With Ironheart‘s final episode, years of speculation were finally laid to rest in a virtual coffin. Mephisto, once thought of as a surefire WandaVision villain, finally appeared in live-action media for the first time. Revealed to be the puppeteer controlling the strings on Parker Robbins/The Hood (Anthony Ramos), this character is a schemer played by none other than Sacha Baron Cohen. Speaking in a British accent, wielding all kinds of powers, and even appearing briefly (via a spoon reflection) in his comics-accurate red-skinned form, Mephisto is now entrenched into the MCU’s greater lore.
Given that Ironheart ends with Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) making a deal with Mephisto to bring back her deceased best friend, it’s clear Mephisto is not a one-off MCU baddie like Obadiah Stane or Dar-benn. However, Ironheart’s debut of a long-anticipated villain may also be a massive mistake for the MCU at large.
Mephisto’s Debut Continues Weird Marvel TV Structure Problems
The big Disney+ Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe shows keep their true villains off-screen for entire seasons of storytelling until their respective finales. In theory, this is done so that these shows (released in a classical weekly format) can reach maximum fan chatter and excitement for their last episodes. He Who Remains only debuted in the last episode of Loki Season 1; Wilson Fisk/Kingpin didn’t appear onscreen in Hawkeye until its finale, and Cad Bane didn’t become a principal Book of Boba Fett player until the show’s final 45 minutes.
Mephisto, unfortunately, continues this trend. What works for generating peak social media chatter weeks into a show’s run isn’t very good for episodic storytelling. TV is all about letting characters simmer with audiences and letting tension brew over multiple installments. Keeping a primary source of tension off-screen until the final episode just hurts TV shows like Ironheart tremendously. Supposedly big villains don’t have the impact they should, while finale episodes have to spend time with exposition rather than providing audiences with entertainment.
Meanwhile, it’s bizarre to drop a character as big as Mephisto in live-action for the first time via a Disney+ show finale. Like Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel or Moon Knight, Mephisto deserved a theatrical film launchpad, not debuting on a format where many people will discover him for the first time on their phones. It’s also peculiar to have the first major Marvel hero that encounters him be Riri Williams/Ironheart and not Doctor Strange or Scarlet Witch. The randomness of this superhero/villain pairing underscores the biggest problem with Mephisto’s debut: the MCU is trying too hard once again to give fans what they (think they) want.
The MCU Keeps Trying To Placate Fans Rather Than Deliver Good Stories
The randomness of Mephisto showing up in Ironheart, not to mention this big villain’s debut distracting from the show’s titular hero, suggests that the character is only here to placate folks still mad that their theories of Mephisto being WandaVision’s big baddie never panned out. Marvel Studios once gave audiences characters and adventures they never dreamed they’d want, like the original Guardians of the Galaxy movie or the thematic complexities of the initial Black Panther installment. Now, elements like Mephisto in Ironheart simply seem tailor-made to appease Reddit obsessives.
The result is creative decisions like this Ironheart villain reveal that just don’t work well. Simply giving people what they expect isn’t a recipe for ultimately satisfying artistry; heck, even die-hard Mephisto fans may be understandably miffed with this reveal, simply because there’s no room in the MCU’s near-future for it to get expanded upon. Mephisto is teased in Ironheart’s final moments as a Thanos-level threat who cackles at the comparatively meager might of Dormammu. Despite his Ironheart appearance being all set up, though, there’s no immediate impending MCU production where he could naturally show up again. Not unless Wonder Man is going in really unexpected directions.
Perhaps some viewers would be more forgiving of Mephisto’s clumsy Ironheart presence if there were an exceedingly tantalizing MCU role for him coming down the pipeline in 2026. Instead, this character is yet another Phase Four and Phase Five MCU character (like Starfox, Hercules, or Hulk’s son) destined to sit on a shelf for an eternity. Any way you look at it, dropping Mephisto in the Ironheart finale was a major mistake, particularly for how it gobbled up all the narrative breathing room in an episode that should’ve focused more on Riri Williams. Mephisto isn’t the only example of these problems materializing in new MCU media, but he is one of the most frustrating.
All episodes of Ironheart are now streaming on Disney+.
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