From Webs to Heartbeats: Exploring Spider-Man and Ironheart in the MCU

Playing catch-up with Marvel shows, focusing on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Ironheart while postponing Daredevil Born Again coverage. Both shows introduce fresh perspectives on familiar characters while connecting to the broader MCU in unique ways.

• Spider-Man features a new origin story involving Doctor Strange, dimensional portals, and a time loop paradox
• Norman Osborn discovers Peter's identity immediately and offers resources to help him
• The animated series introduces race-swapped characters and new additions like Nico Minoru and Amadeus Cho
• Ironheart sparked controversy with Riri Williams' commentary on Tony Stark's privileged background
• Anthony Ramos portrays The Hood, who recruits Riri after her MIT expulsion
• The series blends technology with magic, culminating in a deal with Mephisto
• Both shows deserve nuanced evaluation rather than knee-jerk criticism

Stay nerdy. Remember that great things are coming.

Chapters

• 0:00 Catching Up on MCU Content
• 1:28 Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Analysis
• 4:43 Diving Into Ironheart's Controversies
• 6:30 Hood's Heists and Magical Elements
• 10:00 Final Thoughts and Future Plans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

All right. So we kind of fell behind on the MCU. And here's the deal. I want to be talking about Ironheart and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. And as far as Daredevil Born Again, I was going to get to that, but the thing was I felt like I needed to rewatch Daredevil in order to get a more immersive opinion on Daredevil Born Again. But then by the time I got to season two I realized, oh shit, I need to re-watch Defenders just for season three to make sense. And then that just made me realize that I need to watch Jessica Jones, luke Cage, the Punisher and Iron Fist all over again. That's a whole lot of time, man. Like each episode is like an hour long and that's a lot of episodes. Like, especially when you hear that I didn't even know Jessica Jones had three seasons. Like I knew about two seasons but I didn't know about this third season. Like maybe I just straight up forgot. But you know what? That's beside the point. I'm going to exclude Daredevil Born Again from the Phase 5 Roundup and maybe get to it at some point, but then after that I'm probably going to update the Extreme Review portion to where, okay, now I included Daredevil Born Again. But for now let's just stick to your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man first. Now the theme song kind of slaps. I like the comic book art style with the modernized use of technology.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Peter's origin story plays out differently than usual. While speedrunning his development as Spider-Man, some classic characters get race-swapped and there's new characters introduced and some surprises, like Nico Minoru, who's Sister Grimm from the Runaways, and we also got Amadeus Cho as the Hulkling. The event does take place in a time period adjacent to Civil War and the Sokovia Accord taking effect, but it's not exactly like the current MCU. It's more like an alternate universe. Doctor Strange was fighting a symbiote monster from another dimension, most likely Klyntar, because you know, if you know about the symbiotes. Yeah, anyway, he was fighting this symbiote. Yeah, anyway, he was fighting this symbiote monster from another dimension leading to Midtown High. But if you've seen the season finale it'll make more sense. This is where Radio Afters Spider comes from a portal open to drop down on Peter and bite him, giving him his powers. But it turns out that this is part of a time loop paradox where the season finale explains how the premise was set up.

Speaker 1: 2:49

In the season premiere, norman Osborn offered Peter an internship at Osborn and after Peter deals with Butane, this fire criminal, you know, know this arsonist. He was summoned to see osborne, who found out that peter is spider-man thanks to a security camera that he set up. And ever since peter unwittingly saved harry osborne from bullies and a runaway truck, norman became interested to know who spider-man was and who was assisting him with his tech, even going as far as making up the whole internship deal to find his answer. So now norman wanted to help peter with a new suit and an easier life. Now, while lonnie lincoln, who we know as tombstone, seems like an all-around good guy, he has his share of trouble that's being concealed well from others, whether it's money trouble or family emergencies, and with his brother, andre, joining a gang, the 110th Street Gang to be specific, in exchange for Andre to walk away from the gang alive, lonnie takes his place. Scorpion is a gang leader in this universe. Even with the 110th Street Gang, scorpion is a gang leader in this universe beating with the 103 gang. Dr Octopus is the big bad of this season giving the weapons to all those different criminals. And once Harry found out that Peter is Spider-Man, by happenstance, he joined Team Spider-Man as the guy in the chair.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Now, honestly, I didn't have a whole lot to say outside of that, but I thought it was pretty good. I know some people were turned off by some of the characters being race swapped and whatnot, but that didn't bother me. If I were to give it a rating, I would say an eight, because I think there's a second season coming, so it might go up a little higher, might go down a little higher, might go down a little lower, who knows? We might see when season two comes out. Now let's go ahead and talk about Ironheart.

