UPDATED! Scroll to the bottom!

Damn you, The Superficial!

So celebrity gossip sites aren’t part of our ‘Iron Man 3′ spoilers rollout plan, they do whatever they want, and when Shane Black decides to film outside, the paparazzi are ever present.

Good thing I pre-made a banner, because: Now we see The Iron Patriot, which…makes things confusing. Why?

The Iron Patriot was debuted in 2009 while Norman Osborn (of Spider-Man fame) was head of SHIELD as part of the Dark Reign Marvel event. Captain America was dead (for a hot second) so Osborn made himself some Cap-esque armor using Stark Tech…introducing The Iron Patriot.

But all things Spidey are property of Sony, so Norman won’t be in that suit. According to other Superficial spy shots, it’s James Badge Dale, who plays Eric Savin, who in the comics is Coldblood-7, a Robocop rip-off from the 1980s.

Of the many theories being spun about the greater plot of “Iron Man 3′ this is the most confusing. First, because Tony Stark has always been very against letting the US Government use Iron Man tech, especially in Iron Man 2. Second, because when America DOES use Iron Man tech it’s usually in the form of War Machine. So why isn’t Don Cheadle in that suit? Third, The Iron Patriot is a villainous Iron Man, make no mistake about that. Despite his Captain America like appearance, he’s never been someone you want to show up.

Iron Man is going to beat the crap out of The Iron Patriot, probably. But that makes even less comic sense because if you’re going to have another villain in Iron Man armor, wouldn’t it be Firepower, not Coldblood?

Blerg!

No worries, scoop fans, we’ve got more on the ‘Iron Man 3′ front, we just thought it would be a few more months before new armor pics started to hit the net.

And you know there’s more armors, right? This is EXTREMIS after all.

UPDATE! I like the theory that C_P_PUNK posed below in the comments that this is actually Detroit Steel, or something more like him, from the current run of Invincible Iron Man (introduced in 2010).

Detroit Steel was the first of Steelcorps: armor Hammer Industries sold to anyone who could pay for it in the comics. And seeing as how ‘Iron Man 2′ ended with Hammer Industries having enough of the Iron Man tech to make an army full of drones, this would make a BIT more sense as to why this armor is showing up in ‘Iron Man 3′

Whew!

See, that makes me feel better. Let’s not bring Norman Osborn into all this. : ).