Entertainment – Marvel’s new ‘Iron Man’ will be a black woman

A black female character will be taking over the role of Iron Man from Tony Stark in the latest installment of the “Iron Man” comic book series. Iron Man’s new identity will be Riri Williams, who “is a science genius who enrolls in MIT at the age of 15” and “comes to the attention of Tony when she builds her own Iron Man suit in her dorm,” according to TIME magazine. The writer of the “Iron Man” comic, Brian Michael Bendis, said he got the inspiration for Williams from his time spent working on a television show in Chicago a few years ago. “This story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life—just random street violence—and went off to college was very inspiring to me,” Bendis said. “I thought that was the most modern version of a superhero or superheroine story I had ever heard. And I sat with it for awhile until I had the right character and the right place.”