Riri Williams is Teaming Up with Blade

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Invincible Iron Man #596, by Brian Michael Bendis, Stefano Caselli, Alex Maleev, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.

Tony Stark may have left Riri Williams with his Iron Man legacy before his sudden disappearance, but that doesn't mean she has legal ownership of Tony's proprietary hardware and software. The board of Stark Enterprises hasn't appreciated Riri suiting up as the armored hero Ironheart, and has come to repossess what they believe is rightfully theirs.

As someone who is still fairly new to the world of superheroes, courtroom drama is the last thing Riri needs to concern herself with. Besides, there's the issue of uncovering exactly what happened to Tony Stark, who has gone missing after being in a coma following the events of Civil War II. Riri and Tony's friends and family get a little closer to discovering the truth in Invincible Iron Man #596, but the appearance of an unexpected visitor could either put a monkey wrench in those plans, or complicate matters even more.

Giving Up The Goods

Before this special visitor arrived, Riri had to contend with paid mercenaries coming to her home to take back her Iron Man tech, on behalf of Stark Enterprises. One would think the young Ironheart would put a fight against the trespassers. After all, Tony did give Riri his blessing to continue using his resources, including armor and his artificial intelligence. However, Riri shocks everyone on hand when she concedes defeat. "I did reverse engineer someone else's tech," she said. "It's not mine. It's theirs. Tony Stark's not here to back me up. It's legally theirs. Take it."

Along with making the argument that Stark Enterprises legally owns the rights to Tony's creations, Riri doesn't want to put her neighbor's lives in jeopardy. This would be a selfish move on her part, and if there's one thing Riri has proved in her short career, is that she can use her high intellect for more than just building her own suit of armor. Of course, being very smart also means staying one step ahead of the competition, which means Riri has already made backups of everything taken.

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My Offer Is Better

We end Invincible Iron Man #596 with a shot of Riri in her empty garage, minus all of her high-tech goodies. She gets on the phone to make a call to an unknown figure, on the verge of accepting a mysterious offer. While Riri doesn't vocally confirm what that offer is, we can make a few educated guesses from previous issues of the series. When she first became the superhero Ironheart, Riri had different institutions from across the Marvel Universe reaching out to her, bidding for her services.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology welcomed her back to the college, after dismissing her for using the campus to reverse engineer an Iron Man armor; Tony Stark's mother and Mary Jane Watson gave Riri free access to Tony's lab; and the Champions invited her to join their team. Riri recently accepted the last offer in Champions #16, but she did that in-person, so her phone call can't be to them. Also, with Stark Enterprises confiscating all of Tony's belongs, it's not likely Riri would be given full access to the lab. No, our guess is Riri is thinking of heading back to MIT. But before she can complete her call, another Marvel hero enters the scene to cut her off: Blade, the vampire hunter.

Blade's cameo certainly comes as a surprise, as well as what he could possibly have to offer Riri. The hero has made sporadic appearances in the Marvel Universe the past several years, with his most recent taking place in the Spirits of Vengeance miniseries. Could Blade be looking to recruit Riri in his seemingly never-ending battle against the occult? Or is Blade on the verge of a completely new mission statement?

Whatever the truth is, this certainly adds a new wrinkle to Riri's adventures. We know "The Search for Tony Stark" will eventually lead to the hero's return as the primary Iron Man, but where will that leave Ironheart? With only a few more issues remaining until Iron Man #600 -- and Brian Michael Bendis' departure from Marvel, with Dan Slott coming onboard as the new series writer -- we can expect a few more twists and turns to look forward to.