Baron Ironblood

Baron Ironblood
G.I. Joe character
Baron Ironblood
Affiliation	Red Shadows
Specialty	Founder and Leader of the Red Shadows
File name	Unknown
Birth place	Unknown
SN	Unknown
Rank	Commander
Primary MOS	Military Strategist
Secondary MOS	Commanding officer

Baron Ironblood is a fictional character from Action Force, the British equivalent to the G. I. Joe Franchise. He appeared in the Battle Action Force comic books and annuals of the 1980s and was cast as an action figure by toy-makers Palitoy and distributed around Europe.

In West Germany, he was known as Baron Eisenblut.

Baron Ironblood is the leader of the Red Shadows, sworn enemies of Action Force. According to Battle Action Force his real name and birthplace are unknown (though a detailed comic book back-story, which featured in the 1985 Battle Action Force annual, places him of possible Swiss descent).

It provisionally identifies him as 'Marcus Kassells', the son of a Swiss diplomat who was raised and educated in Britain, attending Eton college. After compulsory national service in the British Army's Parachute Regiment (marred by an unproven allegation of the murder of a fellow officer who fell from the escape hatch of a plane after an argument) Kassells studied nuclear physics at Trinity College Cambridge. However rather than pursuing a scientific career Kassells joined the US Army and led his own unit during the Korean War nicknamed 'The Baron's Brigade', specialising in behind-the-lines revenge operations. Accused of the massacre of six peasants Kassells subsequently disappeared. Afterwards rumours began to circulate of an ex-British Army officer using the pseudonym 'The Baron' fighting as a mercenary in various African and South American conflicts, eventually forming his own private army. Towards the end of the Vietnam War numerous rockets which fell on American positions bore the inscription 'Sanguineo Ferris', the ancient motto of the Kassells family, literally translated as 'Our blood is of iron'. He is described as a man of scholarly tastes with a passion for chess, wine and horticulture but prone to violent outbursts of anger.

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