James used to live in Japan from 2009-2011 during his last year of high school, and a bit of college before dropping out. There, he was mentored by Akio Yinsen (you may know that last name as the one of Ho Yinsen in the MCU), a tech mogul who was at the time, being dragged through the mud by Junichiro Nakamura, a powerful politician, and secret head of the Thunderbolts. Junichiro was attempting to get his hands on Yinsen's technology to further his organization's goals. When James returned, Akio went no-contact with James to protect him, and in early 2020, James was sent Yinsen Tech's final exo-suit prototype by Akio, who was being closed in on by the Thunderbolts, and had partially destroyed the shipping documents before he was finally captured. James would use the armor to fight crime, going under the name "Iron Man," but at first only saw the crime-fighting as a game, all until May of the same year, when Jason was sent to kill James and take the armor, and along the way, kidnapped Kit to use her as bait to lure James out as a fake ransom, and James did come in the armor, but things went wrong for him when Jason beat the daylights out of him, and shot a captive Akio Yinsen, who was brought to verify the armor's legitimacy, right in front of James. flying into a blind rage, James almost killed Jason, slicing his right eye out, but only spared him only because he wasn't going to stoop to Jason's level. Ever since, James has been finding leads to take down the Thunderbolts once and for all. (yeah, not the greatest lore ever, but I'm trying to iron out the kinks)
