A genius engineer with a love for her country, Dr. Toni Ho becomes the Iron Patriot and joins the U.S.Avengers as the first line of defense from the big, crazy, and weird!
First Generation Chinese American
After Toni Ho’s mother moves from China to Seattle in the 1970s, it’s not until the late ‘80s that she meets Dr. Ho Yinsen, a brilliant medical researcher. They have a daughter, who they name Toni. The couple’s marriage doesn’t last and they divorce, and Toni’s father moves back to his native country, Timbetpal. He meets someone else and has a son with them, while Toni and her mother remain in the United States. At age 11, Toni’s father dies while saving Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, after having helped him build his first suit. As such Toni resents the philanthropic billionaire and resolves to grow up and do better, but still incorporates his designs into her own.
Toni grows up with interests in technology, programming, and engineering, citing the possible origins of those interests back to her father’s influence, her Asian heritage, living in a single parent household with her mom, being into girls, and a hellacious high school experience. She receives a scholarship to Caltech and earns three PhDs, overlapping. She then joins Roberto da Costa, AKA Sunspot’s rebranded A.I.M., the former terrorist organization. In between her time there building giant robots and time machines, she creates an armored suit with an exterior inspired by Tony Stark’s Iron Man armor, but the insides are all her designs. Donning the suit herself, she goes by the codename Iron Patriot.
Expert Engineer
Toni possesses a prodigy-level intelligence and is versed in technology, programming, and engineering. By age 20, she earns three doctorate degrees, and is an expert engineer. She designs suits of armor, with exterior aspects inspired by Iron Man’s armor, but the insides are all her own. The Rescue Armor is designed for rescue missions. The suit can flatten her force shield to a few atoms thick, which can slice through living matter. The Iron Patriot armor is the heavy combat edition, outfitted with non-lethal concussive beams that project from the suit’s hands. The suit also augments Toni’s strength.
She also designs a personal force shield, which is strong enough to withstand a direct blast from a planetary weapon. Toni is incredible resourceful as well, able to build a regulator out of a bit of spectacles, chewing gum, and foil wrappers for Roberto’s powers when they became unpredictable.
Mutuals and Malicious Foes
Toni joins the U.S.Avengers, a team under the jurisdiction of A.I.M., now a branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. based out of Avengers Island, and led by Roberto da Costa, AKA Sunspot (or Citizen V). The patriotic team of heroes includes Sam Guthrie, AKA Cannonball, General Robert L. Maverick, AKA Red Hulk, Aikku Jokinen, AKA Enigma, and Doreen Green, AKA Squirrel Girl, and they work together to serving as the American government’s first line of defense against threats. Toni works in A.I.M.’s engineering division as their Head of Engineering and later becomes its Supreme Leader.
With the team, she battles the terrorist organization Hydra, the Secret Empire, Reed Richards, AKA The Maker, from Earth-1610 and his minions, and the time-traveling Golden Skull.
A History of Heroics
While working at A.I.M., Toni takes an interest in her fellow teammate, Aikku Jokinen, AKA Enigma, who piloted the Pod armor and it seemed like she might be in trouble. Aikku’s body had merged with the armor, and Toni learned more about her when the pair merged minds in Avenger Five, a giant robot operated by multi-consciousness control, for a fight against American Kaiju.
When The Maker invaded Avenger Base Two, Toni and Pod were attacked, but Toni survived using a force shield and then used a Rescue Armor suit to defend the base from the intruders. In tracking Pod and Aikku down, she was pained to discover Pod in bad shape, and tried to rouse both Pot and Aikku, admitting she loved Aikku in the process. Aikku then separated from Pod though she was contained in the armor’s undersuit and confirmed that Pod was gone. Afterward, Toni helped Aikku adjust without Pod, and when they shared their feelings for one another, they kissed.
Later, she joins the U.S.Avengers and with the team, they partnered with a future, grown-up version of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ daughter, Danielle Cage, AKA Captain America. She donned a new suit as the Iron Patriot with non-lethal weapons integrated into it. Together, they fought the Secret Empire and the Golden Skull, a time-traveling maniac who wanted to create a global kleptocracy. Toni and the team attend a high-end party thinking he would target billionaires, but the Skull replaced all the partygoers with robots. The team, working together, defeated the Skull whom Captain America returned to the future as a prisoner. Toni became consumed with work, to which Aikku worried about and expressed to Toni. Aikku also became wary about the weaponry Toni created, despite Toni’s defense of her work that her suits and designs were strictly for emergency rescue.
After Hydra, led by a corrupted Captain America, overtook the government and dissolved S.H.I.E.L.D., they made an attempt at capturing A.I.M. The U.S.Avengers scattered except Roberto was shot by a Hydra spy within A.I.M.'s ranks. Toni and Red Hulk were captured by Hydra and taken to a Hydra prison, where Toni was stunned to find that her cellmate was Roberto, dying from his wound and powers on the fritz. Toni built a makeshift regulator that allowed Roberto to recover. Toni then remembered how her father saved Tony Stark, and used herself as a distraction while Roberto built up enough energy to help them escape. Though they faced off with the Red Hulk who was under the control of Hydra nanomachines, Roberto quickly charged him with pent-up solar energy, frying the nanites. They overtook the secret Hydra prison. In relaying the win to Aikku, who was in Paris with Squirrel Girl teaming up with European heroes against Hydra forces, Toni realized and admitted that she was right about the armor and the weaponry, and that it wasn’t good for her, and she stopped wearing her armor.
Roberto then resigned as Supreme Leader of A.I.M., and after a vote, Toni stepped into the position. It wasn’t long though that she and the U.S.Avengers faced another battle in a cosmic contest heralded by Elders of the Universe, En Dwi Gast, AKA Grandmaster, and The Challenger. They joined the other Avengers teams and after the contest ended, Roberto dissolved the U.S.Avengers, and Toni rebranded it R.E.S.C.U.E. and believed her father would have liked the name.
