Empire Magazine has shared a new behind-the-scenes image from Marvel Television's upcoming Ironheart series, featuring Hamilton and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts star Anthony Ramos as Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood, and Good Girls actor Manny Montana as "Cousin John."
Whether Montana will turn out to be playing an established character from the comics remains to be seen, but Ramos will be taking on the role of a powerful magic-user in league with Mephisto.
Here's what the actor had to say about this new take on The Hood in a recent interview with EW.
"Parker Robbins in the comics is from New York, but being able to flip his story and making him from Chicago, we made him from Humboldt Park, which has, obviously, a large Puerto Rican population."
"We created this whole backstory with his mom being from the Young Lords and raising him that way. Chicago plays a huge part in the identity of all of our characters and the identity of this show, so I'm really excited for people to experience that. It was just a gift to be able to shoot there. It's an amazing city, one of the greatest cities in the world."
Ironheart follows Riri Williams as she "returns to her hometown of Chicago. There, she discovers secrets that bring technology and magic into conflict, leading her on an exciting and dangerous adventure."
In the comics, Riri is encouraged to suit-up and fight crime by Tony Stark, who becomes a mentor of sorts to the young hero. Stark's death in Avengers: Endgame would obviously make that particular dynamic very difficult to replicate, but Ironheart is expected to carry on Iron Man's legacy (to some extent, at least).
“Robert Downey Jr and I spoke just after we wrapped, and he shared some very lovely words about my journey,” star Dominique Thorne recalled during an interview with Empire. “He told me how excited he was and that he’s rooting for it, too. I literally got two thumbs up. It’s really reassuring to know you’re not embarrassing Iron Man.”
Ironheart also stars Lyric Ross, Regan Aliyah, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Elam, and Anji White. Sacha Baron Cohen is also rumored to make his MCU debut as Mephisto, though this has yet to be confirmed.