Iron Ring
- The Iron Ring is an organization from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
When Joe Colton, thought dead, reemerged as the fearsome Baron Ironblood, he became the founder and overseer of the villainous Iron Ring to counter Optimus Prime's annexation of Earth into the Council of Worlds. Forced to go outside the law and betray his ideals in the name of Earth's sovereignty, Colton assembled a motley group of ne'er do wells from a variety of sources: ex-Cobra operatives, supervillains, mercenaries, ninja, mad scientists, and even a handful of aliens.
Drawing on Garrison Kreiger's I.R.O.N. assets and based out of Count "Iron Klaw" van Rani's Iron Castle, they stand poised to take down Cybertron itself — and may very well succeed.
They're very on-point with their theming game.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
The origins of the Iron Ring lie in the mid-2000s, when Joe Colton recruited Garrison Kreiger into Skywatch's Project: Hot House. The two investigated the Talisman for its potential as a weapon against Cybertronians; with the help of Centurion, Kreiger's Cybertronian asset, they were able to trick Sgt. Savage into reactivating the device, killing the captive Bugly and sending Savage into the future. When Eagles Scream
Years later, following Megatron's invasion of Earth and Optimus Prime's annexation of the planet into the Council of Worlds, Colton — now having lost his hand and identity to one of the alien Dire Wraiths — contacted Kreiger once more, now fully believing in the need to fight back against the Transformers. Ghost in the Machine Kreiger and Colton met in Kreiger's Paris lair, where Kreiger removed the traces of Dire Wraith biomatter from his body and reintroduced him to the Talisman. Realising that he would have to act outside the law to accomplish his goals, Colton put together a list of supervillains to aid him, rather than going to G.I. Joe for help. First Strike #0 To deal with villains who would be reluctant to deal with the founder of G.I. Joe, Colton adopted the identity of "Baron Ironblood", wearing a uniform based on Skywatch's hazard suits and replacing his hand with a Talisman-tech prosthetic.
One of his first recruits to his new alliance was the European supervillain Doctor X, who had protected England from Megatron's invasion in her role as head of intelligence of the Action Man Programme; while X was not interested in invading Cybertron, her ally Storm Shadow was tempted by his promises to upgrade her and her Red Shadow ninja with advanced Talisman technology, and Doctor X agreed to go along with his plan because of it. The Origins of Evil, Part One: Redcliffe Club To aid them, Doctor X licensed usage of the M.A.S.S. device from the former Cobra arms dealer Destro. The Origins of Evil, Part Two: A Game of Chess Ironblood also recruited I.R.O.N. shareholder and leader of Kalistan Count van Rani, aka the Iron Klaw, who gave them temporary use of his castle — though Colton had misgivings about van Rani's enslaving of the Predacons, believing they could not be trusted. Ghost in the Machine At Ironblood's command, the Talisman was stored in a SIS/I.R.O.N. bunker beneath Verenya; Garrison Kreiger profile however, it only remained there for a short time before Garrison Blackrock, searching for more information about his Cybertronian heritage, broke into the base and began tampering with it. Crisis Intervention
Notes
- Pre-release solicitations and interviews for First Strike claimed that Baron Ironblood would be leading a resurgent version of Cobra[1], but that wasn't borne out in the comic itself — though Cobra forces like the Dreadnoks and Destro's Iron Grenadiers are members of the coalition, G.I. Joe: First Strike makes it clear that the bulk of Cobra is on Earth under the control of the new Cobra Commander.
