Did Ironheart just take a shot at Elon Musk?
Marvel's Ironheart is a lot of things: a superhero show, a love letter to Chicago, and a tech-fueled examination of grief. But is it also a sneaky dig at Elon Musk?
The show follows genius inventor Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who joins up with a band of Chicago criminals in order to get extra cash for building her Iron Man-style armored suit. Led by Parker "Hood" Robbins (Anthony Ramos), this crew steals from the rich and disrupts their Chicago-based ventures.
In Ironheart's second episode, that venture is TNNL, an underground transit system headed up by TNNL CEO Sheila Zarate (Zhaleh).
"We transformed Chicago's historic freight tunnels into a private highway, offering travelers a shorter and safer commute," Zarate says in a video for TNNL investors.
With its underground tunnels and promise of shorter Chicago commutes, TNNL bears a resemblance to a now-abandoned project from Elon Musk's Boring Company: the Chicago Express Loop.
The Chicago Express Loop was proposed as an underground high-speed rail line from O'Hare International Airport to downtown Chicago. Passengers would ride on self-driving vehicles modeled after Tesla's Model X SUV and able to travel up to 150 miles per hour. The Express Loop would theoretically cut commute times down to 12 minutes. (The same journey on the Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line usually takes a little under an hour.)
While the Boring Company won a bid to build the Chicago Express Loop in 2018, the plan never came to fruition. A similar project, Boring's Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, is currently operating, with plans to expand the tunnels further into the city. However, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is a far cry from the Chicago Express Loop's promise of high-speed rail and vehicles able to carry up to 16 people. Instead, passengers in Las Vegas are driven through narrow underground tunnels in Teslas.
Ironheart's TNNL feels like a combination of these two projects. Obviously, it shares a location with the Chicago Express Loop, along with the general conceit of speeding up Chicago commutes with the help of underground tunnels. Its execution is more similar to the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, swapping high-speed rail for individual cars. In Ironheart, though, the tunnel system is far more expansive, complete with a series of car elevators and tracks to speed things along. That's the power of sci-fi!
Still, Ironheart takes a beat to criticize TNNL's project, with Parker's explosives expert Clown (Sonia Denis) pointing out that Zarate doesn't care if her tunnels destroy entire Chicago communities as long as it makes her rich. While Zarate's wrongdoings and the impacted communities definitely could have used more development, the point still stands. Ironheart isn't impressed with rich people who think tunnels full of cars are the future of public transit. Go use Chicago's L instead!