It's always fun when Marvel Studios takes us to unfamiliar locations and Disney+'s Ironheart will shift the action from New York to Chicago.
Hamilton and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts star Anthony Ramos plays Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood, in the show and tells Entertainment Weekly that the shift to the Second City has resulted in some big changes to the villain's backstory.
Ramos describes Chicago as "a big character" in Ironheart and adds, "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," the actor continues. "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 is expected to pit science against magic, with Riri Williams suiting up to battle The Hood, a supervillain in the comics who is gifted his hood by the demonic Dormammu (in the MCU, we expect him to be swapped out for Mephisto).
"We see this common thread between the characters as well where it's like, 'How much can I get? I get a little bit and I see how much I can do with this little bit, maybe if I get a little more I might be able to do a little more with that,'" Ramos adds, teasing the character's story arc in Ironnheart.
"And we see how that affects the characters positively and negatively. And then we start to see how the characters start to use each other to get ahead and to get more, whether that's more power, more something, more money. It's really cool to see that journey in how the characters start to interweave between one another's stories."
Set after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart pits technology against magic when Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) - a young, genius inventor determined to make her mark on the world - returns to her hometown of Chicago.
Her unique take on building iron suits is brilliant, but in pursuit of her ambitions, she finds herself wrapped up with the mysterious yet charming Parker Robbins aka "The Hood" (Anthony Ramos). The series also stars Lyric Ross, Manny Montana, Matthew Elam and Anji White. Chinaka Hodge is head writer and executive producer; episodes are directed by Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes.
Ironheart premieres on Disney+ next year.