Editor's note: This article contains spoilers for Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Marvel is emerging from its period of inundating audiences with superhero fatigue. It slowed down on bombarding people with multiple movies and television shows a year, giving people a moment to catch up on all the alternate universes and major plot points. Now, the entertainment behemoth is ramping up the storylines with new projects, including Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts (which introduced the New Avengers), and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.Sign up for the Out Newsletter to keep up with what's new in LGBTQ+ culture and entertainment delivered three times a week straight (well) to your inbox!Adding to the exciting crop of new material from Marvel is the long-awaited television series, Ironheart. The show, centered around Riri Williams (played by Dominique Thorne), has had a long journey on its way to our television screens, but it's finally arrived. Audiences are getting a deeper look into Williams's story after being introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.The show was created amid multiple changes at Marvel the company was re-evaluating its content output, and Jonathan Majors's domestic violence trial and subsequent ousting from the franchise threw the entire entertainment behemoth for a loop. Marvel was set to release the show in 2023, but they reduced the number of live-action shows from three to two per year, and Ironheart was not included in the initial release. Instead, the series was pushed back to the following year. The 2023 Hollywood writers' and actors' strike was another obstacle for the show, delaying its premiere even more to June 2025.On top of this, Majors (who played the MCU's central villain Kang the Conqueror) was dropped from Marvel after being convicted on two misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment. This meant that instead of the timeline leading up to an Endgame-level war with Kang (and all his variants), the story had to be restructured. Audiences are given glimpses of what's to come with hints in each Marvel project, but the timeline is starting to take shape with the events that have already taken place.And yet, may get a nice, neat bow with Ironheart as it serves as the conclusion of Phase Five of the MCU. Here's everything you need to know, or remember, before watching Ironheart, which hits Disney+ on June 24.Who is Riri Williams, a.k.a. Ironheart?Riri Williams was first introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as the MIT student attempting to build her own version of the Iron Man suit. She was recruited by Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright), who assumes the role of Black Panther following the death of her brother T'Challa (played by the late Chadwick Boseman).Shuri and the Wakandans are up against the Talokan, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), who has discovered that the U.S. government possesses technology that can locate a vibranium deposit deep in the ocean. He suspects that the Wakandans must have been involved and asks them to hand over the scientist who aided the expedition team in crafting the technology used to find the vibranium.Shuri learns that the scientist was Williams, who was in the middle of her time at MIT. Namor proposes that the Wakandans and Talokans forge an alliance against the world, and says he will destroy Wakanda if they refuse. They do, and Namor attacks. Williams played a crucial part in the fight against the Talokan after she built an Iron Man-like suit. This is the last we see of Williams in the MCU until her standalone show is released.What do we know about the plot and cast of Ironheart so far?Marvel is notoriously secretive about the plot points for their projects, so with the two trailers that were released, we have an idea of what to expect.In the two trailers, we see Williams being recruited by a mysterious man who wears a hood, played by Anthony Ramos. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramos is portraying Parker Robinson, also known as The Hood. In the comics, this character wears a cloak that grants him access to the dark arts, and it appears that he and Riri combine their powers: His magic and her new suit (built after she left her former suit in Wakanda). It's unclear exactly what the two are working on together, but they seem to be driven by their ambition.In addition to Ramos, there are a few other exciting cast members to note: RuPaul's Drag Race legend Shea Coule plays a character named Slug; Manny Montana from Good Girls is set to play Robinson's cousin John; Alden Ehrenreich is playing a character named Joe McGillicuddy; and Lyric Ross joins the cast as Natalie, Riri's best friend.Sacha Baron Cohen is also a part of the show in an undisclosed role, which many are guessing to be the long-awaited rival of Mephisto. In the comics, he is the father of Wanda's (the Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen) two children, Tommy and Billy, who are later known as Speed and Wiccan the latter of whom was introduced in Agatha All Along and portrayed by Joe Locke.What are the Young Avengers and how do they fit into the MCU?Speaking of Ironheart and Wiccan, we should briefly discuss the Young Avengers. There's so much talk of team-ups in the MCU we just got the anti-hero group in Thunderbolts* turn into the New Avengers, the next Marvel movie due out in July is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and there's talk of the X-Men franchise being introduced to the MCU. Nonetheless, a group is already starting to form, with all its members introduced, and that's the Young Avengers.In the comic book, they are a group of teenagers who are either directly related to (or inspired by) the original Avengers, and who team up to defeat villains. At the end of 2023's The Marvels, we see Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) tell Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) that she wants to form a team and it's pretty clear that it will be the Young Avengers. That team will likely come together for 2026's Avengers: Doomsday, or 2027's Avengers: Secret Wars.In addition to those two characters, we have already introduced to the other members in other projects: Kid Loki in Loki, Cassie Lang in Ant-Man, Hulkling in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Wiccan in Agatha All Along, Eli Bradley (who seems to be gearing up for the role of Patriot) in Falcon and the Winter Solider, America Chavez in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and now Ironheart with her standalone show.