Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Riri Williams flies around the world in her Ironheart armour marvelling that she's a superhero and can do this. She remembers how her dad died before she was born and she was raised by her mom and stepdad as a young black girl in Chicago who precociously tinkered with machinery in the garage. Then her stepdad (who's still not been named in any comic) and her only friend Natalie Washington were killed in a drive-by shooting, leaving her with survivor's guilt. She got into MIT early to study Engineering and built her own Iron Man armour, which is where we 1st encountered her in IM(2015)#7.
Now she reluctantly returns to MIT (we see the domed Building 10) and her private lab where she is unhappy to find Dean Bryant showing a dozen guests around - global leaders visiting Cambridge Massachusetts for a summit conference. She reluctantly agrees to show them some of the things she's working on. Apparently they can all understand her because they are wearing earpieces which automatically translate her words for them. (But strangely they also enable Riri to hear what they are saying as English.)
She shows them a visor that enables you to see at a microscopic scale, eg for forensic investigation, but when someone puts it on they are disgusted with how many bugs there are all around. Riri shows them an experimental diving suit that could withstand deep ocean pressure, but then *she* disgusts them by describing in graphic detail what would happen to you if you went down without such a suit. Lastly she shows them an arm-cannon that doubles as a 3-D printer and glows in the dark. *This* impresses them.
As the crowd examine various things some of them ask her personal questions. 1 person queries how she squares wearing a weapon like her armour with her father and friend being shot - she replies that Ironheart is many things which occasionally includes being a weapon. And she explains to someone else that her suit doesn't have an AI at the moment but she's working on it. (Presumably because her Tony Stark AI was lost with the old armour that was destroyed by Thanos in Infinity Countdown: Champions #2.)
Suddenly the arm-cannon starts shooting. Riri quickly switches it off but the Dean is angry and says maybe she's not fit to have her own lab, to which she hotly retorts that maybe there wouldn't *be* problems if he stopped bringing people in without warning. This may cause trouble later. When they've gone Riri tries to discover what set the cannon off but it's a mystery. 2 other students pop in and invite her for lunch. They're worried that she spends so much time alone in her lab but she says she's got too much to do.
Outside TV reporters are covering the summit conference (at the Taubman Building in the John F Kennedy School Of Government). Apparently the security system was made by Parker Industries before it went bust (during Secret Empire in Amazing Spider-Man (2015) #31). However something suddenly makes the TV cameras fail and a forcefield keeps the security guys out of the building. The limited AI in Riri's workplace alerts her to the problem so she suits up and zooms over there. Some security guards inside the building are looking after the VIPs when a costumed villain uses a sonic weapon on them, which also affects people outside the forcefield. Ironheart hears them screaming about the painful sound but her armour has automatically screened it out.
Riri locates the frequency of the wireless transmitter translators that the 12 global leaders are wearing and listens in to what is going on. She hears the villain tell them that their translators and security badges are under his control and can do much damage to them. Riri's computer identifies his voice as sonic villain Clash, Clayton Cole who used to work for Parker Industries. He also says he tested the remote access an hour ago, and Riri figures that was what set off the cannon. She also guesses the forcefield is composed of sound waves and she creates destructive interference that allows her to pass through it.
Clash is telling everyone his masterplan - he's doing this to prove his worthiness to join the Ten Rings terrorist group. And then he has a rant about how the world has always had it in for him. Then Ironheart enters and destroys his weapon. But he also has sonic powers built in to his costume, so the fight's not over.
The villain takes time to spout some more about how powerful the Ten Rings are, but Riri tunes him out and calls up blueprints of the building to locate the Safe Room. Then Ironheart grabs 1 of the dignitaries and flies him to its entrance - she needs his retinal scan to gain access. Once inside they don't have to wait long for Clash to follow with the other VIPs in tow (in fear of his control of their badges and translators).
As the superpeople fight the hostages huddle under a large table. Riri contacts them through the translators and tells them she has a plan. She tells them to hold their breath and then shoots a very large hole in the ceiling, and water pours in. (I guess the Safe Room is under the nearby Charles River.) She then tells the VIPs to remove the badges and translators while they're under water where Clash's sonic control can't reach, and then escape while she holds him off.
Clash says they're all still trapped inside his sonic forcefield that surrounds the building. Riri detects that it is powered by transponders buried around the building that run off the local power grid. So she fires electricity into some power sockets and shorts out the power for the building. They resume their fight in the dark. Clash uses echolocation to find her and Ironheart switches on night vision. But then she launches some Semiautonomous Electromagnetic Power Micronodes which 'tie' his wrists together and the fight's over.
As they wait for Security to take him away Clash says he feels some kinship with Ironheart and suggests that the world may treat her engineering genius like they did his. He hands her a token with the symbol of the Ten Rings saying that *she* might want to join them. And back at her lab Riri wonders if he's right because no-one really gets her. She falls asleep and dreams of her stepdad and her friend Natalie flying a kite in the park (where they were killed?).
She's woken by a phone call from recent (IM#595-596) friend Xavier King back home in Chicago. Apparently her mother told his mother to get him to call her because she didn't have any friends at University. She's about to angrily end the call when he notices a Geordi (La Forge) visor on her desk. She admits she made it for cosplay and soon they're into a discussion on Star Trek which then spreads wider. Much later Xavier plucks up the courage to ask her why she became and continues as Ironheart. This hits a nerve because she risks dying and giving her mom the heartache she had when Natalie and her stepdad died. But stepdad always encouraged her to be whatever she could be.
But when the call finally does end Riri is astonished to be confronted by a talking hologram of Natalie. (I think the work on her AI has finally succeeded.)