The ‘Ironheart’ Hate Is Just Racist

Ironheart finally made its Disney+ debut on June 24, 2025. However, hours before the series dropped a single episode, somehow, the Rotten Tomatoes audience rating was in the mid-30s. How can people rate a series they haven’t watched? Well, Ironheart was the target of review bombing. A similar situation happened with other female-led projects, such as 2016’s Ghostbusters, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and more. It also seems to happen repeatedly with films and television shows led by women of color, such as The Acolyte or the remakes of The Little Mermaid and Snow White.

These titles are typically the target of year-long hate campaigns, where people who seemingly have no interest in watching them make it their sole mission to keep posting and commenting about them, saying they won’t. What could be their reason? They often like to use the phrase “woke” as a criticism, which has no meaning except as a blanket term to cover up racist and sexist beliefs. Multiple comment sections on social media for Ironheart-related posts needed to be shut down due to a flood of racist, sexist, and outright hostile comments. That doesn’t seem like a reasonable response to a Disney+ MCU series.

Let’s make something clear. There is no “controversy” around Ironheart because saying so legitimizes a clear-cut targeted attack against the series. Fair criticism is understandable, but there is one word behind the review bombing Ironheart saw: racism. Ironheart was review-bombed for no other reason than it features a young Black woman as the lead of a superhero series in the MCU, and some fans can’t stand the thought of that.

‘Ironheart’ Review Bombing Shows a Disingenuous Hostility for the Series

One look at the comment section of any story about Ironheart reveals that it is filled with people saying things like “another Marvel flop” or “I won’t be watching it.” People made up their minds about the series before it even aired a frame of footage. Now, no one has to be excited for every Marvel project. Like with comics, you don’t need to read or watch every title.

The films and Disney+ series with female leads and people of color have been on the receiving end of review bombing and outright hostility that male-led series were not. There is a reason a sad subset of fans adopted “M-SHE-U” as a criticism, perceiving the addition of women as a bad thing. In titles like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it is always the women of color and the actresses who portray them that are on the receiving end of doxxing and harassment. It isn’t subtle.

The review bombing for Ironheart kicked off shortly after the social media reaction embargo for the series was lifted. The general sentiment among fans and critics who had seen it was that the series was, at best, a lot of fun and, at worst, mediocre Disney+ material. There was nothing outright calling it a disaster or a trainwreck, which a loud minority was hoping it would be, so they could use it as ammunition for their belief that “go woke go broke,” or stories rooted in a non-cisgender straight white male perspective are inherently “bad writing.”

The positive buzz likely triggered a response from people who wanted Ironheart to fail. This led to a review bomb that shaped the narrative around the series, suggesting fans hated it, even though nobody had seen it. This reason should expose the meaninglessness of a particular set of criticisms, but sadly, Ironheart will still be reported and discussed as “divisive” despite the evidence suggesting otherwise. It has an average 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not great, but not terrible by any metric.

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This isn’t to say anyone who watched Ironheart and didn’t like it is racist. Anyone who watched the series, went into it with an open mind, engaged in good faith, and it wasn’t for them, is fine. MovieWeb’s own Julian Roman did not like the series, giving it a 1.5 out of 5 rating and calling it one of the MCU’s worst (this writer would disagree, as Ironheart clears Secret Invasion and Moon Knight by a wide margin and, on average, is better than the two seasons of Loki).

However, many of the audience responses logged on Rotten Tomatoes for Ironheart seemed to come from people who either never intended to watch it or hate-watched it, knowing they wouldn’t enjoy it. Their minds were already made up. Yet it isn’t enough to dislike Ironheart; they have to ensure that people who do like it don’t get to enjoy it by drowning the discussion in hostile comments and targeted attacks. They want to ensure the series fails so that other fans won’t get to enjoy more of it. That is beyond petty; it’s cruel, and to take a page from Mister Fantastic actor Pedro Pascal, “loser behavior.”

The Double Standard ‘Ironheart’ Faces

The common refrain is “nobody asked for this,” which is a silly criticism considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe started by turning B-list heroes into household names. The idea of an Iron Man, Thor, or Ant-Man movie before 2008 sounded absurd compared to heroes like The Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-Man. For those too young to remember, in 2012, nobody was asking for a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

The fandom embraced those bold moves of spotlighting obscure, lesser-known heroes. As soon as the MCU started to broaden who was allowed at the table and diversify its roster, fans suddenly had a problem. There is no objective reason why Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, or Doctor Strange would be “in-demand projects,” but Ironheart, She-Hulk, and Ms. Marvel are not. It also ignores that plenty of people did ask for an Ironheart series and want superhero movies centered on Black men and women, which shouldn’t be discounted.

Ironheart, both the series and the character, have faced considerable criticism that holds her to a higher standard than her male counterparts. A great deal of criticism has been leveled at Riri Williams for being a criminal, yet both Scott Lang/Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy were all criminals before becoming heroes. Redemption stories are baked into the MCU as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Thor, and Doctor Strange all start as selfish individuals who become heroes. Thunderbolts* is a movie about taking the killers and so-called villains and letting them shine as heroes. But for some reason, there is a problem with Riri Williams. There is no good reason for Ironheart to be judged so harshly, except that the goal post has been moved for her.

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Just as Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel was criticized for displaying a quirky attitude that’s celebrated in MCU heroes like Iron Man or Doctor Strange, and Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk faced backlash for openly expressing female rage, Riri Williams seems to have drawn similar ire from certain corners of the fandom. The mere idea of a young woman ambitious enough to outshine “Tony Stark and Hank Pym” has been treated as an unforgivable insult. Riri Williams is not afforded the same level of leniency in making mistakes as her contemporaries, like Peter Parker.

Ironheart is a solid MCU Disney+ series that many people enjoy. Fans should be discussing the series’ themes, such as the wealth disparity between Tony Stark and Riri Williams, or the debate between science and magic in the MCU. Sadly, much of the discussion around the series is being dictated by individuals who can’t or won’t confront their own biases. Their negative criticism of Ironheart is performative and should be disregarded. The idea that Ironheart is “controversial” is disingenuous. Just as with Snow White, the hatred for Ironheart has been evident since the project was announced, and the loudest critics are not subtle about what they dislike, which raises the question: Are those voices worth listening to? Maybe the only way to find out if Ironheart is good is to watch it for oneself. Ironheart is streaming on Disney+.