Character from Volume 8 by Rooster Teeth
The general who became the tyrant — Ironwood's desperate need to save Atlas has driven him to threaten genocide, shoot dissenters, and abandon every principle he once stood for.
Ironwood has crossed every line and cannot see any of them behind him. His Semblance is Mettle — the ability to hyper-focus and push through doubt — and it has become his curse. Every time he should hesitate, should question, should feel the moral weight of what he's doing, Mettle pushes him forward. He has raised Atlas away from Mantle, sealed the borders, declared martial law, arrested his allies, shot a council member, and is now threatening to use a bomb on Mantle to force Ruby's group to comply. The tragedy is that he started right. Salem is coming. Atlas's military is the strongest defense humanity has. Protecting the Relic and the Maiden is strategically critical. Every individual decision has a logic to it — and the sum of those logical decisions is a man pointing guns at the people he swore to protect. He goes down with Atlas. When the city falls — when the Relic of Creation is used for evacuation and the floating platform has nothing holding it up — Ironwood is still in his command center, still giving orders to an army that no longer exists, still unable to stop fighting a war he has already lost. His death is not heroic. It is the final consequence of a man who could not stop escalating.
Tall and broad-shouldered with black hair streaked with grey, stern blue eyes sunken from sleeplessness, and a jawline set in permanent determination. The right half of his body is visibly more cybernetic than before — metal endoskeleton exposed at the neck and arm, as if he has stopped caring about the appearance of humanity. His white Atlas military uniform is worn and unstained, immaculate control over presentation even as everything else falls apart. Carries Due Process — twin revolvers, one white, one black.
Also known as: James Ironwood, Ironwood, General Ironwood, Jimmy, The General