Where to start with Ironheart?

August 11, 2019 6:33 PM

I think my fifth grader would dig the Marvel character Ironheart. The preference is to read stuff in batches, via collections. Starting at the beginning is our normal MO, but it's frustrating to jump into an ongoing story midstream. I know that Ironheart came about midway through a volume of Invincible Iron Man. Do I need to get that collection to start her story off right? Or is there an Ironheart-specific title or collection that will let us hop right in without missing a beat?
posted by DirtyOldTown to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

There is a current Ironheart run, being written by Eve L. Ewing -- the first arc is collected in trade as Ironheart vol. 1: Those With Courage -- and I highly recommend it. I think it stands well on its own and can be read by someone without previous knowledge of the character. I think it's great and definitely worth reading.

If it's going to really, really bother you not to have Riri's complete origin story from the beginning, you can go back and read Bendis's Invincible Iron Man run that introduces Riri (and then centers on her after Tony ends up in a coma) but... there's a lot going on there, and it's a whole big mess of Comics Being Comics (it ties into a lot of other big comics events that are very confusing and, like, at one point Leonardo da Vinci shows up), and I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it for a fifth grader.

I'd also recommend recent -- or possibly current, I don't know, I stopped reading -- arcs of Champions, a team book featuring a lot of Marvel's teen heroes. Last I checked, Riri was one of them.
posted by sineala at 7:16 PM on August 11, 2019

Agree about the current run and its Volume 1. I bought it and the kids won't give it back.
posted by sleeping bear at 2:25 PM on August 12, 2019