Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue the nameless armoured foe, an embittered ex-SHIELD soldier, brought Iron Patriot to kill the ex-President, live on television. Then James Rhodes' father Terrence interrupted proceedings in another IP armour.
Now the Terrence Patriot and the mystery man are duking it out while Rhodey watches helplessly from his own armour, because he can't make it work without electronic permission from the bad guy. Including he can't even get out of it. James can only hope that his dad accidentally hits the right spot to disable the bad guy's control of the Iron Patriot armour.
Suddenly the manual eject button works - Terrence must have hit something relevant. The armour opens up and Rhodey steps out. But his father is already down so James challenges the baddie to fight barehanded. The mystery villain charges up to zap Rhodey. But his armoured father surges up and grabs the bad guy's wrists, forcing the blast to go off between them.
Terrence Rhodes is down again, and the bad guy's armour is damaged. Angry James starts to beat on him, but every blow on the still-partially-armoured face damages the bones of his fists. And the villain fights back breaking other bones. But Rodey keeps on going. The television audience can barely watch.
Eventually Rhodey's rage and persistence win out, and the armoured villain is beaten. But at the end he gives something to James. The villain is taken to hospital, where he is later smothered to death on the orders of Kenjiro Fujikawa who was behind it all.
Terrence Rhodes died. James attends his funeral along with his niece Lila and Tony Stark. Tony confirms that Lila really did hack the system of a spare Iron Patriot suit and fly it by remote to rescue Terrence last issue. He offers her some spare suits and an old megacomputer to play with.
The thing the villain gave Rodey at the end was a USB stick with all the info about the bad deeds he claimed the previous administration was guilty of. He wanted James to release it on the Internet. JR knows he father would want him to do the right thing. But we don't know what he decides to do.