When Tony Stark made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame, most Marvel fans were wringing their hands about the future of the franchise. The comics gave Iron Man a perfect successor in Riri Williams, who earns Tony’s attention after reverse-engineering his iron suit at MIT (all before turning 16, by the way). Though the characters never cross paths in the MCU, filling that void in Riri’s life was never a huge priority for Ironheart, especially for Sam Bailey, who produced and directed the show’s first three episodes.
“To me — I might get some hate about this — but it was never Tony’s story,” Bailey tells Inverse. “He never came into my mind, to be completely honest.”
