Two of my favorite worlds are colliding and I am here for all of it.
RuPaul’s Drag Race Shea Couleé seriously came to this world to slay after finishing on top of season nine of the Emmy-winning queer reality competition and then winning the fifth season of Drag Race All Stars before moving on to compete in the recent all-winners seventh season of All Stars. Now, Couleé is set to step into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in her sickening stilettos for the upcoming Disney+ series Ironheart, Deadline reports.
We do not know who she will be playing. Apparently, it is super top secret so she may be in drag, she may not. Who knows? All that matters is that sis is staying booked and busy and is now in the MCU.
Couleé joins star Dominique Thorne who plays Riri Williams, a genius inventor and creator of the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man. She eventually becomes the titular Ironheart and will be introduced in the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever feature in November. You can see her literally hammer out an iron heart in the incredible trailer for the sequel. Anthony Ramos, Lyric Ross, Manny Montana, and Alden Ehrenreich also star in the series with Chinaka Hodge set as the head writer.
Sam Bailey (Dear White People) and Angela Barnes (Blindspotting) serve as directors of the series while Ryan Coogler’s Proximity is producing alongside Marvel Studios.
Ironheart is set to debut in Fall 2023 right smack dab in the middle of Phase Five of Marvel Studios’s “Multiverse Saga”. It look like its premiering after Blade and right before Agatha: Coven of Chaos.
This is kind of a big deal for the MCU — and Disney. As a company who has struggled with LGBTQIA representation, having an openly queer drag queen in a major mainstream series is quite a move forward when it comes to inclusion. This adds to the small moments of queerness we have already seen in the MCU including the recent Thor: Love and Thunder where Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie is openly queer as is Taika Waititi’s Korg, who is a rock creature but is masculine presenting.
In addition, we saw Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness don a rainbow pin in the movie and we later learn she had two mothers. Then there was the very first open LGBTQIA+ representation in the MCU when Brian Tyree Henree and Haaz Sleiman were in a same-sex relationship with a child on screen — in a Disney property! Wild, huh?
Also, don’t get me started on how queer coded so many of these Marvel characters are.
