Ironheart #12: Review

Nov 2019

Eve L Ewing, Luciano Vecchio

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Story Name:

(no title given)

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Ironheart #12 Review by Rob Johnson (December 6, 2019)

The Ten Rings members each bear a sigil on their costumes. Here we learn they are signs for Fire, Rain, Moon, Earth, Air, Sun, Ice, Lightning, Flora, Fauna. Dune is obviously Earth and Eclipse is Moon. I presume Midnight's Fire is Fire. Techno-Golem/Tomoe's sign appears to be Lightning and the 1 called Ambition may be Flora. The other Rings haven't been named.

The scientists who experimented on Demetrius Williams look like they worked for SHIELD. Their insignia is a version that has been seen in recent SHIELD comics series - but not long enough ago to be before Riri's birth. And I hope their callous disregard for their test subjects' lives means they were a rogue branch of the organisation.

This is the last issue but the last page says her story will continue in the Incoming 1-shot. However the image used suggests it will only be as part of the Champions.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Ironheart #12 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Ironheart, Okoye, Shuri and Silhouette are trying to stop the Ten Rings group from controlling the Wellspring Of Power in Wakanda. However Riri Williams has discovered that 1 of the Rings is her father Demetrius who was supposedly killed before she was born. She's just confronted him with the fact ...

... but now he denies it and throws a large chunk of rock at her. (As Dune he is able to control earth.) The leader Midnight's Fire tells his people to kill the 2 Wakandans but not Silhouette (his sister) or Ironheart (because *he* knows she's Dune's daughter and that connection can be used magically in accessing the Wellspring). But as it happens they don't kill anybody.

Dune was given the Stone Of Hala (last issue) and now he uses it in a rite which opens the Wellspring. IH's NATALIE AI reminds Riri of a gift Nadia Van Dyne gave her (supposedly in #7 though we didn't see it). It's a dose of Pym Particles and Riri uses it to shrink to escape her captors and then grow giant-size to grab the Stone. But then she collapses from the strain and falls into the Wellspring.

The Wellspring and the Stone allow her to talk to her own subconscious and experience visions of the past. Riri sees her father leaving his heavily pregnant wife saying he's got something to do. In order to earn some money he's volunteered along with lots of others for a medical experiment. They get injected with something which we hear the scientists say afterwards has mixed results including death. They intend to kill the survivors but Demetrius Williams escapes because the process has given him his Dune power.

Knowing that after that her father became a supervillain makes Riri certain that she's going to turn bad. But then she's shown many good things she's done for others in her life. And then a vision of the future where she's grown up and happily living in the family home. Finally an inspiring moment with her stepdad. She comes to the conclusion that like everyone else she's a mixture:- good and bad, fearful and courageous.

And then Ironheart surges out of the Wellspring glowing with power. The other 3 have somehow broken free of their bonds and are fighting the Ten Rings, but the villains turn on IH when she appears. However her enhanced powers including being able to see what's going to happen next enable her to trounce the lot of them. Midnight's Fire calls for a retreat and Eclipse teleports them away.

When it's all over Princess Shuri sends for Wakandan troops to seal off the area containing the Wellspring. A few days later Shuri honours Riri and Silhouette with the Circlet Of Bast and says they're welcome in Wakanda whenever they want. Riri returns to her mom in Chicago And she goes kite-flying with her friends Daija Hamilton and Xavier King.

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