According to Time Magazine, the events that unfold in the conclusion of the comic book event series "Civil War II" will result in Tony Stark relinquishing his Iron Man suit, and Riri Williams, a black woman, taking his place.
Riri is a 15-year old science whizz who enrolls at MIT and comes to the attention of Stark when she creates her own Iron Man suit in her dorm.
The character is actually inspired by a young woman who grew up in the street violence and chaos of Chicago and ultimately made it through college. Iron Man writer, Brian Michael Bendis described the process of creating Riri Williams with Time;
One of the things that stuck with me when I was working in Chicago a couple of years ago on a TV show that didn’t end up airing was the amount of chaos and violence. And this story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life—just random street violence—and went off to college was very inspiring to me. I thought that was the most modern version of a superhero or superheroine story I had ever heard. And I sat with it for awhile until I had the right character and the right place.
As we’ve been slowly and hopefully very organically adding all these new characters to the Marvel Universe, it just seemed that sort of violence inspiring a young hero to rise up and act, and using her science acumen, her natural born abilities that are still raw but so ahead of where even Tony Stark was at that age, was very exciting to me.
Marvel also notes that just because Tony Stark is stepping out of his Iron Man suit doesn't mean you know the ending of Civil War II, so the revelation of a new character doesn't actually spoil anything.
You can read up on Bendis' full interview about the new Iron Man right here.
[Via]