MARVEL's Iron Patriot Featured In All New Promotional Art For IRON MAN 3

Early last month set photo's from IRON MAN 3 revealed a pretty snazzy paint job on the War Machine suit worn by actor Don Cheadle in the IRON MAN movies. However this particular paint scheme seemed to indicate a character that comic book readers are familiar with... However, the character in question, IRON PATRIOT is a villain in the comics.

Now, there are actually a half a dozen reasons why Iron Patriot being in IRON MAN 3 isn't practical or even legally possible. The most important reason being that, in the comic books Iron Patriot is Norman Osborn who also happens to be Spider-Man villain Green Goblin. 

Sony owns the film rights to all Spider-Man related characters which means MARVEL & Disney are absolutely unable to use them in their films. This fact would seem to utterly dismiss the possibility of Iron Patriot featuring in the upcoming Iron Man film, but evidently MARVEL studios doesn't feel beholden to what is considered comic book canon.

Many people, myself included, had supposed that the inclusion of Iron Patriot might just be a sly nod to comic book fans, that would be on screen for twenty seconds and then gone. However, an all new piece of promotional art making the rounds on the internet seems to indicate that War Machine/Iron Patriot will be a major factor in the film.

Of course the big question remains... Why would MARVEL step so far out of the box to include a character that doesn't fit directly into the story they are telling? Well, there are two answers to that. First, MARVEL Studios can make Iron Patriot work. I mean, after two stand alone films MARVEL finally figured out a way to make the HULK work on screen... I think they can work out Iron Patriot. The second reason is far more obvious.

Just head to the toy section of your local Wal-Mart or Target and you can figure this one out. The Iron Patriot version of War Machine is likely to be a coveted action figure for kids and collectors alike. Also the toy series could feature multiple Iron Man figures with multiple versions of Iron Mans armor. The same being said for War Machine. 

You will likely find the traditional 'steel grey' version of War Machine and the new and improved Iron Patriot version. All of these different versions of essentially the same figure will help Disney & MARVEL to rake in some serious merchandise dollars while repainting the same basic figure.