Marvel Comics Announces New Iron Man, Plus Champions and Great Lakes Avengers

Marvel Comics has announced today (via Time) that in the wake of their current Civil War II storyline, Tony Stark will be hanging up the Iron Man armor and passing it on to someone else, the 15-year-old science genius Riri Williams.

“We’re in the middle of a very big Tony Stark storyline—actually three storylines converging,” writer Brian Michael Bendis said of the forthcoming torch passing. “His best friend died, his company is collapsing and he’s finding out who his biological parents were all at the same time. That’s stressful for a character who is wired the way Tony is wired and has dependency issues the way Tony does…Tony is also a master at not paying attention to the thing that’s most important and distracting himself with Avengers stuff. How that all shakes out such that Tony is no longer in the armor? You’ll have to wait to find out for the end of Civil War II. But it does create a path or Riri Williams, who Tony will know and will be interacting with very shortly in the comics.”

It’s unclear when Riri will officially become the new Iron Man in the Marvel canon, or if she will have her own self-titled comic series when that time comes, but you can check out a new image of her by artist Stefano Caselli below.

In additional Marvel Comics news, the publisher has revealed that another big change is coming when Civil War II concludes as they bring back their Marvel NOW! publishing initiative but with a new tag line: “Divided We Stand.”

“In the aftermath of Civil War II, not everything’s hunky dory,” Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso said. “There’s a winner, there’s a loser, certain characters are elevated to new heights, other characters have a lot to reconcile and atone for, so there’s gonna be a lot of changes in the Marvel Universe; they’re gonna affect the fabric of the Marvel Universe and the relationships amongst the characters. That’s why we took the Marvel Now! logo and fragmented it a bit—there’s a message there.”

Finally, even more new series have been confirmed including: U.S.AVENGERS from writer Al Ewing and artist Paco Medina, a team consisting of Squirrel Girl, Red Hulk, new Iron Patriot, POD, Cannonball, and future Captain America (plus daughter of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage) Danielle Cage; the return of the Great Lakes Avengers from writer Zac Gorman and artist Will Robson, featuring Mr. Immortal, Big Bertha, Flatman, and Doorman; and finally the return of the series Champions from writer Mark Waid and artist Humberto Ramos (via EW), a team of youngsters featuring Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Nova, The Hulk, Viv Vision, and Cyclops. Check out the art for tall of these below!