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Iron Patriot #1: Review

Mar 2014
Ales Kot, Garry Brown

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Story Name:

Unbreakable part 1

Review & Comments

Rating:
3 stars

Iron Patriot #1 Review by (March 29, 2014)
This is a rather bland issue is the weakest opening for any Jim Rhodes series. It mainly sets up the status quo of the series and some plotlines, but nothing really excites the reader. James Rhodes has of course a long history of being various versions of Iron Man or War Machine. But Iron Patriot was the name of the armoured version of Norman Osborn during Dark Reign. Rhodes helped stop AIM using IP drones in Secret Avengers (2013) and then rehabilitated the name by wearing the armour himself. We've not met Jim's niece Lila before, but his sister Jeanette died in The Crew series. Previously we've seen his mother Roberta, 1st in Iron Man (1968) #173 then with his father in War Machine (1994) #12. They were living in Philadelphia, and his father was named David then. After that Roberts featured heavily in WM (2009) and popped up in IM (2008) #525. In these appearances she was living alone in the Navajo Nation with no sign of his father. Now that father is here renamed Terrence, and 1 line of dialogue suggests that the wife is around, just not shown in this issue. Mr Fujikawa is presumably connected to the Fujikawa Corporation that took over Stark Enterprises when Tony Stark was missing presumed dead in the Heroes Reborn universe. (When he returned from there Tony became romantically involved with Rumiko, daughter of the Fujikawa boss, in the 1998 Iron Man series.) Fujikawa Corp was later seen in the Loners series. I believe Congressman Meyer is a new character (and of course unrelated to any real Congressman by that name).




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Iron Patriot #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
We open with a scene where Jim Rhodes, out of armour, has been attacked by someone in armour and hasn't survived very well. We won't find out any more about this during this issue. Instead we go back 2 days.

Iron Patriot is investigating why New Orleans is sinking (presumably only as much as it is doing in the real world). He's sending crab-like drones to assess the damage. But he gets a call from his father Terrence reminding him they need to discuss his schoolgirl niece Lila.

Later Jim has that discussion with his father. Lila is living with the grandparents (although we don't see any sign of Mrs Rhodes this issue) since Jim's sister died. Terrence thinks his son should be devoting more time to Lila instead of spending all his time superheroing. Jim responds that the new role he's defined for Iron Patriot will help with that.

It turns out Lila is an engineering prodigy, and just loves to poke around the innards of the Patriot armour. Grandpa is worried that she doesn't relate to kids her own age.

Jim goes home to his own house, and remembers in a dream how his father taught him to box.

The next day he gives a press conference to announce that the government has agreed a new strategy for Iron Patriot. He will restrict his operations to the US, rather than the foreign military ops he has done as War Machine and lately as IP. Except that he will also do rescue missions worldwide. Then he has to cut his speech short to go sort out another problem in Louisiana.

We cut to Congress where Mr Fujikawa is blackmailing Congressman Meyer to get Iron Patriot returned to military special ops. Meyer publicly denounces Rhodes' plan. Lila goes online to support her uncle, and makes a big impact. And a mystery villain changes his plan - Lila will be kidnapped too (presumably alongside Grandpa).

Meanwhile Patriot is fighting mud monsters in the Gulf of Mexico which have sunk some ships and an oil rig. Suddenly his armour stops working and he plunges into the sea.


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Barberoids 1 cover original artwork on ebay

Garry Brown
Garry Brown
Jim Charalampidis
Garry Brown (Cover Penciler)
Garry Brown (Cover Inker)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Mark Paniccia.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

War Machine
War Machine

(James Rhodes)

Plus: Iron Patriot (James Rhodes), Lila Rhodes, Terrence Rhodes.

> Iron Patriot: Book info and issue index

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