Speaker 1: 4:47

Now, the main thing that people got pissed off about Ironheart is when Riri was saying do you think Tony Stark would be Tony Stark if he wasn't a billionaire? And to be fair, she's right. You could be super intelligent, but unless you came from money or you know the right people, you have to be in the right place and time. Success isn't guaranteed for everyone. The average person have to grind for their entire life to be self-made billionaire. And like what riri said no shade, that's just how it is. She's not disrespecting tony star, she just bring attention to something that some of the viewers are glossing over how some people just don't got it like that. So maybe they got a grind for them or getting what they got, and even then they might not even achieve their goals. Not to be pessimistic or anything, but sometimes just be like that, so I just think some folks are being very out of touch with people who are actually going through this problem. That's just me.

Speaker 1: 5:53

We got the Hood who is being portrayed by Anthony Ramos, who you probably know from Noah, from Transformers, rise of the Beast and other works. He recruits Riri to his team of lively criminals for some not exactly legal activity after she gets expelled from MIT and she needs the money for work. And while fixing her suit she also was developing a new ai. While scanning her brain, she was dreaming of her lost friend, natalie, and she accidentally created an ai version of. Now she links up with a weird but resourceful guy named joe to help get her suit fixed before her first heist and as she continues associating with him, she learns that Joe is actually Named Ezekiel Thane, son of Obadiah Thane. During the second heist, riri managed to get a piece of Parker's hood For analysis, but John King found her out and fought her until the carbon monoxide levels got too high and the greenhouses that they were infiltrated for a deal gone south. She not only left John King to die once Natalie rescued her, but she also lost her laser cut at the scene of the crime, where Ezekiel takes blame for it because it was his tech.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Riri and her mother visit the Stantons to figure out the sample of Parker's hood, to find out their magic uses themselves. And I like how Zoma there asked them what y'all never heard Doctor Strange and I was like thank you, zoma. Thank you, because Riri was acting like Bro at this point. How do you not know that magic exists in this universe Between Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch and a whole bunch of other shit going on? It's like Bro, like, I guess, the scientific mind just have a hard time accepting mystical, supernatural phenomena. I guess, I mean, after all, it took a while for even the likes of Tony Stark and Captain America to accept the fact that there's gods. Meanwhile, their teammate Thor is a literal god of thunder. But anyways, parker is not answering to Dormammu, he's actually answering to Mephisto, and Parker Knows that Riri killed John Thanks to Mephisto, but he sends the crew to kill her and include a Bionic enhanced Ezekiel, who got busted out of prison Zeke spared her life but destroyed her suit and Bionic Enhanced Ezekiel Stane, who got busted out of prison.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Zeke spared her life but destroyed her suit. Now Riri comes up with the idea of creating a new suit imbued with magic and built the new suit with parts from her stepdad's car. And Parker's grand ambition is based on getting back at his father for kicking him out of the house at age 12. So he basically built up his whole criminal background and got his resources and whatnot just to get back at daddy Funny. And after Riri defeated Parker, mephisto strikes a deal with Riri and she actually accepted it. She gives Natalie back, not just AI Natalie, but the real Natalie. But, as you can see, that's the things and whatnot are forming in Riri. It's like the cost of doing magic, I guess. And somehow this series managed to be a callback to Iron man 1, doctor Strange 1, with a WandaVision plot twist at the end. I was digging it. I was really digging it. It was a solid series. Like Sometimes people just hate right out of the gate and it's almost like you can tell that they just make a career out of disliking shit.

Speaker 1: 10:21

My main thing is I like to have nuance on this podcast where, yeah, there's some things that I like, there's some things that I don't like, but I give credit to the things that I like. There's some things that I don't like, but I give credit to the things that I like and criticism to the things that I don't like. So even if I like a series or a movie, that doesn't mean that it's safe from criticism. And just because I dislike something doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve its flower or what it does, right. So that's just my thing and honestly, that's all I really say about both topics.

Speaker 1: 11:00

Like I said, I'll get to Daredevil born again at some point. At that point I might as well just save that for maybe, like December, when I plan on reviewing the DC Extended Universe. You know, like the Arrowverse and the DC Extended Universe movies, I'll probably save the Daredevil Extreme Review for that, and probably what I'm going to do is make a separate recording for Daredevil Born Again and then I'll just attach to both Daredevil Stream Review and also well, it's going to be a Defender Stream Review, to be honest with you. I'm going to attach it to that, and then I'm also going to attach it again to the Marvel Phase 5 Super Tub when I put that out. But until then, stay nerdy. Remember that great things are coming. Go ahead and have yourself a good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, but ultimately you take it easy.