Iron Man 3 has The Iron Patriot

[Bells]

http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/93/93202.jpg

The Escapist has the Scoop

If you think the Iron Patriot armor looks like a mash-up of Iron Man and Captain America, you're not wrong. The suit was "designed" by Norman Osborn, AKA the Green Goblin, who, after being installed as the head of the government-sanctioned post-"Civil War" Avengers by the forgiving magic of comic books, decided that the best way to earn the trust and love of the public was to slap it in the face with a big dose of heavy-handed symbolism. So he grabbed an old Iron Man suit out of Tony Stark's closet, painted it up in the Cap's colors and put it on in the name of truth, justice and all that other good stuff.


Alas, the Normster won't be wearing this thing in Iron Man 3, but it's going to show up in the movie nonetheless. The man behind the mask will actually be Eric Savin, as played by James Badge Dale, who in the comics becomes a cyborg (presumably a bad one) called Coldblood after stepping on a land mine.

So why is he strapping on the Iron Patriot armor in Iron Man 3, and not ol' Greenie? Chalk that up to the Spider-Man schism between Marvel and Sony. Sony still owns the film rights to Spider-Man, and by extension Norman Osborn, and while death is never much of a stumbling block for Marvel Comics characters, licensing rights most definitely are. So Norm is out, Coldblood is in - sort of - and we can all look forward to yet another armored argy-bargy on the big screen.

So, Iron Man 3 seems to be picking up right after the Avengers with the Aftermath of that. And So far at least, it seems they are taking a small leap over the Civil War storyline and picking up on a subplot from Iron Man 2, mainly the War Machine story.

Since that didn't play out in the Avengers, and during that was made pretty clear that the Government doesn't trust the Avengers yet...

and wouldn't you know... the Design for the Iron Patriot seems a streamlined version of War Machine's suit

http://gadgetsin.com/uploads/2010/03/iron_man_war_machine_figure_2.jpg

We also know that the Mandarin is in this movie, so it's a double villain affair... , makes me wonder to what direction they are trying to lead the Marvel Movie Unniverse with this, but looks good so far!

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Seems like they're doing a spin on Armor Wars with a little bit of Extremis thrown in for good measure. And it's Shane Black directing and, I think, writing it as more of conspiracy thriller of sorts. I think we're in for something different this time around. Like Tom Clancy with Iron Man.

[Bells]

Well Iron Man is pretty much the Avenger's Flagship, we have now 3 movies with the guy and this would be the 4th, it would certainly be the time to downplay the character a bit to open the world for more possibilities and heroes... maybe doing something more story focused could work for that.

[Nique]

Isn't there a more accessible Iron Man story they could be pulling from?

[Lumenskir]

Isn't there a more accessible Iron Man story they could be pulling from?
I've never read an Iron Man comic, but based on what I've read in this thread, "Crazy cyborg vet in fantastic Iron Man knockoff fights real Iron Man, written and directed by the Lethal Weapon/Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang guy" is a pretty easy sell.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Isn't there a more accessible Iron Man story they could be pulling from?

All of Iron Man's worthwhile stories require a lot of prior reading or a hefty info dump before delving into. The Iron Man films have actually done a great job of getting around the baggage.

[MuMu]

So, there's not chance that this (http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/3/39876/1115917-siege_2_legion_cps_035_super.jpg) scene is going to happen, right? :(

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I wish they'd just focused on Mandarin as the villain really. They've been hinting at him for a while now and it would have been nice to just have a single threat who can actually show up more than twice like the previous villains.

[RickZarber]

I've read rumors that Ben Kingsly is actually going to be playing Mandarin, and that we'll get to see him pulling the strings; even if the main focus will be on Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce's character) and the Extremis nanotechnology plot.

In addition to Dale as Coldblood/Iron Patriot mix, they've cast Ashley Hamilton as Firepower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firepower_%28comics%29).

[Bells]

caught this on Wikipedia

The Mandarin infiltrates the U.S. government via his role as CEO of Prometheus, a corporation specializing in bio-engineered weaponry. He appears to be using Extremis creator and Tony Stark's former love interest Maya Hansen to produce an army of Extremis enhanced soldiers as well as financing and arming terrorists around the globe. The Mandarin also appears to plan unleashing the Extremis virus in aerosol form on the public, expecting the 97.5% fatality ratio to cause a mass catastrophe of deaths.[volume & issue needed] The Mandarin admits to Hansen that even he will die in the outbreak but she and those with the gene to survive will become free from disease and become effectively immortal. Though he has his Extremis disabled, Iron Man defeats the Mandarin while wearing the Silver Centurion armor by tearing five of the rings out of the Mandarin's spine, blasting him with those rings, his unibeam, and repulsors at the same time, and then freezing him as he is engulfed in deadly concentrated Extremis virus. Iron Man then prevents the Extremis-outbreak.[21]
When the Mandarin's apparently frozen body is autopsied, all that is found is a blackened husk... not unlike an Extremis chrysalis.[21]

So, it would be an opportunity to make the Marvel verse less "America Centric" and open it up to the world with the Mandarin... which the fact that he is played by a British Actor could simply be taken as a Disguise... not his real form. The Iron Patriot being just a ruse to get public opinion against Iron Man, while introducing the Extremis Nano bots stuff... also, showing villains all over the glove helps explain why hero x doesn't help hero Y in his movie, he could just be fighting elsewhere at that time...

Also, The Mandarin being a Magic based enemy could also open path to allow Thanos to reach Earth for Avengers 2, if i recall, he needed the Tesseract for that in the previous one, he can't simply "leap" into our realm...

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Did you really need to post an unspoilered rundown of the entire plot?

[Bells]

ops sorry, i wasn't clear! That is NOT the plot of the movie, it's not even necessarily related. It's just a Mandarin plot from the comic books that i thought related well to what was being talked here, it's from the Character page on Wikipedia.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Ah right, just as well then, I was trying not to read too much of it in case it was.

[Magus]

I thought all we really knew about Ben Kingsley was he was playing a villain and people thought he might play the Mandarin. There are a lot of obviously false rumors whirling around this production and I pay them as much heed as I did assertions that the main villain of The Dark Knight Rises was going to be the Riddler (supposedly WB executives did indeed talk about having it be the Riddler but nothing solid ever was created, and of course we know the truth now). I won't believe anything about Iron Man 3 until I see actual documented proof (like the above picture) or official confirmations, or at least a rumor that sort of sounds like it might be for real (the rumors for the Mandarin are really stupid sounding at this point).