Ironheart
Disney dropped the first three episodes of Ironheart on Wednesday, and while we don’t know what actual viewership will be, both critic and audience reviews are coming in. As it stands, Ironheart is tied as the second lowest-scored MCU show, albeit still a ways from the “rotten” classification that only one series ever has gotten, Secret Invasion.
As it stands, and this number has bounced around a little, Ironheart has a 70% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes which would tie it with Echo at the same mark. I am hesitant to consider its audience score valid at this point. It would be in fourth place, but it was provably review-bombed as it sat around a 30% just 20 minutes after release when it was physically impossible to have even watched the first three episodes. Here’s the list:
- Ms. Marvel – 98% critics, 80% audience
- WandaVision – 92% critics, 87% audience
- Hawkeye – 92% critics, 88% audience
- Loki – 87% critics, 88% audience
- Daredevil: Born Again – 87% critics, 80% audience
- Moon Knight – 86% critics, 89% audience
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – 85% critics, 81% audience
- Agatha All Along – 84% critic, 83% audience
- She-Hulk – 79% critics, 32% audience
- Ironheart – 70% critics, 64% audience
- Echo – 70% critics, 61% audience
- Secret Invasion – 52% critics, 44% audience
I personally did not like the first three episodes, but I’ve seen a lot more positive audience reactions on social media, more than I envisioned. As pointed out to me, this may be a “culture divide,” given the show’s focus on black culture, which is absolutely something I’ll admit could be a blindspot for me, or people like me, judging the show.
Ironheart
This could also be an Agatha All Along situation where both critic scores and audience scores increase over time. But this is just two weeks of three episodes rather than Agatha doing a lengthy season week-to-week, so long-term increases seem unlikely.
We have no real idea if we will see Riri Williams after this. Disney is notorious for one-and-done TV series, and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday is likely to be so overstuffed I’m not sure she’d appear. Perhaps Sam Wilson’s Captain America could recruit her as a new Avenger. No rumors like that have surfaced, however.
I maintain Disney did this show dirty with lackluster promotion and what was practically a stealth drop of the series. I do not expect viewership to be terribly good, but again, perhaps that’s an underestimation of its appeal. We will likely not have that data for a while, though. We will see what people think of the second half of the series next week, which critics seem to say is better.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.