but it never feels too forced. The villain Midnight’s Fire wasn’t super compelling to me, but is fine–and I am happier having a consistent villain rather than “enemy of the week.”