Oh Stop the presses! This just in… As the mother of the world’s BIGGEST Marvel fan I am pleased and proud to announce that Marvel has a new Iron Man and She is a Black Girl With Natural Hair! Yes you heard right. Marvel has a new Iron Man and She is a Black Girl With Natural Hair. Why is this so important to me you may ask? Well duh, I’m the SistahChick, natural hair advocate extraordinaire and lover of my people. Of course, I want my daughter to be able to enjoy her favorite activities with images of people that look like her. What’s wrong with that? Now I don’t claim to know everything about Marvel characters and movies. As I told you when I wrote Deadpool & ALL Things Marvel: How I Choose To Relate To My Teen, I’m just going with her flow and trying to make sure she is having a good time. She digs Marvel, she’s a good kid and honor roll student, so I indulge her. However, in my heart of hearts I longed for a MAJOR Black female character. That being said I was overjoyed to see the news that this new character named Ri Ri Williams exists. Ri Ri according to reports is a 15 year old genius who attends MIT. She builds an Iron Man suit on her own and catches the attention of Tony Stark and the rest is history…
“We’re in the middle of a very big Tony Stark storyline – actually three storylines converging,” says Brian Michael Bendis, speaking with TIME. “His best friend died, his company is collapsing and he’s finding out who his biological parents were all at the same time. How that all shakes out such that Tony is no longer in the armor? You’ll have to wait to find out for the end of Civil War II. But it does create a path for Riri Williams, who Tony will know and will be interacting with very shortly in the comics.” More on Marvel.com
Per my daughter, “The Avenger Movies need more diversity because there are no Latino or Asian major characters in them either…” She said that the MCU has plenty of Black males with Nick Fury, Black Panther, War Machine and Falcon. She agrees that this is a good thing but is getting some negative feedback in some of the online Marvel Chats that she belongs to. SMH I won’t post the comments. Ri Ri is here.
Let’s talk about who I think hands down could play this character based on Ri Ri Williams bio.
The first person that came to my mind is Teyonah Parris.
I just love this girl and I got a chance to shoot her on the red carpet for the Survivors Remorse premiere that happened here in Atlanta. You may also remember her from Spike Lee’s movie ChiRaq. She definitely fits the physical profile for this character which is very important because Ri Ri is a young, dark brown skinned, black girl with a huge afro (natural hair heaven rejoices) and she should be portrayed as such. I pray that no one “Zoe Saldana/Nina Simone’s” this situation (yes I said that). I think that Teyonah Parris is an awesome young actress and I would love to see her transition to a major BLACK female action star! So make it happen Hollywood and thank you Marvel for recognizing that this was necessary.
Who would you like to see play Ri Ri WIlliams?
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