Review by Frank Plowright

In 2014 the patriotically sprayed Iron Patriot armour was being worn by James Rhodey, former stand-in Iron Man and former War Machine, so someone with considerable experience piloting battle armour. No sooner has he announced that he’ll be restricting his activities to home soil and not accepting military assignments than cities across the USA suffer terrorist attacks.

Considering Iron Patriot is the title, Rhodes spends very little time as an armoured warrior, which may be disappointing if you want a version of the ersatz Iron Man he’s been throughout his career. However, Aleš Kot has a clever twist in store, so stick with him. He focusses on Rhodes as a man, getting pelters from his father for neglecting his niece Lila and needing all his military experience when he comes up against the villain of the piece, who’s not greatly convincing. He sets about his business well enough, but is short on motivation considering he could have carried out his plan himself.

Garry Brown’s art is loose, which is an interestingly different look for armoured heroes, but he doesn’t make the most of the visual opportunities, and the designs and the story itself are dull looking. This isn’t helped by uninspired colouring on the part of Jim Charalampidis.

While Rhodes goes through the motions, it’s Lila’s personality that grabs the attention, a tech whiz who likes tinkering about with the armour. Two years after Unbreakable Marvel introduced Riri Williams as Ironheart, and she’s not far removed, although Lila doesn’t wear the armour here.

By the time Kot reaches the final chapter you’ll sense an inevitability about where things are heading and will be hoping Kot will pull something more inspiring out of the hat. He doesn’t. He goes for the easy option of button-pushing tragedy. Lila was forgotten at Marvel, and Rhodes himself would be far more interesting surrounded by the people he was at the start than the way Kot leaves things.

All in all, page filler rather than page turner.