See Anthony Ramos As One Of Marvels Best Villains In Ironheart

We weren't expecting that!

By Michileen Martin | Published 2 years ago

We’ve known for a while that Anthony Ramos was starring in the upcoming Disney+ Marvel series Ironheart, which is spinning out of November’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But in spite of various rumors and speculation, we didn’t know exactly who the In the Heights star would play. That just changed. Photos straight from the set of Ironheart show that Ramos is playing Parker Robbins aka The Hood.

The photos of Anthony Ramos as The Hood come from Just Jared, along with shots of Dominique Thorne as the eponymous Riri Williams, aka Ironheart. The costume is simple and unmistakably that of Parker Robbins — a red-hooded cloak. He can also been seen sporting a handgun like Robbins often does. You can see the shots below.

The villain Anthony Ramos will be playing is an interesting choice for a number of reasons. While the hero of Ironheart is a genius inventor and engineer, The Hood’s abilities — assuming the series stays relatively close to the source material — are mystical. As his codename implies, in the comics the Hood’s powers come from the magical cloak and boots he stole from a demon he believed was dead. If his MCU powers remain similar to those of his comic book counterpart, it will be the first such juxtaposition — a mostly tech-based hero against a mostly magic-based villain — since the beginning of the MCU. It would be like Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Mordo being the villain of Iron Man, or Jeff Bridges’s Obadiah Stane being the antagonist of Doctor Strange.

Speaking of Strange, depending on just how close to the source material Ironheart chooses to be, the character Anthony Ramos is playing could have a strong connection to that franchise, and perhaps even to the mid-credits scene of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In the comics, the powers gifted by The Hood‘s cloak originate from Dormammu — the Big Bad of Strange’s first film. Though Dormammu doesn’t factor much into the sequel, in the mid-credits scene his daughter Clea (played by Charlize Theron) appears, demanding Strange’s help in fixing an incursion in her realm; the Dark Dimension which is where Strange makes his bargain with the villain in the first film. If the cloak Ramos wears is an artifact empowered by Dormammu, then it’s possible the incursion Clea mentions — or perhaps even her journey to Earth-616 — is responsible for Parker Robbins getting his hands on it.

The villain Anthony Ramos brings to Ironheart is a singular one. He first appeared in his own 2002 miniseries Hood, by Brian K. Vaughan (known for Y the Last Man and Paper Girls among others) and Kyle Hotz. The comic was part of Marvel’s now mostly defunct adult content MAX line. Parker Robbins fell off the radar until Brian Michael Bendis took over the various Avengers comics and turned the Hood into a major player. Among other things, the Hood stole an Infinity Gem allowing him to singlehandedly take on Thor, Red Hulk, and Namor simultaneously. He also formed his own, villainous version of the Illuminati that included members like Enchantress, Titania, and the Mad Thinker.

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