maybe he was just frozen, like the last time tony stark died (and rhodey became iron man for like less than a year)
oh wait, tony stark died a couple other times since then. there was that time he turned evil and they replaced him with a teenaged version from another dimension. then there was that time he died to keep Iron Patriot Green Goblin from stealing his memories and came back somehow. there's probably others.
somehow none of these were as dumb as anything that Iron You Go Girl did, though